Pub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2024-12-23DOI: 10.1057/s41269-024-00380-4
Joost van Spanje, Costin Ciobanu, Greta Arancia Sanna
What explains whether and how much political parties give attention to a policy issue? Parties are expected to cater to the interests of privileged groups and to be dismissive unless an issue offers an electoral opportunity. How to test this? Most issues have been around for so long that it has become difficult to track party responses. Ideally, a multifaceted phenomenon would fall from the sky and become favored by privileged groups, after which we would observe party reactions. Bitcoin fulfills these criteria. It has become significant, suited for various ideologies yet disproportionally supported by wealthy, highly educated male voters. In this paper, we study how new issues emerge around Bitcoin, and how parties respond. Voter attitudes, preferences, expectations, and Bitcoin ownership are taken from our 2020-2023 four-wave British (N=5,121) and Dutch (N=5,002) voter surveys. Party positions on Bitcoin are derived from our surveys of MPs and party representatives, cross-validated by party communication. Using issue yield theory, we find that weak electoral incentives, particularly due to age-related internal divisions, prevent parties from catering to privileged groups on Bitcoin issues. This suggests that a party system will not embrace elite interests, even on low-salience issues, under unfavorable public opinion alignments.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41269-024-00380-4.
{"title":"Privileged interests on the party agenda: Bitcoin-related issues in two countries since 2020.","authors":"Joost van Spanje, Costin Ciobanu, Greta Arancia Sanna","doi":"10.1057/s41269-024-00380-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-024-00380-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>What explains whether and how much political parties give attention to a policy issue? Parties are expected to cater to the interests of privileged groups and to be dismissive unless an issue offers an electoral opportunity. How to test this? Most issues have been around for so long that it has become difficult to track party responses. Ideally, a multifaceted phenomenon would fall from the sky and become favored by privileged groups, after which we would observe party reactions. Bitcoin fulfills these criteria. It has become significant, suited for various ideologies yet disproportionally supported by wealthy, highly educated male voters. In this paper, we study how new issues emerge around Bitcoin, and how parties respond. Voter attitudes, preferences, expectations, and Bitcoin ownership are taken from our 2020-2023 four-wave British (<i>N</i>=5,121) and Dutch (<i>N</i>=5,002) voter surveys. Party positions on Bitcoin are derived from our surveys of MPs and party representatives, cross-validated by party communication. Using issue yield theory, we find that weak electoral incentives, particularly due to age-related internal divisions, prevent parties from catering to privileged groups on Bitcoin issues. This suggests that a party system will not embrace elite interests, even on low-salience issues, under unfavorable public opinion alignments.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41269-024-00380-4.</p>","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"61 2","pages":"393-413"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12999464/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147500224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-10DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00323-5
Roberto Frega
{"title":"Political elites and the democratic duty to trust the people","authors":"Roberto Frega","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00323-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00323-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"75 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139440415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-10DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00324-4
Patrick F. A. van Erkel, Peter van Aelst
{"title":"Social media and affective polarization: does Facebook news use fuel political in- and out-group affect in a multi-party context?","authors":"Patrick F. A. van Erkel, Peter van Aelst","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00324-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00324-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"85 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139440736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-03DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00320-8
Anthoula Malkopoulou, Siddhartha Kumar Dhar
{"title":"Beyond right and wrong: on the conditionality of dirty hands","authors":"Anthoula Malkopoulou, Siddhartha Kumar Dhar","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00320-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00320-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"41 21","pages":"1-19"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139451793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-12DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00318-2
Ian McAllister
{"title":"Political orientations and personal values among university lecturers in Europe","authors":"Ian McAllister","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00318-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00318-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"91 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139008312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00316-4
Brigitte Geißel, Anna Krämling, Lars Paulus
Abstract Direct democratic instruments are increasingly applied in many European countries. They are subject to an ongoing public—and often highly controversial—debate. The question of how direct democracy relates to equality, i.e. if direct democratic instruments have the potential to foster equality or if they lead to more inequality, is crucial in this debate. Research has struggled to come up with a general answer to this question with scholars assuming equality as well as inequality-promoting effects of direct democratic outputs. In this paper, we try to shed new light on this controversial debate and argue that the impact of direct democracy on equality essentially depends on the social and political context in which the decisions take place. In order to examine the impact of context factors on direct democratic outputs, we first analyze the influence of country-specific variables such as the level of equality and the age of democracy—applying large-N multilevel logistic regressions. Yet, these statistical analyses offer no clear results: the effects of the country-specific variables are rather blurry and hard to make meaning of. The result suggests that other factors than the ones we included in the regressions are decisive for the effect of direct democratic instruments on equality. Therefore, in a second step, we demonstrate how country-and case-specific variables such as social and political characteristics impact the outcomes of direct democracy, using the same-sex marriage referendums in Ireland and Slovenia in 2015 as examples. We conclude that context factors are too complex to be grasped in a large-N, statistical analysis. This means that to understand how context influences the effects of direct democratic instruments on equality, for now, one has to go beyond the lens of statistical analysis and look at the respective cases in great depth and detail.
{"title":"Direct democracy and equality: context is the key","authors":"Brigitte Geißel, Anna Krämling, Lars Paulus","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00316-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00316-4","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Direct democratic instruments are increasingly applied in many European countries. They are subject to an ongoing public—and often highly controversial—debate. The question of how direct democracy relates to equality, i.e. if direct democratic instruments have the potential to foster equality or if they lead to more inequality, is crucial in this debate. Research has struggled to come up with a general answer to this question with scholars assuming equality as well as inequality-promoting effects of direct democratic outputs. In this paper, we try to shed new light on this controversial debate and argue that the impact of direct democracy on equality essentially depends on the social and political context in which the decisions take place. In order to examine the impact of context factors on direct democratic outputs, we first analyze the influence of country-specific variables such as the level of equality and the age of democracy—applying large-N multilevel logistic regressions. Yet, these statistical analyses offer no clear results: the effects of the country-specific variables are rather blurry and hard to make meaning of. The result suggests that other factors than the ones we included in the regressions are decisive for the effect of direct democratic instruments on equality. Therefore, in a second step, we demonstrate how country-and case-specific variables such as social and political characteristics impact the outcomes of direct democracy, using the same-sex marriage referendums in Ireland and Slovenia in 2015 as examples. We conclude that context factors are too complex to be grasped in a large-N, statistical analysis. This means that to understand how context influences the effects of direct democratic instruments on equality, for now, one has to go beyond the lens of statistical analysis and look at the respective cases in great depth and detail.","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"86 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135813671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00315-5
Kirstie Lynn Dobbs
{"title":"Pressure on people and people on streets: social pressures to vote in Tunisia’s new democracy","authors":"Kirstie Lynn Dobbs","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00315-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00315-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"63 10","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135813685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-28DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00314-6
Anne-Marie Jeannet, Lenka Dražanová
Abstract Recent studies have demonstrated generational differences in attitudes towards immigration, however, less is known about what are the exact factors behind these differences. Our study investigates why cohorts formulate distinct patterns in attitudes towards immigration through a collective process of political socialization during their formative years. The theoretical arguments are tested using hierarchical age-period-cohort modelling across thirteen cohorts in thirteen European countries using micro attitudinal data (2002–2020) integrated with historical macro-political data. We find that contextual exposure to the principle of equality in the formative political climate is central to the formulation of a person’s attitudes towards immigration later in life. While the prevalence of the principle of equality affects immigration attitudes in adulthood positively, the principle of tradition does not. The findings imply that even subtle and cyclical shifts in national politics affect the political orientations of those undergoing the process of political socialization.
{"title":"Blame it on my youth: the origins of attitudes towards immigration","authors":"Anne-Marie Jeannet, Lenka Dražanová","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00314-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00314-6","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent studies have demonstrated generational differences in attitudes towards immigration, however, less is known about what are the exact factors behind these differences. Our study investigates why cohorts formulate distinct patterns in attitudes towards immigration through a collective process of political socialization during their formative years. The theoretical arguments are tested using hierarchical age-period-cohort modelling across thirteen cohorts in thirteen European countries using micro attitudinal data (2002–2020) integrated with historical macro-political data. We find that contextual exposure to the principle of equality in the formative political climate is central to the formulation of a person’s attitudes towards immigration later in life. While the prevalence of the principle of equality affects immigration attitudes in adulthood positively, the principle of tradition does not. The findings imply that even subtle and cyclical shifts in national politics affect the political orientations of those undergoing the process of political socialization.","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"21 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136159445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-21DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00317-3
Olga Zelinska, Yevhen Revtiuk
{"title":"Why a Euromaidan movement party never emerged: a field theory approach","authors":"Olga Zelinska, Yevhen Revtiuk","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00317-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00317-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135511873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-13DOI: 10.1057/s41269-023-00309-3
Marcel Lubbers, Simon Otjes, Niels Spierings
{"title":"What drives the propensity to vote for ethnic-minority-interest parties?","authors":"Marcel Lubbers, Simon Otjes, Niels Spierings","doi":"10.1057/s41269-023-00309-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-023-00309-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47211,"journal":{"name":"Acta Politica","volume":"145 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135858945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号