Don’t push too hard. Examining the managerial behaviours of local authorities in collaborative networks with nonprofit organisations

In recent years, collaborative networks have been at the forefront of theoretical, empirical and practical research into local governance. Nevertheless, the managerial behaviours local managers should employ in order to improve the performance of these networks are unclear. Following scholars' examinations of governance and the complementary relationship between government bodies and nonprofit organisations, we empirically examined – so far as we know for the first time – the relationship between local authority managerial behaviours towards nonprofit organisations, and the performance of collaborative networks. We found that above and beyond micro- and macro-level factors, the more the local authority employs inclusive governance and financial support behaviours towards the nonprofit organisation, the higher the performance of the collaborative network. In addition, the more the local authority employs monitoring-controlling behaviours, the lower the performance of the collaborative network. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are developed in the context of local governance.     

The dual logic of Russia's party system nationalization

The article attempts to identify major factors of the nationalization of the vote in contemporary Russia using the two level approach: the between- and within-region. The former compares regions as units of analysis while the latter additionally takes into account voting in municipalities to obtain levels of voting homogeneity within the regions. The study uses data from the last 2012–2016 national-regional electoral cycle investigating both federal and regional election results. Following Ishiyama (2002) for the between-region level of analysis the Regional Party Vote Inequality index has been utilized. The Party Nationalization Score proposed by Jones and Mainwaring (2003) has been applied to the measurement of voting territorial diversity at the within-region level. The results show that regional political factors may be still considered as major drivers of the nationalization of the vote as it did in the 1990s. The difference is that in politically recentralized Russia non-competitive regions headed by politically strong governors provides between-region inequality rather than contributing to nationalization. At the same time, the similarity continues in the ability of governors’ “political machines” to contribute homogeneity of the vote, but only within their regions.     

Reshaping EU Attitudes? The Case of Social Democratic and Radical Left Parties in Spain and Italy

Since the beginning of the Great Recession, the issue of European integration has become increasingly salient in many European polities. The European left has adopted a different stance toward European integration, both in terms of economic and welfare‐state integration. On the one hand, radical left parties (RLPs) have always opposed a process of integration dominated by neoliberal logic; on the other hand, the social democratic parties (SDPs) have appeared as one of the main pro‐EU party families, identifying the EU as a privileged space in which to promote the building of a European social model. In this paper, we propose a binary comparison between RLPs and SDPs in Italy and Spain with a qualitative content analysis methodology. Our results show that albeit the crisis brought SDPs closer to a Eurocritical stance vis‐à‐vis the social‐Europe, this dimension along with the political integration are still dividing issues for the RLPs and SDPs families.     

Political Parties and Minority Governance in Hybrid Political Orders: Reflections from Lebanon’s Palestinian Settlements and Kosovo’s Serbian Enclaves

This article analyses how minority populations govern and are governed in South Lebanon’s informal Palestinian settlements and the Serbian enclave in North Kosovo. Drawing on literature about hybrid political orders, it is argued that in both settings political parties play a linchpin role in local governance. Based on this finding, three key functions of political parties in the governance of minority populations in hybrid political orders are identified: representation, provision and brokerage. Understanding the interdependencies and trade-offs between these different roles contributes to remedying the analytical blind spot regarding the nature, positions and roles of political parties in hybrid political orders.     

Ethnic politics and election campaigns in contemporary Africa: evidence from Ghana and Kenya

Why do some political parties in new democracies base their campaigns on promises of national public goods while others do not? Parties in new democracies often eschew programmatic policy proposals in favour of appealing to voters’ ethnic identities, distributing non-programmatic benefits, or emphasizing the personalities of their candidates. However, this is not universally the case. This article examines recent campaign strategies in two nascent democracies in Africa: Ghana and Kenya. The findings suggest that programmatic campaigning is much more common than is assumed, but that parties have different preferences for how much programmatic content they include in their campaigns. The article argues that differences in campaign strategies are largely due to differences in the composition of ethnic support for competing parties. Parties that draw a majority of their support from a single large ethnic group are more likely to develop campaign strategies based on programmatic, policy-based appeals in the form of specific proposals for national public goods than are parties with a more diverse ethnic base of supporters. I argue that these appeals serve as a pre-election commitment to counteract fears among the electorate of domination by the large ethnic core of the party.     

中美东亚冲突管控:第三方的角色与选择

第三方在中美东亚博弈中发挥着特殊的作用,其政策选择对于管控中美冲突具有重要的意义。根据主要国际关系理论的逻辑推演,第三方通过在一定条件下的选边站、推动制度构建和协调、促进双方间良性认知,能够在管控中美冲突方面发挥一定的作用。在国际社会仍处于无政府状态以及国家间实力对比总是处于变化之中的背景下,基于实力考虑的"选边站"政策容易导致新的安全问题,第三方在中美间扮演制度推动者和观念沟通者的角色更加值得倡导,东盟系列机制以及新加坡的实践提供了这方面的经验与教训。当前的问题是,日、韩等国对与美同盟体系的坚持,东盟系列机制效能的降低以及新加坡一度将重心转移到实力平衡者而非观念沟通者的角色,都反映出许多东亚第三方的选择正在与管控中美冲突的目标背道而驰。为了地区的和平与自己的长远利益,东亚国家需要采取更加明智和有远见的政策。     

Parties,personalities and political power: legacies of liberal peace-building in Timor-Leste

This article examines the tension between liberal peace-building and local political culture through the lens of party and personality politics in Timor-Leste. It argues that the efforts of the UN peacekeeping mission to promote multi-party democracy cut across the interests of two opposing political forces: the charismatic resistance leader, Xanana Gusmão, who was deeply suspicious of party politics and favoured supra-partisan coalitions; and the dominant political party, FRETILIN, which pursued majoritarian power. Over the 16 years since independence, FRETILIN maintained a strong party identity and the governments it led met strenuous opposition and came to a premature end, while the Gusmão-led or -backed governments formed and survived as pragmatic tactical alliances. The article concludes that although the UN peacekeeping mission guided institutional design to favour political party organisation as the foundation for achieving representational government, the institutions have subsequently evolved in response to local political drivers. While outside actors can seek to influence the formal rules of the game, local political culture will determine how the game is played.     

End of moderation: the radicalization of AKP in Turkey

Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, AKP, was for many years believed to be paramount in ushering in a new era of moderate Islamism. However, in recent years, AKP has troublingly reversed course. From violent repression of the Gezi protests of 2013 to the 2016 abortive coup and subsequent crackdown on opposition, the party has lost all semblance of moderate Islamism and radicalized. If AKP had truly moderated, how could the party have changed in such a short period of time? What explains the radicalization of AKP? First, we argue that the strategic benefits of moderation far outweighed its costs, rendering it analytically improbable to determine whether AKP’s actions were genuine or merely strategic. Second, we show that AKP has been in a process of radicalization characterized by the adoption of anti-system, anti-democratic, and violent tactics and rhetoric since 2011. The disappearance of domestic and international structural constraints created the requisite background conditions for the party’s radicalization. Radicalization was facilitated by what we call ‘Erdoganization’, an ongoing de-institutionalization process within which Tayyip Erdogan gained complete control over the party. Additionally, a series of four “external shocks” threatened the party’s primary goal of gaining hegemony and caused the party to radicalize.     

The Party Paradox: a Comment Nicolas van de Walle (Cornell) February 20, 2018

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes several stylized facts and implications concerning intra-party violence developed in the other articles of this special issue on intra-party violence in African electoral systems. It then turns more specifically to the implications of intra-party violence for democratic consolidation in the region, and argues that paradoxically, though parties are centrally important to democratic politics, the degree to which they are internally inclusive and participatory may not have much importance, or may indeed undermine democracy. Though they are perhaps the key actor on the path to a consolidated democracy, they tend to work best when they themselves are not internally democratic.     

Wolves in sheep clothing or victims of times? Discussing the immoderation of incumbent Islamic parties in Turkey,Egypt, Morocco,and Tunisia

This article discusses the “immoderation” of incumbent Islamic parties – defined by the pursuit of a moral agenda and by an unwillingness to compromise with the opposition – through a comparative study of four incumbent Islamic parties in the socio-politically different regimes of Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. Building on literature from religion and politics, social psychology, sociology of religion, and on the inclusion-moderation hypothesis, this study argues that (1) Islamic parties’ strong organizations resulted both in their success and in the absence of internal pluralism and that (2) their dominant status in the party system consolidated their majoritarian understanding of democracy. Through its discussion of “immoderation” this study aims to contribute to the interdisciplinary literature on religion and politics.