Differentiated integration in Portugal: saliency and government positions

This article analyses the salience of and governmental positions on differentiated integration (DI) in Portugal in the 2004-2020 period. Employing quantitative and qualitative analyses, it first examines the salience and position of the successive Portuguese governments towards DI using documents such as government programmes, Prime-Ministerial speeches, parliamentary debates, and statements by the Prime Minister in European Council meetings. The results from the salience analysis demonstrate a low saliency of DI. Salience was enhanced by an increasing intersection between domestic and European politics during the euro crisis period, politicising the debate especially around DI instances of an economic nature. The position of Portuguese governments regarding DI during the period analysed was overwhelmingly negative. A wide consensus stood out among Portuguese political parties that DI models clearly go against both the European – by risking a disaggregation of the EU – and the national interest – by possibly pushing Portugal into an even more peripheral position

Negativity and Political Behavior: A Theoretical Framework for the Analysis of Negative Voting in Contemporary Democracies

Published online: May 2022Recent developments in Western societies have motivated a growing consideration of the role of negativity in public opinion and political behavior research. In this article, we review the scant (and largely disconnected) scientific literature on negativity and political behavior, merging contributions from social psychology, public opinion, and electoral research, with a view on developing an integrated theoretical framework for the study of negative voting in contemporary democracies. We highlight that the tendency toward negative voting is driven by three partly overlapping components, namely, (1) an instrumental–rational component characterized by retrospective performance evaluations and rationalization mechanisms, (2) an ideological component grounded on long-lasting political identities, and (3) an affective component, motivated by (negative) attitudes toward parties and candidates. By blueprinting the systematic relationships between negative voting and each of these components in turn, and suggesting multiple research paths, this article aims to stimulate future studies on negative voting in multi-party parliamentary systems to motivate a better understanding of the implications of negativity in voting behavior in contemporary democracies.This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PCEFP1_186898)

Political polarization means more Americans are voting against rather than for candidates in presidential elections

Traditionally in elections people vote for candidates that they like. But in recent years, surveys have show a growing number of people cast their votes against candidates rather than for them – as many as one third in the 2020 election. In new research, Diego Garzia and Frederico Ferreira da Silva find that those who have a less positive feeling about the political party they usually identify with are more likely to vote against a presidential candidate compared to those who feel more strongly partisan

Fostering turnout? : assessing party leaders' capacity to mobilize voters

Available online 1 October 2018.Although recent research on the personalization of politics has provided empirical evidence of leadership effects on voting behaviour, previous studies have dealt primarily with an impact on vote choice, neglecting the primary step of the voting decision process: turnout. Exploring the relationship between leader effects and turnout gains relevance considering the generalized decline in voter turnout rates across Western democracies as a symptom of the dealignment process, pointed as a key cause of the personalization of politics. Despite this theoretical linkage, it is yet unstudied whether voters' evaluations of leaders have an effect on turnout. This study attempts at assessing the impact of voters' evaluations of political leaders on turnout decisions using data from 25 countries, derived from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Results show a positive significant effect of voters' evaluations of candidates on turnout. Moreover, this effect was especially strong amongst dealigned voters

Leaders over parties? : the personalization of politics and voting behavior in contemporary Western democracies

Defence date: 5 July 2019Examining Board: Prof. Alexander H. Trechsel, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Stefano Bartolini, European University Institute; Prof. Marina Costa Lobo, Instituto de Ciências Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa; Prof. Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, Leuphana Universität LüneburgThis thesis is a compilation of four empirical studies analysing the impact of the personalization of politics on voting behaviour in contemporary Western democracies. The process of personalization of politics has been theoretically described as resulting from the cumulative effects of three factors: a) an individualization of voting behaviour emerging from the erosion of cleavage-based voting and consequent process of partisan dealignment; b) transformations in the structure of mass communication, particularly with the diffusion of television as voters’ main source of political information and parties’ preferred channel of political communication; and c) a process of party change and adaption to a changing environment, reshaping their electoral profiles, modes of operating and organizational structures. The present thesis attempts at providing empirical evidence of these theoretical linkages by (i) demonstrating how personalization ultimately results from the decline of the role of partisanship in guiding vote choice, and therefore is the consequence of partisan dealignment; (ii) providing evidence of the impact of the change towards a television-based media diet in driving the personalization of vote choice; and (iii) accounting for the role of party organizational change – namely through the introduction of more open leadership selection procedures and further concentration of powers at the leadership position – in heightening leaders in contemporary politics. Furthermore, it explores a novel avenue concerning leadership effects by investigating whether leadership evaluations can also impact voters’ turnout decisions. It relies on two types of data sources: one dataset constructed using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project and the Political Party Database; and one original dataset pooling over 129 national election surveys conducted in 14 Western democracies in the period between 1961-2016. The results contribute to the ongoing scholarly debate on the topic by providing extensive evidence for the electoral dimension of the personalization of politics.Chapter 4 'Fostering turnout?: Assessing party leaders’ capacity to mobilize voters' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Fostering turnout? : assessing party leaders' capacity to mobilize voters' (2018) in the journal 'Electoral studies

Monitorização de fontes abertas no contexto da investigação criminal: redes sociais

O mundo em que vivemos sofreu alterações estruturais que transfiguraram relações sociais e padrões ético-culturais a todos os níveis. Concomitantemente a Revolução tecnológica centrada no desenvolvimento da electrónica e das tecnologias de informação e inteligência artificial alterou por completo as noções de tempo, espaço e território, conduzindo a novos modelos sociais. Vivemos no primado da tecnologia e da informação, a Polícia não pode nem deve alhear-se do desenvolvimento, com base no prisma evolutivo, deve fazer-se valer das vantagens que resultam da exploração dos meios que nos ligam à corrente contemporânea. As fontes abertas são uma fonte inesgotável de informação e abriram portas a uma nova forma de promoção e divulgação do fenómeno criminal. Verifica-se hodiernamente uma promoção vulgarizada e radicalmente nova de publicidade criminal. É premente aliviar o alarme social e a perversidade circunstancial que começa a ganhar forma roçando o conceito de “Moda”3 , sob pena de estarmos a contribuir para o sentimento de insegurança e de impunidade.The social relations as well as the ethical and cultural patterns of our society are deeply shaped by a rapidly and constantly changing world. At the same time the technological revolution that is rooted in the fast paced developments in electronics, information technology and artificial intelligence has permanently changed our notions of time, space and territory, leading to a new social paradigm. Technology and information take a central role in the modern society and the Police forces cannot and should not be kept aside of this development. Instead, we should explore the advantages that arise from the correct use of the tools available in the contemporaneous world. The open sources intelligence in today’s world are limitless and they open the door to a new modus operandi in what concerns the promotion and spread of criminal activities. We have already started to observe the standardization of a new form of criminal advertising. It is imperative to reduce the social alarm and perversity that is starting to take place and that resembles the concept of Fashion. Not acting immediately could jeopardize security and contribute to a feeling of impunity

The personalisation of politics: why political leaders now lie at the heart of European democracy

It is often argued that European politics is increasingly ‘personal’, with the popularity of party leaders exerting a growing impact on the outcome of elections. Drawing on a new study, Diego Garzia, Frederico Ferreira da Silva and Andrea De Angelis assess how these dynamics have developed in western Europe since the 1960s. Their findings suggest that the personalisation of politics has taken place hand-in-hand with decreasing importance for partisanship in structuring voter choice

Potential and challenges of e-voting in the European Union

European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO)This study was commissioned and supervised by the European Parliament’s Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the AFCO Committee. It addresses the potentials and challenges of the implementation of Internet voting in European Parliament elections. It considers the social, political, legal, and technological implications of its introduction as an alternative to on-paper ballot and builds on the recent experience of previous trials and successful e-enabled elections to issue technical recommendations regarding Internet voting in the European Union