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Recent decades have seen the growth of various strands of rightwing populist political orientations, where populism and critique of immigration policies have been central. These ideological developments have caused concern for the legitimacy of social and political institutions. The question explored in this paper, based on Norwegian survey data, is 'Which types of right political orientations exist among young people, and how do these political attitudes affect trust in social and political institutions?' The results reveal the existence of both a populist 'new right' political orientation similar to the ideology of the Progress Party and a nativist ideology. The new right orientation contains two sets of variables: (i) economic liberalism/state scepticism and (ii) nationalist values. For trust in political institutions, the emerging picture is complex because the nationalist dimension of both the populist orientation and the nativist ideological orientation implies a high level of trust in political institutions. To the extent the new right political orientations causes mistrust, it seems to come from the liberal economic, anti-statist values included in this ideology. Based on these findings, future researchers should distinguish more clearly between the ideological dimensions going into populist political right orientations and the relationship between attitudes and more practical implications of such ideologies. ; acceptedVersion

Much research investigating changes in women's political rights focuses on the presence or absence of improvement that is evident in national & international policies or on gender proportionality in representative institutions at international, national, & local levels. Public opinion about women's rights is an important corollary to this research because it underpins the legitimacy of policies & representative bodies. However, if examined alone, changes in public opinion over time yield an incomplete picture of women's situation, just as changes in policies & representation do. Factors that lie behind statistics about trends in women's rights matter, & it is essential to figure out if the sources of support for women's political rights shift over time. We employed data from Kuwait in the years surrounding the Beijing +5 conference to illustrate how the absence of change in public opinion about women's rights can hide important social dynamics that figure into the development of policies & practices affecting women. Whereas support for women's rights was evident among the most numerous & advantaged Kuwaiti citizens in 1994, it rested less with the general public & more with citizens involved in social networks & those who had particular political & cultural agendas by 1998. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.

Approximately one-quarter of civil war peace agreements contain some reference to gender, prompting the question of whether or not gender provisions within peace agreements are effective tools for improving women's rights following conflict. As calls by the United Nations and the international community place increasing emphasis on women's involvement in peace processes, this article generates insight into whether peace agreements, a key component of peace processes, help to spur greater political rights for women. The theoretical expectations of the article posit that peace agreements generate legal frameworks for post-conflict states. Specifically, peace agreements have the potential to tie actors' hands to new policies and generate shifts in societal norms and practices; the direction of new policies and practices, however, is dependent on the contents of agreements. When agreements are gender-inclusive, they increase the likelihood of improvements in women's political rights. The expectations are quantitatively tested using civil war peace agreements signed between 1981 and 2011. The findings indicate that the content of agreements matters; gender-inclusive agreements lay the foundations for improvements in women's political rights following conflict. The article demonstrates that peace agreements, when crafted to include gender provisions, are meaningful tools that international and domestic actors can harness to strengthen women's rights after civil war.

During the last decade, there have been signs of increased democratization in the Middle East. Yet women's political rights remain limited. In this article we focus on Kuwait, a country representative of how citizenship rights have been gendered in the Middle East. Some Kuwaiti women's groups support expanding women's political rights. This article seeks to determine if they have potential allies in the general population. Using survey data from 1500 Kuwaiti citizens in 1994, we identify potential advocates for extending women's rights by examining social status, social networks, religious identity and Gulf War experiences. We found that organized women's groups have potential allies in Sunni young people and men who belong to voluntary organizations, and Shia young men, older women and those who backed Islamic movements abroad. These groups form a basis for developing a broad base of popular support for expanding the citizenship rights of women.

Much research investigating changes in women's political rights focuses on the presence or absence of improvement that is evident in national and international policies or on gender proportionality in representative institutions at international, national, and local levels. Public opinion about women's rights is an important corollary to this research because it underpins the legitimacy of policies and representative bodies. However, if examined alone, changes in public opinion over time yield an incomplete picture of women's situation, just as changes in policies and representation do. Factors that lie behind statistics about trends in women's rights matter, and it is essential to figure out if the sources of support for women's political rights shift over time. We employed data from Kuwait in the years surrounding the Beijing +5 conference to illustrate how the absence of change in public opinion about women's rights can hide important social dynamics that figure into the development of policies and practices affecting women. Whereas support for women's rights was evident among the most numerous and advantaged Kuwaiti citizens in 1994, it rested less with the general public and more with citizens involved in social networks and those who had particular political and cultural agendas by 1998.

Contends that the variation in ideology & types & degrees of prejudice, supremacy, & oppression are important distinctions to make when examining right-wing movements. Systems of race/gender/class oppression in the hard Right are explored in terms of a dynamic process comprising ideas, acts, & a hierarchical position of dominance that is structural. The Right is divided into the conservative, dissident, & extreme sectors, which all interact. After articulating their commonalities, differences are explored, focusing on the extreme Right, the patriot movement, & the Christian Right. It is concluded that understanding the political Right requires a more sophisticated level of analysis that identifies boundaries, categories, & terminology that delineate differences of degrees; further, systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, & more exist throughout society. 2 Figures. J. Zendejas

In recent years, the Anglo-American media landscape has pondered over an old problem: that of German hegemony in Europe. At the heart of this debate lies the question of geopolitics. Is Germany, deliberately or by accident, a regional hegemon, and do its political elites seek to reorganize Berlin's neighbours into a pan-European architecture that prioritizes Germany's national interest? This question is not as straightforward as it may sound, not least because geopolitical thought was long a taboo in Germany, due to its influence on the formulation of National Socialist ideology in the 1920s. This article thus seeks to answer this question by focusing not on the often sanitized statements of political leaders but on the ideas of think-tankers, journalists, political advisers and public intellectuals, many of whom have had a significant influence on the formulation of German foreign policy. The article argues that, while geopolitical ideas were long confined to the right-wing margins of the political spectrum, they are now much more prevalent in the political mainstream. As Germany's relations with the United States and Russia have gradually soured, this new German geopolitics has once again become preoccupied by the notion of Germany as a central power.

The conceptual definitions of political rights & liberties & their relation to political democracy are discussed. Various data sources are identified that provide national measures of political rights & liberties for 20+ countries for different periods of time. The measurement properties of these indicators are examined when known, but many measures have unknown validity & reliability. Sources of biases & invalidity in the indicators are hypothesized. A dual strategy for future research is proposed: (1) analyses of existing measures with structural equation techniques which allow for random & systematic error in indicators; & (2) the use of new procedures (eg, magnitude scaling) to form more sensitive measures of political rights & liberties. 1 Table, 2 Figures. Modified AA

Contends that the variation in ideology & types & degrees of prejudice, supremacy, & oppression are important distinctions to make when examining right-wing movements. Systems of race/gender/class oppression in the hard Right are explored in terms of a dynamic process comprising ideas, acts, & a hierarchical position of dominance that is structural. The Right is divided into the conservative, dissident, & extreme sectors, which all interact. After articulating their commonalities, differences are explored, focusing on the extreme Right, the patriot movement, & the Christian Right. It is concluded that understanding the political Right requires a more sophisticated level of analysis that identifies boundaries, categories, & terminology that delineate differences of degrees; further, systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, & more exist throughout society. 2 Figures. J. Zendejas