Gender,populist attitudes,and voting: explaining the gender gap in voting for populist radical right and populist radical left parties

Empirical studies have demonstrated that compared to almost all other parties, populist radical right (PRR) parties draw more votes from men than from women. However, the two dominant explanations that are generally advanced to explain this disparity – gender differences regarding socio-economic position and lower perceptions regarding the threat of immigrants – cannot fully explain the difference. The article contends that it might actually be gender differences regarding the conceptualisation of society and politics – populist attitudes – that explain the gender gap. Thus, the gap may be due, in part, to differences in socialisation. The article analyses EES 2014 data on voting for the populist radical right and the populist radical left in nine European countries. Across countries, the gender gap in voting for the PRR is indeed partly explained by populist attitudes. For populist radical left parties, the results are less clear, suggesting that populism has different meanings to voters on the left and on the right.     

Unpacking Local Economic Development: A Case Study from Nekemte Town and Its Hinterlands,Oromia, Ethiopia

Most agree that local economic development (LED) is a “bottom-up” development approach seeking to unleash the development potential of a locality. Nonetheless, focusing closely on the dynamics of specific localities, this can be criticized for being too local and overlooking extra-local links. This article explores the drivers of LED from the local economic actors’ perspectives in Nekemte town and its hinterlands, Oromia region, Ethiopia. The results clarify that LED is not only just “local”, but also an approach that links urban and rural areas, and thus, understanding rural–urban linkages is a prerequisite for a better understanding of the local economic development.     

Restoring Fiscal Balances Post the Global Economic Crisis in Botswana

This article discusses the restoration of fiscal balances in Botswana after prolonged deficit financing. Botswana is a diamond-export-dependent country; resultantly, it suffered revenue losses due to depressed demand for diamonds during the global economic crisis. Reduced revenues necessitated deficit financing between 2008/09 and 2011/12. Debt was financed through dissaving and borrowing. However, the government restored budget balances in April 2012. While this case study is Botswana-specific, there are general lessons. These are: using a crisis to introduce public finance reforms; eschewing populism aimed at short-term gains; and the need for politicians to take very bold decisions to guide fiscal policy.     

Dealing with Austerity: a case of local resilience in Southern Europe

Southern countries are undergoing a severe economic crisis that has renewed debates about the available strategies to economise their public resources. Political leaders have launched a wide range of different strategies aimed at reducing spending. According to generally accepted political discourse, drastic actions should be taken to guarantee economic and financial sustainability in times of austerity. We explore the main measures adopted by Spanish municipalities in order to examine their impact in budgetary terms. First of all, we identify the most frequently implemented mechanisms including organisational structure, public services and operational economic restructuration. After their quantification, we monitor the presence and impact of each set of policies to analyse the relationship between concrete measures and effective economic impact. The effective reduction of budgets is being implemented but data show that local governments are resilient to non-compulsory changes. The ‘government at a distance’ policy pursued by the central state administration has effectively reduced budgets but has not affected the institutional core of Spanish local governments.     

Wage labour and capitalism: a comparative and historical analysis of Eritrea and Kenya

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain the development of capitalism in Eritrea and Kenya from a labour history perspective. Indeed, the assumption in this research is that capitalism can only be explained by taking into consideration free wage labour as one of the sine qua non conditions for the existence of the capitalist mode of production. Therefore, the article looks at the paradigmatic socio-economic shifts: from unfree to free labour, from free to precarious labour and from unfree to precarious labour. These are the result of the complicated relationship that exists between capital and labour. The point of departure of the analysis is the Nieboer-Domar hypothesis on the structural origins of slavery, which despite severe criticism, it has been largely remained unchallenged until the present. In Eritrea, colonised by Italy, and Kenya, colonised by England, free wage labour fully developed between the nineteenth and twentieth century. This could be considered the era of the advent of capitalism, with the advent, for a fraction of the working population, of labour relations based on wages. The precarisation of life of free wage workers is also partially analysed in this article.     

Trumponomics and China-US Economic and Trade Relations

Since he took office,the new US president,Donald Trump,has unveiled his broad economic policy-now called Trumponomics.It emphasizes neoliberalism at home,less government regulations,more growth and weakening the welfare state.Internationally,Trumponomics embraces protectionism and nativism with a focus on US economic interests.Trumponomics caters to the lower-middle classes,a reflection of the country's current economic and diplomatic challenges.Trumponomics will bring uncertainty to China-US economic and trade relations.China should carefully study the policies of the Trump administration and prepare contingency plans.     

Effects of Economic and Symbolic Threat Appeals in Right-Wing Populist Advertising on Anti-Immigrant Attitudes: The Impact of Textual and Visual Appeals

Right-wing populist parties portray immigrants as economic or symbolic threats in their political advertisements by constructing a moral divide between the “good” ordinary people and “bad” immigrants. Yet, it remains unclear how these different threat appeals contribute to the formation of anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens and what role visual elements play in producing these effects. A survey-experiment with a quota sample of 471 participants reveals that, overall, symbolic threat appeals exert stronger effects on anti-immigrant attitudes than economic ones. When presented via text alone, only symbolic—not economic—threat appeals increased anti-immigrant attitudes via the activation of heuristic processing such as the reliance on negative stereotypes or feelings of anxiety, in particular among lower-educated citizens. When visuals were present, both types of threat appeals enhanced anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens across all education levels based on heuristic processing. Additionally, high image-text congruency induced cognitive argument approval resulting in higher anti-immigrant attitudes.     

Information Campaigns and (Under)Privileged Citizens: An Experiment on the Differential Effects of a Voting Advice Application

Information campaigns are key elements of elections. Past research has established the importance of campaigns in informing and educating citizens, and ultimately strengthening participatory democracy. While the Internet has increased the possibilities to disseminate information campaigns and eased access to political information, it is still debated whether online campaigns are effective in stimulating political interest and participation among the general public. The issue is not only one of access, but also of use of information. The investigation of main effects of campaigns obscures the fact that citizens may not use information in the same way and reap the same political benefits. In this study, I examine the conditional effects of a new type of Web information campaign, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), on the political engagement and electoral participation of citizens with varying levels of education. By investigating who benefits most from using these apps, I evaluate whether VAAs reinforce patterns of participation or mobilize new people in politics. Building on political behavior research, communication theory, and social psychology, I study the differential effects of VAAs with an innovative randomized field experiment design. The results confirm that VAAs can stimulate the political engagement of the public. However, there is no significant impact on electoral participation. In addition, the evidence shows that VAAs work differently for more or less educated citizens, and that the lower educated users benefit the most from VAAs as they become more interested in the election and more motivated to vote.     

The Positioning of Economic Rationality in Colombia

This article explains how economic rationality in Colombia came to play a growing role in the management of economic policy and social analysis, as a case study of a process that is observed in various parts of the world. In addition to the rise of a technocratic elite, this involved the positioning of economic rationality in managing strategic state institutions and the creation of knowledge about society. We explain the mechanisms that enabled economists to occupy these positions, displacing other social scientists and sociologists.     

The Africa-China relationship: challenges and opportunities

The dramatic growth in the relationship between Africa and China is one of the great stories of the twenty-first century, part of the profound transformations taking place in the global political economy. It has been greeted with excitement, consternation, and confusion. To its cheerleaders, it represents the enduring partnership between Africa and China, spawned by the historical affinities of struggles against Western imperialism and humanistic aspirations for development. To its critics, it is reminiscent of European colonisation a century earlier, in which Africa serves as a cheap source of raw materials, a lucrative export market for Chinese manufactured goods, and an outlet for its surplus capital. Rather than a development partner, some see China as Africa's biggest development competitor, whose explosive growth and insatiable quest for global markets threatens Africa's industrialisation and competitiveness. This paper examines the factors behind the development of Africa-China relations, especially its economic magnitude, and the challenges and opportunities it offers both regions.