The role of networks has been growing attention in recent decades in explaining political behaviour. Political nexus aspects also get on the agenda in studying various resources of status attainment. Despite the general realization of these relevant network implications, some conceptual and measurement issues are still debatable. In this paper, we introduce a new tool for measuring political acquaintanceship networks, the Party Nexus Position Generator (PNPG). We will show how one of the most widely used SNA-instruments, the technique of position generator, could be transformed to apply for the measurement of political networks. We tested the tool in two countries, Germany and Hungary, with surveys administered by different methods: online and face-to-face. The presentation of findings on German and Hungarian political networks may help us understand how the broader settings affect the composition of political networks and their influences on political behavior. Results from two different countries may also contribute to assess the validity of the PNPG tools introduced by our study.
This thematic issue includes ten articles that address previous contradictions in research on two main trends in digital democracies: news avoidance and political polarization. Looking at these contradictions from different angles, all contributions suggest one aspect in particular that could be important for future research to investigate more specifically possible countermeasures to harmful trends: the individualized, self‐reflective way in which media users nowadays engage with political content. The increasingly value‐based individualization of media use may be a hopeful starting point for reversing harmful trends to some degree by addressing individual media users as a community with a common base of civic values, rather than addressing them in their limited social group identities.
This article aims to discuss and synthesize the persistence of theoretical and epistemological pitfalls in the political culture approach for Latin America and to indicate theoretical alternatives. Since the foundation of the field of political culture, little progress has been made to incorporate contributions and evidence not centered in the global North. Studies on Latin America indicate that the main theories of political culture still lack the generalizability to explain societies where liberal democracy is not consolidated and where the majority of the population does not have adequate living conditions. Thus, this article addresses three theoretical-epistemological gaps with a focus on Latin America: the trap in the theory of civic culture; the limits in the revisited theory of modernization; and the inadequacy of the explanation of cultural backlash in the Latin American context. We discuss relevant limitations and alternatives for explaining political culture in Latin America and for refining the field of political culture.
This contribution adds a new perspective to the debate on electoral integrity by asking how electoral integrity affects the way in which election results translate into citizen attitudes towards the political system. It introduces a causal mechanism that links political losing to political trust via evaluations of electoral fairness: citizens who voted for the losing camp are more likely to view the electoral process as unfair than citizens who voted for the winning camp, resulting in political distrust. It further suggests that the effects of political losing on political trust depend on the level of electoral integrity. In conditions where the elections were conducted in a free and fair manner, even those who voted for the losing camp have little reason to suspect foul play and therefore political losing should barely affect perceptions of the electoral process. Whenever there are actual indications of electoral malpractice, however, political losers have much more reason to doubt the integrity of the electoral process than those who are content with the outcome of the election. The contribution makes use of a unique dataset that ex-post harmonizes survey data from three cross-national survey projects (Asian Barometer Survey, European Social Survey, Latinobarómetro) and macro-level data from the Varieties-of-Democracy Project to cover 45 democracies in Europe, East Asia, and Latin America. Using multi-level modeling, it finds that political losing indeed decreases political trust indirectly via perceptions of electoral fairness. Confirming its key proposition, the empirical analysis shows that political losing has a weaker effect on political trust in countries where electoral integrity is high.
Under the authoritarian regime, earlier iterations of Vietnam's public diplomacy (PD), especially during wartime, reassembled propaganda and psychological warfare. But thanks to Doi Moi (i.e. "renovation") in 1986, new understandings of PD were made possible with a revamped foreign policy of multi-lateralisation and diversification. This article argues that information and communications technologies (ICTs), especially the internet and social media, have further transformed the practice of Vietnamese PD. Focusing on the period from 1997 when the internet was introduced in Vietnam, this article first provides a general analysis of the influence of ICTs on Vietnam's politics. It then delves into how ICTs have transformed Vietnam's PD. The key takeaway is that the internet and social media have significantly empowered public opinion in foreign policy, giving rise to cross-border cyber communities that can play the roles of both recipient and practitioner of PD.
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated its centenary, its expanding role in penetrating, regulating, and reshaping social organisations (社会组织, shehui zuzhi) seemed to signal a decisive shift in not only the arrangement, but also the balance, of power between the state, the voluntary sector, and the party in favour of the latter. Beginning with the recent reform "decoupling" professional associations and chambers of commerce (行业协会商会, hangye xiehui shanghui) from state management, which has been cited in official documents as a model for "separating the state from society" and an initial step in further reducing the state management in other realms of activity, this article considers broad trends in the CCP's historical relationship with social organisations, particularly alongside its shifting relationship with the state apparatus after 1949, over time. Working through both the CCP's governing practice of "documentary politics" and, more recently, initiatives to expand "rule by law" under Xi, I argue that the party has vastly increased its power, presence, and control over both as it marked its centenary, albeit at times donning the mask of the state to do so. I conclude that the party's continued advance under Xi is occurring at the expense of both the autonomy of the state administration and that of social forces. (JCCA / GIGA)
In April 2019, VOX, a far-right populist party, won seats for the first time in the Spanish parliament. VOX successfully used social media to participate in the electoral debate and to establish a more direct link with its followers. We investigated how the VOX online community was structured during the election campaign and to what extent the most influential profiles spread the party's messages. We accordingly analysed two samples, one composed of tweets and retweets that used the hashtags #28A, #28Abril, and #28AbrilElecciones, and the other composed of metaphorical expressions identified in tweets by influencers. Applying social network analysis to the first sample, we studied the form and structure of the network and identified key profiles in the VOX community, i.e., influencers, builders, and bridges. Using critical metaphor analysis with the second sample, we identified the main frames used by VOX influencers to explore whether they reproduced the party's populist discourse. We found that the VOX online community in 2019 did not only include party supporters or members but was composed of varied profiles. For this reason, the populist metaphorical framing used by the VOX leadership was only partially disseminated.
The implementation of ambitious climate policies consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement is fundamentally influenced by political dynamics. Yet, thus far, climate mitigation pathways developed by integrated assessment models (IAMs) have devoted limited attention to the political drivers of climate policymaking. Bringing together insights from the political science and socio-technical transitions literature, we summarize evidence on how emissions lock-in, capacity, and public opinion can shape climate policy ambition. We employ a set of indicators to describe how these three factors vary across countries and regions, highlighting context-specific challenges and enablers of climate policy ambition. We outline existing studies that incorporate political factors in IAMs and propose a framework to employ empirical data to build climate mitigation scenarios that incorporate political dynamics. Our findings show that there is substantial heterogeneity in key political drivers of climate policy ambition within IAM regions, calling for a more disaggregated regional grouping within models. Importantly, we highlight that the political challenges and enablers of climate policy ambition considerably vary across regions, suggesting that future modeling efforts incorporating political dynamics can significantly increase the realism of IAM scenarios.
Im Lischka-Prozess standen von Oktober 1979 bis Februar 1980 drei Mitverantwortliche für die Deportation der jüdischen Bevölkerung Frankreichs während der deutschen Besatzung im Zweiten Weltkrieg vor dem Kölner Landgericht. Die kurze Verhandlungsdauer sowie die Verurteilung der Angeklagten Kurt Lischka, Herbert Hagen und Ernst Heinrichsohn zu mehrjährigen Haftstrafen heben den Prozess von den meisten anderen westdeutschen NS-Strafverfahren ab. Die Studie untersucht den Einfluss der Strafverfolgung auf die öffentliche Debatte um die Shoah in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und in Frankreich. Mithilfe des Ansatzes der Histoire croisée analysiert sie, wie die erinnerungskulturelle Auseinandersetzung um den Lischka-Prozess in beiden Ländern geführt und wechselseitig rezipiert wurde.
Die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung in Deutschland vertraut wichtigen gesellschaftlichen Institutionen, wobei es deutliche Unterschiede zwischen den Institutionen gibt. Besonders hoch ist das Vertrauen in Polizei (90,1 Prozent) und Justiz (78,5 Prozent). Deutlich niedriger ist das Vertrauen in Bundestag (59,6 Prozent), Bundesregierung (58,6 Prozent) und Europäisches Parlament (55,7 Prozent). Den politischen Parteien vertraut nur ein vergleichsweise geringer Anteil (36,4 Prozent). Bei jüngeren Menschen und Personen mit hoher Bildung ist das Institutionenvertrauen höher als bei älteren Menschen und Menschen mit niedriger Bildung. In der Altersgruppe der 50- bis 64-Jährigen sind die Anteile von Personen, die der Bundesregierung, dem Bundestag, dem Europäischen Parlament oder den Parteien vertrauen, am geringsten. Ähnlich ist es bei Personen mit niedriger Bildung: Hier vertraut weniger als die Hälfte der Bevölkerung den genannten Institutionen. Unterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern sind nur gering. Bei freiwillig Engagierten ist der Anteil von Personen, die den Institutionen vertrauen, höher als bei Nicht-Engagierten. Mit einer Differenz von 8,8 Prozentpunkten ist der Unterschied beim Vertrauen in die Justiz am größten. Die geringsten Unterschiede zwischen Engagierten und Nicht-Engagierten sind mit einer Differenz von jeweils 3,5 Prozentpunkten beim Vertrauen in Polizei und Parteien zu finden. Eine positive Einstellung zur Demokratie als Regierungsform äußern neun von zehn Personen. Zufrieden mit dem Funktionieren der Demokratie in Deutschland sind etwas mehr als zwei Drittel der Menschen. Die Kombination beider Abfragen ergibt, dass der Großteil der Menschen die Demokratie als gute Regierungsform bewertet und gleichzeitig mit dem Funktionieren der Demokratie in Deutschland zufrieden ist (66,4 Prozent). Bei jüngeren Personen ist eine positive Einstellung zur Demokratie anteilig häufiger als bei älteren Menschen. Personen ab 50 Jahren geben anteilig deutlich häufiger als Personen zwischen 14 und 49 Jahren an, die Demokratie für keine gute Regierungsform zu halten und mit dem Funktionieren der Demokratie nicht zufrieden zu sein. Personen, die aktuell die Schule besuchen, bewerten die Demokratie anteilig am häufigsten als gute Regierungsform und sind mit dem Funktionieren in Deutschland zufrieden. Personen mit hoher Bildung und Personen mit mittlerer Bildung geben dies anteilig etwas seltener an. Bei Personen mit niedriger Bildung ist hier der geringste Anteil festzustellen. Bei freiwillig Engagierten ist der Anteil der Personen, die die Demokratie als gute Regierungsform bewerten, höher als bei Nicht-Engagierten. Auch die Zufriedenheit mit der Demokratie ist bei freiwillig Engagierten höher als bei Nicht-Engagierten. Unter den Engagierten geben 71,0 Prozent an, die Demokratie als gute Regierungsform zu bewerten und mit dem Funktionieren der Demokratie in Deutschland zufrieden zu sein. Unter den Nicht-Engagierten beträgt dieser Anteil 63,3 Prozent.
Immigrants now constitute a sizeable and rapidly growing group among many Western countries' electorates, but analyses of their party preferences remain limited. Theoretically, immigrants' party preferences might be explained with both standard electoral theories and immigrant-specific approaches. In this article, we rigorously test both perspectives against each other using the most recent data from Germany. Applying the Michigan model, with its three central explanatory variables – party identification, issue orientations and candidate evaluations – to the party preferences of immigrant-origin and native voters, we find that this standard model can explain both groups well. In contrast, we find no direct effects of the most prominent immigrant-specific variables, and neither do these meaningfully moderate the Michigan variables. However, we find strong formative effects on the presence of political attitudes and beliefs: immigrants with a longer time spent in Germany, a stronger German identity and less experience of discrimination report significantly fewer item non-responses for the Michigan model's main explanatory variables.
AbstractA collective regional identity is a favourable condition for the acceptance of majority decisions made at the regional level and for the delegation of competencies from the central to regional governments. Moreover, a regional identity can play an important role in times of global challenges. Regional attachment might generate a we-feeling and help individuals to cope better with a complex world. The same feeling, however, might also serve as a basis for exclusionary attitudes. In this article, we analyse regional identity at the Land level in Germany with data from the German General Social Survey. Our results show that regional identity is strong in both the eastern and western parts of the country, with people in the east, surprisingly, identifying with their respective Land slightly more than people in the west, even though the five eastern Länder were only established in 1990 after decades of centralist rule. Furthermore, the dark side of regional identity manifests itself only in eastern Germany, where a stronger regional identity tends to go hand in hand with a greater dislike of foreigners.
Angesichts globaler Krisendiagnosen setzen einige Aktivist*innen nicht primär auf Reformen innerhalb der bestehenden Verhältnisse - sie träumen von einer komplett anderen Ordnung. Oftmals ziehen sie sich deswegen aus bestehenden Institutionen und dem Alltag der Mehrheitsgesellschaft zurück. Anstelle von Eskapismus kann es sich bei ihrem Rückzug aber auch um radikalen Widerstand handeln. Der Autor stellt ein Netzwerk an Aktivist*innen in den Mittelpunkt seiner empirischen Studie, die zwischen den frühen 1970er Jahren und der Jahrtausendwende in den USA in "Kommunen", "intentionale Gemeinschaften" und "Ökodörfer" zogen. Die Analyse zeichnet die historischen Veränderungen nach und beschreibt anschaulich, welche Widersprüche sich in der Praxis für die Aktivist*innen bei dem Versuch ergaben, alternative Lebensformen zu entwickeln, um so die Verhältnisse grundlegend zu transformieren.
