Who Represents the Constituency? Online Political Communication by Members of Parliament in the German Mixed-Member Electoral System

Members of parliament (MPs) are elected via two different tiers in mixed-member electoral systems—as winners of a seat in a constituency or as party candidates under proportional rules. While previous research has identified important consequences of this “mandate divide” in parliaments, questions remain how this institutional setup affects MPs' political behavior in other arenas. Analyzing more than one million social media posts, this article investigates regional representation in the online communication of German MPs. The results show that MPs elected under a direct mandate refer approximately twice as often to their constituencies by using regionalized wording and geographic references than MPs elected under the proportional tier. The substantive findings provide new evidence for the benefits of mixed-member electoral systems for political representation while the methodological approach demonstrates the added value of social media data for analyzing the political behavior of elites.     

Keynes,Friedman, or Monnet? Explaining parliamentary voting behaviour on fiscal aid for euro area member states

This article investigates the determinants of parliamentary support for international fiscal aid. Departing from the literature on presidential systems, it analyses an exemplary case of a parliamentary system, Germany. Two theoretical accounts are distinguished. The first perceives MPs as policy-seekers and focuses on the positioning of government and opposition parties and individual MPs on an economic left?right and a pro- versus anti-EU dimension. The second regards MPs as vote-seekers and presumes an electoral district connection. The statistical analysis of a new data-set containing information on 17 Bundestag roll-call votes from 2009 to 2015 finds support for the first account: voting in favour of fiscal aid measures is mainly driven by government membership and EU support. By contrast, neither economic ideologies, nor district or mandate characteristics influence support for fiscal aid. The article contributes to a growing literature on the domestic politics of international political economy.     

The power of “small business” as pending narrative: an ideograph in UK politics 2004–2013

This paper explores utilisation of the term small business in contemporary politics in the United Kingdom. First, the policy and practice implications of the term small business are examined, through the lens of political rhetoric. Use of the term over the period from 2004 to 2013 is examined, drawing upon the DataArt Guardian NewsTraces platform as both a method of initially visualising an overall pattern of the term’s use during the 10-year period, and a medium for facilitating data collection for analysis. The research question is: how is the term “small business” used in political rhetoric in the UK, in the identification of policy problems and solutions, and the creation of pending narrative? It is determined that the term small business is an ideograph with different and often competing meanings for various interest groups, and suffers from serious imprecision despite policy efforts which strive for legitimacy. Even with spikes in use reflecting election cycles and periods of economic stress, the term’s power is in its mutable but appealing vagueness, and its enduring quality as pending narrative. This leaves open obvious questions of both policy efficacy and the sufficiency of ideographic-laced rhetoric as a substitute for meaningful policy.     

Substate variations in political values in Canada

The article aims to make three methodological and substantive contributions to the literature on substate cleavages in political values. Considerable controversy characterizes this literature. The paper argues that this controversy is due to how indicators representing political values are chosen and constructed. The paper proposes to use factor analysis to select and construct indicators of political values. The analysis identifies five dimensions, which collectively account for 57% of Canadians’ political values. They include support for moral traditionalism, egalitarianism, pluralism, openness to immigration and personal responsibility. Second, the paper shows that there is only limited variation across provinces in political values. Third, the paper shows that this result holds when considering regional variations rather than provincial variations.     

The Dilemmas of Frontline Staff Working With the Homeless: Housing First,Discretion, and the Task Environment

This article examines staff discretion in permanent supportive housing facilities run by a nonprofit agency claiming to use a Housing First approach. Field observation, archival data, and individual and group interviews with staff and clients were examined to better understand agency processes involved in intake, sanctions, and disposal of clients to evaluate Housing First fidelity. In their day-to-day interactions with clients, frontline workers' discretion is affected by working conditions such as lack of resources and heavy workloads, as well as by demands placed on the agency by members of its task environment. Implications for Housing First programs and homeless clients are discussed.     

Checking the Fact-Checkers in 2008: Predicting Political Ad Scrutiny and Assessing Consistency

Which types of political ads are most likely to draw criticism from fact-checkers? Are fact-checkers consistent in their evaluations of political ads? Examining general election television ads from the 2008 U.S. presidential race, and based upon the evaluations of FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, and the Washington Post's Fact Checker, this study demonstrates it was the attack ads from candidates that were most likely to draw scrutiny from the fact-checkers. Most importantly, a high level of agreement between the fact-checkers indicates their success at selecting political claims that can be consistently evaluated. While political advertisers are increasingly using evidence to support their claims, what may be more critical in drawing evaluations from fact-checkers is the verifiability of a claim. The implications of consistent fact-checking on the public, political actors, journalism and democracy are discussed. With the revelation that fact-checking can be consistently practiced, localized efforts at fact-checking need encouragement, particularly as political TV ads increasingly drown out other potential sources of information for the public and increasingly are used in downballot races, local initiatives, referendums and judicial races.     

How Language Can Influence Political Marketing Strategy and a Candidate's Image: Effect of Presidential Candidates' Language Intensity and Experience on College Students' Ratings of Source Credibility

The present study examines the effects of language intensity on presidential candidates' credibility. We manipulated language intensity levels and experience levels for hypothetical candidates for president of the United States. Manipulation checks confirmed the effectiveness of the experimental conditions. The dimensions of source credibility, character, and authoritativeness were confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Analysis of variance indicated that candidates using low-intensity language received higher scores on character than did candidates using high-intensity language. Experienced candidates received higher scores on authoritativeness than did inexperienced candidates. Implications for political marketing of candidates are discussed.     

Stability and Change in Putin's Political Image During the 2000 and 2012 Presidential Elections: Putin 1.0 and Putin 2.0?

There has been a lot of research done on “Western” politicians and political systems with regard to political marketing. But what about other countries, especially those that possess a different political standard? This article seeks to address one particular Russian politician: Vladimir Putin. He rose from obscurity to become Russia's second president (after Boris Yeltsin). Two presidential elections form the focus of attention, 2000 Putin, V. (2000). First person. London, UK: Hutchinson. [Google Scholar] and 2012. The aim is to discover the consistencies and breaks in the manufacturing of Putin's political image and reputation. A number of breaks and continuities were discovered in terms of how Putin is marketed. This seems to be a reflection of the changes taking places in Russia's political environment, which then needs to be taken into consideration when political marketing is conducted.     

Political Campaigning Environments in Latvia: From a Global to a Local Perspective

Political campaigning is a global phenomenon in the sense that the methods for achieving political goals are becoming similar all over the globe where elections are being used as a tool for the legitimation of a political elite. This article addresses the question of the extent to which the political campaigning environment in Latvia is influenced by global trends. Globalization in this case is viewed from the perspective of Latvia's geopolitical location between the West and Russia and a comparison of political campaigning practices in Western democracies and authoritarian Russia. What methods of political campaigning are more appropriate in Latvia, those such as used in old democracies or the authoritarian regime? At the same time, there are also considerable local peculiarities in every country that affect the strategic planning and implementation of political campaigns. Therefore, the second research question relates to the main areas that determine the specific framework of the political campaigning environment in Latvia. The results of the research reveal that the influence of both Western and Russian styles of political campaigning are detectable in Latvia, although the international effect is rather limited, because Latvia as a political campaigning environment is dominated by its own unique characteristics. The main aspects that determine the local framework of the political campaigning environment in Latvia are the media system, political parties, and political culture.     

Countervisions of Modernity: David Roberts,The Total Work of Art in European Modernism

David Roberts's The Total Work of Art in European Modernism extends and deepens the analysis of the counter-paradigm of redemptively inspired art to modernism's own pre-occupation with secularization. It addresses the imbalance in social and critical theory whereby progressive secular rationalization has been elevated to the sole logic of modernity, and the romantic redemptive tradition has been reduced to a marginal counter-enlightenment. The total work of art paradigm allows Roberts to demonstrate how the programme of modernity has been constituted by internal tensions and antinomies from the very beginning.