Suchergebnisse

In recent decades Europe's political landscape has been marked by a notable rise in the use of mechanisms of direct democracy such as the referendum and the citizens' initiative. Our focus in this article is on the national referendums directly connected to the European Union (EU) integration process, a subject which is receiving increasing scholarly attention. Two interrelated questions are asked. First, how do these specific mechanisms of direct democracy interact with the existing federal political institutions of the EU? And, second, how does this affect the institutional stability of the EU polity? In addressing this problematique we undertake a cross-polity comparison of the EU-variant of direct democracy that reveals a range of institutional models and brings to the fore a neglected dimension in the study of EU referendum politics, the role of federal political institutions.

In recent decades Europe?s political landscape has been marked by a notable rise in the use of mechanisms of direct democracy such as the referendum and the citizens? initiative. Our focus in this article is on the national referendums that are directly connected to the European Union (EU) integration process. These types of referendums are increasingly recognised by the scholarly community as the source of institutional instability across the wider EU polity. To explain the nature of this empirical puzzle is this article?s main objective. However, instead of pursuing intra-EU comparisons, as does much of the literature, we adopt a comparative perspective on the EU that involves the explicit comparison with other polities. In doing so, we bring to the fore a neglected dimension in the study of EU referendum politics: the operation of federal political institutions. We contend that cross-polity comparison of EU forms of direct democracy with other polities reveal insights that suggest a number of institutional models to overcome the sources of the present instability.

For the relatively stable and predictable German political system, the outcome of the Federal elections of 2017 was a remarkable surprise, with the country's two major political parties noting record losses, the major beneficiary being a relative newcomer to the political scene, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. This paper traces the trajectory of AfD from a primarily Euro-sceptic and market-friendly party in 2013 to a mainly culturally conservative and anti-immigrant party in 2017. Data from the ParteieNavi2017 Voting Advice Application are then used to attempt to trace the conditions at the individual level of analysis that fostered vote-switching behaviour from the two established mainstream parties (CDU/CSU and SPD) toward AfD. We find neither demographic characteristics nor self-placement of users on the economic Left-Right axis to be a determinant of vote switching to AfD; on the other hand, self-placement on the socio-cultural Liberal-Progressive dimension and policy preferences for anti- immigration and anti-EU integration policies were significant predictors of such voting behaviour.

This research paper investigates Cohesion Policy in the mass media by applying computational text analysis to a novel media dataset. Specifically, structural topic modelling and sentiment analysis is applied to online news, user comments and social media at multiple territorial levels. The dataset includes 4,000 news stories, 33,000 user comments, 3,700 posts and 19,500 tweets from Facebook and Twitter respectively, as well as comments and reactions. We discover a two-level hierarchy of descending sentiment on Cohesion policy news stories, whereby international media use more negative sentiment than EU web-native media at one level, and the national media in turn use more negative sentiment than regional level sources at the domestic level. The sentiment of user comments on news articles varies across our country cases, being mainly neutral or positive in Spain and overwhelmingly negative in the United Kingdom even in pro-European news sources. Finally, social media content on Facebook and Twitter is largely neutral, and dominated by official policy channels and stakeholders. We conclude that a territorially-targeted media strategy is needed to improve public appreciation of Cohesion policy, along with more emotive and topical social media activity in order engage and connect with citizens. ; COHESIFY Research paper 12. COHESIFY WP4 -- Task 4.1 & 4.3

The German federal election of 2017 saw significant losses for the two German mainstream parties (Volksparteien) and governing coalition partners, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD). The major beneficiary was the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-populist party, which almost tripled its amount of votes received from the 2013 federal election. Making use of data from a Voting Advice Application, this article seeks to explore the AfD's extraordinary electoral success with particular attention to the party's capacity to attract voters from the two mainstream and traditionally powerful parties. Drawing on the literature on radical right-wing parties in Europe and tracking the route of AfD from a single-issue Eurosceptic party to a radical party with broader programmatic appeal, this work tests hypotheses regarding demographic, political and attitudinal determinants of voting for AfD, in general, and switching one's vote to AfD from CDU/CSU or SPD more specifically. In line with previous literature, individual-level analyses show that voting for the AfD seems to be more tangentially related to demographic variables, such as sex, age and education and more strongly connected to political concerns, e.g. "conservative" self-placement and attitudes toward specific policies, immigration and Euroscepticism in particular.

The German federal election of 2017 saw significant losses for the two German mainstream parties (Volksparteien) and governing coalition partners, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD). The major beneficiary was the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-populist party, which almost tripled its amount of votes received from the 2013 federal election. Making use of data from a Voting Advice Application, this article seeks to explore the AfD's extraordinary electoral success with particular attention to the party's capacity to attract voters from the two mainstream and traditionally powerful parties. Drawing on the literature on radical right-wing parties in Europe and tracking the route of AfD from a single-issue Eurosceptic party to a radical party with broader programmatic appeal, this work tests hypotheses regarding demographic, political and attitudinal determinants of voting for AfD, in general, and switching one's vote to AfD from CDU/CSU or SPD more specifically. In line with previous literature, individual-level analyses show that voting for the AfD seems to be more tangentially related to demographic variables, such as sex, age and education and more strongly connected to political concerns, e.g. "conservative" self-placement and attitudes toward specific policies, immigration and Euroscepticism in particular.

This article explores the territorial and temporal patterns of EU cohesion policy media coverage. The topic content and tone of news are analysed using topic modelling and sentiment analysis techniques, which are applied to a new corpus of over 4,000 English and Spanish news stories from the period 2010 to 2017 across three territorial levels. In line with our theoretical expectations, we found significant differences in the tone used across territorial levels, with national and transnational levels being more negative than the regional level. While national and transnational media place relatively more emphasis on politicized EU topics, subnational media focus more on substantive policy topics corresponding with EU policy objectives. Furthermore, media reporting on the cohesion policy evolved significantly over time and reacted to external events, such as the euro and migration crises, as well as internal, country-specific events, such as Brexit in the UK and corruption scandals in Spain. However, the tone of cohesion policy news is positive overall suggesting that the media can, in principle, contribute to public support for the policy and the EU more generally.

This article explores the territorial and temporal patterns of EU cohesion policy media coverage. The topic content and tone of news are analysed using topic modelling and sentiment analysis techniques, which are applied to a new corpus of over 4,000 English and Spanish news stories from the period 2010 to 2017 across three territorial levels. In line with our theoretical expectations, we found significant differences in the tone used across territorial levels, with national and transnational levels being more negative than the regional level. While national and transnational media place relatively more emphasis on politicized EU topics, subnational media focus more on substantive policy topics corresponding with EU policy objectives. Furthermore, media reporting on the cohesion policy evolved significantly over time and reacted to external events, such as the euro and migration crises, as well as internal, country-specific events, such as Brexit in the UK and corruption scandals in Spain. However, the tone of cohesion policy news is positive overall suggesting that the media can, in principle, contribute to public support for the policy and the EU more generally.

Taxonomies are semantic resources that help to categorize and add meaning to data. In a hyperconnected world where information is generated at a rate that exceeds human capacities to process and make sense of it, such semantic resources can help to access relevant information more efficiently by extracting knowledge from large and unstructured data sets. Taxonomies are related to specific domains of knowledge in which they identify relevant topics. However, they have to be validated by experts to guarantee that its terms and relations are meaningful. In this paper, we introduce a semiautomatic taxonomy generation tool for supporting domain experts in building taxonomies that are then used to automatically create semantic visualizations of data. Our proposal combines automatic techniques to extract, sort and categorize terms, and empowers domain experts to take part at any stage of the process by providing a visual edition tool. We tested the tool's usability in two use cases from different domains and languages. Results show that all the functionalities are easy to use and interact with. Lessons learned from this experience will guide the design of a utility evaluation involving domain experts interested in data analysis and knowledge modeling ; This work was supported by the project PACE grant funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity [TIN2016- 77690-R]. Authors also acknowledge travel funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework through NOTRE project (H2020-TWINN-2015, GA Number: 692058).

So far, research on the effects of Voting Advice Applications has been focused on aspects of voting behavior, whether, for example, these online tools impact citizens' likelihood to vote or their voting choices. Relatively under-researched remain questions concerning the relationship between using VAAs and other forms of involvement in politics, such as engagement with electoral campaigns and information seeking. This paper seeks to examine differences in these behaviors associated with VAA-use utilizing panel data generated during and after the period of the German Bundestag Federal Elections in September, 2017, a period in which demand for VAAs was high, with the most popular tool in Germany, Wahl-O-Mat, being used more than 15.6 million times. The data from roughly 800 participants, sampled to be representative of the German internet users, was collected in 4 waves, one month before the election at the earliest and several weeks following at the latest, a time frame that allows the examination of short-term, as well as lingering effects. Finally, beyond establishing the presence or absence of the aforementioned differences, we further attempt to localize them across different characteristics of respondents, from demographics to their political interest and knowledge.

Abstract
Thus far, research on the effects of Voting Advice Applications has focused on some aspects of voting behavior, whether, for example, these online tools impact citizens' likelihood to vote or their voting choices. Relatively under-researched remain questions concerning the relationship between using VAAs and other forms of engagement with politics, such as involvement in electoral campaigns and information seeking about politics and parties. This paper seeks to examine effects in these behaviors associated with VAA-use employing panel data generated during and after the period of the German Bundestag Federal Election in September, 2017. The data from roughly 1120 participants, sampled to be representative of the German internet users, were collected in four waves, 1 month before the election at the earliest and several weeks following at the latest. We find that VAA-use is positively associated with consuming information about politics through other media (e.g. TV) and other election-related information-seeking activities, such as reading party programmes. On the other hand, we find no statistically significant relationship between VAA-use and interpersonal talk about politics or more active engagement with electoral campaigns such as attending party rallies.

Après cinq années de troubles économiques et sociopolitiques, le gouvernement grec de coalition, mené par le parti de gauche Syriza, décrète la tenue le 5 juillet 2015 d'un référendum soumettant aux citoyens le plan de sauvetage proposé par l'Union européenne. L'organisation du référendum est âprement critiquée et la campagne médiatique devient le terrain d'une lutte entre interprétations concurrentes du référendum. Cet article est une étude de la gamme des cadrages médiatiques au travers desquels la consultation est appréhendée dans les organes de presse grecs durant la semaine entre l'annonce et la tenue du vote. Elle montre comment ces différents cadrages peuvent être rattachés à la notion de crise, question centrale pour ce référendum grec.

So far, research on the effects of Voting Advice Applications has been primarily focused on aspects of voting behaviour, whether, for example, these online tools impact citizens' likelihood to vote or voting choices. Relatively under-researched remain questions concerning the relationship between using VAAs and other forms of political participation, such as involvement in electoral campaigns. This paper uses panel data generated in 4 waves during and after the period of the German Federal Elections in September, 2017 to examine the tendency of using a VAA to be associated with such behaviours. Results indeed suggest a positive association between VAA-use and increased consumption of politics-related media, so that using the Wahl-O-Mat VAA was contemporaneous with an increased frequency of information-seeking in other media (e.g. TV, newspapers), suggesting that the two types of behaviours might be mutually reinforcing. We additionally find a positive, though not statistically significant tendency to use the Wahl-O-Mat and participate in electoral campaigns (through e.g. attending party rallies). However, we find no evidence of an association between VAA use and increased interpersonal talk about politics or seeking of information closely related to the electoral contest, such as reading party manifestos.