Berlusconi,Boehner and the Brink: Lessons for Political Reform in Britain

In the early autumn of 2013 large minorities in Italy and the United States fermented crises that badly disrupted the government of the two countries. These cases were widely understood as instances of dysfunction in established democracies that would rarely be replicated elsewhere. However, while all the conditions that generated the crises are unlikely to be evident in other established democracies three important factors that caused the disruptions in the American and Italian political processes are also sources of political conflict in Britain. They are the powers of the second legislative chamber, the weakening links between parties and social groups, and the redrawing of electoral boundaries. All of them present problems for political reform in Britain, and understanding the role they played in the two political crises of 2013 is important for future reform in Britain.     

Transnational partisanship: idea and practice

That parties might successfully organize transnationally is an idea often met with scepticism. This article argues that while certain favourable conditions are indeed absent in the transnational domain, this implies not that partisanship is impossible but that it is likely to be marked by certain traits. Specifically, it will tend to be episodic, structured as a low-density network and delocalized in its ideational content. These tendencies affect the normative expectations one can attach to it. Transnational partisanship should be valued as a transitional phenomenon, e.g. as a pathway to transnational democracy, more than as a desirable thing in itself.     

Ethnoregionalist Politics From a Structuralist Perspective： Social Identities,Functional and Territorial Cleavages,and the Political Preferences of Minorities

This paper examines the nature and intensity of regional and ethnic minority demands on the example of voting preferences for ethnoregionalist parties in select regions across Europe. It argues that territorial distinctiveness and cultural identities are insufficient to explain minority demands for political representation. The political preferences of ethnoregional groups reflect overlapping and cross-cutting functional, territorial, and symbolic differences, which collectively form the determinants of electoral support for ethnoregionalist parties across Europe. The relative weight and additive effects of territorial and functional cleavages may vary according to national context but the pattern is consistent. The paper conducts cross-national comparison of representative territorial structures spanning across the West-East divide in European studies by including regional configurations in Western Europe （Scotland in the UK and Flanders in Belgium） and ethnic minorities in Eastern Europe （the Hungarian minority in Romania and the ethnic Turkish minority in Bulgaria）. The findings suggest that ethnoregional groups do not necessarily pursue cultural distinctiveness and/or regional autonomy. They are also likely to seek representation and access to government based on socioeconomic status, ideology, and political attitudes. Ethnoregionalist demands for representation thus reflect the growing overlap between the territorial, cultural, and ideological aspects of political conflict.     

YouTube: A Political Advertising Tool? A Case Study of the Use of YouTube in the Campaign for the European Parliament Elections 2009

Political campaigns are made to attract the attention from citizens. The beginning of its adaption is linked to the appearance of the social media and user-generated content. Since the number of users of social network sites in Europe constantly grows, 2009 was the first time that these websites were used in political marketing purposes for the European Parliament elections. This is an exploratory study of the nature and extent of video-based social media, studied through the content analysis of YouTube videos created for the electoral campaign for the 2009 European Parliament . ( 2009 ). European elections . Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections2009/default.htm?language=en  [Google Scholar] European Parliament elections by 13 political parties from four EU states. Results have shown the specificities of political advertising on the YouTube, a raising interest in social media among citizens in Europe, and the development of this way of campaigning.     

Electoral entry and success of ethnic minority parties in central and eastern Europe: A hierarchical selection model

The paper examines determinants of electoral entry and success of ethnic minority parties in central and eastern Europe. The application of a hierarchical selection model shows that the strategic entry of minority parties depends on their expected electoral success due both to observed and unobserved factors. Drawing on formal models of electoral entry, the electoral success of new (or niche) parties is expected to be influenced by the costs of entry (determined by electoral thresholds) and the potential for electoral support. The latter depends on the reactions of political competitors and electoral demand, measured here as the size of ethnic groups and the saliency of ethnic issues. In line with these expectations, parties only run if they can expect electoral support sufficient to pass the electoral threshold. This finding would have been overlooked by a naïve model of electoral success which does not take self-selection into account.     

统一俄罗斯党形成过程浅析

统一俄罗斯党作为俄罗斯政治舞台上最具影响的政治力量之一,在普京总统任期内是亲总统的政权党。随着普京任总理并公开宣布担任党的主席,统一俄罗斯党进入新的发展时期。统一俄罗斯党的成立见证了"统一"与"祖国—全俄罗斯"两大杜马选举团关系的重大转变:由选举前的对立转变为选举后的统一。该党的成立是总统选举前国内政治形势的体现,是杜马选举中两大政治势力角力的产物,是普京任总统后多股政治力量联盟的结果。     

对《鹿特丹规则》“平衡之道”的再认识——兼论中国的现实选择

是否加入《鹿特丹规则》是中国政府与学界共同关注的热点问题。以利益平衡为线索,阐释利益平衡在国际海上货物运输立法的发展过程中所起到的作用及在《鹿特丹规则》制度设计中的具体体现,分析《鹿特丹规则》所作出的制度变革与制度创新对中国利益相关方的影响以及中国立场的确立。