If citizens have a voice, who’s listening?

This is the paper for the class of "EU Politics", Monday, 9 nov. 200

The failure of mainstream parties and the impact of new challenger parties in France, Italy and Spain

Political parties share a very bad reputation in most European countries. This paper provides an interpretation of this sentiment, reconstructing the downfall of the esteem in which parties were held and their fall since the post-war years up to present In particular the paper focuses on the abandonment of the parties’ founding ‘logic of appropriateness’ based, on the one hand, on the ethics for collective engagement in collective environments for collective aims and, on the other hand, on the full commitment of party officials. The abandonment of these two aspects has led to a crisis of legitimacy that mainstream parties have tried to counteract in ways that have proven ineffective, as membership still declines and confidence still languishes. Finally, the paper investigates whether the new challenger parties in France, Italy and Spain have introduced organizational and behavioural changes that could eventually reverse disaffection with the political party per se

The Reins of Intra-Party Power in The Italian Political Parties (1990-2011)

The article investigates the power relationships within Italian political parties. Since Roberto Michels, the question of intra-party power relationships has been at the centre of political science and political sociology. Most of the contemporary research interprets the intra-party disequilibrium between leadership and followers as a question of internal democracy. Rather than concentrating on this aspect, our perspective emphasises the skewed distribution of power between different hierarchical levels of the political party. Focusing upon the formal rules concerning organizational structure, personnel selection procedures and party finance, the contribution analyses the level of “verticalization” in the intra-party distribution of power between the national and the sub-national level, with respect to the main Italian parties from 1994 to 2012

The end of cornucopia. Party financing after the great recession

This article investigates the dimension and evolution of the financing of political parties. It focuses on 28 parties in the five major European countries (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain), analysing the parties’ budgets from 2002 to 2016. The article's assessment shows that the availability of funds increased until the beginning of the Great Recession (2008), and then decreased, mainly due to a decline in public support for parties. Diminished state generosity has led parties to look for different sources of financing: the article shows the proportion of self-funding resources in terms of membership fees and private donations that has sustained the parties’ finances. Finally the article presents a model that helps to explain the shrinking of parties’ income by including parties’ ideological alignment, electoral outcome, presence in government and share of public financing, and countries’ public spending and GDP level, to investigate the plausible causes of the reduction of parties’ income

Pauline Picco, Liaisons dangereuses. Les extrêmes droites en France et en Italie (1960-1984)

Dans l’ouvrage Liaisons dangereuses. Les extrêmes droites en France et en Italie (1960-1984), Pauline Picco confesse de manière improvisée, aux pages 143 et 144, à quel point l’étude des méandres obscurs des années de plomb s’avère désorientant. Les informations sont en effet dispersées, d’une ampleur démesurée, les sources souvent contradictoires : entre affabulations, négligences, témoignages réticents, opacité et diversions des institutions publiques. Nombreuses sont les embûches que l’ana..

Party organisational change in Italy (1991-2006)

This article analyses the organisational change in Italian political parties since 1990 with the aim of finding evidence in favour or against the widespread view in the literature that organisational resources, and hence power, are becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of party and/or parliamentary leaders, and that there is a corresponding decline in the territorial presence of parties. 10 The account made here of the evolution of Italian parties follows quite closely Katz and Mair’s approach by analysing separately their three organisational faces and observing their characteristics and change over time face by face. Trends in membership, finances, staff and party statutes confirm to a large extent the overall research hypothesis.This article analyses the organisational change in Italian political parties since 1990 with the aim of finding evidence in favour or against the widespread view in the literature that organisational resources, and hence power, are becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of party and/or parliamentary leaders, and that there is a corresponding decline in the territorial presence of parties. 10 The account made here of the evolution of Italian parties follows quite closely Katz and Mair’s approach by analysing separately their three organisational faces and observing their characteristics and change over time face by face. Trends in membership, finances, staff and party statutes confirm to a large extent the overall research hypothesis

Happy Protest Voters: The Case of Rotterdam 1997–2009

Protest parties are on the rise in several European countries. This development is commonly attributed to a growing dissatisfaction with life and associated with declining quality of life in modern society of the lowest social strata. This explanation is tested in a cross-sectional analysis of voting and life-satisfaction in 63 districts of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where the share of protest voters increased from 10 % in 1994 to 31 % in 2009. Contrary to this explanation protest voting appeared not to be the most frequent in the least happy districts of Rotterdam, but in the medium happy segment. Also divergent from this explanation was that average happiness in city districts is largely independent of local living conditions, but is rather a matter of personal vulnerability in terms of education, income and health. These results fit alternative explanations in terms of mid

Potential functional and numerical response in a large sized raptor may be mediated by the abundance of an exotic lagomorph

Predators relying on a particular prey as their main food resource are especially susceptible to fluctuation in prey availability. When prey abundance decreases they show a functional response by adjusting their diet. After this, predators may suffer a numerical response. These responses have been poorly studied in presence of alien invasive preys. The black-chested buzzard-eagle (Geranoaetus melanoleucus) is a large raptor inhabiting open areas of South America. Here we present the first long-term study on this eagle population tendency, analyzing functional and numerical responses associated with changes in the abundance of the exotic European hare (Lepus europaeus). We measured breeding performance and studied eagles? diet during the breeding seasons of 1991, 1992, 2006, 2011 and 2012. We also estimated the relative abundance of hares at each count site. Eagles diets changed over the years with a decrease in hare consumption. The number of eagles decreased from 1992 to less than half in 2012. Forty one percent of the total eagles observed in 1992/92, and 27% in 2006 were immature, while in 2011 and 2012 no immature were observed. We found similar tendencies of decrease in the abundance of hares which suggest that the decrease in eagles population may be related with the decreasing tendency of hares. No other factor that may have affected immature eagles abundance was evident in the area during this period. Our data suggest that changes in the abundance of an exotic lagomorph can lead numerical and functional responses in a top predator by affecting its diet, age structure, and ultimately abundance.Fil: Ignazi, Gonzalo Oscar. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Departamento de Zoología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio de Ecotono; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; ArgentinaFil: Barbar, Facundo. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio de Ecotono; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Departamento de Zoología; ArgentinaFil: Hiraldo, Fernando. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Estación Biológica de Doñana; EspañaFil: Donázar, José Antonio. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Estación Biológica de Doñana; EspañaFil: Trejo, Ana Raquel. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Departamento de Zoología; ArgentinaFil: Lambertucci, Sergio Agustin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universidad Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio de Ecotono; Argentin

Breaching the social contract: crises of democratic representation and patterns of extreme right party support

Why has the extreme right Greek Golden Dawn, a party with clear links to fascism experienced a rise defying all theories that claim that such a party is unlikely to win in post-WWII Europe? And, if we accept that economic crisis is an explanation for this, why has such a phenomenon not occurred in other countries that have similar conducive conditions, such as Portugal and Spain? This article addresses this puzzle by (a) carrying out a controlled comparison of Greece, Portugal and Spain and (b) showing that the rise of the extreme right is not a question of intensity of economic crisis. Rather it is the nature of the crisis, i.e. economic versus overall crisis of democratic representation that facilitates the rise of the extreme right. We argue that extreme right parties are more likely to experience an increase in their support when economic crisis culminates into an overall crisis of democratic representation. Economic crisis is likely to become a political crisis when severe issues of governability impact upon the ability of the state to fulfil its social contract obligations. This breach of the social contract is accompanied by declining levels of trust in state institutions, resulting in party system collapse