Intraparty Hostility: Social Identity,Subidentity, and the Hostile Media Effect in a Contested Primary

The hostile media effect (HME) has generally been tested in terms of in-groups and out-groups, with a “neutral” story in between. This ignores the nature of many social groups as comprising subgroups, often but not always sharing feelings of connectedness and purpose. In cases when bounded subgroups are at odds with one another, HME provides little guidance. A contested partisan primary provides such a case. This study takes identity centrality, candidate favorability, and perceived social network homogeneity as measures of partisanship and involvement, hypothesizing relationships between each and perceived bias against one’s candidate and party. Findings show that markers of candidate-focused social identity predict greater perceived bias against one’s candidate during the 2016 primary season, while party-focused identity fails to predict perceived bias against one’s party. This suggests that candidate support identity overrides plain partisanship during primaries, supporting concern that a heated primary might damage general election party unity. Subsequent postconvention findings suggest that the salience of candidate-focused identity fades, while homogeneity of one’s network regarding party support helps to make perceived hostility toward one’s party identity more salient. However, as campaigns become more candidate-centered, the contestation between nested candidate and party identities may grow fiercer.     

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.     

Cultural Penetration and Punctuated Policy Change: Explaining the Evolution of U.S. Energy Policy

Punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) suggests that the policy process is characterized by long periods of incremental change and short periods of punctuated change. The impetus for the latter is usually a focusing event that breaks open policy monopolies, allowing for major changes in legislative decision making. While a burgeoning body of literature, a shortcoming in the PET literature is that it has yet to explain why focusing events and subsequent breakdowns in policy monopolies sometimes fail to result in punctuated policy. We integrate theories on cultural change with punctuated equilibrium to explain why focusing events do not always result in the dramatic policy changes that we might expect. Specifically, we use the context of national energy policy and the lexical database, Google Ngram Viewer, to trace punctuating energy‐related events and the occurrence or lack thereof subsequent policy change from 1952 to 2000.     

Are integrated impact assessments the way forward for mainstreaming in the European Union?

This article assesses the utility of impact assessments (IAs) as an effective tool for mainstreaming. Specifically, it analyses whether the European Union's (EU's) system of integrated impact assessments (IIAs) contributes to the realization of six mainstreaming objectives defined in the EU treaties. The article first studies whether the legal framework for the EU's system of IIAs makes it a viable tool for mainstreaming. It then proceeds with an empirical analysis of 35 IAs to assess the extent to which mainstreaming objectives are taken into account in practice. The analysis shows that all six mainstreaming objectives have a place within the IIA system, but the system does not ensure systematic consideration of them. There is considerable variation across mainstreaming agendas, as well as across Directorates‐General. The article concludes that the IIA system is no panacea for mainstreaming, and proposes changes to the institutional framework to improve its mainstreaming potential.     

Intervention Theatre: performance,authenticity and expert knowledge in politicians’ travel to post-/conflict spaces

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of official travel activities by politicians to post-/conflict spaces in German foreign policymaking. Starting from the observation that official travel justifications stress the value of authentic insights and unfiltered information, while journeys in practice are meticulously planned and staged, it asks what kind of knowing is possible, how actors make sense of the staged nature of field trips, and how multiple performances create and/or undermine notions of authenticity and first-hand expertise. The article shows that official on-site visits are composed of multiple conscious performances by all actors involved, but that these performances do not undermine the notions of authenticity and expertise. On the contrary, knowledge authenticity—or truth claims on the basis of authentic insights—and related expert authority are produced through travel-as-performance. The emphasis policymakers put on on-site presence and (the performance of) localized knowledge contradicts intervention literature’s generalized finding of a prioritization of technocratic over localized knowledge. The article draws on politics and performance scholarship and authenticity theories in tourism studies to make sense of a wealth of empirical material on the claims, practice and functions of German MPs’ journeys to post-/conflict spaces as part of broader political struggles over policy knowledge.     

Resilience as the new EU foreign policy paradigm: a pragmatist turn?

This article examines the rise of resilience discourses in EU foreign policy. The European Union Global Strategy (EUGS) refers to building state and societal resilience in its neighbourhood as one of the key strategic priorities of the EU. This article argues that the discourse of resilience that permeates the EUGS chimes well with a pragmatist turn in social sciences and global governance. The EUGS introduces resilience-building alongside an emphasis on flexibility, tailor-made approaches and the need for local ownership, capacity-building and comprehensiveness. More importantly, the new EUGS proposes “principled pragmatism” as a new operating principle in its foreign policy. While this might suggest a more pragmatic EU foreign policy, a closer examination of the EUGS discourse reveals significant tensions between a pragmatic and a principled foreign policy, which undermine the added value of resilience-building as a new foreign policy paradigm.     

Changing arenas for agricultural climate change adaptation in Vietnam

Great changes are underway in how climate and agricultural risks are managed in Vietnam. Uncertainties are emerging regarding the role of the state in managing these risks and what this implies for assumptions regarding hoped-for climate change transformations. Local government control is waning in relation to the expanding roles of the private sector and the growing autonomy of farmers themselves. This article presents cases that illustrate the ways that farmers, private investors, and local authorities are responding to climate risk within roles relating to the other risks involving markets, food security, and pressures on common property resources.     

Taiwan: An Internal Affair! How China’s Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Interact on the Taiwan Issue?

Taiwan may be an internal affair but the domestic public opinion is not invited to participate very much in a debate and a decision-making process that have remained confined to the Chinese Communist Party and the military top leadership and, on purpose, involves a very small number of officials and experts. Conservative and nationalist forces do constrain Beijing’s Taiwan policy. And some leaders are tempted to use the Taiwan issue for unrelated domestic or foreign policy purpose. Nevertheless, what is striking is the potential for flexibility in China’s Taiwan policy. While Chinese local governments and companies’ increasing interests in business-as-usual in the Strait and the unbearable cost of any armed conflict tend to narrow the government’s options, concentration of power and the efficiency of the propaganda machine allow it to rather smoothly manage, in particular vis-à-vis the elites’ conservative opinion group as well as its own public opinion, this flexibility.     

Bush: The Sequel

This article examines the likely foreign policy initiatives of the U.S. under the leadership of George W. Bush. The new president has outlined a fairly thorough critique of America's international behavior in the 1990s. Because a leader's public statements arguably serve to persuade various audiences and to build support for policy change, the article takes Bush's words quite seriously—along with those spoken or written by his closest foreign affairs advisors. Bush intends to abandon the so-called Clinton Doctrine and deploy national missile defenses. He is critical of American policies toward China and Russia, but has not presented bold new initiatives toward those powers. Under the rubric of "compassionate conservatism," Bush may alter U.S. relations toward the Global South in some interesting ways. The president and his advisors often purport to be realists, but the article demonstrates that their own words belie this claim as they often justify policies based on ideals rather than the pursuit of power.