Employment Status,Social Capital,and Political Participation: A Comparison of Unemployed and Employed Youth in Geneva

Abstract: This paper examines the relationships between employment status, social capital, and the participation of young people in different kinds of political activities such as contacting, consumer, and protest activities. We focus on the role of social capital for political participation, addressing three related questions: Do unemployed and employed youth display different levels of social capital and political participation? Does social capital favor the political participation of unemployed and employed youth? Is social capital more important for unemployed youth than for employed youth? To address these questions we compare long‐term unemployed youth to regularly employed youth using original survey data. Our analysis suggests that the employment status has only a limited impact on political participation, affecting only consumer actions. In contrast, the social capital resulting from associational involvement is positively correlated to political participation. However, rather than countering the effect of exclusion from the labor market, it plays a similar role for unemployed youth and employed youth.     

CLUMSY SOLUTIONS FOR A COMPLEX WORLD: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Each of these perspectives: (1) distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others; (2) provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature; and (3) needs all of the others in order to be sustainable. ‘Clumsy solutions’– policies that creatively combine all opposing perspectives on what the problems are and how they should be resolved – are therefore called for. We illustrate these claims for the issue of global warming.     

Patterns of democracy reconsidered: The ambiguous relationship between corporatism and consensualism

Arend Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy, similar to most of his work, elicited fierce scientific debate. This article replicates some of the analyses proposed in its second edition (published in 2012) in the light of the critiques received by the first edition (published in 2009). It primarily examines the relationship between institutional setup and interest group representation, disentangling the effect of consensualism from that of corporatism on issues such as macroeconomic performance and governance capabilities. The article further deepens our understanding of the complex causal mechanisms connecting these variables, proposing a more sophisticated empirical investigation that emphasises selection effects and conjunctural causation.     

The Power of Smears in Two American Presidential Campaigns

This article compares the two main cases of deceitful negative campaigning that characterized the American presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008. These are, respectively, the attacks led by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against the military career and the subsequent pacifist turn of John Kerry and the smear, initially spread around the web, that claimed that Barack Obama was Muslim. This research describes the origins, developments, and outcomes of the two smear campaigns, focusing on the differences and similarities between them in terms of their content and their communication strategies. It then investigates the role played by the different media platforms employed by the negative campaigners, the importance of a prompt answer by the recipients of the accusations, and the response of public opinion. Finally, the comparison of the cases allows pointing out some conditions for the success or failure of mudslinging in contemporary American political communication.