Suchergebnisse

In the past 20 years, Political Science research has increasingly focused on urban and local politics. We systematically review this literature and find that smaller cities are disproportionally underrepresented, particularly outside the United States. Smaller cities exhibit economic, social, and political patterns that differ from those in large metropolitan areas. Using administrative data and existing research, we show how cities of different sizes vary in their demographic characteristics; citizens' preferences; resources and capacity; intergovernmental relationships; and electoral politics. These patterns indicate the potential to update existing theories in Political Science, including those about gender and political participation, second-order elections, and intergovernmental relationships. We suggest that scholars consider how smaller cities might differ from larger cities and include smaller municipalities in their case study research. We also highlight political issues unique to small cities as new areas of inquiry.

AbstractDespite increasing access to high quality television (TV) series in the golden age of television, political scientists (and especially scholars of comparative politics) have not systematically considered the possibilities that television series might offer for instruction. This article aims to fill this gap by illustrating the opportunities for teaching political science using TV series and outlining ways of integrating television series into the classroom using selected clips, screening full episodes, or using an entire series as a text. We then illustrate these methods by discussing ways that television series might be used in a typical introductory course on European politics.

AbstractAspiring dominant-party regimes often institute major institutional and political reforms at the national level to ensure they retain control. However, subnational politics is an important, under-studied, component of regime consolidation. This study uses mayoral races in Hungary and Poland from 2006 to 2018 to examine two factors that may inhibit dominant-party regime consolidation in local politics: the use of two-round, i.e. runoff, electoral systems and strategic coordination among opposition parties. While we find little evidence that strategic coordination can lead to widespread opposition success in single-round systems, we do find that increasing the number of candidates decreases the likelihood of the nationally dominant party winning in the first round while not affecting the second round. As such, two-round mayoral elections may be an important buffer to dominant-party regime consolidation and may provide a training ground for the future opposition.

AbstractWhile numerous studies consider the roles that media consolidation, court‐packing, and economic crises have played in Hungary's democratic decline since 2010, none have considered the subnational mechanisms driving illiberalism. This study examines the types of subnational procedural tinkering that propel illiberalism by reducing local capacity for institutional resilience. Specifically, we trace how the right‐wing Fidesz‐KDNP government implemented subnational constraints to prevent the reemergence of a viable political opposition by (a) limiting opportunities for political contestation and (b) reducing oversight of the governing coalition. We employ a multimethod approach, pairing systematic document analysis of city council rules and regulations in Hungary's 27 largest municipalities with 26 in‐depth elite interviews across five Hungarian regional cities with mayors, councilmembers, and local leaders of each major political party. In contrast to a large literature on subnational democratic resilience, we examine how subnational maneuvers can enable single‐party consolidation and exacerbate authoritarian tendencies in declining democracies.

Abstract
As governments sought to manage the coronavirus pandemic, many pursed temporary increases in centralized authority, a general tactic of crisis management. However, in some countries, public health was not the only motive for centralization. The COVID-19 response coincided with broader worldwide trends toward autocratization. Some of these efforts happened while the world was preoccupied with responding to the pandemic without concretely referencing coronavirus; however, in other cases, public-health rationales are clearly and explicitly invoked as a pretext for actions that instead aid the consolidation of regime authority. This has been especially pernicious in subnational politics, where efforts have been made to undermine the ability of opposition parties to fairly contest local and regional politics. This article examines four cases in which political actors either opportunistically used distraction from the COVID-19 pandemic or explicitly invoked public health while seeking to undermine long-term political contestation in their jurisdictions: Hong Kong, Hungary, Uganda, and the United States. We characterize the use of pandemic response as pretext or opportunity for undermining opposition parties, recentralizing political authority in dominant actors, and inhibiting the fair contestation of elections.