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[eng] This dissertation analyses the effects of information on corruption cases on citizens' electoral behaviour and the media coverage of those scandals. Corruption, defined as the abuse of public office for private gain, has lately become a very prolific research field in both academic and policy areas. Considering the main factors driving corruption, some studies have identified democratic systems as a hurdle to political scandals. Advanced democratic institutions tend to be associated with higher transparency and better political accountability mechanisms, which are the channels through which they accomplish lower levels of corruption. Factors such as an independent judiciary, press freedom, and free elections are key elements that define an advanced democracy. This thesis is composed by three empirical studies. The study presented in Chapter 2 analyses how information on local corruption affected local electoral outcomes in Spanish municipalities between 1999 and 2007, a period characterised by the surge in local scandals. We use a novel database on those corruption cases to estimate an incumbent's vote share equation, accounting for the omission of popularity shocks, something that is lacking in prior studies. As an additional enrichment to the literature we have into consideration the degree of attention that the media devoted to each case and when the judiciary was involved in the scandal, analysing whether voters react to the amount of information and to information regarding the seriousness of the case. Thus, we account for the complementarity of these institutions in the fight against corruption. Chapter 3 studies how corruption affects voter turnout using information on local scandals occurring in Spain between 1999 and 2007 and survey data. This analysis has the advantage over the previous literature as it relies on a research strategy for differentiating between the 'mobilisation' and 'disaffection' effects of corruption on voter turnout. To the best of our knowledge this is the first study that is able to analyse empirically how these two effects are influenced by partisan leanings or corruption at different times, untangling the conclusions of earlier studies. Chapter 4 studies the media coverage of 165 Spanish local scandals spanning between 2004 and 2007 by national and regional newspapers. It analyses the incentives that media outlets may have to bias the information they report on those scandals. The literature has identified ideological slant and capture on the part of the government as two political elements that may bias media coverage of scandals. The study presented in chapter 4 is an improvement respect previous papers since it analyses both ideological slant and media capture as complementary factors rather than independent drivers of media bias. As an additional contribution we also consider the role of government's popularity on the coverage of scandals. The three empirical studies that compose this thesis provide strong evidence that, even under a biased provision of news, Spanish voters are willing to electorally punish corrupt practices. Together with the significant number of cases recently unveiled by media and investigations undertaken by individuals or citizens' organizations through different digital platforms, we can be optimistic about the evaluation of practices to control corruption. The promotion of policies that endorse media freedom and independence would also reduce the influence of political powers on Spanish media. Taken together, these factors would have a clear positive effect on electoral accountability, allowing citizens to obtain the impartial information they need to use elections as a way to constrain corrupt practices.

Abstract. The study of the relationship between media and politics has long been marginal in French political science. The take–off of research has been stimulated by the impact of the Presidential election under the Fifth republic and by the increasing role of television and spin–doctors in this new electoral context. If French studies on political communication converge with international research, they are also characterised by strong peculiarities. The material of case–studies is not campaign–centred, but gives room to various TV programmes, to a wide range of media uses by French politicians. The contribution of historians, the influence of a literary tradition of 'textual' analysis of political speech are important. The publishing of books on this topic also reveals a surprisingly intense participation from spin– doctors, journalists and even politicians. Three main 'schools' are contributing to the dynamics of French research. Linked to the tradition of semiological and literary studies the first one focuses on the study of political discourse in the media. Merging the legacy of English–speaking studies and the French tradition of electoral studies a second one develops an analysis of the campaigning process and of its effects. More recently, a new generation of researchers has widened the object of research to the complex network of relations between politicians, journalists and consultant. Linking successfully the most recent developments or international research and the peculiarities of academic tradition, research on political communication appears as one of the most dynamic areas of French political science.

This report shows the results of a survey conducted in spring 2019 among all people who received a PhD in political science from a Swiss university during the last eleven years (2008 to 2018) and among postdocs working in a Swiss university in June 2019. Thus, this survey sheds light on the experiences and career paths of both postdocs and doctors in political science who left academia. Moreover, it compares the results regarding postdocs with a similar study carried out in 2012.

Digitalization is not only a new research subject for political science, but a transformative force for the discipline in terms of teaching and learning as well as research methods and publishing. This volume provides the first account of the influence of digitalization on the discipline of political science including contributions from 20 different countries. It presents a regional stocktaking of the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in most world regions.

PART I. Reclaiming Religion for Political Science -- Chapter 1 Introduction: Why we need political science of religion -- Chapter 2 Political Science of Religion: Demarcating the field -- PART II. Theocracies -- Chapter 3 Religious Legitimation of Power and the Concept of Theocracy -- Chapter 4 Theocracies as Political Systems -- PART III. Religion in Democracies -- Chapter 5 Here to Stay: The role of religion in contemporary politics -- Chapter 6 Veto Players and Stakeholders: Religion in Polish and American politics

The political science program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) announces it awards for basic research support and dissertation improvement grants for fiscal year 2010. The program funded 75 new projects and 31 doctoral dissertation improvement proposals. Additional program funds were spent on continuing grant increments, which result from awards that were made in previous fiscal years, but for which funds are being disbursed on a yearly basis instead of upfront. The political science program spent $12,753,794 on these research, training, and workshop projects and $345,389 on dissertation training grants for political science students. The program holds two grant competitions annually—Regular Research, August and January 15; and Dissertation Improvement, January 15—and constitutes a major source of political science research funding as part of fulfilling NSF's mission to encourage theoretically focused empirical investigations aimed at improving the explanation of fundamental social and political processes and structures.

The study of the relationship between media and politics has long been marginal in French political science. The take-off of research has been stimulated by the impact of the Presidential election under the Fifth republic and by the increasing role of television and spin-doctors in this new electoral context. If French studies on political communication converge with international research, they are also characterised by strong peculiarities. The material of case-studies is not campaign-centred, but gives room to various TV programmes, to a wide range of media uses by French politicians. The contribution of historians, the influence of a literary tradition of 'textual' analysis of political speech are important. The publishing of books on this topic also reveals a surprisingly intense participation from spin-doctors, journalists and even politicians. Three main 'schools' are contributing to the dynamics of French research. Linked to the tradition of semiological and literary studies the first one focuses on the study of political discourse in the media. Merging the legacy of English-speaking studies and the French tradition of electoral studies a second one develops an analysis of the campaigning process and of its effects. More recently, a new generation of researchers has widened the object of research to the complex network of relations between politicians, journalists and consultant. Linking sucessfully the most recent developments or international research and the peculiarities of academic tradition, research on political communication appears as one of the most dynamic areas of French political science. (European Journal of Political Research / FUB)

Many readers look to comics and cartoons for entertainment, but they can also inform, as well as inspire, controversy and even acts of political violence, as the Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo cases demonstrate. Indeed, politics and comics connect and overlap in all sorts of ways. This review essay explores the nexus of politics and comics at a time when a growing number of cartoonists are creating extended works of graphic nonfiction that address serious political and historical themes.

Is the science capable to act as the subject of political action? This question is considered as one of themes of the modern philosophy of science. It could not be posed within the framework of the philosophy of science concentrated only on the analysis of logical structures of scientific knowledge or on problems of its dynamics defined by procedures of rational reconstruction of history of science. In this framework, influence of factors of a sociо-cultural context on the formal and substantive aspects of scientific processes was not a subject of the philosophical analysis. However, the internal logic in development of philosophy of science led to expansion of a circle of its interests. This circle included processes of interfluence of science and the cultural environment in its historical development. It affected sense of the major epistemic values: truth, objectivity, rationality. Their interpretation as variable dependent on a sociо-cultural context led to relativism which, in fact, devaluated the philosophical analysis of science. In attempts to counteract relativism the idea of political agency of science had to be rejected, which contradicted the obvious realities. The philosophy of science became in need of reform. Its initiator was historical and socio-cultural epistemology. The central thesis of reform is recognition of equal rights, continuity and interdependence of the principles of truth, ob­jectivity and historicism forming triple complementarity (by analogy with the well-known principle of N. Bohr). In the reformed philosophy of science political agency of science is a fact and a factor in the development of both the science itself, and the socio-cultural context.

The modern science of politics has agreed with Thomas Hobbes that government must be based on the rejection of Aristotle's belief that claims to rule might be judged and accepted on their substantive merit as a matter of justice. The present essay examines the premodern approach as found in Aristotle's treatment of the question of regimes in the Politics. It is argued that the interpretation of Aristotle's discussion that understands him to distinguish right and deviant regimes as these are in the interest of ruled or rulers respectively and to seek a resolution of the conflict between claims to rule as a kind or instance of distributive justice is belied by a close reading of his Politics and Nicomachean Ethics and collapses distinctions crucial to Aristotelian political science.