Foreign threat and political party change: Russia and changes in party manifestos

How do political parties react to foreign security threats? There has been very little attention paid in the literature generally to how parties react to international events, particularly how parties react to foreign policy threats. Using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, we examine how political parties in countries in Europe have reacted to Russian actions in terms of their emphasis on security issues. Based upon our analysis of the manifestoes from 331 parties in 36 countries we find that, generally, interstate threats have no significant effect on the military position adopted by political parties, although these effects vary by party type and by the type of threat. Russian based threats appear to be associated with the Far Left becoming more dovish (which is consistent with what would be expected by the literature) and the Far Right becoming significantly less hawkish.     

Brexit: A Cliff Edge or a Small Bump in the Road?

It is becoming increasingly accepted, not least by the Prime Minister and opposition leadership, that the negotiation of a comprehensive trade relationship with the EU is necessary to prevent the UK economy falling off a ‘cliff edge’. This concern is shaping the UK's strategy towards negotiations with the EU and has provided at least part of the motivation for the UK to consider requesting a transition period to facilitate the Brexit process. But how accurate are these fears? What evidence is there for the existence of a ‘cliff edge’? How disastrous would it be for the UK to revert to trading with the EU on the same basis as most other countries in the world, namely according to World Trade Organisation rules? This article seeks to address these issues and it highlights a number of implications for policy makers which flow from understanding the available evidence a little more clearly.     

A New Progressive Patriotism

The need to hold capital to account and to bend markets to the common good is as powerful as ever, yet it is becoming steadily harder to create an electoral or political majority for such an idea in societies that are fractured and divided. The fundamental bond between voters and parties depends on political identity relationships; old ones are fading, new ones need to be created. The most dynamic politics in advanced capitalist societies are those of nation, people and place. The strategic challenge for the left is to create a new progressive patriotism that can embed radical ideas in a common sense of national purpose.     

A House Divided? Roll Calls,Polarization, and Policy Differences in the U.S. House, 1877–2011

The study of political conflict in legislatures is fundamental to understanding the nature of governance, but also difficult because of changes in membership and the issues addressed over time. Focusing on the enduring issue of civil rights in the United States since Reconstruction, we show that using current methods and measures to characterize elite ideological disagreements makes it hard to interpret or reconcile the conflicts with historical understandings because of their failure to adequately account for the policies being voted upon and the consequences of the iterative lawmaking process. Incorporating information about the policies being voted upon provides a starkly different portrait of elite conflict—not only are contemporary parties relatively less divided than is commonly thought, but the conflict occurs in a smaller, and more liberal, portion of the policy space. These findings have important implications for a broad range of work that uses elite actions to compare political conflict/polarization across time.     

Donald and Winston at the Ministry of Alternative Facts

Sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four and other dystopian classics have risen in response to the audacious attempts of President Donald Trump to manipulate public opinion by circulating “alternative facts” throughout the presidential campaign and since his November 2016 election victory. Various statements by Trump and his advisors that exemplify what has come to be known as the “post-factual world” account for the meteoric rise and final breakthrough of Nineteen Eighty-Four to the top of the bestseller lists in spring 2017.     

The End of Sprawl? Not so Fast

This article takes a careful look at the recent state of sprawl among America’s 178 largest metropolitan areas through the lens of four sets of questions: (a) Measured at the metropolitan level, is sprawl really declining? Is it declining everywhere, or just in selected metropolitan areas? (b) If sprawl is indeed declining, are more compact growth forms on the rise? (c) If sprawl is indeed declining, is it the result of antisprawl land use and development policies? (d) Which metropolitan-level land market, demographic, and economic factors are most associated with changes in sprawl? It concludes that sprawl is indeed declining when measured by average population densities, but that the decline has been much less widespread if measured in terms of population growth in core-area neighborhoods, changing density gradient intercept and slope estimates, and increased employment clustering. In terms of policy, it finds no evidence that local regulatory regimes or growth management programs have had any effect on sprawl, but finds that the consistent administration of local regulatory programs in ways that incentivize infill development and send consistent signals to developers does contribute to reduced sprawl.