BORROKA—The Legitimation of Street Violence in the Political Discourse of Radical Basque Nationalists

The present article analyzes the discourse employed by the left-wing nationalist movement in Spain's Basque Country to legitimize the use of street violence for political ends. I distinguish four “faces” of legitimation (“ex ante” vs. “ex post,” “for us” vs. “for others”) and argue that in a situation of radicalization of politically inspired (terrorist) violence, the discourse developed to justify violent action is principally meant for the organization's own following, and less to communicate with the outside world. Basque militants claimed that their strategy of political and military radicalization in the 1990s had been responsible for recent political successes of their movement.     

Mind the gap: How party–voter incongruence fuels the entry and support of new parties

This article examines to what extent ideological incongruence (i.e., mismatch between policy positions of voters and parties) increases the entry of new parties in national parliamentary elections and their individual-level electoral support. Current empirical research on party entry and new party support either neglects the role of party–voter incongruence, or it only examines its effect on the entry and support of specific new parties or party families. This article fills this lacuna. Based on spatial theory, we hypothesise that parties are more likely to enter when ideological incongruence between voters and parties is higher (Study 1) and that voters are more likely to vote for new parties if these stand closer to them than established parties (Study 2). Together our two studies span 17 countries between 1996 and 2016. Time-series analyses support both hypotheses. This has important implications for spatial models of elections and empirical research on party entry and new party support.     

Multiple roots of the populist radical right: Support for the Dutch PVV in cities and the countryside

Populist radical right parties are considerably more popular in some areas (neighbourhoods, municipalities, regions) than others. They thrive in some cities, in some smaller towns, and in some rural areas, but they are unsuccessful in other cities, small towns, and rural areas. We seek to explain this regional variation by modelling at the individual level how citizens respond to local conditions. We argue that patterns of populist radical right support can be explained by anxiety in the face of social change. However, how social change manifests itself is different in rural and urban areas, so that variations in populist radical right support are rooted in different kinds of conditions. To analyse the effects of these conditions we use unique geo-referenced survey data from the Netherlands collected among a nationwide sample of 8,000 Dutch respondents. Our analyses demonstrate that the presence of immigrants (and particularly increases therein) can explain why populist radical right parties are more popular in some urban areas than in others, but that it cannot explain variation across rural areas. In these areas, local marginalization is an important predictor of support for populist radical right parties. Hence, to understand the support for the populist radical right, the heterogeneity of its electorate should be recognized.     

STRATEGIES FOR SAFEGUARDING PUBLIC VALUES IN LIBERALIZED UTILITY SECTORS

In the utility sectors, public values such as affordability, safety, and protection of the environment, require safeguarding. In the last 15 years, most utilities have been either liberalized or privatized. In an attempt to protect public values under these new conditions, this shift has been accompanied by an emphasis on tight regulations and strict norms. These are examples of hierarchical safeguarding mechanisms. This mechanism can cause adverse effects, such as an increase in transaction costs, which diminish or even outweigh the supposed advantages of liberalization and privatization. In addition to hierarchical safeguarding, this article describes two mechanisms used to safeguard public values: network mechanisms and market mechanisms. We suggest that smart combinations of network and hierarchy on the one hand, and market and hierarchy on the other, will lead to more effective and efficient safeguarding of public values than relying on hierarchy alone.     

Does a public sphere exist in the European Union? An analysis of the content of the debate on the Haider case

Abstract.  This article sets out how the public sphere can be studied through an analysis of the content of a specific debate. A public discourse can be said to pertain to a European Union-wide public sphere where the discourse within the EU is significantly different from that developed in non-EU countries, where such differences are not nationally defined, and where the debates in individual newspapers (which provide the fora for a public sphere) should be connected on the basis of some underlying factors. These conditions are tested with a quantitative analysis of the newspaper debate in 1999 and 2000 on the sanctions of the EU-14 against Austria. To the extent that the conditions are found, it can be concluded that there exists a European public opinion. The objective of studying this specific case is to demonstrate that, as far as an EU issue is concerned, there are already signs of an EU transnational political community.     

NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN ITALY AND THE NETHERLANDS: THE CASE OF ACTIVATION POLICIES

This article discusses the growing importance of operational reforms in the context of welfare state transformation processes, and the role that principles of new governance play in shaping these reforms. It focuses specifically on one social policy area considered crucial in reforming welfare states: the provision of activation services that aim at increasing the employability and labour‐market participation of people dependent on benefits or social assistance. The article argues that besides the reforms of the programmatic aspects of social policies and social services (formal policy reforms), reforms of the way in which policies and services are organized, administered and delivered (operational policy reforms) have received increasing attention as a ’second strand’ of welfare state reforms. It illustrates this by analysing and comparing reforms of the provision of activation services in two European countries: Italy and The Netherlands. The article not only reveals the growing emphasis in both countries on operational policy reforms which are to an important degree inspired by principles of new governance, but also shows significant similarities and differences in their concrete manifestations, which could be interpreted as pointing out processes of ‘path‐dependent convergence’.     

PROFESSIONAL POWER PLAY: ORGANIZING MANAGEMENT IN HEALTH CARE

Because of the managerialization of health care and the rise of health care managers, professionals and managers increasingly ‘clash’. To reduce clashes, managerial and professional domains have not only been (re)connected; they have also been restructured. Managers, in particular, have started to make sense of their own ‘professionalism’. Health care managers are professionalizing in order to cope with reform consequences. They have established professional associations, which establish educational programmes, journals, and codes of conduct, in order to define and standardize managerial work. By tracing the evolution of a new profession of Dutch health care executives, and by studying its educational underpinnings, this article will analyse whether the professionalization of managers homogenizes occupational definitions and standards. It will show that managerial education masks ideological struggles over the substance of ‘good’ health care management. Different ‘schools’ have arisen, producing heterogeneity in executive circles.