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The 'populist phenomenon' has received a lot of attention in recent years. Yet little is known about the populists themselves: who are they? They are often described as bad-mannered provocateurs disrupting the political game, but also as charismatic leaders able to persuade and motivate. Can a populist 'style' or 'personality' be identified? This article assesses to what extent populists score differently from 'mainstream' politicians on established personality inventories. Using a new dataset based on expert ratings for 152 candidates (including 33 populists) having competed in 73 elections worldwide, it is found that populists score lower on agreeableness, emotional stability and conscientiousness. At the same time, populists score higher on extraversion, narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. These results have important implications for the study of the success of populists in contemporary democracies and beyond. ; Full Text

RESUMEN. Desde un análisis crítico del neoliberalismo hegemónico y de su peligroso efecto colateral en forma de populismos políticos, el texto plantea una alternativa normativa en clave universalista desde el campo de la filosofía política: la revalorización de los humanismos políticos democráticos y el uso del federalismo como cultura política de las relaciones públicas en un sentido amplio. Semejante propuesta pasa por la movilización activa y solidaria de la ciudadanía y por la vertebración de una ética pública federalista que sirva de base a un derecho estatal, pero sobre todo internacional, que reconozca y ampare valores comunes como el respeto a la dignidad de toda persona, los derechos humanos, la justicia social, la paz y la subsidiariedad institucional. Un derecho que, desde la previa reflexión y decisión política, sirva realmente para establecer límites y reglas a un mercado capitalista, ahora mismo, desbocado. ABSTRACT. From the critique of neoliberalism and the emergence of political populisms as morbid responses to its hegemony, an alternative proposal is drawn from political philosophy: the revaluation of democratic political humanisms and the use of federalism as a political culture of public relations in a broad sense. This alternative requires both an active mobilization of citizenship and a federalist public ethic that, based on the culture of human rights, promotes a state law and an international law with the objective of setting limits and rules to the capitalist market.

Resumen: ¿Cuáles son los valores que han de sustentar el incierto futuro de la Europa del siglo XXI inmersa en un mundo multipolar en gestación? Metodológicamente desde una hermenéutica fenomenológica crítica con vocación normativa, el artículo intenta dar respuesta a tal pregunta mediante dos objetivos concretos. Primero, a partir del acervo común de los humanismos democráticos asentado tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial por el europeísmo político, establecer los valores y principios que, a modo de ética pública, deberían regir la imperiosa renovación del contrato sociopolítico de las democracias europeas. Y segundo, diagnosticar algunos de los impedimentos a este deseable desarrollo de las democracias europeas provenientes tanto del pensamiento hegemónico neoliberal como de las variadas reacciones populistas e iliberales surgidas en su contra. Abstract: What are the values that will sustain the uncertain future of Europe immersed in a multipolar world in gestation? Methodologically from a critical phenomenological hermeneutics with a normative vocation, this text tries to answer this question by means of two concrete objectives. First, based on the democratic humanisms established after the Second World War by political Europeanism, to establish the values and principles that, as a public ethics, should govern the imperious renewal of the sociopolitical contract of European democracies. And second, to diagnose some of the impediments to this desirable development of the European democracies coming from both the neoliberal hegemonic thought and the varied populist and illiberal reactions that have arisen against it.

This paper deals with the constitutionalist iuspositivism of Luigi Ferrajoli. It emphasizes the rule proposed which, as the culmination of his theory about law and democracy, pretends to spread his canon of democracy from the frame of government to the present international society globalized through a federalism, which is determined by the principle of subsidiarity. Furthermore, the work of Ferrajoli is compared with that of other historical or current authors in relation to the democratic cosmopolitanism: Immanuel Kant, Hans Kelsen and David Held. ; El escrito se acerca al bien trabado iuspositivismo constitucionalista de Luigi Ferrajoli haciendo hincapié en la propuesta normativa que, a modo de colofón de su teoría sobre el derecho y la democracia, pretende extender su modelo de democracia garantista del marco del Estado al de la actual sociedad internacional globalizada, mediante un federalismo en red regido por el principio de subsidiariedad. Además, la obra de Ferrajoli se compara con la de otros autores históricos o actuales en relación con el cosmopolitismo democrático: Immanuel Kant, Hans Kelsen y David Held.

Decir el amor como política lesbiana: reinvenciones de lo religioso en textos de mujeres (Europa y América, siglos Xll-XVII)

This Element contributes to existing research with an analysis of public understandings of democracy based on original surveys fielded in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. It conceptualises democracy as consisting of liberal, egalitarian and participatory ideals, and investigates the structure of public understandings of democracy in the five countries. It then proceeds to identify important relationships between conceptions of democracy and other attitudes, such as satisfaction with democracy, support for democracy, trust in institutions, policy preferences and political behaviour. The findings suggest that a comprehensive analysis of understandings of democracy is essential to understand political attitudes and behaviours.

While electoral reforms clearly affect how seats are (re)distributed among parties immediately after their adoption, they do not significantly change the (re)distribution of votes among parties. As political knowledge is positively related to turnout, we argue that the effect of majoritarian electoral reforms on the number of parties is contingent upon the turnout in the last election prior to the reform. Specifically, the lower the turnout level in the previous election, the more effective the majoritarian reform will be. However, the psychological effect of proportional reforms relies on the interplay between elites and voters and is highly uncertain. The argument is tested using aggregated data from 43 major electoral reforms worldwide from 1945 to 2020 and individual data from the first election held in New Zealand after the 1993 electoral reform.

This paper explores an alternative mechanism for understanding the drivers of the nomination of women for elective office in single-member electoral systems. Previous research has generally examined two sources of gender-based politics: party ideology, with leftist parties being more female-friendly than rightist parties, and the strategic nomination of candidates depending on whether the party is expected to win or lose in the district, with women more likely to be used as 'sacrificial lambs' in hopeless contests. We argue that the nomination of male and female candidates across districts reflects an interdependence of party strategies – in particular, the actions of the main opposition party. We hypothesise that when the trailing party is not committed to gender equality, its equilibrium strategy in a given district is the nomination of a candidate of the same gender as that of the front-running party. Secondary data from 1,017 single-member Australian districts and more than 2,000 candidates from 2001–2019 confirm our hypothesis.

Why do parties and candidates decide to go negative? Research usually starts from the assumption that this decision is strategic, and within this framework two elements stand out: the prospect of electoral failure increases the use of negative campaigning, and so does time pressure (little reaming time to convince voters before election day). In this article, we contribute to this framework by testing two new expectations: (i) political actors are more likely to go negative when they face unfavourable competitive standings and voting day is near; and (ii) they are less likely to go negative when they faced a substantive degradation in their competitive standing over the course of the campaign. We test these expectations on a rich database of newspaper ads about national referenda in Switzerland and provide preliminary empirical evidence consistent with those expectations. The results have important implications for existing research on the strategic underpinnings of campaigning and political communication.

Why do parties and candidates decide to go negative? Research usually starts from the assumption that this decision is strategic, and within this framework two elements stand out: the prospect of electoral failure increases the use of negative campaigning, and so does time pressure (little reaming time to convince voters before election day). In this article, we contribute to this framework by testing two new expectations: (i) political actors are more likely to go negative when they face unfavourable competitive standings and voting day is near; and (ii) they are less likely to go negative when they faced a substantive degradation in their competitive standing over the course of the campaign. We test these expectations on a rich database of newspaper ads about national referenda in Switzerland and provide preliminary empirical evidence consistent with those expectations. The results have important implications for existing research on the strategic underpinnings of campaigning and political communication.

Using data from the Electoral Integrity Project, we measure the level of gerrymandering according to country expert surveys in Lower House elections in 54 democracies from the second half of 2012 until the first half of 2015. We show that majoritarian systems are more prone to gerrymandering than mixed-member and above all in Proportional Representation (PR) systems. When majoritarian systems are employed in large countries, gerrymandering is exacerbated. Per capita GDP and the age of electoral systems do not significantly affect gerrymandering.