Pub Date : 2023-11-09DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2274726
Rune Stubager, Mads Thau
AbstractRecent research has shown that parties’ group appeals, particularly working class appeals, can raise electoral support. But how do such effects come about? This article explores the mechanisms underlying group appeals by content analysing voters’ open-ended responses to working class and upper middle class appeals in a survey experiment in Denmark. The results show that voters generally connect class-based rhetoric from candidates to issues of inequality with some also reacting emotionally. Furthermore, the effect of class appeals on electoral support is conditioned by the considerations activated by the appeals, with stronger effects observed among voters who focus on the groups involved. Finally, while voters recognise traditional class-party alliances, such stereotypes do not undercut the effectiveness of the appeals; thus, also candidates from right-wing parties can use working class appeals to their benefit. These findings advance our understanding of the role of social groups in party electoral strategies.Keywords: Group appealsclass votingexperimentopen-ended responsescontent analysis AcknowledgementsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Joshua Robison in collecting the data and Lasse Endby Pedersen who coded the open-ended responses. Previous versions of the article were presented at the ECPR General Conference in Innsbruck, 2022, the annual meeting of the Danish Political Science Association, 2022 as well as at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University. The authors are thankful for all the helpful comments received on these occasions.Ethical approvalThe data for the analysis was collected in accordance with Danish law regarding participant consent and ethical approval and is available at https://osf.io/zh43j/?view_only=9fae5d6ce51749039a47adca497806e9.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 We define considerations as any type of thought that appears in a voter’s mind when exposed to a certain stimulus – a group appeal in this case – and assume that these can be, at least partly, measured via an open-ended question (see below).2 Robison et al. (Citation2021) find that this result applies for all classes except upper middle class identifiers who tend not to react to the appeals. We return to this point below.3 On a 0 to 10 sympathy scale like the one introduced below, all four groups mentioned in the treatments scored between 7.1 and 7.4 – essentially the same, in other words.4 Note that in Denmark high school teachers are university graduates with a master’s degree, thus representing an upper middle class occupation.5 Respondents were debriefed at the end of the survey.6 In the Danish electoral system, voters have the option of voting for specific candidates, as well as for parties, implying that evaluations of single candidates based on their statements is an externally valid exercise.7 70 respondents gave responses regarding the second vignette revealing t
{"title":"How do voters interpret social class appeals? Lessons from open-ended responses","authors":"Rune Stubager, Mads Thau","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2274726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2274726","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractRecent research has shown that parties’ group appeals, particularly working class appeals, can raise electoral support. But how do such effects come about? This article explores the mechanisms underlying group appeals by content analysing voters’ open-ended responses to working class and upper middle class appeals in a survey experiment in Denmark. The results show that voters generally connect class-based rhetoric from candidates to issues of inequality with some also reacting emotionally. Furthermore, the effect of class appeals on electoral support is conditioned by the considerations activated by the appeals, with stronger effects observed among voters who focus on the groups involved. Finally, while voters recognise traditional class-party alliances, such stereotypes do not undercut the effectiveness of the appeals; thus, also candidates from right-wing parties can use working class appeals to their benefit. These findings advance our understanding of the role of social groups in party electoral strategies.Keywords: Group appealsclass votingexperimentopen-ended responsescontent analysis AcknowledgementsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Joshua Robison in collecting the data and Lasse Endby Pedersen who coded the open-ended responses. Previous versions of the article were presented at the ECPR General Conference in Innsbruck, 2022, the annual meeting of the Danish Political Science Association, 2022 as well as at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University. The authors are thankful for all the helpful comments received on these occasions.Ethical approvalThe data for the analysis was collected in accordance with Danish law regarding participant consent and ethical approval and is available at https://osf.io/zh43j/?view_only=9fae5d6ce51749039a47adca497806e9.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 We define considerations as any type of thought that appears in a voter’s mind when exposed to a certain stimulus – a group appeal in this case – and assume that these can be, at least partly, measured via an open-ended question (see below).2 Robison et al. (Citation2021) find that this result applies for all classes except upper middle class identifiers who tend not to react to the appeals. We return to this point below.3 On a 0 to 10 sympathy scale like the one introduced below, all four groups mentioned in the treatments scored between 7.1 and 7.4 – essentially the same, in other words.4 Note that in Denmark high school teachers are university graduates with a master’s degree, thus representing an upper middle class occupation.5 Respondents were debriefed at the end of the survey.6 In the Danish electoral system, voters have the option of voting for specific candidates, as well as for parties, implying that evaluations of single candidates based on their statements is an externally valid exercise.7 70 respondents gave responses regarding the second vignette revealing t","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135240964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-09DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2275447
Elina Kestilä-Kekkonen, Josefina Sipinen, Peter Söderlund
AbstractDespite gains in women’s education, workforce participation, and leadership roles, a gender gap in political self-efficacy persists across European nations. Women consistently report lower confidence in their ability to participate in and understand politics compared to their male counterparts. This study posits that, although society inherently signals to boys their place in politics, a politically engaged mother can counteract this by providing her daughter with a positive role model and fostering her interest in politics, thereby bolstering the daughter’s political self-efficacy. Drawing from survey data of 15–16-year-old Finnish students (n = 5220) from 2021, the findings reveal two critical insights: fathers tend to boost political self-efficacy more in sons than in daughters. In contrast, the political engagement of mothers has a stronger positive association with their daughters’ confidence in politics. Moreover, parents’ political involvement fosters political interest in their children, which then enhances the latter’s sense of political self-efficacy.Keywords: Political self-efficacygenderpolitical engagementadolescents Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Table A1 in the appendix addresses potential gender differences in assessing parents’ political engagement. For example, gender roles may influence how boys and girls evaluate their parents. However, the differences are generally small. First, daughters tended to have more positive evaluations of both their parents’ political engagement. For the first three items, both sons and daughters rated their fathers’ political engagement more positively than their mothers’, but the gaps were, at most, 0.03 points greater among sons. Sons also had more favourable evaluations of their fathers’ encouragement on discussing political and social issues. Daughters, on the other hand, reported that their mothers were more encouraging in making independent decisions, with a gap of 0.12 points. In terms of the indexes, sons had somewhat more positive evaluations of their fathers’ engagement, while daughters had more positive evaluations of their mothers’ engagement.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the project Education, Political Efficacy and Informed Citizenship (EPIC), funded by Academy of Finland (project number 323608).Notes on contributorsElina Kestilä-KekkonenElina Kestilä-Kekkonen is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Tampere University and one of three principal investigators of the 2023 Finnish National Election Study. Her main research interests are political socialisation and inequalities in political engagement. She has published in journals such as European Journal of Political Research, European Political Science Review and Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. [elina.kestila-kekkonen@tuni.fi]Josefina SipinenJosefina Sipinen is a post-doctoral researcher affiliated with both the Fac
{"title":"Mummy’s girls, daddy’s boys: the gendered transmission of political engagement in families","authors":"Elina Kestilä-Kekkonen, Josefina Sipinen, Peter Söderlund","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2275447","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2275447","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractDespite gains in women’s education, workforce participation, and leadership roles, a gender gap in political self-efficacy persists across European nations. Women consistently report lower confidence in their ability to participate in and understand politics compared to their male counterparts. This study posits that, although society inherently signals to boys their place in politics, a politically engaged mother can counteract this by providing her daughter with a positive role model and fostering her interest in politics, thereby bolstering the daughter’s political self-efficacy. Drawing from survey data of 15–16-year-old Finnish students (n = 5220) from 2021, the findings reveal two critical insights: fathers tend to boost political self-efficacy more in sons than in daughters. In contrast, the political engagement of mothers has a stronger positive association with their daughters’ confidence in politics. Moreover, parents’ political involvement fosters political interest in their children, which then enhances the latter’s sense of political self-efficacy.Keywords: Political self-efficacygenderpolitical engagementadolescents Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Table A1 in the appendix addresses potential gender differences in assessing parents’ political engagement. For example, gender roles may influence how boys and girls evaluate their parents. However, the differences are generally small. First, daughters tended to have more positive evaluations of both their parents’ political engagement. For the first three items, both sons and daughters rated their fathers’ political engagement more positively than their mothers’, but the gaps were, at most, 0.03 points greater among sons. Sons also had more favourable evaluations of their fathers’ encouragement on discussing political and social issues. Daughters, on the other hand, reported that their mothers were more encouraging in making independent decisions, with a gap of 0.12 points. In terms of the indexes, sons had somewhat more positive evaluations of their fathers’ engagement, while daughters had more positive evaluations of their mothers’ engagement.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the project Education, Political Efficacy and Informed Citizenship (EPIC), funded by Academy of Finland (project number 323608).Notes on contributorsElina Kestilä-KekkonenElina Kestilä-Kekkonen is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Tampere University and one of three principal investigators of the 2023 Finnish National Election Study. Her main research interests are political socialisation and inequalities in political engagement. She has published in journals such as European Journal of Political Research, European Political Science Review and Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. [elina.kestila-kekkonen@tuni.fi]Josefina SipinenJosefina Sipinen is a post-doctoral researcher affiliated with both the Fac","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135290900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-07DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2272117
Sofia Marini
The extent to which political parties change their policy positions and the emphasis they give to different topics is crucial for the representativeness and responsiveness of contemporary political systems. This article aims to clarify the role of intraparty democracy in explaining the amount of such change. Previous research has shown that a stronger empowerment of members decreases programmatic change. This hypothesis is tested here more broadly, looking at both position shifts and emphasis change, adopting a more comprehensive definition of intraparty democracy and unpacking the Left-Right scale into an economic and cultural subdimension. It is further argued that the effect of intraparty democracy is moderated by the relative salience of the economic vs. cultural subdimensions of political competition. The empirical analysis of 47 parties in 10 countries between 1995 and 2019 confirms that more internally democratic parties change less, while evidence concerning the moderating effect of relative salience is more mixed.
{"title":"Do more inclusive parties change less? Intraparty democracy and programmatic change","authors":"Sofia Marini","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2272117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2272117","url":null,"abstract":"The extent to which political parties change their policy positions and the emphasis they give to different topics is crucial for the representativeness and responsiveness of contemporary political systems. This article aims to clarify the role of intraparty democracy in explaining the amount of such change. Previous research has shown that a stronger empowerment of members decreases programmatic change. This hypothesis is tested here more broadly, looking at both position shifts and emphasis change, adopting a more comprehensive definition of intraparty democracy and unpacking the Left-Right scale into an economic and cultural subdimension. It is further argued that the effect of intraparty democracy is moderated by the relative salience of the economic vs. cultural subdimensions of political competition. The empirical analysis of 47 parties in 10 countries between 1995 and 2019 confirms that more internally democratic parties change less, while evidence concerning the moderating effect of relative salience is more mixed.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135476425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-06DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2268492
Gisela Hernández, Carlos Closa
When dealing with EU’s rule of law (RoL)-related issues, the Commission has often adopted a forbearance approach and the actions taken have crystallised in soft enforcement mechanisms directed at Poland. However, the use of the Conditionality Regulation as an enforcement instrument in 2022 in relation to (lack of) RoL compliance signalled a change into an assertive approach towards Hungary. Why so? This paper argues that exogenous events may change policy priorities and linkage of issues explain this change. Russian aggression against Ukraine prompted a shift in the priorities of member states’ governments making them more receptive towards EU Commission enforcement actions. The Hungarian government’s friendly attitude towards Russia clashes with the position of most member states and the Commission itself. Orban’s partial isolation makes the Commission more willing to exercise RoL enforcement initiatives. Hence, supranational RoL-related forbearance is, at least in critical situations, affected by the calculus of opportunity that the Commission derives from other policy areas. Empirically, the process is traced through official/public documents and statements made by EU actors.
{"title":"Turning assertive? EU rule of law enforcement in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine","authors":"Gisela Hernández, Carlos Closa","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2268492","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2268492","url":null,"abstract":"When dealing with EU’s rule of law (RoL)-related issues, the Commission has often adopted a forbearance approach and the actions taken have crystallised in soft enforcement mechanisms directed at Poland. However, the use of the Conditionality Regulation as an enforcement instrument in 2022 in relation to (lack of) RoL compliance signalled a change into an assertive approach towards Hungary. Why so? This paper argues that exogenous events may change policy priorities and linkage of issues explain this change. Russian aggression against Ukraine prompted a shift in the priorities of member states’ governments making them more receptive towards EU Commission enforcement actions. The Hungarian government’s friendly attitude towards Russia clashes with the position of most member states and the Commission itself. Orban’s partial isolation makes the Commission more willing to exercise RoL enforcement initiatives. Hence, supranational RoL-related forbearance is, at least in critical situations, affected by the calculus of opportunity that the Commission derives from other policy areas. Empirically, the process is traced through official/public documents and statements made by EU actors.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135589202","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-02DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2268459
Marte Winsvold, Atle Haugsgjerd, Jo Saglie, Signe Bock Segaard
High political trust is often interpreted as a sign of good democratic health, and widespread distrust as a sign of democratic ill health. However, there is little knowledge about the basis on which people make assessments about whether to trust or distrust political actors. This article develops and applies a typology for political trust judgement. Through a content analysis of 1,105 open-ended survey questions about political trust and distrust, the study finds that people tend to assess (dis)trust of politicians based on whether they see the politicians as predictable, intrinsically committed, competent and responsive. Moreover, the study finds that citizens use different judgement bases to describe trust and distrust, suggesting that the two concepts are not pure negations of each other. While predictability is the most frequently reported basis for trusting politicians, a lack of intrinsic commitment is the most frequently reported basis for distrusting politicians. This article discusses the reasons for and implications of the apparently different bases for weighing judgements on trust and distrust.
{"title":"What makes people trust or distrust politicians? Insights from open-ended survey questions","authors":"Marte Winsvold, Atle Haugsgjerd, Jo Saglie, Signe Bock Segaard","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2268459","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2268459","url":null,"abstract":"High political trust is often interpreted as a sign of good democratic health, and widespread distrust as a sign of democratic ill health. However, there is little knowledge about the basis on which people make assessments about whether to trust or distrust political actors. This article develops and applies a typology for political trust judgement. Through a content analysis of 1,105 open-ended survey questions about political trust and distrust, the study finds that people tend to assess (dis)trust of politicians based on whether they see the politicians as predictable, intrinsically committed, competent and responsive. Moreover, the study finds that citizens use different judgement bases to describe trust and distrust, suggesting that the two concepts are not pure negations of each other. While predictability is the most frequently reported basis for trusting politicians, a lack of intrinsic commitment is the most frequently reported basis for distrusting politicians. This article discusses the reasons for and implications of the apparently different bases for weighing judgements on trust and distrust.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135933796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-26DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2264717
Anna Kyriazi, Argyrios Altiparmakis, Joseph Ganderson, Joan Miró
A surprising feature of Brexit has been the united front the EU-27 presented during post-referendum negotiations. This membership crisis arrived when the EU had been facing multiple overlapping political and economic crises revealing deep cleavages both between and within member states. How did negotiations prevent a widening politicisation of European integration? In this article a novel dataset is used, containing national and European newspaper Brexit coverage between 2016 and 2020 to establish how negotiating stances were formed in key EU institutions and five influential member states: Ireland, Spain, France, Germany and Poland. The results indicate that the European Commission could maintain a strong, centralised negotiating position over Brexit because the preferences of these member states were mutually inclusive, their negotiating stances aligned, and each national case was subject to generally low levels of domestic politicisation. As a result, while Brexit shocked the EU, its immediate fallout could be contained even during uncertain times.
{"title":"Quiet unity: salience, politicisation and togetherness in the EU’s Brexit negotiating position","authors":"Anna Kyriazi, Argyrios Altiparmakis, Joseph Ganderson, Joan Miró","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2264717","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2264717","url":null,"abstract":"A surprising feature of Brexit has been the united front the EU-27 presented during post-referendum negotiations. This membership crisis arrived when the EU had been facing multiple overlapping political and economic crises revealing deep cleavages both between and within member states. How did negotiations prevent a widening politicisation of European integration? In this article a novel dataset is used, containing national and European newspaper Brexit coverage between 2016 and 2020 to establish how negotiating stances were formed in key EU institutions and five influential member states: Ireland, Spain, France, Germany and Poland. The results indicate that the European Commission could maintain a strong, centralised negotiating position over Brexit because the preferences of these member states were mutually inclusive, their negotiating stances aligned, and each national case was subject to generally low levels of domestic politicisation. As a result, while Brexit shocked the EU, its immediate fallout could be contained even during uncertain times.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136377330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-24DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2261085
Rubén García del Horno, Guillem Rico, Enrique Hernández
Rural areas have often been labelled by the literature as ‘left-behind’ areas or ‘places that don’t matter’, implicitly suggesting that residents of these communities feel neglected by political elites. This article studies the rural-urban divide in external political efficacy, which reflects individuals’ beliefs about the responsiveness of political elites, while also examining if compositional and contextual factors can explain such a divide. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey, the results reveal a significant rural-urban gap in external efficacy, which is partly explained by differences in the sociodemographic characteristics of rural and urban dwellers, but not by disparities in their evaluation of the provision of basic public services. Notably, this rural-urban gap in external efficacy is substantively smaller in those countries with higher levels of electoral malapportionment that lead to an overrepresentation of rural areas in national parliaments.
{"title":"Do they feel like they don’t matter? The rural-urban divide in external political efficacy","authors":"Rubén García del Horno, Guillem Rico, Enrique Hernández","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2261085","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2261085","url":null,"abstract":"Rural areas have often been labelled by the literature as ‘left-behind’ areas or ‘places that don’t matter’, implicitly suggesting that residents of these communities feel neglected by political elites. This article studies the rural-urban divide in external political efficacy, which reflects individuals’ beliefs about the responsiveness of political elites, while also examining if compositional and contextual factors can explain such a divide. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey, the results reveal a significant rural-urban gap in external efficacy, which is partly explained by differences in the sociodemographic characteristics of rural and urban dwellers, but not by disparities in their evaluation of the provision of basic public services. Notably, this rural-urban gap in external efficacy is substantively smaller in those countries with higher levels of electoral malapportionment that lead to an overrepresentation of rural areas in national parliaments.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135315982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-17DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2257963
Asya Zhelyazkova, Eva Thomann, Eva Ruffing, Sebastiaan Princen
This special issue analyses the patterns, causes and consequences of Differentiated Policy Implementation (DPI) in the European Union (EU). DPI is an umbrella term for the diversity in the presence and use of discretion during legal and practical policy implementation processes and outcomes in the EU. The emergent DPI research agenda emphasises differentiation in EU policy implementation beyond mere legal compliance, which is more widespread, and its role in the broader political and policy processes of EU multilevel governance. The contributions highlight anticipated implementation as one dimension of DPI, as well as legal and practical implementation. DPI serves as an alternative to differentiated integration (DI), accommodating heterogeneous national preferences, capacities and conditions, and feeding back into EU policy-making. The impact of DPI on the EU’s output legitimacy and effectiveness depends on scope conditions that require more scholarly attention.
{"title":"Differentiated policy implementation in the European Union","authors":"Asya Zhelyazkova, Eva Thomann, Eva Ruffing, Sebastiaan Princen","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2257963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2257963","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue analyses the patterns, causes and consequences of Differentiated Policy Implementation (DPI) in the European Union (EU). DPI is an umbrella term for the diversity in the presence and use of discretion during legal and practical policy implementation processes and outcomes in the EU. The emergent DPI research agenda emphasises differentiation in EU policy implementation beyond mere legal compliance, which is more widespread, and its role in the broader political and policy processes of EU multilevel governance. The contributions highlight anticipated implementation as one dimension of DPI, as well as legal and practical implementation. DPI serves as an alternative to differentiated integration (DI), accommodating heterogeneous national preferences, capacities and conditions, and feeding back into EU policy-making. The impact of DPI on the EU’s output legitimacy and effectiveness depends on scope conditions that require more scholarly attention.","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135993046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-02DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2258030
Nicolas Bicchi, Javier Arregui
AbstractTo what extent does being aligned in EU negotiations predict favourable outcomes for the Southern Euro countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) in Council of the EU negotiations? This article attempts to answer this question by leveraging data from the DEU (Decision-Making in the European Union) dataset, and comparing this group of countries to two other well-established alliances at the EU level: the Nordics and the Visegrad Four. Results indicate that the Southern alliance generally lacks cohesion compared to the other groups, but when it is able to find a coherent position, it becomes more effective in obtaining its members’ desired legislative outcomes. Preliminary evidence also suggests that this effect occurs because aligning gives groups of countries more voting power, and because their social capital makes them more effective in negotiations.Keywords: European Unionlegislative bargainingCouncil of the EUbargaining satisfaction Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This study, in accordance with Arregui’s (Citation2016) arguments, uses the terms ‘bargaining satisfaction’ or ‘bargaining utility’ as opposed to ‘success’.2 Given that we are interested in legislative bargaining, it is natural for us to focus on the systemic level, but readers should be aware that Peterson (Citation1995) identifies two further levels of decision making in the EU, i.e. the ‘super-systemic’ (which includes history-making decisions shaping the procedures and institutions of the EU) and ‘sub-systemic’ (which includes the more technocratic decisions about implementation) levels. The analyses from this article should not be applied to these other levels, as dynamics are likely to be very different.3 To our knowledge, no contribution to date has demonstrated that the Southern countries obtain especially negative outcomes in the Council. However, there is some evidence of a negative reputation for some Mediterranean MSs, usually obtained through expert interviews (e.g. Bailer Citation2004). It could also be speculated that the Southern countries under-perform in terms of network capital (see Naurin Citation2007 or Naurin and Lindahl Citation2008), but the evidence is tenuous.4 Importantly, preference alignment and cooperation are not one and the same. Indeed, having similar preferences does not necessarily imply cooperating (or in other words actively working together) to reach a mutually beneficial outcome. On the other hand, actors may, due to power politics considerations, elect to cooperate with others that they are not necessarily fully aligned with. Our three groups of countries constitute ‘preference’ or ‘policy’ networks, as they are found to often have similar positions on issues (e.g. Thomson Citation2009), but it has to be said that they also tend to indicate each other to be important cooperation partners (e.g. Naurin and Lindahl Citation2008). They can therefore be considered true alliances.5 T
{"title":"Preference cohesion and bargaining satisfaction among Southern EU member states: a comparative perspective","authors":"Nicolas Bicchi, Javier Arregui","doi":"10.1080/01402382.2023.2258030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2023.2258030","url":null,"abstract":"AbstractTo what extent does being aligned in EU negotiations predict favourable outcomes for the Southern Euro countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) in Council of the EU negotiations? This article attempts to answer this question by leveraging data from the DEU (Decision-Making in the European Union) dataset, and comparing this group of countries to two other well-established alliances at the EU level: the Nordics and the Visegrad Four. Results indicate that the Southern alliance generally lacks cohesion compared to the other groups, but when it is able to find a coherent position, it becomes more effective in obtaining its members’ desired legislative outcomes. Preliminary evidence also suggests that this effect occurs because aligning gives groups of countries more voting power, and because their social capital makes them more effective in negotiations.Keywords: European Unionlegislative bargainingCouncil of the EUbargaining satisfaction Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 This study, in accordance with Arregui’s (Citation2016) arguments, uses the terms ‘bargaining satisfaction’ or ‘bargaining utility’ as opposed to ‘success’.2 Given that we are interested in legislative bargaining, it is natural for us to focus on the systemic level, but readers should be aware that Peterson (Citation1995) identifies two further levels of decision making in the EU, i.e. the ‘super-systemic’ (which includes history-making decisions shaping the procedures and institutions of the EU) and ‘sub-systemic’ (which includes the more technocratic decisions about implementation) levels. The analyses from this article should not be applied to these other levels, as dynamics are likely to be very different.3 To our knowledge, no contribution to date has demonstrated that the Southern countries obtain especially negative outcomes in the Council. However, there is some evidence of a negative reputation for some Mediterranean MSs, usually obtained through expert interviews (e.g. Bailer Citation2004). It could also be speculated that the Southern countries under-perform in terms of network capital (see Naurin Citation2007 or Naurin and Lindahl Citation2008), but the evidence is tenuous.4 Importantly, preference alignment and cooperation are not one and the same. Indeed, having similar preferences does not necessarily imply cooperating (or in other words actively working together) to reach a mutually beneficial outcome. On the other hand, actors may, due to power politics considerations, elect to cooperate with others that they are not necessarily fully aligned with. Our three groups of countries constitute ‘preference’ or ‘policy’ networks, as they are found to often have similar positions on issues (e.g. Thomson Citation2009), but it has to be said that they also tend to indicate each other to be important cooperation partners (e.g. Naurin and Lindahl Citation2008). They can therefore be considered true alliances.5 T","PeriodicalId":48213,"journal":{"name":"West European Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135896005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-25DOI: 10.1080/01402382.2023.2254637
Marie Kübler
AbstractThe rise of right-wing populist parties in Western democracies has led to a renewed interest in theories concerning class-based voting. It is argued that traditional workers’ parties are increasingly being challenged over the working-class vote by the populist radical right because they are perceived as being too culturally liberal for their own electorate. However, while it is established that the views of traditional parties are often incongruent with those of workers, it is not yet clear whether right-wing populist parties fare any better in this regard. Using many-to-many congruence, this article compares the preferences of different social classes and MPs in the 2017 German Federal Election. Three notable findings emerge. First, opinion gaps vary greatly across issues, and occupational groups do not hold fundamentally different views. Second, there are nonetheless significant congruence gaps at the expense of workers. Third, neither left-wing parties’ MPs nor the right-wing populist AfD MPs provide a good fit for workers’ opinions.Keywords: Representationpolicy congruencepolitical partiespolitical inequalityworking class Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Although the term ‘left-authoritarian’ can be misleading, I follow the literature cited here and use the term to describe a combination of left-wing economic and conservative cultural positions. In this article, the term does not refer to general authoritarian or anti-democratic attitudes.2 Results can be found in the online appendix.3 Although Golder and Stramski (Citation2010) originally recommended using cumulative frequencies, I follow Andeweg (Citation2011) and Schakel and Hakhverdian (Citation2018) by using probability distribution functions.4 As previously described, I use a bootstrapping technique and work with estimated rather than simple congruence calculations in the following analysis.Additional informationNotes on contributorsMarie KüblerMarie Kübler is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science, University of Mainz. Her research focuses on political representation. [kuebler@politik.uni-mainz.de]
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