Risk,politics, and development: Lessons from the UK's democracy aid

Political risks are inescapable in development. Donors keep them in check with a range of tools, but existing options provide little guidance about how political forms of risk can—or should—shape programme design. This paper presents a novel framework that offers practical guidance on how to think about and manage some of these risks. This is based on a review of programmes delivered by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which provides a specific type of aid: democracy assistance. Political forms of risk have a strong influence on that aid, so it provides a valuable example. Our framework centres on two trade‐offs inherent in the provision of aid for democracy support. The first relates to the type of approach employed in a programme; should it focus on a thematic issue or a specific event, or should it focus primarily on an institution and its processes? The second concerns the scope of a programme in terms of who it includes. Understanding the costs and benefits of these trade‐offs will help development practitioners to make decisions about political risks in a more rigorous and transparent way and, potentially, to shift from a culture of risk aversion, to one of informed risk‐taking.     

Parallel publics? Support for income redistribution in times of economic crisis

This article investigates the dynamics of support for income redistribution in Europe. With European Social Survey data spanning 2006 to 2012, it assesses whether the Great Recession resulted in substantial parallelism or increasing polarisation in preference change across various sub‐publics. After introducing hypotheses based on claims that social groups are affected differently by economic insecurity, the article proceeds in two empirical sections. First, whereas prior research suggests that hard times fuel diverging attitudinal patterns, it is found that income groups, ideological groups and educational groups did not shift differently over time during the first years of the crisis, thus providing strong evidence for the ‘parallel publics’ hypothesis in the European context and in times of economic turmoil. Next, the article addresses the extent to which change in aggregate support for redistribution came from changes in small minorities of the population, supposed to be more responsive to their economic environment. Using multilevel analysis, it is shown that the most educated significantly contributed to the overall change more than the others. As a result, they may have been partly driving the economic mood during the first years of the Great Recession.     

Fiscal Austerity and Rental Housing Policy in the United States and United Kingdom, 2010–2016

After the 2008 global financial crisis, both the United States and the United Kingdom introduced austerity policies targeted at particular elements of their national budgets. The purpose of this article is to compare the nature of this retrenchment; the similarities and differences in how it was implemented; and its initial impacts on one of the expenditure areas particularly affected: affordable rental housing programs and housing support for low-income households. Using a wide range of data sources, we find evidence of political and fiscal policy analogies in the timing and forms of the initial policy choices and how these were modified in the face of economic and political pressures. There are considerable similarities both in the instruments used to reduce housing expenditures and in the early impacts on support mechanisms and recipients. However, we find different histories and trajectories of support between the two countries that suggest that the longer term differences in outcomes may be more important.     

Rhetorical citizenship: studying the discursive crafting and enactment of citizenship

This article argues for the relevance of a rhetorical approach to the study of citizenship, proposing the concept of rhetorical citizenship as a term for a fourth dimension of citizenship and as a scholarly approach to the topic in addition to the dimensions of status, rights, and identity commonly recognized in the literature. We show how this view aligns with current views of the multidi Citizenship Studies mensionality of citizenship, explain our use of the term rhetoric, and illustrate the usefulness of a rhetorical approach in two examples. In close textual readings both examples – one vernacular, one elite – are shown to discursively craft and enact different notions of citizenship vis-a-vis the European refugee crisis. We conclude that a rhetorical perspective on public civic discourse is useful in virtue of its close attention to discursive creativity as well as to textual properties that may significantly, but often implicitly, affect citizens’ understanding of their own role in the polity, and further because it recognizes deep differences as inevitable while valorizing discourse across them.     

Learning-Shaping Crises: A Longitudinal Comparison of Public Personnel Reforms in Italy, 1992‒2014

Abstract

This article analyses the attempts to reform public administration, notably personnel management, in Italy between 1992 and 2014, with a focus on implementation and the period following the multiple crises that have unfolded since 2008. By untangling the policy learning processes between multiple crises, past reform attempts and domestic and European “contexts in motion”, the article finds that efficiency-oriented reforms have floundered regardless of the political color of governments or indeed of the nature – political or technocratic – of the governments. Domestic factors, notably the frequency of government alternation, i.e. government instability, and European pressure have further reinforced the orientation towards single-loop lessons, i.e. the almost exclusive effecting of short-term cost-cutting measures.     

Transatlantic cooperation on terrorism and Islamist radicalisation in Africa: the Franco-American axis

Transatlantic cooperation on security has a long history. In Africa, transatlantic cooperation on security is basically between France and the United States. This paper asks why the two former competitors in Africa started to cooperate and also why they are so willing to engage militarily. The central argument in this paper poses that France and the US cooperate because it is indispensable to both parties. To France, the cooperation is indispensable because the US is the only power with sufficient financial means and with sufficient air-lift capacity to transport French and African troops into conflict-ridden countries. To Washington, cooperation with Paris is indispensable because the French authorities have unique access to intelligence and knowledge about large parts of Africa. By applying a foreign policy analysis framework, the paper analyses how perceptions of decision-makers, the role of personality and leadership, the role of government institutions and political systems have impacted the relevant decisions. It is emphasised that the two different decision-making systems – the French “state dominated” and the American “society dominated” – produce the same result, namely collaboration. It suggests that the perception of a serious threat from terrorism and Islamist radicalisation overrules differences in decision-making systems.     

The political and economic causes of satisfaction with democracy in Spain – a twofold panel study

This study tests the links between political and economic performance and satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in Spain. Contrary to the dominant theoretical paradigm that explains the aggregate evolution of and the individual-level differences in SWD mainly by means of economic factors, the article presents evidence that evaluations of the political process are equally relevant to account for both changes in individuals’ SWD over time and the evolution of SWD at the national level. Unlike most existing literature, this study supports its argument by combining analyses of a micro-level panel dataset (CIUPANEL) and of a pooled aggregate-level panel dataset based on the Spanish samples in the Eurobarometer and the Latinobarómetro between 1986 and 2014.     

Policy Analysis,International Relations,and European Governance – Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries

ABSTRACT

The article highlights the rationale of the special issue in terms of its objectives and guiding principles. It maps different evolutions and challenges within three analytical streams (1) regarding the field of policy analysis, (2) concerning the interaction between domestic and international affairs, and (3) with regards to the transformation of European Union governance in troubled times. These three research avenues highlight how not only European governance itself has evolved in a changing world, but also how the analysis of interests, institutions, and policy-making has morphed, oftentimes transgressing disciplinary and methodological boundaries.     

How Measurement Error in Content Analysis and Self-Reported Media Use Leads to Minimal Media Effect Findings in Linkage Analyses: A Simulation Study

In the debate on minimal media effects and their causes, methodological concerns about measurement are rarely discussed. We argue that even in state-of-the-art media-effects studies that combine measures of media messages and media use (i.e., linkage analyses), measurement error in both the media content analysis and the media use self-reports will typically lead to severely downward-biased effect estimates. We demonstrate this phenomenon using a large Monte Carlo simulation with varying parameters of the content analysis and the survey study. Results show that measurement error in the content analysis and media use variables does indeed lead to smaller effect estimates, especially when the media messages of interest are relatively rare. We discuss these findings as well as possible remedies and implications for future research.     

Security in the name of human rights: the discursive legitimation strategies of the war on terror in France

This article aims to question the discourse on “the war on terror” developed by the French President in the wake of the two terrorist attacks that occurred in France in 2015. Drawing from critical discourse analysis, it explores the discursive legitimation strategies deployed by President Hollande to legitimate France’s securitarian response to the two attacks. It reveals how the defence of human rights served as an overall justificatory framework, through rationalisation, appeals to authority, and moralisation. It argues that Hollande implemented a discursive manipulation of reality to shield his actions from criticisms of illiberalism, all the while reframing the notion of human rights, undermining it and paving the way for an authoritarian-driven executive.