Suchergebnisse

Cet article s'inscrit dans la longue lignée des travaux qui s'intéressent à la légitimité de l'Union européenne, mais le fait à partir d'une approche centrée sur les politiques publiques : les politiques européennes contribuent-elles à légitimer l'UE aux yeux des citoyens ? Il suggère que les caractéristiques des politiques européennes permettent d'éclairer l'existence même d'effets de légitimation de l'UE aux yeux des citoyens ainsi que la nature de cet effet, définie en termes de légitimation ou de délégitimation de l'UE. Les résultats nous amènent également à insister sur la non-systématicité de ces effets-retours. L'article repose sur la comparaison des politiques sociales, environnementales et agricoles dans cinq pays de l'UE : l'Allemagne, l'Espagne, la France, l'Italie et les Pays-Bas.

Cet article porte sur les reconfigurations de la légitimité des gouvernements dans une perspective multi-niveaux en s'intéressant aux processus de légitimation par les politiques publiques sous l'angle des policy feedbacks . Deux enjeux principaux structurent l'article : la régionalisation et l'européanisation d'un certain nombre de politiques publiques ont-elles conduit à des gains de légitimité pour les gouvernements régionaux et l'Union européenne ? Les processus de légitimation des différents échelons de gouvernement peuvent-ils se combiner et se cumuler ? Dans une perspective exploratoire, l'article repose sur l'étude de cas de la Belgique, de la politique européenne de l'environnement et des politiques régionales de l'éducation. Il montre que la politique européenne de l'environnement a généré des effets de légitimation de l'Union européenne auprès des citoyens belges. En revanche, la politique régionale d'éducation a eu des effets différents en Flandre et Wallonie : elle s'est traduite par un accroissement de la légitimité reconnue au niveau du gouvernement régional par les Flamands, tandis qu'elle a conduit à un effet nul sur la légitimité que les Wallons reconnaissent au niveau régional.

The article argues that there is no single globalisation of education systems, but rather multiple globalisations of each system taken in its individual context. We propose three explanatory factors to account for these vernacular globalisation processes, that is, for individual policy trajectories in each national context: path dependence on earlier policy choices and institutions, education policy-making through bricolage, and finally the translation by national actors of international-level ideas or tools as a function of the debate, institutions or national power dynamics in question. The research design is based on the study of a most-likely case: accountability policy in two school systems – France and Quebec – which show strong variations. Document analyses and semi-structured interviews were conducted in both cases. In the two countries, distinct vernacular globalisations are at work leading to different neo-statist accountability policies. In Quebec, the reinforcement of state power through a growing vertical accountability and the systematic development of regulation tools between policy actors and levels lead to a 'centralisation by institutional linkage'. In France, we rather witness a 'globalisation by discursive internalisation' in which transnational imperatives are integrated in official discourses on the regulation of the education system, but without radically questioning the mainstays of this regulation.

This article asks how the most prominent recent changes in European welfare states are relevant for citizens' political participation and attitudes toward politics, specifically citizens' political efficacy, political interest, political trust and attribution of responsibility. We consider changes in benefits, in the form of generosity levels and conditionality, and changes in modes of delivery, including both marketization and rescaling. Reviewing the policy feedback on mass publics literature, a mainly US-centric scholarship, the article suggests that the mostly negative impacts that are theoretically expected are to be qualified in the European contexts. The article thereby reflects on the contributions and limits to what can be learned from this body of research to illuminate European cases; and it derives a research agenda to study policy feedbacks on mass publics in western Europe.

AbstractRegionalization has been a defining feature of European politics since the 1970s. Previous work has studied political drivers of the movements of competences to the subnational level, including the role of citizens' preferences. Yet, we still know little about how these new divisions of competences between government levels have impacted the development of public opinion about this division. The article builds on the literature on policy feedback and argues that institutional regionalization may both directly and indirectly affect support for regionalization through normative and interpretive effects. To empirically qualify these expectations, the article uses eight cross sections of the Flemish and Walloon populations in Belgium (1991–2019). This approach explains differences in support for regionalization between citizens that were socialized in different institutional and regional contexts. The analyses show that Walloons who came of age in the context of more institutional regionalization tend to be more supportive of regionalization. In Flanders, in contrast, support for regionalization is most consistently and substantially explained by regional and Belgian identification. However, our analyses show no support for the expectation that coming of age in a more regionalized Belgium is associated with a greater sense of regional identification.

Regionalization, in the form of a dispersion of political power away from national political centres to regional governments, has been a defining feature of European politics since the 1970s. The article focuses on how institutional regionalization changed citizens' attitudes about the division of competences between the central and regional level. It argues that regional institutions and policies exert a socializing effect on citizens' preference in favour of these institutions through a mechanism of adaptive preferences. First, attitudes are studied across cohorts in a single population to test whether cohorts that came of age in a context of more institutional regionalization are more favourable towards regional decision making than cohorts that came of age in a centralized state. The analyses indeed show evidence for a socializing effect of institutional regionalization. Second, the article shows how regional elites' discourses may moderate the relationship between institutional regionalization and citizens' attitudes about regionalization. We study Belgium as a crucial case. We use five cross-sectional datasets of the Flemish and Walloon populations during the course of increased regionalization in Belgium (1991-2007).

Regionalization, in the form of a dispersion of political power away from national political centres to regional governments, has been a defining feature of European politics since the 1970s. The article focuses on how institutional regionalization changed citizens' attitudes about the division of competences between the central and regional level. It argues that regional institutions and policies exert a socializing effect on citizens' preference in favour of these institutions through a mechanism of adaptive preferences. First, attitudes are studied across cohorts in a single population to test whether cohorts that came of age in a context of more institutional regionalization are more favourable towards regional decision making than cohorts that came of age in a centralized state. The analyses indeed show evidence for a socializing effect of institutional regionalization. Second, the article shows how regional elites' discourses may moderate the relationship between institutional regionalization and citizens' attitudes about regionalization. We study Belgium as a crucial case. We use five cross-sectional datasets of the Flemish and Walloon populations during the course of increased regionalization in Belgium (1991-2007).

Regionalization, in the form of a dispersion of political power away from national political centers to regional governments, has been a defining feature of European politics since the 1970s. The article focuses on how institutional regionalization changed citizens' attitudes about the division of competences between the central and regional level. It argues that regional institutions and policies exert a socializing effect on citizens' preference in favor of these institutions through a mechanism of adaptive preferences. First, attitudes are studied across cohorts in a single population to test whether cohorts that came of age in a context of more institutional regionalization are more favorable towards regional decision-making than cohorts that came of age in a centralized state. The analyses indeed show evidence for a socializing effect of institutional regionalization. Second, the article shows how regional elites' discourses may moderate the relationship between institutional regionalization and citizens' attitudes about regionalization. We study Belgium as a crucial case. We use five cross-sectional datasets of the Flemish and Walloon populations during the course of increased regionalization in Belgium (1991–2007).

AbstractRegionalization, in the form of a dispersion of political power away from national political centers to regional governments, has been a defining feature of European politics since the 1970s. The article focuses on how institutional regionalization changed citizens' attitudes about the division of competences between the central and regional level. It argues that regional institutions and policies exert a socializing effect on citizens' preference in favor of these institutions through a mechanism of adaptive preferences. First, attitudes are studied across cohorts in a single population to test whether cohorts that came of age in a context of more institutional regionalization are more favorable towards regional decision-making than cohorts that came of age in a centralized state. The analyses indeed show evidence for a socializing effect of institutional regionalization. Second, the article shows how regional elites' discourses may moderate the relationship between institutional regionalization and citizens' attitudes about regionalization. We study Belgium as a crucial case. We use five cross-sectional datasets of the Flemish and Walloon populations during the course of increased regionalization in Belgium (1991–2007).

Across Western Europe since the 1970s, welfare states have been under considerable pressures. Over the midterm, two main challenges surface. First, the trend toward neoliberal social policy, however varied in its shape and scope, has come to characterize most policy changes of the period. It has impacted levels of generosity, eligibility criteria, welfare providers as well as the process of benefit allocation. Second, the growing supranationalisation of welfare states, by way of budget consolidation objectives and enforcement mechanisms and monetary integration, has greatly influenced, that is, reduced, Western European governments' ability to act upon welfare states' design and reforms. This paper takes stock of these developments from a ordinary citizens' perspective. It departs from the mainstream policy elite perspective and the political economy analysis as the paper focuses on citizens' political perceptions and experiences of both trends. It intends to theoretically lay out an analysis of the political outcomes of neoliberalism and supranationalisation of European welfare states. Based on the policy feedback literature, that hypothesizes that attitudes and behaviours are outcomes of past policy, the paper suggests that both neoliberalism and supranationalisation of social policy may contribute to explaining patterns of citizens' (dis-)affection towards politics in the past decades. The paper therefore investigates policy citizenship, that is how neoliberalisation and supranationalisation of social policy shape attitudinal and behavioural democratic linkages (political trust, political support, loyalty, formal and informal participation). By doing so, it supplements existing research on individual determinants and contextual explanations of disengagement and disaffection towards politics.

The EU may get more politicized (in the sense of salience, polarization and extension of actors, see de Wilde and Zürn, 2012; de Wilde, Leupold and Schmidtke, 2016) but also, and mostly, acts as an agent of depoliticization, along with other institutions at the EU and domestic level (Hay, 2007; Papadopoulos, 2013; Wood and Flinders, 2014). We suggest to go one step further than the existing literature that suggests that economic voting may be decreasing in times of globalization (Hellwig, 2008; Lobo and Lewis-Beck, 2012) or that citizens are increasingly aware of their government's limited autonomy when facing external constraints (Ruiz Rufino and Alonso, 2017). This paper argues that EU policy, in particular in the social and economic realms, its media coverage at the national level and national politicians' usages of Europe, depoliticize economic and social issues. Specifically, EU policy preferred options are framed not only as being beyond the reach of national governments and politicians, but also, and more importantly, without alternative (Dupuy and Van Ingelgom, 2015; Karremans, 2017). While denying choice, these depoliticized policies, in return, feedback citizens' attitudes toward politics in general. This paper therefore intends to bring in (EU) public policy in the analysis of citizens' disaffection towards politics in contemporary Western Europe. At the most general level, it contends that citizens' growing disregard for politics is partly an outcome of policy changes and changes in state structures and administrations. Thereby, the paper articulates changes at the macro level to changes at the individual level.

Across Western Europe since the 1970s, welfare states have been under considerable pressures. Over the midterm, two main challenges surface. First, the trend toward neoliberal social policy, however varied in its shape and scope, has come to characterize most policy changes of the period. It has impacted levels of generosity, eligibility criteria, welfare providers as well as the process of benefit allocation. Second, the growing supranationalisation of welfare states, by way of budget consolidation objectives and enforcement mechanisms and monetary integration, has greatly influenced, that is, reduced, Western European governments' ability to act upon welfare states' design and reforms. This paper takes stock of these developments from a ordinary citizens' perspective. It departs from the mainstream policy elite perspective and the political economy analysis as the paper focuses on citizens' political perceptions and experiences of both trends. It intends to theoretically lay out an analysis of the political outcomes of neoliberalism and supranationalisation of European welfare states. Based on the policy feedback literature, that hypothesizes that attitudes and behaviours are outcomes of past policy, the paper suggests that both neoliberalism and supranationalisation of social policy may contribute to explaining patterns of citizens' (dis-)affection towards politics in the past decades. The paper therefore investigates policy citizenship, that is how neoliberalisation and supranationalisation of social policy shape attitudinal and behavioural democratic linkages (political trust, political support, loyalty, formal and informal participation). By doing so, it supplements existing research on individual determinants and contextual explanations of disengagement and disaffection towards politics.