Suchergebnisse

"In diesem Beitrag untersuchen die Autoren das Abstimmungsverhalten der Länder bei namentlichen Abstimmungen im Bundesrat im Zeitraum von der deutschen Wiedervereinigung 1990 bis zum Ende der Regierung Gerhard Schröders 2005. Sie gehen der Frage nach, ob und wenn ja, wann und in welchem Ausmaß der Bundesrat parteipolitisiert ist. Analytisch geht es um die Frage, wie ein durch originär sachpolitische Interessen motiviertes Verhalten von einem solchen unterschieden werden kann, das sich ausschließlich am strategischen Wettbewerb der Parteien um Wählerstimmen orientiert. Die Autoren entwickeln dazu eine Analysemethode, mit welcher der Zusammenhang zwischen sachpolitischen Länder- respektive Parteiinteressen und parteipolitischer Motivation, also etwa dem Druck, der durch die Parteilager ausgeübt wird, aufgelöst werden kann." (Autorenreferat)

'Der Autor geht der Frage nach, inwieweit die politischen Konfliktgruppen, die sich in den verfassunggebenden Versammlungen in Frankfurt und Paris formierten, als Ausdrucksformen sozialökonomischer Interessen interpretieren lassen, inwieweit also eine ökonomische Interpretation der Verfassung (Charles Beard) möglich und sinnvoll ist. Theoretisch bezieht sich Best insbesondere auf die Grundzüge einer politischen Soziologie avant la lettre, wie sie von Karl Marx und Alexis de Tocqueville entwickelt wurden. Die empirische Basis liefern die Mitglieder der beiden verfassunggebenden Versammlungen, die fast zeitparallel von Mai 1848 bis zum Frühjahr 1849 in Paris und Frankfurt tagten. Der Autor stellt fest, dass Klasse und ökonomisches Interesse in beiden Versammlungen keine angemessenen Kategorien sind, um die Bestimmungsgründe politischer Gruppenbildungen in den beiden konstituierenden Versammlungen zu beschreiben. Die Ergebnisse des Vergleichs zwischen beiden konstituierenden Versammlungen konvergieren im bestimmenden Einfluss territorialer Bindungen auf die politischen Handlungsorientierungen der Mitglieder beider Versammlungen. Dies ist komplementär zur Widerlegung der Interessenthese: Region, nicht Klasse ist die entscheidende Variable, wenn das politische Verhalten der Abgeordneten erklärt werden soll.' (Autorenreferat)

Colorado's Supreme Court kicks Trump off the ballot (WSJ). I wrote earlier forecasting constitutional crisis with  next election. Legal chaos is starting right on schedule. Summary: Both sides are casting their opponents as illegitimate. That justifies profound norm-breaking behavior.  Political battles are being fought in the courts, so control of the courts and the judicial system now becomes vital to political success. When you can't afford to lose an election you do anything to win. Scorched earth rules the day. This affair offers a catch-22 to the Supreme Court. As a partisan chess move, you can't help but admire it. The case is weak, as even the judges voting for it admit. The election is coming up fast. There are many pending state cases to keep Trump off the ballot. The Supreme Court surely does not want to see elections more and more decided by courts. This will likely force the Court to act.Letting the ruling stand, and having Trump off the ballot in several states, will inflame Trump supporters, and bolster their view that the justice system is hijacked by Democrats.  If it is overturned, Democrats will quickly cast it as a  "pro-Trump" partisan move, and use it to inflame their campaign to de-legitimize the court. Among other consequences, that will embolden the increasing habit of simply ignoring Supreme Court decisions.  The brouhaha may also scare the court over the many election cases that are headed its way like an avalanche in the next year.  It is  devilishly clever. If it were not so utterly destructive. The WSJ on these points. The ruling ... placed the Supreme Court in a position it likely would have preferred to avoid: having to resolve unprecedented legal issues that also ignite strong political passions among the nation's electorate. ...  A central legal question:  One point of deep disagreement was whether removing Trump from the ballot violated his due process rights, given that he hasn't been convicted of a crime and the pending criminal charges against him aren't for insurrection.... One dissenting justice was particularly vehement in opposition, saying it violated bedrock American principles to remove Trump from the ballot in this fashion. "Even if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past—dare I say, engaged in insurrection—there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office," Justice Carlos Samour Jr. wrote."I could see the Supreme Court worrying about that and saying if you're going to disqualify someone you need to give them more of an opportunity to make their case because that's such a momentous deprivation of liberty and rights," said [David] Orentlicher, an elected Democrat...Hypocrisy is hardly new in politics. But it is noteworthy that the party bleating most loudly about "threats to democracy" is so distrustful of democracy that it is waging legal battles to keep Mr. Trump from being democratically elected.  If it's so self-evident that Trump violated the Constitution and his oath of office, the correct remedy is to simply let voters not vote for him on that basis. The party supposedly of the little person does not trust that little person to make the most basic decisions.  Pushing political battles into the judicial system really is a threat to democracy. In a lot of semi-autocratic countries, when someone loses an election, the winners  go after them on vague charges, impoverish them, family, and supporters, and often put them in jail if not worse. In response, people do everything in their power not to lose elections, no matter how many law and norms get broken along the way. The more political battles end up in court, the closer we come to that state. I repeat the warning from my last post. This is the tip of the iceberg. We have not just the 92 (is that the latest number?) charges against Trump. Redistricting will be a battleground. Campaign finance charges will be levied. Republicans are gearing up Hunter Biden charges. Every smudged postmark, every extended deadline will end up in court. The Supreme Court may end up making crucial decisions again. The losers will claim illegitimacy of both the winner and the process, and will spend the following 4 years in resistance. Stop now while you can. (I am moving to Substack. I will cross-post everything in both places until the bugs are worked out.) Update:Thanks all for the thoughtful and mostly polite comments, on such a sensitive topic. I now think the Supreme Court should leave it alone. Let the election come, let Coloradans ponder their Supreme Court banning the candidate of one of our two parties from the ballot, and let Coloradan voters do something about it if they don't like that outcome. I come to this view from reading Nellie Bowles always fantastic and humorous commentary over at the Free Press: The only way to protect democracy is to end democracy: The Colorado Supreme Court decided this week that Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency and so cannot appear on the Republican primary ballot in the state. Meanwhile, California's lieutenant governor ordered the state Supreme Court to "explore every legal option" to remove Trump from the ballot. In doing so, she said that the rules for the presidency are simple: "The constitution is clear: You must be 40 years old and not an insurrectionist." Yet even there she is wrong: you only have to be 35. Anyway, for a long time the standard liberal take has been that Democracy Is Under Threat from Republicans. And Trump certainly tried schemes in Georgia and whatnot, like, the man gave it a shot. But I would say that banning the opposition party's leading candidate. . . is pretty much the biggest threat to democracy you can do. It's a classic one, really. Timeless. Oldie but Goodie. The American left was so committed to protecting democracy that they had to ban voting. All I'll say is that once you ban the opposition party's top candidate, you can no longer, in fact, say you're for democracy at all. You can say you like other things: power, control, the end of voting, choosing the president you want, rule by technocratic elites chosen by SAT score, all of which I personally agree with. But you can't say you like democracy per se.So Colorado, listen, I dream every day of being a dictator. I would seize the local golf course and turn it into a park on day one; day two, expand Austin breakfast taco territory to the whole country; day three, invade Canada. Day four, we ban zoos. My fellow fascists, we're on the same page. Let's just drop the democracy stuff and call it what it is. But until courts pick candidates for Colorado Supreme Court, the voters of Colorado can choose if they want democracy. 

The German populist radical right party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD) was founded amid various economic and political crises. This article argues that the electoral success of this political challenger, however, is rooted in more than the upsurge of populist resentments born out of these crises. Integrating theories about the activation of attitudes with arguments about the effects of exposure to local political contexts, I contend that the electoral success of the AfD reflects the mobilization of deep-seated nativist sentiments. To test these propositions, I draw on a large panel dataset of the AfD's electoral returns at the municipal level (N = 10,694) which I link to pre-crises data on the marginal success of extreme-right parties. Exploiting variation between municipalities located within the same county (N = 294), I estimate a series of spatial simultaneous autoregressive error models by maximum likelihood estimation. The results show that the success of the AfD is rooted in the local prevalence of nativist sentiments that date prior to the crises that fomented the formation of the challenger party - an effect that becomes stronger in the course of the radicalization of the AfD. I further demonstrate that the populist right AfD is best able to broaden its electoral appeal among local communities with an extreme-right sub-culture, particularly in Eastern Germany. This suggests that even small extreme-right networks can act as a breeding ground for the populist right and help spread xenophobic and nativist sentiments among citizens.

The century horizon is the greatest century boundary open to ordinary sight. The time structure in a "century" case is set forth by imagination, expectation of, etc. not so much practical but of ideological (socio-mythological) character. Transition from the 19th to the 20th century was expected in Europe in the atmosphere of tension and some fabulousness: over the threshold of "the century of progress" which it (the 19th) seemed to be both were expected, the collapse of traditional values (morals, beauty, religion, social order) and bringing about social and technical Utopias. The end of the 20th, the most catastrophic century in humanity's memory doesn't seem a disaster, it is rather perceived as carnival-festival event. Actually all mass processes typical for the 20th century have proved to be controlled, both by social organizations and by specific means of mass influence (mass propaganda and advertising through mass media). On a closer look the behavior of modern "crowds" also depends on ideological and psychological attitudes of mass influence systems. If the 17th century was considered to be "the Age of Reason", the 18th the Age of Enlightenment, and the 19th the Age of Progress, the 20th century was mainly the Age of Nations (this latter symbol being evidently deprived of positive values colouring). Two World wars and all the processes of national self-assertion on the outskirts of Europe and in post-colonial world occurred under this sign. The 20th century witnessed the downfall of all tremendous social constructions that envisaged a certain plan of rational, optimal, just, etc. organization, as it seemed to its developers, to be imposed on society. It's important in this case to draw attention to mass "component" in all the processes, events, and cataclysms of the passing century. Dictatorship regimes in the 20th century are the regimes of violence towards masses by organized masses (mass parties, movements, systems of mass support). And the dictators themselves are the leaders lifted up and loved by masses, who both order them about and need their support. The essence of the 20th century events have rather been cataclysms and collisions connected with contradictions of modernization processes, "lagging behind" modernization, peculiarities of modernization processes at various socio-cultural levels. It was only in the 20th century that public opinion was recognized as a factor of social life, as well as a subject of special study. There are two principal patterns of modern public opinion. The first one is a pattern of open competitive public opinion where various positions compete. The second one is a pattern of closed public opinion with only one, wittingly true position expressed by the only possible "axis" system of leader-party-ideology. Public opinion polls, at least on political issues, are impossible in closed societies but situation in such environment may be described by other indicators, that is by the same mass (plebiscite) voting, mass expressions of demonstrative support of a leader or of hatred to hostile forces, by absence of protests, by type of political persecutions. In the destinies and tragedies of the 20th century public opinion plays an important role, not only as a mirror but as organizer, as a factor of cohesion of human multitudes, of making up the illusions, passions, idols, of justification (more seldom, condemning) mass crimes. One may believe that in understanding this century events the criticism of mass reason will sometime play its role ("criticism" in a sense of a classical period, as the analysis of possibilities, bounds, conditions of existence). The specific main character of the XXth century is a mass person. ; The century horizon is the greatest century boundary open to ordinary sight. The time structure in a "century" case is set forth by imagination, expectation of, etc. not so much practical but of ideological (socio-mythological) character. Transition from the 19th to the 20th century was expected in Europe in the atmosphere of tension and some fabulousness: over the threshold of "the century of progress" which it (the 19th) seemed to be both were expected, the collapse of traditional values (morals, beauty, religion, social order) and bringing about social and technical Utopias. The end of the 20th, the most catastrophic century in humanity's memory doesn't seem a disaster, it is rather perceived as carnival-festival event. Actually all mass processes typical for the 20th century have proved to be controlled, both by social organizations and by specific means of mass influence (mass propaganda and advertising through mass media). On a closer look the behavior of modern "crowds" also depends on ideological and psychological attitudes of mass influence systems. If the 17th century was considered to be "the Age of Reason", the 18th the Age of Enlightenment, and the 19th the Age of Progress, the 20th century was mainly the Age of Nations (this latter symbol being evidently deprived of positive values colouring). Two World wars and all the processes of national self-assertion on the outskirts of Europe and in post-colonial world occurred under this sign. The 20th century witnessed the downfall of all tremendous social constructions that envisaged a certain plan of rational, optimal, just, etc. organization, as it seemed to its developers, to be imposed on society. It's important in this case to draw attention to mass "component" in all the processes, events, and cataclysms of the passing century. Dictatorship regimes in the 20th century are the regimes of violence towards masses by organized masses (mass parties, movements, systems of mass support). And the dictators themselves are the leaders lifted up and loved by masses, who both order them about and need their support. The essence of the 20th century events have rather been cataclysms and collisions connected with contradictions of modernization processes, "lagging behind" modernization, peculiarities of modernization processes at various socio-cultural levels. It was only in the 20th century that public opinion was recognized as a factor of social life, as well as a subject of special study. There are two principal patterns of modern public opinion. The first one is a pattern of open competitive public opinion where various positions compete. The second one is a pattern of closed public opinion with only one, wittingly true position expressed by the only possible "axis" system of leader-party-ideology. Public opinion polls, at least on political issues, are impossible in closed societies but situation in such environment may be described by other indicators, that is by the same mass (plebiscite) voting, mass expressions of demonstrative support of a leader or of hatred to hostile forces, by absence of protests, by type of political persecutions. In the destinies and tragedies of the 20th century public opinion plays an important role, not only as a mirror but as organizer, as a factor of cohesion of human multitudes, of making up the illusions, passions, idols, of justification (more seldom, condemning) mass crimes. One may believe that in understanding this century events the criticism of mass reason will sometime play its role ("criticism" in a sense of a classical period, as the analysis of possibilities, bounds, conditions of existence). The specific main character of the XXth century is a mass person.

Book reviewed in this article:THE HOVERING GIANT: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America. By Cole BlasierRATIONALITY AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: Contributions to the Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences. Edited by S.I. Benn and G.W. MortimorePOLITICAL OBLIGATION. By Richard E. FlathmanELECTORAL BEHAVIOR A Comparative Handbook. Edited by Richard RoseABORIGINES IN COLONIAL SOCIETY, 1788–1850: From 'Noble Savage' to 'Rural Pest'. Edited by Jean WoolmingtonBLACK VIEWPOINTS: The Aboriginal Experience. Edited by Colin Tatz assisted by Keith McConnochieKANT AND THE PROBLEM OF HISTORY. By William A. GalstonTHE MAKING OF INDIAN POLICY 1853–1865 Relations of the Court af Directors, the India Board, the India Office and the Government of India. By Prashanto K. ChatterjiTOLERATION. By Preston KingTHE GERMAN PUBLIC MIND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: A Social History of German Political Sentiments, Aspirations and Ideas. By Frederick HertzINSIDE THE MONSTER: Writings on the United States and American Imperialism. By José Martí. Edited and with an introduction and notes by Philip S. FonerPUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION IN AUSTRALIA A Reader. Edited by R.N. Spann and G.R. CurnowPROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY Religion in Early Australia: The Problem of Church and State. Edited with an introduction by Jean WoolmingtonW. DILTHEY: SELECTED WRITINGS. Edited, translated and introduced by H.P. RickmanTHE LAW IN CRISIS Bridges of Understanding. By C.G. WeeramantryBROADCASTING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA. By Ian K. MackayNEW DIMENSIONS OF WORLD POLITICS. Edited by Geoffrey L. Goodwin and Andrew LinklaterTHE CABINET OFFICE TO 1945. By S.S. WilsonFREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE A Study of the Political Ideas of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind. By Judith N. ShklarTHE SOCIAL PROBLEM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ROUSSEAU. By John CharvetJEAN BODlN AND THE RISE OF ABSOLUTIST THEORY. By Julian H. FranklinBLACK ARMADA. By Rupert LockwoodSIR MATTHEW NATHAN British Colonial Governor and Civil Servant. By Anthony P. HaydonTHE ART OF ANTICIPATION: Values and Methods in Forecasting. Edited by Solomon Encel, Pauline K. Marstrand and William PagePROGRESS AND PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL FORECASTING. Edited by Christopher Freeman, Marie Jahoda and Ian MilesTHE TRANSFER OF POWER, 1942–7, vol. VI, THE POST‐WAR PHASE New Moves by the Labour Government, 1 August 1945–22 March 1946. Edited by Nicholas Mansergh and Penderel MoonU.S. POLICY AND STRATEGIC INTERESTS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. By Yuan‐Li WuFOIJNDATIONS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. By Peter B. HarrisINTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE. Third edition. By Carlton Clymer Rodee, Totton James Anderson, Carl Quimby Christol and Thomas H. GreeneTHE STRANGE NEUTRALITY, SOVIET‐JAPANESE RELATIONS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1941–1945. By G.A. LensenLAND TENURE IN PRE‐REVOLUTIONARY CHINA Kiangsu Province in the 1920s and 1930s. By Robert AshA CRITICAL GUIDE TO THE KWANGTUNG PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES DEPOSITED AT THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE OF LONDON. By David PongSOCIETY AND POLITICS IN GERMANY 1500–1750. By G BeneckeIN THE ANGLO‐ARAB LABYRINTH: The McMahon‐Husayn Correspondence and its Interpretations 1914–1939. By Elie KedourieTHE ARABS IN ISRAEL. By Sabri JiryisTHE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT, FROM COMINTERN TO COMINFORM. By F. ClaudinWOMEN AS CITIZENS A Comparative Review. By Josephine F. MilburnWHITE ON THE MEDIA. By Brian WhiteMATHEMATICAL APPROACHES TO POLITICS. Edited by H.R. Alker, Jr., K.W. Deutsch and A.H. StoetzelSOCIALIST OWNERSHIP AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS. By Wlodzimierz Brus, translated by R.A. ClarkePUBLIC, TRADE UNION AND COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE IN GERMANY: The Commonweal Idea. By Walter Hesselbach, translated from the German by Karl KuhneSOVIET FOREIGN POLICY, 1962–1973 The Paradox of Super Power. By Robin EdmondsA HANDBOOK TO ELECTIONS IN UTTAR PRADESH 1920–1951. By P.D. Reeves, B.D. Graham and J.M. GoodmanUNTO GOD AND CAESAR Religious issues in the Emerging Commonwealth 1891–1906. By Richard ElyLEADERSHIP IN FIJI. By Rusiate NayacakalouLOCAL POLITICS AND THE RISE OF PARTY: The London Municipal Society and the Conservative Intervention in Local Elections 1894–1963. By Ken YoungSOLDIERS AND POLITICS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: Civil‐Military Relations in Comparative Perspective. By J. Stephen HoadleyA BLANKET A YEAR. Bv Leonard Broom and F. Lancaster JonesABORKINAL HEALTH. By Peter M. MoodieKASHMIR IN TRANSITION 1885–1893. By Dilip Kumar GhoseA RESEARCH GUIDE TO AUSTRALIAN POLITICS AND COGNATE SUBJECTS (ARGAP). By Henry Mayer with Margaret Bettison and Judy KeeneMINDFUL MILITANTS The Amalgamated Engineering Union in Australia, 1920–1972. By T. SheridanTHE FUTURE OF AUSTRALIAN FEDERALISM. By Gordon Greenwood. Second editionMELBOURNE STUDIES IN EDUCATION 1976. Edited by Stephen Murray‐SmithROYAL COMMISSIONS AND DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEES IN BRITAIN A Case‐study in Institutional Adaptiveness and Public Participation in Government. By T.J. CartwrightLEGISLATIVE STAFFING: A Comparative Perspective. Edited by James J. Heaphey and Alan P. BalutisTHE SILENT DICTATORSHIP The Politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and Ludendorff, 1916–1918. By Martin KitchenTRIAL OF FAITH Religion and Politics in Tocqueville's Thought. By Doris S. GoldsteinVOTING FOR THE QUEENSLAND LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 1890–1964. By Colin A. Hughes and B.D. GrahamVOTING FOR THE VICTORIAN LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 1890–1964 (1975).VOTING FOR THE NEW SOUTH WALES LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 1890–1964 (1975).VOTING FOR THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN, WESTERN AUSTRALIAN AND TASMANIAN LOWER HOUSES 1890–1964 (1976).OUR PARTNERSHIP. By Beatrice Webb. Edited by Barbara Drake and Margaret I. Cole with an introduction by George FeaverA CONSTITUTION FOR THE SOCIALIST COMMONWEALTH OF GREAT BRITAIN. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. With an introduction by Samuel H. BeerMETHODS OF SOCIAL STUDY. By Sidney and Beatrice Webb. With an introduction by T.H. MarshallTHE CORRESPONDENCE OF G.E. MORRISON, vol. I, 1895–1912. Edited by Lo Hui‐min

In 2016 81% of self-identified white evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in the Presidential election and continued to support him after (Smith & Martinez, 2016; Peters & Dias, 2018). White evangelicals were willing to back a Republican candidate that appeared to deviate from their normal expectations of morality. The relationship between the Republican Party and white evangelical Christians has existed since the election of Ronald Reagan. This project examines the political history of white evangelicals in the United States. It analyzes recent data to compare the differences between white evangelicals and the general population and analyzes reports on white evangelicals during and after the 2016 election. This information is used to establish long-term historical trends that show why white evangelicals showed strong support both during and after the 2016 election within the broader historical context of white evangelicals' relationship with politics. The results show that white evangelicals support for Trump is due to his alignment with their core political issues. Evangelicals as a political force are reactionary and established themselves in opposition to progressive change in the United States. Their core issues during their emergence have remained mostly consistent, and they have developed new core values in response to the United States' changing political landscape. Donald Trump's policies and rhetoric match the white evangelical position on all their primary issues. In combination with this, evangelicals now care less about the personal morality of candidates than any other group which shows a change in how they view candidates. White evangelicals feel as though Donald Trump is on their side and since immoral personal conduct is no longer an issue, his behavior does not pose a significant obstacle to white evangelical support. In summation white evangelicals like other voters, support candidates who will address their issues of concern which is why they supported Donald Trump during the 2016 election and continued to support him afterward. The results of this thesis confirm the findings of the majority of the scholarship on white evangelicals and Trump. Other research consistently concludes that white evangelicals support Trump because he is able to effectively address their fears about the direction that the United States is going and enacts regressive policies which suit their reactionary political agenda. Where the results diverge from previous work is on the matter of how to court evangelicals using religious rhetoric. Previous research has concluded that using religious rhetoric has been a necessary part of wooing the white evangelical voting bloc. This thesis shows that this rhetoric is no longer a requirement to gain white evangelical support. Today white evangelicals are more interested in enacting their values through policies than through a "Godly candidate". Finally, this thesis goes beyond existing scholarship by placing the events of the 2016 election with the broader history of white evangelicals as reactionaries in American politics. It establishes that white evangelicals did not change radically as a group to accommodate Donald Trump. Their positions now are due to long term changes within the group and Trump's populist policies addressing their long-term concerns. There is no evidence to suggest that their support will decline as he continues to accommodate their needs and further solidifies their ties to the Republican Party which is actively changing to support the president.

Dance has long been known to play a significant role in the social lives of men and women in colonial British America. What historians have largely failed to note is the integral nature of dance, in particular the longways English country form, to the realm of politics and the formation of national identity. From the earliest days of its dissemination in print, English country dance served a political purpose. In 1651, under Oliver Cromwell's dour Protectorate government, Royalists like publisher John Playford used dance as a subtle form of resistance. Urging the public to remember the monarchy fondly and to join together in a quintessentially English pastime, Playford's English Dancing Master created an imagined community of political dissenters. The Playford manuals set the standard for the politicization of dance in Anglo culture, both in the politically-charged dance titles they contained and in the intended function of dance performance itself. This awareness of dance's potential and the tendency to employ it for political ends were carried across the Atlantic to England's North American colonies. In the years preceding the American Revolution, as well as during the war itself, the ballroom became a political space to a heightened degree. While minuets established a clear social hierarchy, country dances broke it down into more democratic forms. Codes of conduct at assemblies allowed attendees (especially women) to publicize their political allegiances through their dress, behavior, and dance selection. Both the British and the Americans, up and down the eastern seaboard, sought to turn the politicization of the ballroom to their advantage; spectacular fetes such as Howe's Mischianza won local populations to the British cause, while the Philadelphia Assembly prohibited Loyalists from subscribing to its events. Partially in response to British extravagance, the Continental Army characterized its festivities as orderly, economical, and virtuous. In the Federal era, political rivals again used dance as a form of propaganda, warring over the legacy of independence. International tensions ran high as France found itself embroiled in a bloody revolution that sent a new wave of emigres fleeing abroad. Many settled in the United States and often made a living teaching dance. Pro- and anti-French feeling spilled over into the ballroom. as the rise of the middle class rendered dance an understandable language across a wide swath of the voting population, two major themes arose: that of dance as a wholesome rustic activity in keeping with lauded classical virtues, and that of the social-leveling, chaotic frolic, imbibed with vice and dangerous Jacobin principles. An analysis of dance metaphors reveals growing discomfort with race relations and with the political aspirations of the lower classes, suggesting the gradual closure of the window of opportunity that independence had proffered. English country dance persisted into Jacksonian America, despite the rise of French cotillions and quadrilles. Though it was a tool of reconciliation after the War of 1812, the longways set's association with egalitarianism made it a target for anti-Jackson feeling by the 1820s. Changing styles in dance and politics also undercut the role of the ballroom. Women assumed a more public role in rallies and social movements, and small-set and partner dances allowed dancers to self-segregate, hindering large-scale communication on the dance floor.

The article analyzes various manifestations of patriotism as a political mobilizationcomponent. Political mobilization of citizens in the context of modern political processes is treated as a way to encourage political participation, which is not always totally similar to political activeness. Traditional forms of political participation (voting in the elections, demonstrations, social movements) are complemented by new types of citizens' political activity, starting with signing online petitions to organizing political flash mobs. Patriotism significantly influences the political activity but has its peculiarities and various degree of display.The aim of the article is the analysis of patriotism as a political mobilization component that has various reasons as well as the ability to become a powerful mechanism for activating the political behavior of modern Ukrainians.Patriotism is treated as a socio-historical phenomenon, tied to certain historical epochs. While analyzing various approaches to determining the essence of patriotism we perceive it as an inborn feature of a person, which at the same time is developed in communication process (namely, through the influence of various social institutions, political forces, media etc.). It is a concrete,deeply rooted attitude of a citizen to his Motherland, which he demonstrates through an active and dedicated work on the prosperity of a country and protecting it from foreign aggressors who wish to ruin its territorial integrity and state sovereigntyThe events of 2013-2014 (the Revolution of Dignity, annexation of the Crimea, conflict in the East of the Ukraine) demonstrated a rapid rise of patriotic feelings of the Ukrainians who united their efforts in the fight for the sovereignty of their state. Prior to these events Ukrainians only united at threat of losing what they possess – their usual lifestyle, prestige, authority, income, status, group values' depreciation etc. In other words, the increase of mass irritableness and fear led to a short-term feeling of unity among the members of the society.The study analyzes the patriotic mood dynamics during the last few years among the citizens of Ukraine and shows the regional differences of its manifestation. The powerful informational influence of the Russian media together with the peculiarities of political subculture and mentality of the dwellers of the Eastern Ukraine facilitate further activation of a destructive patriotism (pseudopatriotism if looked at from the point of view of a state's integrity). The study compares manifestations of patriotism in Ukraine and in Russia as well as determines considerable differences in them.The study concludes that the patriotic component of mobilization may have various causes, aims and forms (natural, regional, social and state). Social patriotism is now characteristic for the majority of the Ukrainians. It inspires the citizens and facilitates the fight for the sovereignty and democratic development of the state. ; Проанализированы различные проявления патриотизма как составляющейполитической мобилизации. Определена сущность патриотизма и региональные различия среди граждан Украины. Акцентировано внимание на конструктивной объединяющей роли патриотизма, который выступает ценностной основой в кризисные периоды развития государства. Доказано, что он способен выполнять также деструктивную функцию, способствуя дезинтеграционным процессам в государстве ; Проаналізовано різні прояви патріотизму як складової політичної мобілізації.Визначено сутність патріотизму і регіональні відмінності серед громадян України. Акцентовано увагу на конструктивній об'єднувальній ролі патріотизму, який виступає ціннісною основою у кризові періоди розвитку держави. Доведено, що він здатний виконувати також деструктивну функцію, сприяючи дезінтеграційним процесам в державі

The transition towards a more sustainable economic system is increasingly seen as an urgency to respond to the social, environmental and economic challenges of our times. Mirroring this increased attention, the scholarly literature on transition and transition management, "degrowth" and sustainable development (e.g., Loorbach, 2007, Boulanger, 2008) has considerably developed across a set of disciplines (sociology, geography, economics, engineering, etc.). The solutions put forth by the different literature streams vary to a large extent and rely on distinct if not opposed ideological foundations, from the radical, anti-consumerist vision of "degrowth" to the much softer and vaguer, reformist trend of "sustainable development". Common to the different literature streams, however, is to mainly focus on two levels of analysis. First, the systemic level receives most attention when it comes to diagnoses of limitations in the extant system and exploration of what alternative – non-growth, post-transition or at least sustainable – systems or economies would look like. This focus on systems is logical given the scope of the expected (r)evolutions to undertake. It is also coherent with the main disciplines involved in this "macro-level" research effort: economics, sociology, political science, philosophy, etc. A second and subsequent level of analysis that has been considered lies at the other extreme of the continuum: the individual. Indeed, as the failures of the extant economic system have been linked to the unrealistic and ideologically oriented vision of the individual as an ever-calculating, utility-maximizing "homo oeconomicus" (Stiglitz, 2009), questions have arisen about the human behavior required to generate or at least participate in the alternative systems conceived at the macro level. Put another way, to what extent and in what sense do we need to change our individual behaviors, in terms of purchasing, working, voting, investing, moving, and acting in general, in order to liberate ourselves from the homo oeconomicus patterns and consider alternative behaviours that, put together, may contribute to alternative systems? This "micro-level" perspective has relied on work in psychology and anthropology in order to (re)discover new avenues for increased reflexivity and conscious action. Between the macro and micro perspectives lie a diversity of "meso" actors consisting of more or less formalized groups of individuals, organizations and institutions such as: public authorities (from local to global), businesses, civil society, educational institutions, etc. Much work has been undertaken on the role of these different types of "meso-actor" in the transition towards alternative economies, but in view of the author of this chapter this has been developed either in a superficial way, mentioning the different actors to engage in these processes, or using "black boxes" that suppose homogeneous sets of actors such as "companies" or "civil society actors". In other words, although several case studies enter into the complexity of one or several of these black boxes, there is lack of clarity and depth in the study of how different types of actors, especially economic actors, may engage in and inspire societal change. In particular, little work makes the connection between how economic organizations function internally, and how they (may) act towards society (e.g., Moore et al., 2009). This chapter does not aim, of course, to fill this knowledge gap on its own. It intends to bring a modest contribution to understanding the role of meso actors and in particular economic organizations by focusing on one specific, under-researched but important actor that is social enterprise. As will be described further, social enterprises are still weakly defined and heterogeneous (Dart, 2004, Defourny and Nyssens, 2010, Huybrechts and Nicholls, 2012). Yet, they share two features that seem of particular interest in the debate mentioned here. First, they do not correspond to a neatly defined organizational category as they precisely lie at the intersection of two spheres that are commonly clearly separated and often opposed to each other: the market and the civil society. Such a "hybrid" nature offers the potential for a specific and original contribution to the debate on alternative economies and systems, insofar as hybridity is synonym for innovation and unconventional thinking, as this chapter aims to show. A second feature of social enterprises is their supposed coherence, at least theoretically, between internal functioning and external contribution. In other words, the new societal solutions that social enterprises offer through their products and services are supposed to be coherent with the solutions experimented within their very organizational structures. Despite their diversity and their obvious limitations, it is thus suggested here that examining social enterprises may offer at least two contributions to the discussion on alternative economies. First, by understanding the potential of hybridity, i.e. combination of distinct institutional patterns, to the reconfiguration of economic systems. Second, by highlighting the link between intra-organizational functioning and societal behavior, in order to show how engaging actors in building alternative economies must involve in one way or another these two dimensions. ; Peer reviewed

Abstract. What people say on social media has turned into a rich source of information to understand social behavior. Sentiment analysis of Twitter data has been widely used to capture trends in public opinion regarding important events such as political elections. However, current research in social media analysis in political domains faces two major problems, namely: sentiment analysis methods implemented are often too simple, and most of the researches have assumed that all users and their tweets are trustworthy. This thesis is aimed at dealing with these problems to achieve more reliable public opinion measurements. Colombia 2014 presidential election was proposed as case study. First, a research on social spammer detection on Twitter was carried out by following machine learning approaches to distinguish spammer accounts from non-spammer ones. Because of the brevity of tweets and the widespread use of mobile devices, Twitter is also a rich source of noisy data containing many non-standard word forms. Since this is a task that exploits the large amount of user-generated texts, the performance of sentiment analysis may drop significantly if several lexical variation phenomena are not dealt with. For that reason, a lexical normalization system of Spanish tweets was developed to improve the quality of natural language analysis, using finite-state transducers and statistical language modeling. Lastly, a sentiment analysis system of Spanish tweets was developed by implementing a supervised classification approach. The system was applied in the Colombian election to infer voting intention. Experimental results highlight the importance of denoising in Twitter data to achieve more reliable public opinion measurements. Together with this, results show the potential of social media analysis to infer vote share, obtaining the lowest mean absolute error and correctly ranking the highest-polling candidates in the first round election. However, such an important method cannot be put forward as a substitute of the traditional polling. ; Lo que las personas dicen en plataformas de social media se ha convertido en una fuente valiosa de información para entender el comportamiento social. Análisis de sentimientos de datos de Twitter se ha utilizado ámpliamente para capturar tendencias en la opinión pública con respecto a temas importantes como los son las elecciones políticas. Sin embargo, la investigación actual sobre aplicaciones de análisis de social media en contextos políticos enfrenta dos grandes problemas, a saber: se han empleado los métodos más simples de análisis de sentimientos, y se ha asumido que todos los usuarios y sus tweets son dignos de confianza. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo hacer frente a estos problemas con el fin de alcanzar mediciones más fiables de la opinión pública. Las elecciones presidenciales en Colombia de 2014 se propusieron como caso de estudio. En primer lugar, se llevó a cabo una investigación sobre la detección de spammers en Twitter, implementando enfoques de aprendizaje automático para distinguir cuentas spammers de las que no lo son. Debido a la brevedad de los tweets y al ámplio uso de dispositivos móviles, Twitter se ha convertido en una fuente de datos ruídosos que contiene muchas formas de palabra que no son estándar. Al tratarse de una tarea que explota la gran cantidad de texto generado por los usuarios, el desempeño de análisis de sentimientos podría degradarse si no se abordan varios fenómenos de variación léxica presentes en los tweets. Por esta razón, se desarrolló un sistema de normalización léxica de tweets en español, el cual emplea transductores de estado finito y modelado de lenguaje estadístico, a fin de mejorar la calidad del análisis del lenguaje natural. Por último, se desarrolló un sistema de análisis de sentimientos de tweets en español siguiendo un enfoque de clasificación supervisada, el cual se aplicó en el contexto de las citadas elecciones para realizar inferencia de intención de voto. Los resultados experimentales resaltan la importancia de eliminar el ruído de los datos de Twitter que se utilizan para realizar mediciones de la opinión pública. Junto con esto, los resultados muestran el potencial del análisis de social media para inferir la distribución de los votos, obteniendo la media del error absoluto más baja y correctamente clasificando los candidatos de mayor votación en la primera vuelta electoral. Sin embargo, dicho método no puede plantearse como un sustituto del sondeo electoral tradicional. ; Maestría

This thesis consists of four self-contained essays in economics. Their abstracts are presented below: Exit, Voice and Political Change: Evidence from Swedish Mass Migration to the United States. We study the political effects of mass emigration to the United States in the 19th century using data from Sweden. To instrument for total emigration over several decades, we exploit severe local frost shocks that sparked an initial wave of emigration, interacted with within-country travel costs. Our estimates show that emigration substantially increased the local demand for political change, as measured by labor movement membership, strike participation and voting. Emigration also led to de facto political change, increasing welfare expenditures as well as the likelihood of adopting more inclusive political institutions. Mass Migration, Cheap Labor, and Innovation. Migration is often depicted as a major problem for struggling developing countries, as they may lose valuable workers and human capital. Yet, its effects on sending regions are ambiguous and depend crucially on local market responses and migrant selection. This paper studies the effects of migration on technological innovation in sending communities during one of the largest migration episodes in human history: the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913). Using novel historical data on Sweden, where about a quarter of its population migrated, we find that migration caused an increase in technological patents in sending municipalities. To establish causality, we use an instrumental variable design that exploits severe local growing season frost shocks together with within-country travel costs to reach an emigration port. Exploring possible mechanisms, we suggest that increased labor costs, due to low-skilled emigration, induced technological innovation. On the Right Track: Railroads, Mobility and Innovation During Two Centuries. We study the construction of the 19th-century Swedish railroad network and estimate its effects on innovation during two centuries. To address endogenous placement of the network, our analysis exploits the fact that the main trunk lines were built with the overarching aim to connect particular city centers, while at the same time considering construction costs. Estimates show that innovative activities increased substantially in areas traversed by the railroads. The number of active innovators increased and, moreover, they became more productive. Exploring potential mechanisms, we highlight the importance of knowledge diffusion across space by studying spatial patterns of collaboration between innovators. Our analysis shows that innovators residing in areas connected by the railroad start to collaborate more and over longer distances, especially with other innovators located along the railroad network. Finally, we show that the differences in innovative activities were intensified over the 20th century. Areas traversed by the historical railroads exhibit much higher rates of innovation in the present day. Homeownership, Housing Wealth and Socioeconomic Outcomes: Evidence from Sweden 1999-2007. This paper studies a government supported homeownership wave in Sweden, where tenants bought their apartments at prices below the market value in the ownership market. Using detailed administrative register data paired with a difference-in-differences strategy, it compares individuals subject to an ownership transfer to similar individuals who never got the opportunity to buy their homes. After establishing that the new homeowners instantly increased their net wealth, the effects of homeownership and housing wealth on a set of socioeconomic outcomes are measured over time. Although the lump-sum transfer is large, the average individual only modestly adjusts her behavior in terms of labor market participation and demographic decision-making. Studying differences across age, younger tenants increase childbearing and decrease labor income, although modestly. Individuals near their retirement age decrease their labor market participation.

En el periodo que va desde el 2000 al 2011, el Partido Conservador Colombiano y el panorama político del país tuvo múltiples cambios desde el punto de vista organizacional, la gran mayoría de los presidentes de los Directorios Nacionales del Partido que asumieron durante este periodo, implementaron estrategias de reforma que específicamente en el caso de las mujeres, se refieren a la creación de la Organización Nacional de Mujeres, la inclusión de cuotas, la inclusión del voto privilegiado para las mujeres, la creación de la Secretaria de la Mujer, la creación de la figura de la Consulta Popular, entre otras, que se muestran hoy como grandes fortalezas en la organización. A pesar de esto, no se puede desconocer el conjunto de resistencias explícitas fundamentadas en el comportamiento tradicional de un partido que llevan a la constitución de instituciones no formales por costumbre y conveniencia y que han trascendido aún el día de hoy. Éstas se manifiestan durante el periodo de estudio con la inclusión del voto preferente, el clientelismo, la negativa a la consulta, el machismo, las divisiones internas por personalismos políticos y el machismo, las cuales en muchos casos han sido parte de la estructura tradicional del Partido Conservador y que aún persisten. Dichas estrategias serán definidas en este trabajo como contrareforma. En el marco de estas pujas entre reforma y contrareforma las mujeres del Partido se consolidaron y se empoderaron dentro de la organización, ellas se han beneficiado de las dos vertientes. Así como se fortalecieron con la reforma, con la contrareforma, muchas de las mujeres ingresaron al Partido para lograr sus grandes caudales electorales e incluso convertirse hoy en día en caciques. En este sentido, este trabajo va a permitir identificar cómo se ha apropiado el Partido Conservador Colombiano del tema de la mujer al interior de su organización interna, teniendo en cuenta los procesos de reforma y contrareforma desde el año 2000 hasta el año 2011. ; In the period from 2000 to 2011, the Conservative Party of Colombia and the country's political landscape had multiple changes from the organizational point of view, most of the presidents of the National Directory of the Party who took over this period, implemented strategies of reform that specifically in the case of women, included the creation of the National Organization for Women, the privileged vote for women, the creation of the Secretariat for Women, among others which are today seen as great strengths in the organization. Despite this, it can´t be ignored the set of explicit resistance strategies settled in the traditional behavior of a party that have transcended even today. These are seen during the study period in the inclusion of preferential voting, clientelism, refusal to consultation, machismo, internal divisions between political personalities, which in many cases have been part of the traditional structure of the Conservative Party and that today they still persist. These strategies will be defined in this study as contrareforma. Under these bids between reforma and contrareforma women were consolidated and empowered within the organization, they have benefited from the two sides. Just as they were strengthened with the reforma, the contrareforma helped the women enter the Party and become caciques today. In this sense, this work will allow to identify how the Colombian Conservative Party has appropriated the issue of women within their internal organization, taking into account the processes of reforma and contrareforma since 2000 until 2011.

Norms in development are typically established at the global level to solve complex development challenges on the ground. These norms are standards of expected behavior about how things ought to be conducted and are deemed crucial for societies to flourish. Global norms, however, often fail to successfully diffuse to local contexts. The author intend to argue in this report that many initiatives are effective in putting norms on the global agenda, but few of these norms lead to transformational change on the ground because of cultural and political economy challenges that were not considered in the norm formation or in the advocacy campaign process. Nonetheless, there are lessons to consider that could lead to more successful outcomes. This report explores the journey of norms in development, from emergence to implementation. Specifically, it seeks to identify effective strategies for norms to take root and make part of the global and domestic agendas and limits. It also identifies challenges to the implementation of norms and some possible strategies and tools to overcome these challenges. The report draws from various global policy advocacy campaigns with a particular focus on governance; it also includes notable historic campaigns, such as Britain's antislavery campaign.

"Warum gehen Menschen zur Wahl, obwohl ihre einzelne Stimme doch kaum etwas beeinflussen kann? Eine experimentelle Studie zeigt, dass bei Wahlteilnehmern zwei kognitive Fehlleistungen zu beobachten sind: Selbstüberschätzung und Kontrollillusion. Viele Menschen glauben, dass sie beim Abstimmen weniger fehleranfällig sind als die anderen (Selbstüberschätzung) und dass sie mit einer nicht unbedeutenden Wahrscheinlichkeit den Ausgang der Wahl bestimmen werden, obwohl die wahre Wahrscheinlichkeit nahe bei Null liegt (Kontrollillusion)."[Autorenreferat]