Electoral competition in Europe's new tripolar political space: Class voting for the left,centre‐right and radical right

The rise of the radical right fundamentally changes the face of electoral competition in Western Europe. Bipolar competition is becoming tripolar, as the two dominant party poles of the twentieth century – the left and the centre‐right – are challenged by a third pole of the radical right. Between 2000 and 2015, the radical right has secured more than 12 per cent of the vote in over ten Western European countries. This article shows how electoral competition between the three party poles plays out at the micro level of social classes. It presents a model of class voting that distinguishes between classes that are a party's preserve, classes that are contested strongholds of two parties and classes over which there is an open competition. Using seven rounds of the European Social Survey, it shows that sociocultural professionals form the party preserve of the left, and large employers and managers the preserve of the centre‐right. However, the radical right competes with the centre‐right for the votes of small business owners, and it challenges the left over its working‐class stronghold. These two contested strongholds attest to the co‐existence of old and new patterns of class voting. Old patterns are structured by an economic conflict: Production workers vote for the left and small business owners for the centre‐right based on their economic attitudes. In contrast, new patterns are linked to the rise of the radical right and structured by a cultural conflict.     

Modeling ideological polarization in democratic party systems

There are mounting claims that increasing ideological polarization is reshaping democratic party systems with important effects on the functioning of electoral politics, the correlates of voting choice, turnout, and even the representativeness of government. Yet, our knowledge of what causes party system polarization is still developing. The primary research goal is to systematically combine and test existing theories predicting levels of party system polarization across 21 established democracies. Polarization levels have generally risen since the mid-1990s. A pooled model finds that characteristics of the electoral system and the party system largely determine the continuity of party system polarization. Polarization levels also appear linked to short-term factors such as citizens’ declining confidence in the economy and increasing concerns about immigration. The conclusion discusses the implications for party systems and politics in affluent democracies.     

鸭源H10亚型禽流感病毒血凝素基因的序列分析及其致病特性

采用血清学试验和RT-PCR方法从华东地区家养水禽中分离鉴定出多株H10亚型禽流感病毒,对其中1株A/Duck/Yangzhou/502/2003(简称Dk/YZ/502/03)的血凝素(HA)基因进行了序列测定,并与GenBank中登录的其他序列进行了比较。结果显示,Dk/YZ/502/03株血凝素基因与哺乳动物水貂分离株A/Mink/Sweden/84(H10N4)的同源性最高;其推导的氨基酸剪切位点序列为P-E-I-M-Q-G-R,为典型低致病性禽流感病毒的特征序列,这与该毒株对SPF鸡和BALB/c小鼠的低致病特性相吻合。     

Montenegro,NATO and the divided society

In this paper we are investigating the political and social effects of Montenegro joining NATO. This issue is highly controversial and follows the political divisions in Montenegro, which motivated us to apply social cleavage theory. As method, we applied logistic regression clustered for standard error. We found that besides socio-demographic variables (ethnic division between Montenegrins and Serbs), the main line of the cleavage indicated by support of, or opposition to NATO membership falls along the issues of the independence of Montenegro, its relationship with the EU vs. Russia, as well as the attitude toward political power and party identification.     

The Strength of Far-Right AfD in Eastern Germany: The East-West Divide and the Multiple Causes behind ‘Populism’

This article sheds light on one of the key developments in recent German politics and relates it to the broader debate on the electoral success of the far right. The rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative for Germany) is also a story about Germany’s internal political divide three decades after reunification, as the party has roughly twice as much support in the east than in the west. The article analyses the country’s east-west divide, strongly visible in widespread sentiments of societal marginalisation among eastern Germans. The key socio-structural differences between the east and the west relate to matters of economics, migration, and representation—and provide a setting suitable to AfD strength in the east. In explaining the party’s electoral success in eastern Germany, the article echoes recent scholarship which rejects narrow explanations for the strength of ‘populism’, and instead highlights its multiple causes.     

The ideological disposition of Koreans

This article empirically examines the features of Koreans' ideological disposition and its changes based on national surveys conducted in 2002 and 2004. This study provides an in-depth analysis of South Korea's current ideological polarisation at the level of voter attitudes, and thus is able to explain the current ideological stand-off in Korean society more intuitively than was possible previously. Analysis of ideological disposition on ten policy issues revealed that economic factors are statistically significant in examining ideological differences by age and occupation, contrary to the existing analysis that ideological conflict in South Korea is affected more by political factors. In addition, this study has found that there are several fundamental ideological dimensions that affect policy issues. They are categorised as Cold War authoritarianism, neo-liberalism, egalitarianism and post-materialistic values.     

Regionalist Protest through Shared Rule? Peripherality and the Use of Cantonal Initiatives in Switzerland

In this article, we are interested in the extent to which federalism is able to deal with peripheral protest through shared rule channels. Shared rule as a key dimension of federal states has not thus far received adequate academic attention. Empirically, we analyse the use of all cantonal initiatives in Switzerland over the past 25 years as a particular instrument of shared rule, subsequently focusing on two peripheral regions with successful regionalist parties, Ticino and Geneva. We find that regionalist parties contribute towards radicalizing peripheral demands in search of attention from the centre. This leads to the mainstreaming of peripheral demands by pulling other parties along. We conclude that shared rule properly designed gives even the most peripheral regions a voice in national decisions, but that regionalist parties may also use shared rule instruments to mobilize their electorate at home to fight their non-regionalist competitors.