60 research outputs found
Forty years studying British politics : the decline of Anglo-America
The still present belief some 40 years ago that British politics was both exceptional and superior has been replaced by more theoretically sophisticated analyses based on a wider and more rigorously deployed range of research techniques, although historical analysis appropriately remains important. The American influence on the study of British politics has declined, but the European Union dimension has not been fully integrated. The study of interest groups has been in some respects a fading paradigm, but important questions related to democratic health have still to be addressed. Public administration has been supplanted by public policy, but economic policy remains under-studied. A key challenge for the future is the study of the management of expectations
What explains electoral responses to the 'Great Recession in Europe?
The ?Great Recession? in Europe started in early 2008 and was the greatest economic crisis facing the continent since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It produced a largescale loss of support for many incumbent parties. The purpose of this paper is to explain responses to the crisis among European electorates with the assistance of three rival models of electoral choice. The first is the cleavages model associated with Rokkan and Lipset which highlights the importance of social groups as the sources of electoral support. The second is the spatial model of party competition which focuses on the ideological distance between voters and parties in relation to divisive issues in society. The third is the valence model which argues that voters will support parties that deliver policies over which there is widespread agreement about what should be done. The paper models electoral support for incumbent parties using data from the European Social Surveys of 2006, conducted prior to the recession, and again in 2012 some four years into the crisis. The results show that all three models are relevant for understanding mass political responses to the crisis. It is also apparent that an ideological shift to the right occurred in electoral support between the two periods and this happened among both the voters and also the incumbent parties in Europe
Transnational partisanship: idea and practice
That parties might successfully organize transnationally is an idea often met with scepticism. This article argues that while certain favourable conditions are indeed absent in the transnational domain, this implies not that partisanship is impossible but that it is likely to be marked by certain traits. Specifically, it will tend to be episodic, structured as a low-density network and delocalized in its ideational content. These tendencies affect the normative expectations one can attach to it. Transnational partisanship should be valued as a transitional phenomenon, e.g. as a pathway to transnational democracy, more than as a desirable thing in itself
The patriotism of gentlemen with red hair: European Jews and the liberal state, 1789â1939
European Jewish history from 1789â1939 supports the view that construction of national identities even in secular liberal states was determined not only by modern considerations alone but also by ancient patterns of thought, behaviour and prejudice. Emancipation stimulated unprecedented patriotism, especially in wartime, as Jews strove to prove loyalty to their countries of citizenship. During World War I, even Zionists split along national lines, as did families and friends. Jewish patriotism was interchangeable with nationalism inasmuch as Jews identified themselves with national cultures. Although emancipation implied acceptance and an end to anti-Jewish prejudice in the modern liberal state, the kaleidoscopic variety of Jewish patriotism throughout Europe inadvertently undermined the idea of national identity and often provoked anti-Semitism. Even as loyal citizens of separate states, the Jews, however scattered, disunited and diverse, were made to feel, often unwillingly, that they were one people in exile
Political travel across the âIron Curtainâ and Communist youth identities in West Germany and Greece in the 1970s and 1980s
Political travel across the âIron Curtainâ and Communist youth identities in West Germany and Greece in the 1970s and 1980s
This article explores tours through the Iron Curtain arranged by West German and Greek pro-Soviet Communist youth groups, in an attempt to shed light on the transformation of European youth cultures beyond the âAmericanisationâ story. It argues that the concept of the âblack boxâ, employed by Rob Kroes to describe the influence of American cultural patterns on Western European youth, also applies to the reception of Eastern Bloc policies and norms by the Communists under study. Such selective reception was part of these groupsâ efforts to devise a modernity alternative to the âcapitalistâ one, an alternative modernity which tours across the Iron Curtain would help establish. Nevertheless, the organisers did not wish such travel to help eliminate American/Western influences on youth lifestyles entirely: the article analyses the excursionsâ aims with regard to two core components of youth lifestyles in Western Europe since the 1960s, which have been affected by intra-Western flows, the spirit of âdoing oneâs own thingâ and transformations of sexual practices. The article also addresses the experience of the travellers in question, showing that they felt an unresolved tension: the tours neither served as a means of Sovietisation nor as an impulse to develop an openly anti-Soviet stance.PostprintPeer reviewe
The Patriotism of Gentlemen with Red Hair: European Jews and the Liberal State, 1789â1939
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