From newspapers to social media? Changing dynamics in Swiss direct democratic campaigns

Switzerland is a laggard in terms of digital campaigning. Direct democratic votes, more particularly, are centered around issues and little personalized. Combined with the specificities of voters’ information behaviour in direct democratic campaigns, these features are likely to disincentivize political actors from extensively campaigning online. Instead, we expect political actors to continue relying on traditional media. These propositions are tested on a large data base of social media posts and newspaper advertisements published before direct democratic votes held in Switzerland from 1981 to 2020 and 2010 to 2020, respectively. Counterintuitively, this research note finds a strong discontinuity in campaign communication practices. Over the past decades, and between 2010 and 2020 in particular, newspaper ads have become less central to direct democratic campaign communication. At the same time, political actors are increasingly shifting their communication to the digital sphere.     

Jurisprudential Dilemmas of European Law

Making a first sketch of philosophical issues arising fromEuropean Community law I want to present a series ofmore or less obvious, and more or less interrelated dilemmas,or even double binds.(i) Deepening the community becomes incompatible withwidening membership. (ii) National states seem bothnecessary for and obstructive in articulating transnationalproblems. (iii) The more democracy is needed as a warrantfor the public exercise of political power in Europe, themore the very concept of democracy on a European scaleevades understanding. (iv) European unity presupposes aunifying rule of law, while member states have radicallydifferent conceptions of this principle. (v) Even the verycore of European integration, the common market, is subjectto two conflicting and, indeed, incompatible doctrines ofcompetition. In explaining the nature of each dilemma I willtry to take my cue from the Maastricht Treaty wherever thisseems suitable. Then I will elaborate on the jurisprudentialproblems involved in it. Finally, each section will be closedby an attempt to state the nature of these problems inphilosophical terms.     

文化认同与东盟合作

文化认同是东盟合作的基础.所谓文化主要是指价值观.在国际关系中,这种价值观具体表现为国家应该如何追求安全与财富.东盟国家的文化认同具体表现为对东盟方式的认同,这体现为三个方面:即不干涉内政原则、协商一致原则和组织机构的非正式性原则三个方面.东盟国家之所以会有这种认同,主要是由其所处的安全环境所决定的.这种文化认同是东盟取得重要成就的关键,但在今天却面临着挑战.     

Identity Style,Parental Authority,and Identity Commitment

The role that parental authority patterns and social-cognitive identity styles may play in establishing identity commitments was investigated. The results indicated that family authority and identity style variables combined accounted for 50% of the variation in strength of identity commitment. As hypothesized, the relationship between parental authority and identity commitment was mediated by identity style. The findings are consistent with the view that family authority patterns may contribute to the way in which late adolescents negotiate the task of constructing a sense of identity. Alternative explanations of the findings are considered.     

Adolescents' Perceptions of the Relevance of Domains of Identity Formation: A South African Cross-Cultural Study

This study investigated South African Afrikaans-, English-, and Xhosa-speaking secondary school adolescents' (N = 1217) perceptions of the relative importance of identity-related domains. For this purpose a structured questionnaire consisting of 14 domain-specific items was used. Most of the domains were regarded as very important or fairly important by a significant majority of participants. Four domains were regarded as very important by more than 70% of the total research group, namely, future career, moral values, family relationships, and religious matters. Political and sexual matters were regarded as of least importance. Intercultural differences were evident in most domains. Significant gender differences were also found. Relatively more females than males reported a high priority to domains such as future career, moral values, friendships with same sex peers, gender role, and community matters. The male participants regarded relationships with the opposite sex and sexual matters as more important than the females did. The findings of this study emphasize the importance of carefully considering the domains included in future research on identity formation, depending on variables such as socioeconomic and sociocultural characteristics of the specific research groups to be included in the investigation.     

村级治理与乡村政治文明建设

村级治理对于乡村政治文明建设具有积极意义 ,主要表现为 :村级治理推动了乡村政治制度化的进程 ,提升了乡村社会的政治民主化水平 ,维护了乡村社会的政治稳定     

Acts of Faith: Churches and Political Engagement

Many observers suggest that white evangelical Protestant churches serve to mobilize their members into politics, while others argue that they encourage withdrawal from political life. This paper reconciles these two claims. I hypothesize that the time members of evangelical Protestant denominations spend in service to their church comes at the expense of participation in the wider community, contrary to the way mainline Protestant and Catholic churches foster civic activity among their members. However, I further hypothesize that the tight social networks formed through this intensive church activity can at times facilitate rapid and intense political mobilization. Data from the Citizen Participation Study supports the first hypothesis, while applying King's method of ecological inference to two elections in Alabama supports the second.     

浅析美欧政治文化与伊拉克战争

政治文化是某个国家或民族文化与历史传统长期积淀而成的政治观念方面的综合体系,表现出一个政治系统的基本政治倾向。美欧的政治文化既表现在双方对国内政治和国际政治的认知上,也贯穿于各自的历史进程中。美欧在伊拉克战争问题上表现出来的针锋相对的态势,显示出双方迥然不同的政治文化传统。美国的霸权倾向与欧洲的制衡传统产生剧烈的摩擦和碰撞。伊拉克战争既为双方政治文化冲突提供了导火索,也为两者弘扬各自外交理念提供了平台。     

关于构建政治工作计算机综合评估模型的探讨

如何对政治工作的效能和效益进行科学的评估,是政治工作领域中人们长期以来一直想解决而又难以解决的复杂性问题之一。模糊数学为建立政治工作计算机综合评估模型指明了道路和前景,也为解决政治工作效能和效益评估等诸多复杂性问题提供了新的思路和方法。     

Reading the Ongoing Changes: European Identity

Europeans constituted their post‐Second World War political identities in terms shaped by the Cold War but matters took an unexpected turn when the events of 1989/91 required acknowledgement of the hitherto largely unremarked existence of the project of the European Union. The question of the identity of Europe/Europeans moved into mainstream debate: how can the variety of 'national pasts' be reconciled, how might ideas of Europe/Europeans fit within the range of identities affirmed by Europeans, and can the project present a clear image within the international community? The European Union is the only game in town for Europeans but it is also deficient; reform is made more difficult by the struggle to define the post bloc world: reform for what becomes the issue ‐ upgraded US ally, loose free trade area or federal polity? These are awkward questions but the continent is recovering from the catastrophe of its twentieth century and one can feel optimistic for the future.