Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article looks at the relationship between conflicts of sovereignty and patterns of national party competition, by focusing on the electoral support for two Italian populist radical right parties (PRRPs), the Lega (the League, Lega) and Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI). Using public opinion data, the study finds that the conflicts of sovereignty represent a distinct and multidimensional set of attitudes related to voting preferences. Overall, these conflicts seem to provide some electoral advantage to the PRRPs over other competing parties in the electoral arena. However, they do not provide the same amount of gains to all PRRPs, since ideologies and party identities are important intervening factors in the relationship between conflicts of sovereignty, party mobilisation, and voting behaviour.

This article looks at the relationship between conflicts of sovereignty and patterns of national party competition, by focusing on the electoral support for two Italian populist radical right parties (PRRPs), the Lega (the League, Lega) and Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy, FdI). Using public opinion data, the study finds that the conflicts of sovereignty represent a distinct and multidimensional set of attitudes related to voting preferences. Overall, these conflicts seem to provide some electoral advantage to the PRRPs over other competing parties in the electoral arena. However, they do not provide the same amount of gains to all PRRPs, since ideologies and party identities are important intervening factors in the relationship between conflicts of sovereignty, party mobilisation, and voting behaviour.

AbstractThe appeal to the re-appropriation of national sovereignty has recently become the unifying trait of a heterogeneous group of right-wing parties. The underlying reasoning behind this claim is that globalised elites ignore the needs of the people—defined as a restricted and ethnically homogeneous group of natives—they are supposed to represent. After defining the perimeter of this party cluster, including populist, national conservatives and extreme-right parties, this article explores the extent to which the adoption of similar political platforms might also be reflected in a convergence of parliamentary party articulations. A qualitative account of the evolution of parliamentary representation in a few right-wing parties from Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands shows that a two-way street of institutionalisation might be at play in the complex balance between uncompromising grassroots components and a more pragmatic institutional component.

Despite growing scientific interest in the subject, the empirical investigation regarding the strategic action choices related to the mobilization of right-wing organizations is still scarce, with most attention given to violence and few attempts to consider (and integrate for explanation) the context of both external (structural) and internal (organizational) factors that might affect them. In this article, focusing on different types of extreme-right organizations (political parties and non-party groups) in Italy and Spain, the emergence of violence by these groups as well as the use of other action strategies will be investigated. With a special emphasis on the actors' perceptions of reality, macro-level reasons (the organizations' attitudes towards the political and institutional environment, the closure/openness of the context, the availability of allies, etc.), as well as meso-level factors (the characteristics and dynamics of individual groups) will be tested. This will be achieved by combining qualitative and quantitative data from 20 semi-structured interviews with extreme-right leaders, with a protest event analysis of the most recent mobilization of extreme-right groups in the two countries (2005-09). The main differences and similarities between organizations and countries concerning right-wing mobilization specificities and the factors which influence them will be demonstrated.

This paper focuses on the different forms of action adopted by extreme right organizations (both political parties and non-party groups) in Italy and Spain during their recent mobilization and links them to the environmental conditions and internal organizational factors which might affect them. With particular attention paid to the actors' perceptions of reality, the macro-level factors (such as the favourable or unfavourable political opportunities of the context, the availability of allies in power, the degree of repression by authorities, etc.) as well as the meso-level factors (such as the internal characteristics of extreme right groups and their dynamics) will be explored in order to understand the action strategies of extreme right organizations and their recourse to violence. This paper, drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative research techniques, will be based on 20 semi-structured interviews with extreme right representatives of the main right wing organizations in Italy and Spain as well as a protest event analysis of newspapers dating from 2005 to 2009.
close

AbstractInnumeracy, that is, the inability to deal with numbers and provide correct estimates about political issues, is reported to be widespread among the public. Yet, despite the recognition that a conspiracy mindset is an increasingly common phenomenon in Western democracies, this has not been considered as a potential correlate of innumeracy. Using data from an online sample of respondents across 10 European countries, we show that those with a higher propensity to hold a conspiracy worldview tend to overestimate the actual share of the immigrant population living in their own country. This association holds true when accounting for country heterogeneity and other cognitive, affective and socio-demographic factors. Employing a comparative design and refined measurements, the article contributes to our understanding of how a conspiracy mentality may influence perceptions of relevant political facts, questioning basic processes of democratic accountability.

Bringing together over forty established and emerging scholars, this landmark volume is the first to comprehensively examine the evolution and current practice of social movement studies in a specifically European context. While its first half offers comparative approaches to an array of significant issues and movements, its second half assembles focused national studies that include most major European states. Throughout, these contributions are guided by a shared set of historical and social-scientific questions with a particular emphasis on political sociology, thus offering a bold and uncommonly unified survey that will be essential for scholars and students of European social movements