Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Mainstream parties have taken increasingly restrictive immigration policy positions across Western Europe. Yet the political consequences of this behaviour for citizens' democratic norms and practices are still not well understood. This article focuses on public political trust. Bridging the literatures on immigration-related trust and spatial theory, the spotlight is put on the consequences of mainstream party position-taking on immigration for the interconnectedness of citizens' immigration policy preferences, political distrust and far-right voting. An analysis of data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey and European Social Survey across 14 Western European democracies (2006–2018) suggests that tougher immigration positions of centre-right parties in government weaken the link between immigration scepticism and political distrust and, in turn, the relevance of political distrust as a precursor of far-right voting. This has important implications for our understanding of immigration politics and advances the existing literatures on party competition, political trust and far-right voting in several ways.

The political representation of citizens of immigrant origin in Western Europe has received much attention in recent years' political science research. While existing research has advanced our understanding of the drivers of citizens of immigrant origins' descriptive representation, a lot less is known about its consequences for citizens of immigrant origins' electoral participation. This article intends to address this gap in the literature by conducting the first cross-country comparative study of whether migrant-specific descriptive representation can attenuate turnout gaps between citizens of immigrant origin and native-origin citizens in 11 Western European democracies. Linking data on migrant-specific descriptive representation in national parliaments with survey data provided by the European Social Survey, results suggest that turnout gaps tend to be lower in countries where descriptive representation is high. However, this relationship is contingent upon citizens of immigrant origin who consider themselves to be in an ethnic minority position, in which they frequently experience discrimination. By contrast, there is no evidence that descriptive representation matters for turnout levels of non-marginalised citizens of immigrant origin. The study sheds light on the widely overlooked link between descriptive representation and the immigrant gap in turnout levels and opens up several avenues for future research.

The political representation of citizens of immigrant origin in Western Europe has received much attention in recent years' political science research. While existing research has advanced our understanding of the drivers of citizens of immigrant origins' descriptive representation, a lot less is known about its consequences for citizens of immigrant origins' electoral participation. This article intends to address this gap in the literature by conducting the first cross-country comparative study of whether migrant-specific descriptive representation can attenuate turnout gaps between citizens of immigrant origin and native-origin citizens in 11 Western European democracies. Linking data on migrant-specific descriptive representation in national parliaments with survey data provided by the European Social Survey, results suggest that turnout gaps tend to be lower in countries where descriptive representation is high. However, this relationship is contingent upon citizens of immigrant origin who consider themselves to be in an ethnic minority position, in which they frequently experience discrimination. By contrast, there is no evidence that descriptive representation matters for turnout levels of non-marginalised citizens of immigrant origin. The study sheds light on the widely overlooked link between descriptive representation and the immigrant gap in turnout levels and opens up several avenues for future research.

Does the geographical concentration of ethnic minorities influence their descriptive representation in closed-list systems? Counterintuitive to the idea that single-member district electoral rules are necessary for minorities' geographical representation, we argue that, in closed-list systems, parties are incentivised to allocate promising list positions to those minority candidates who are based in geographical areas where minorities concentrate. Empirically, we provide a case study of the list positions of dual candidates of immigrant origin running in the German mixed-member system in 2013. Results show a relationship between the list positions of candidates of immigrant origin and geographical concentrations of immigrant-origin residents.

Why do legislators engage in geographic representation in party-centred electoral systems, where they face weak re-election incentives to cultivate a personal vote? Existing research offers cross-pressuring incentive structures and intrinsic localism motivations as individual-level factors to explain this puzzle. In this article, we propose an alternative argument based on the principle of collective action within party-internal structures of labour division. We argue that legislators elected in the same multi-member district and under the same party label (party delegations) share collective vote-seeking incentives to collaborate with each other in order to strike a balance between the collective benefits and individual costs of constituency-oriented activities. Results from a comparative study of written parliamentary questions in Germany and Spain support our argument. Specifically, the study suggests that individual localism attributes interact with the team composition of party delegations to shape constituency-orientated behaviour.

Why do legislators engage in geographic representation in party-centred electoral systems, where they face weak re-election incentives to cultivate a personal vote? Existing research offers cross-pressuring incentive structures and intrinsic localism motivations as individual-level factors to explain this puzzle. In this article, we propose an alternative argument based on the principle of collective action within party-internal structures of labour division. We argue that legislators elected in the same multi-member district and under the same party label (party delegations) share collective vote-seeking incentives to collaborate with each other in order to strike a balance between the collective benefits and individual costs of constituency-oriented activities. Results from a comparative study of written parliamentary questions in Germany and Spain support our argument. Specifically, the study suggests that individual localism attributes interact with the team composition of party delegations to shape constituency-orientated behaviour.

AbstractThe European Climate Pact provides opportunities for individuals, communities and organisations to declare their commitment to climate action. This study analyses the publicly available web profiles of the European Climate Pact Ambassadors (PAs) as of January 2023. First, it explores the extent to which people who volunteer as PAs demonstrate commitment to young and future generations. Second, it investigates whether PAs who self-identify as young people are more likely than other PAs to justify their mandate by referring to the interests of young and future generations. Third, it examines whether PAs who self-identify as young people are more likely to indicate other young people as the target audience of their activities. The manual coding and quantitative analysis of the PAs' web profiles revealed that members of older generations as well as parents and grandparents are most likely to rationalise their engagement in the programme by referring to young and future generations. The data also showed that young people do target other young people when they act as PAs, but they are not the only group to do so. When compared to individuals with other professional identities, educators are also more likely to flag young people as their target audience.

AbstractLegislators are political actors whose main goal is to get re‐elected. They use their legislative repertoire to help them cater to the interests of their principals. It is argued in this article that we need to move beyond treating electoral systems as monolithic entities, as if all legislators operating under the same set of macro‐rules shared the same set of incentives. Rather, we need to account for within‐system variation – namely, candidate selection rules and individual electoral vulnerability. Using a most different systems design, Germany, Ireland and Portugal are leveraged with both cross‐system and within‐system variation. An original dataset of 345,000 parliamentary questions is used. Findings show that candidate selection rules blur canonical electoral system boundaries. Electoral vulnerability has a similar effect in closed‐list and mixed systems, but not in preferential voting settings.

Adopting public policies to deliver the ambitious long-term goals of the Paris Agreement will require significant societal commitment. That commitment will eventually emerge from the interaction between policies, publics and politicians. This article has two main aims. First, it reviews the existing literatures on these three to identify salient research gaps. It finds that existing work has focused on one aspect rather than the dynamic interactions between them all. Second, it sets out a more integrated research agenda that explores the three-way interaction between publics, policies and politicians. It reveals that greater integration is required to understand better the conditions under which different political systems address societal commitment dilemmas. In the absence of greater research integration, there is a risk that policymakers cling to two prominent but partial policy prescriptions: that 'democracy' itself is the problem and should be suspended; and that more deliberative forms of democracy are required without explaining how they will co-exist with existing forms.