Suchergebnisse

This study investigates how antidiscrimination policy and related policy knowledge influence citizens' support for the democratic system and its institutions. The article argues that antidiscrimination measures and knowledge about rights to equal treatment foster perceptions of government responsiveness, which increase political support among target groups and citizens who advocate egalitarianism. Utilizing a longitudinal design and more valid measures to resolve causality issues, the results of the empirical models show that increases in policy knowledge over time systematically predict higher political support, especially among individuals who hold egalitarian values. Individuals who are discriminated against express particularly high political support in contexts where antidiscrimination laws are expanded. Overall, the results amplify the role of policy knowledge as a key factor in studying policy feedback effects.

This article analyses Ségolène Royal's rise during 2006 to become the first ever female mainstream French presidential candidate in the context of ongoing presidentialising tendencies within the French Fifth Republic. It considers the extent to which Royal's candidacy represented a turning point for the French Left, not only because of her gender, but also because of her challenge to the Left's traditional organisational and ideological norms of presidential electoral politics. Her participatory democratic campaign organisation, Désirs d'Avenir by‐passed traditional party authority structures throughout 2006. However, in the face of declining poll ratings, Royal's candidacy reverted to a more orthodox relationship to the PS as 'presidential party'. Ideologically, her novel political language and down‐to‐earth style combine with a complex blend of egalitarianism and authoritarianism which treads novel ground. Yet the intriguing elements of her political vision have struggled to coalesce into a coherent and credible presidential programme.

Do democracies discriminate less against minorities as compared to non-democracies? How does the dominance of an ethnic group affect discrimination under various political regimes? We build a theory which tries to answer such questions. In our model, political leaders (democratically elected or not) decide on the allocation of spending on different types of public goods: a general public good and an ethnically-targetable public good which benefits the majority ethnic group while imposing a cost on the other minorities. We show that, under democracy, lower ethnic dominance leads to greater provision of the general public good while higher dominance implies higher provision of the ethnically-targetable good. Interestingly, the opposite relation obtains under dictatorship. This implies that political regime changes can favour or disfavour minorities based on the ambient level of ethnic dominance. Several historical events involving regime changes can be analysed within our framework and are consistent with our results.

That safety on the roads is a sine qua non to national development is no longer in doubt. Without this, multiple accidents and of course the concomitant carnage and death of nationals who would have contributed to national development would be the order of the day. The Federal Government of Nigeria thus decided to establish an arm to ensure safety on roads. This paper examined the history of the Federal Roads Safety Corps (F.R.S.C.) of Nigeria between 1988 and 2016. The paper employed the use and synthesis of available materials on the subject. It was found out that though the F.R.S.C. was doing its best to ensure safety on the roads, more still had to be done in this regard. It was therefore recommended that the Federal Government and States should further empower the safety organizations to achieve the objectives of their founding fathers

History has its testimony to the active participation of Meetei women during social and political crises in the conflict-ridden society of Manipur. The historic events of Nupi lal (women's war) 1904 and 1939 during the British colonial period of Manipur and the nude protest by a group of Meetei women at the western gate of Kangla in 2004 are worth mentioning. Such an active engagement of Meetei women in the political sphere of society, which is considered to be the world of men, makes them appear to challenge the delineation of the two worlds—'ghar and bahir', the home and the world—delineated for women and men, respectively. While it would be facile to judge the status of Meetei women based on their ostensibly visible appearances, there is no simple answer to the question of whether they are/are not bound by the boundaries of the home and the world. This article investigates the nature of Meetei women's engagement in the political sphere to see if their actions are in strict adherence to feminist political ideologies. This article also problematizes the straitjacketing of binaries of protector/protected, victim/agent, public/private and oppressor/victim.

Rare is the book that helps to shift the paradigm upon which an entire field rests. Such a book is Pieter Judson'sThe Habsburg Empire: A New History. Building on insights and critical approaches that have been emerging and developing for the last twenty to thirty years, Judson offers a fresh framework—a new scaffolding for interpreting the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, especially since the early eighteenth century.

This paper exploits five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to investigate issues of social and political capital in rural Viet Nam. I analyse membership of the Communist Party, 'mass organizations' (Farmers' Union, Women's Union, etc.) and other voluntary organizations, trust, and the significance of family ties in economic transactions (e.g. the share of land tenants who are relatives of their landlord). The paper also presents fixed effects regressions exploring the effects of social and political capital on household income. Results indicate positive returns to Communist Party membership, trust and access to informal insurance.

The political crisis developing in Venezuela is marked by extensive political imbalances. These result from the dismantling of the liberal democratic institutions established in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (CRBV) and their being replaced with a new state of direct democracy during the second term of Pres Hugo Chavez. The new emerging regime has characteristics of authoritarian populism. The CRBV state has been replaced by a non-liberal communal state. Chavez represents an emblematic case of Latin American populism. Without doubt a charismatic leader, he built a successful direct relationship with his followers via diverse mechanisms that partially explain not only the popularity he enjoyed until his death, but also the current institutional deterioration. Government management in the Chavez era has not been characterized by a stable development of institutions and routines. On the contrary, the revolutionary atmosphere introduces a logic of improvisation, provisional measures, and emergency operatives that has increased inefficiency. Adapted from the source document.