Testing theories of electoral cycles

Abstract. A common form of electoral cycle theory asserts that support for government parties is dependent on the proportion of an inter-election interval which has passed since the last national election. Weekly opinion poll data for the Netherlands are used to test whether or not such 'cyclical' patterns of change can be detected in the inter-election periods of 1977–1981 and 1982–1986. The relative merits of two methods of analysis, polynomial regression and ARIMA, are discussed and demonstrated. The latter is shown to be the more suitable of the two; the former may yield misleading outcomes. The analyses reported do not display even a glimpse of empirical support for the alleged cyclical phenomenon. The ARIMA analyses can be used, however, to describe how processes and events in a society impinge on (noncyclical) developments in the electoral support for political parties.     

Old and new politics: The Dutch peace movement and the traditional political organizations

Abstract. On the basis of data on the Dutch peace movement, we study the relationship between traditional organizations of political intermediation such as parties, unions and churches with a new social movement on the local level. After having argued for the relevance of the institutional context, the general structure of new social movements and the particular structure of the movement under consideration with regard to this relationship, we first present evidence confirming our claims that we are dealing with new social movement. Then we show that the relationships in question are quite elaborate confirming the hypothesis that political activity within traditional organizations and new social movements is to some extent cumulative. More generally, the results imply that the development of the peace movement and other new social movements in the Netherlands is not indicating a diminishing legitimacy of the Dutch political parties.     

Kosovo Defines the West

Kosovo is a proxy war with the Holocaust. As such, this war and its outcome will do much to define the West in the next century That it is a war in Europe, for Europe, sets it apart from all the other tragedies from Rwanda to Kashmir. Our collage of comment on this subject ranges from the secretary general of NATO to the leader of the Kosovars in Albania.     

THE GENDERING OF VIOLENT DELINQUENCY*

This article addresses two issues that have received little attention in empirical research-the mechanisms explaining variation in violent delinquency within gender and variation in levels of violence across gender, or the gender gap. Toward these ends, the article synthesizes arguments from differential association theory, feminist theory, and gender studies. The outcome is a theoretical model of gender and violent delinquency that focuses on the interplay between structural positions and cultural processes. The theoretical model includes a core construct of differential association theory-the learning of definitions favorable to violence-as well as arguments about cultural definitions or meanings of gender and gender differences in the role of familial controls and peer influence, which are derived from feminist theory and gender studies. It then examines how these cultural processes are conditioned by structural positions. One of the key arguments is that the violent delinquency of females is controlled through rather subtle, indirect mechanisms, while the violence of males is controlled in more direct, overt ways. The results of the empirical analysis support the the-oretical arguments, contribute to the limited understanding of the variation in violent offending among females, and explain the sources of the gender gap in violent delinquency. The article thereby allows greater understanding of the broader phenomenon of juvenile violence.     

‘No,buddy, I will not speak to the press – I am working!’: criminal justice and the interprofessional dynamics of communication production in the Chilean Public Prosecutorial Office

This article analyses the interprofessional dynamics of communication production in the criminal justice system. Through 26 in-depth interviews, we investigate the production of media information on prosecutorial work in Chile, tracking the relationships between internal communication agents, prosecutors, and external legal journalists. Previous scholarship has shown the success of police organizations in defining the content of crime communication based on asymmetrical power relations with the media. By contrast, our study reveals that legal journalists can bypass attempts to control the flow of information from the prosecutorial office and impose extra-organizational goals. Lawyers regularly dismiss the work of journalists, particularly those working as strategic communication advisors with prosecutors, but the asymmetrical relationship between the criminal justice agency and the media plays in favour of external legal journalists. Our article considers several explanations for this configuration, including interprofessional values, transactional relationships between journalists and prosecutors, and local legal culture.     

Can the use of minipublics backfire? Examining how policy adoption shapes the effect of minipublics on political support among the general public

Academics and practitioners are increasingly interested in deliberative minipublics and whether these can address widespread dissatisfaction with contemporary politics. While optimism seems to prevail, there is also talk that the use of minipublics may backfire. When the government disregards a minipublic's recommendations, this could lead to more dissatisfaction than not asking for its advice in the first place. Using an online survey experiment in Belgium (n = 3,102), we find that, compared to a representative decision-making process, a minipublic tends to bring about higher political support when its recommendations are fully adopted by the government, whereas it generates lower political support when its recommendations are not adopted. This study presents novel insights into whether and when the use of minipublics may alleviate or aggravate political dissatisfaction among the public at large.     

THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

This article presents a review of the recent literature on change management in public organizations and sets out to explore the extent to which this literature has responded to earlier critiques regarding the lack of (public) contextual factors. The review includes 133 articles published on this topic in the period from 2000 to 2010. The articles are analysed based on the themes of the context, content, process, outcome, and leadership of change. We identified whether the articles referred to different orders of change, as well as their methods and theory employed. Our findings concentrate on the lack of detail on change processes and outcomes and the gap between the common theories used to study change. We propose an agenda for the study of change management in public organizations that focuses on its complex nature by building theoretical bridges and performing more in‐depth empirical and comparative studies on change processes.     

The Compound Machinery of Government: The Case of Seconded Officials in the European Commission

This article explores the compound machinery of government. Attention is directed toward decision making within the core executive of the European Union—the European Commission. The article studies seconded national civil servants (SNEs) hired on short‐term contracts. The analysis benefits from an original and rich body of surveys and interview data derived from current and former SNEs. The decision‐making dynamics of SNEs are shown to contain a compound mix of departmental, epistemic, and supranational dynamics. This study clearly demonstrates that the socializing power of the Commission is conditional and only partly sustained when SNEs exit the Commission. Any long‐lasting effect of socialization within European Union's executive machinery of government is largely absent. The compound decision‐making dynamics of SNEs are explained by (1) the organizational affiliations of SNEs, (2) the formal organization of the Commission apparatus, and (3) only partly by processes of resocialization of SNEs within the Commission.     

The CPC Celebrates Its Centenary in Readiness for the Future

C HINA'S socio-economic achievements are indivisible from the wise leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC),which on July 1,2021 celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding.Therefore,any discussion of Chinas achievements-its economic feats,eradication of extreme poverty,technological advances,modern infrastructure,and progressive development of an ecological society,among others-inevitably leads to the cognizance of the integral role of the country's governance model in all of them.