Authors:Bruno González-Cacheda; Celso Cancela Outeda, Constantino Cordal Abstract: This investigation stems from the need to better comprehend the digitalisation of the Iberian parties and, especially, to understand the lack of scientific knowledge surrounding the digitalisation of political actors in Portugal. The principal objective of this investigation is the betterment of knowledge of the factors that intervene in the digitalisation of political parties. Taking various theoretical premises into account, we will analyse the relation between the age of the parties, the ideology and the stability of the party system, and the adoption of digital instruments for the purposes of contact, participation, deliberation, and mobilisation of financial resources between political parties with parliamentary representation in Portugal and Spain. To answer these questions the investigation used a data matrix taken from six qualitative variables applied to each of the analysed political parties. The results show a tendency towards a greater level of digitalisation in political parties located on the left of the ideological spectrum that were founded after the year 2008. Furthermore, the stability of the party system and a lower competitive capacity could partially explain the lower level of digitalisation in political parties in Portugal.
Authors:Deborah Galimberti Abstract: This article aims to explain the evolution of forms of political regulation for the allocation of resources and representation of interests in Southern Italy, at length qualified as clientelistic. It will show how managerial principles can be taken up in a context with a historical resistance to bureaucratic change as well as a political orientation which contests neoliberal beliefs. To this end, it analyses a sequence of political change in the Apulia region, while focusing on the political strategies and discourses concerning local development tools for entrepreneurs. It shows how the objective to increase the regional council's institutional capacity to deliver public policies turned into a managerial drift. It is argued that the critique of clientelism, considered the main factor hindering the development of the South, led to the prioritisation of efficiency over representation of collective interests. The critique of clientelism corresponds to the mechanism through which managerialism has spread in a context of economic crisis.
Authors:Iolanda Bianchi Abstract: In the post-Marxist debate, commons have emerged as a means to develop an autonomous path of emancipation from capitalism. However, the extent to which commons can construct this emancipation autonomously from the state is unclear. By focusing its analysis on the city-wide scale, this article examines the extent to which urban commons are materially supported by the local state, the criteria used by the local state in offering its support, and how urban commons perceive it and its claims. The research study is set in Barcelona and presents the results of 101 responses to a survey carried out with 429 urban commons. It shows that many urban commons are able to reproduce thanks to the economic and property support of the local state, that the local state often allocates resources by exercising its discretionary power, and that many urban commons tend not to recognise this support. It concludes by putting forward two main arguments: i) a distinction should be made between material and decision-making autonomy; ii) although urban commons should pursue their material and decision-making autonomy from the state, the material support they receive from the local state can become a temporary survival strategy for them.
Authors:Davide Grassi; Vincenzo Memoli, Ahmed Elshoura Abouzied Abstract: In spite of recent advances in the literature, there are still fewer empirical works, embracing different regions of the world, that analyze the impact of populist governments on the quality of governance. This paper, which covers 33 countries from five world regions from 1996 until 2019, intends to fill this gap. By using different statistical methods, our data show that periods under populist governments in power had a significantly negative effect on governance quality measured by the WGI data set. For each of the six dimensions of governance, however, (voice and accountability, political stability and the absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption) we detect exceptions. In addition, exploring the data by geographical region and types of populism (exclusive, neoliberal and inclusive), crucially refines our findings, showing a great deal of differences and revealing that similar types of populism operate in different ways in separate geographical contexts. These variations are explained both by the difficulty of defining slippery concepts, and applying them consistently to historical cases, and by particular traits and historical occurrences that significantly affect the relationship we analyze. Through different fixed regression models, finally, we control for a series of potentially confounding factors and find that our major descriptive findings have been confirmed.
Authors:Emilien Houard-Vial Abstract: In this article, we explain why the French mainstream right-wing party, today Les Républicains, has maintained until now a cordon sanitaire between itself and its far-right counterpart, the Rassemblement National. We examine the usual hypotheses identified by the literature on coalitions between mainstream and far-right parties, and confirm that they are not able to explain the French case. We argue that this paradox can be solved by re-evaluating some core ideological disagreements, as well as the importance of competence and credibility in the party image of the mainstream right, which we identify – discussing Panebianco's genetic model – as a result of its historical role of governmental, established party.
Authors:Chiara Maritato Abstract: This article investigates how the fight against Islamophobia both clarifies and shapes the contours of Turkey's diaspora policy. It relies on the literature on political remittances and its value to diaspora studies by highlighting to what extent and how the commitment to tackling Islamophobia plays a role in Turkey's attempt to strengthen the link with 'its' diaspora. In this process, attention is devoted to how Turkish state institutions like the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) have framed Islamophobia as a religion-based problem and an "anti-Islamic project". In so doing, they bolster a dichotomic narrative between secular Europe and Muslim migrants. The empirical discussion also reveals the international dimension of the fight against Islamophobia and examines the Turkish government's motivation to proclaim itself the defender of (Turkish) Muslim communities in Europe. Thus, the official narrative that overlooks any systemic discriminations Turkish minorities are experiencing in everyday life has promoted a tutelary representation that might reinforce a paternalistic view of the diasporas as victims who need saving.
Authors:Marco Deseriis Abstract: Although political scientists and political theorists rarely recognize liquid democracy (LD) as a distinct model of democracy, LD has its own history, theoretical underpinnings and practical applications. The article fills this gap by conceptualizing LD as an original decision-making procedure and a mode of political representation based on mechanisms of authorization and accountability that are fundamentally different from parliamentary representation. Yet the first practical applications of LD have occurred within representative institutions such as the German Federal Parliament and political organizations such as the Pirate Party Germany. These have experimented with two different LD software, Adhocracy and Liquidfeedback, whose design enables two variants of LD, the former aimed at assessing the quality of opinions and the latter aimed at transforming experts into decision-makers. After examining the impact of the adoption of Liquidfeedback on the internal organization of the Pirate Party, the article identifies two challenges that have emerged through the use of LD software: the conflict between the participants' right to privacy and the transparency of delegated decisions; and the concentration of power in the hands of few delegates. The article concludes by noting that only the variant of LD oriented toward assessing the quality of opinions is fully compatible with representative democracy.
Authors:Mirko Crulli; Lorenzo Viviani Abstract: This paper questions the thesis that transformations in European politics after the financial, eurozone, and migrant crises have been led by populist radical right (PRR) and left (PRL) parties and attitudes in Northwestern (NWE) and Southern (SE) Europe, respectively. Contrary to most of the literature, we claim that, although the populist radical left has grown in SE, the more significant outcome of the crises has been to push PRR parties to a similar (high) consensus in SE and NWE. We also argue that the crises facilitated the growth of PRR forces in SE more than NWE. To test this perspective, we analysed elections and citizens' orientations towards the key issues of populism - immigration, European integration, "authoritarianism versus liberal democracy" and "state versus market" - in five NWE and four SE countries. Findings show that during the "long crisis decade" (2008-2019) there has been an alignment on right-wing populism between European regions.
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