Jānis Gaigulis,in retrospect

This article offers a reassessment of the All-Estonian Congress, held in Tartu in November 1905, focusing on the background to this key event during the Russian Revolution of 1905, the most controversial aspects of the Congress itself, and its immediate as well as long-term significance. The split of the Congress into two wings reflected the fragmentation of Estonian political and social thought in the heated atmosphere of 1905, with one side calling for an evolutionary solution to the crisis facing the Russian state while the other demanded revolutionary change. In the longer perspective the Congress must be seen as a key element in the first broadly based political mobilization of the Estonian population in modern times, laying the groundwork for more sweeping change after 1917.     

Staatsbürgerverständnis und politische Mobilisierung: Einbürgerungen in Schweizer Gemeinden

Seit längerer Zeit kommt es in der Schweiz immer wieder zu heftigen Debatten über das schweizerische Einbürgerungsverfahren und die Diskriminierung gegenüber Gesuchstellern aus gewissen Herkunftsländern. Dieser Artikel präsentiert erste Resultate einer Umfrage in 207 Schweizer Gemeinden zu den Ursachen unterschiedlicher Ablehnungsquoten von Ein­bürgerungsgesuchen auf lokaler Ebene. In der Schweiz spielen die Gemeinden eine zentrale Rolle im Einbürgerungswesen. Es soll aufgezeigt werden, dass die jeweils verfolgte lokale Einbürgerungspolitik auf kulturelle und politische Faktoren zurückgeführt werden kann. Die zentralen Hypothesen besagen, dass Einbürgerungsverfahren politische Entscheidungspro­zesse darstellen und sowohl von kulturellen und institutionellen Strukturen wie dem vorherr­schenden Staatsbürgerverständnis und den Entscheidungsmodi wie auch von mobilisierenden politischen Akteuren abhängt. Die Erteilung der Staatsbürgerschaft soll dabei als Instrument sozialer Schliessung betrachtet werden, welches in den Gemeinden unterschiedlich eingesetzt wird und das dominierende Verständnis der Staatsbürgerschaft sowie aktuelle politische Kräfteverhältnisse widerspiegelt     

论全球化背景下的民族主义社会动员

在全球化背景下,民族主义社会动员日益彰显。民族主义社会动员的方式主要有教育动员、传媒动员、政治参与动员。在全球化时代背景下民族主义社会动员具有正负两极走向,全球化时代应引导民族主义社会动员走上理性、健康的发展之路。     

Social pressure, surveillance and community size: Evidence from field experiments on voter turnout

Citizens participate in elections, at least partly, because they perceive voting as a social norm. Norms induce compliance because individuals prefer to avoid enforcement mechanisms—including social sanctions—that can be activated by uncooperative behavior. Public visibility, or surveillance, increases the likelihood of norm-compliant behavior and applies social pressure that impels individuals to act. Some scholars have linked social pressure to community size, advancing the notion that pressure to conform to social norms is heightened in smaller, less populous communities in which citizens interact frequently and where monitoring behavior is less onerous. Others argue that even highly-populated communities can exhibit “small world” properties that cause residents to be sensitive to social pressure. In this paper, I analyze data from a recent field experiment designed to test the impact of social pressure on voting taking interactions with community size into account. The findings I report suggest community size does not moderate the impact of social pressure.     

From the web to the streets: internet and protests under authoritarian regimes

This article systematically investigates the relationship between internet use and protests in authoritarian states and democracies. It argues that unlike in democracies, internet use has facilitated the occurrence of protests in authoritarian regimes, developing a theoretical rationale for this claim and substantiating it with robust empirical evidence. The article argues that whereas information could already flow relatively freely in democracies, the use of the internet has increased access to information in authoritarian regimes despite authoritarian attempts to control cyberspace. The article suggests this increased access to information positively affects protesting in authoritarian states via four complementary causal pathways: (1) by reducing the communication costs for oppositional movements; (2) by instigating attitudinal change; (3) decreasing the informational uncertainty for potential protesters; and (4) through the mobilizing effect of the spread of dramatic videos and images. These causal pathways are illustrated using anecdotal evidence from the Tunisian revolution (2010–2011). The general claim that internet use has facilitated the occurrence of protests under authoritarian rule is systematically tested in a global quantitative study using country-year data from 1990 to 2013. Internet use increases the expected number of protests in authoritarian states as hypothesized. This effect remains robust across a number of model specifications.     

Hungary’s radical right 2.0

In the digital age, the Internet is an important factor in the emergence and success of political parties and social movements. Despite growing evidence that extremists of all stripes use the virtual world for their purposes, research on this topic still lacks a wide array of empirical data, case studies, and theoretical background. In particular, Facebook, as the most important social networking site, is a new tool for political parties and movements to mobilize followers. The article explores how the extreme-right party Jobbik uses this tool more successfully than other Hungarian parties or Western European extreme-right parties. Comparing the growth in followers highlights this success, and a look at how it generates likes helps to explain it. The article argues that Jobbik uses Facebook in a sophisticated way and suggests that this “likable” attitude helps to attract young and first-time voters.