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A conference paper about European politics and society is presented which is prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Conference, in Toronto, Ontario, on September 2-6, 2009. The paper discusses topics including the institutional multiplicity of democracy, and the choice of fair elections through the comparison of two electoral episodes in Portuguese history.

Western European countries differ according to the ways in which they organize local government, not least in the manner in which mayors are selected, in the mayors' statutory positions and responsibilities, and the institutional relations between the council and the mayor/executive board. The institutional arrangements have been modified in several countries. Focal question in the paper is whether the institutional reforms have resulted in a revitalization of local politics and democracy. A first measure to revitalize local politics is a separation of local political powers. In Germany, the UK, Italy, and the Netherlands powers of the council as the representation of the citizenry at the one hand, and the Mayor or the Executive Board at the other, have been separated. They now both have their more or less exclusive statutory powers, tasks and responsibilities, in some cases resulting from the introduction of directly elected mayors. Question then is, whether these policies lead to a revitalization of local politics. Secondly, in a number of Western European countries governments have introduced direct elections for the mayor's office. Despite differences between countries, in all cases the assumption is, that direct mayoral elections do make a difference and that directly elected mayors will appear to be strong leaders. Question, however is to what extent is mayoral performance affected by selection procedures and the statutory position of the mayoral office? The results of a number of comparative empirical studies will be presented in the paper. It will become clear that there are huge differences in mayoral performance. Several factors influencing that performance will be identified. The most important conclusion is that mayoral selection procedures and statutory positions do affect mayoral performance, although not as much as expected. Other factors are at stake. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of external impulses on European democratization from 1830 to 1940. It distinguishes three types of diffusion, namely (1) the gradual spread of values and norms; (2) the diffusion of instrumental knowledge about the design of political institutions; and (3) the spread of situational judgments about the feasibility of initiating political change. The latter type of external impulse, derived from the attainment of substantial change in another polity, can produce dramatic waves of regime contention. But since the actual distribution of power in emulating countries often differs from the frontrunner, these conflicts produce various types of results. The paper discusses four types of outcomes of diffusion, namely (1) successful replication; (2) preemptive reform; (3) abortive replication; and (4) blockage of replication efforts. The latter two outcomes help explain why in European history, not only political liberalism and democracy diffused, but during certain time periods authoritarianism, corporatism, and fascism spread as well. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about religious symbols in public places and the post-9/11 controversies about the compatibility of Islam and democracy within and beyond Europe indicate the coming of a major new conflict area in liberal democracies. This paper starts with the observation of an ongoing and in some respects increasing significance of religion in the politics of Western democracies and links it to processes of pluralization and globalization, which in turn are related to migration moves across the world. Based on a typology of nationality codes in 19 Western democracies, the paper asks what role religion, understood as confessional legacy, individual religiosity, institutional actors and Christian parties, play in shaping citizenship policies. It follows the "family of nations" concept in comparative policy research (Castles) and argues that the interplay of nation building, religious traditions and church-state-relations brings religion back into this highly secular policy domain. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has focused attention on the diversity and complexity of civil-social life in Russia and post-communist Europe, undermining normative and 'communist-legacy' explanations of the weakness of civil society in that region, and underlining the need for theory-building that is both generalizable and sensitive to the specifics of each individual case. This paper attempts to take another step in that direction, exploring how the ways in which elites in semi-authoritarian regimes compete for power - and the social meaning of the power they are competing for - shape the development of civil society. Examining elements of civil society, the paper presents evidence from extensive field research of key variations in the relationship between civic activism and power and argues that these variations can be traced back to crucial differences in the competitive incentives political elites in each context. Specifically, the prospects for civil society appear better when elites - even closed, corrupt and authoritarian elites - are forced to engage one way or another with society at large. The paper will argue that elite-led state-society engagement, regardless of its nature, is essential to building the framework on which citizens construct notions of justice and right, while disengagement and elite autonomy significantly impede the development of civic identities. Indeed, the evidence in comparative perspective suggests that civil society may do better when it is repressed than when it is simply ignored. This, then, points to the disengaged nature of the contemporary Russian regime, rather than its authoritarianism, as a major explanatory factor in the weakness of civil society in that country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hannah Arendt conceptualizes an evolving "crisis of state sovereignty" and related "perplexities of the rights of man". This paper examines how Arendt addresses the problem by developing ideas for a new federal and republican Europe which may serve as a model for a democratic renewal with universalistic ties. While citizenship rights, according to Arendt, must be defined and limited, Arendt suggests a post-national decoupling of state and nation. Her conceptual foundations of cosmopolitan Euro-Republicanism also point to a new universal political responsibility and post-sovereign politics in the global age. The paper demonstrates that Arendt's reflections provide approaches to mediate the tensions between the two essential claims of liberal democracy, namely democratic self-rule and universalism. Arendt, it is argued, helps to theorize and justify the EU as a post-national political community in its own right but also provides a framework for a critical theory of the European Union and its shortcomings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is analyzing the 'realist' support for the current regime as well as the support for democracy as a set of 'idealist' principles in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is also analyzing political support for non-democratic regimes as alternatives to democratic governance. The main conclusion of this paper is that mass public support for democracy as best form of government is encompassing an absolute majority of citizens in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and Belarus as well as a relative majority of the Russian citizens. Political support for the current regimes is declining between 1992 and 2002 and collapsing in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia. This collapse of public support for the current political regime contributed to the 'revolutions' in Georgia and Ukraine. The share of supporters for authoritarian regimes in Russia and the other post-Soviet countries decreased from about one third to one fifth of the respective electorates. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of all the issues that democratic, trade union, and left wing political parties have tried to address in capitalist societies, the most difficult to challenge has been the issue of capital investment, from private investment to even their own pensions. Democratic and popular forces have been quite successful in establishing welfare states, forming trade unions, imposing regulatory controls on market activity, and achieving modest degrees of worker participation (at least in the most advanced industrialized democracies). Yet they have been generally incapable of obtaining any influence ? let alone control ? over the location of investment in these societies. This paper will examine the possibilities of raising questions of social democratic influence over private and pension investment in Western Europe. By examining the historic contours of the 20th century debates in Germany and Sweden, the two countries where the debate went the farthest, I hope to generate hypotheses as to whether this policy option might represent a viable tactic by the contemporary democratic left to both the pension and democratic deficit issues in Western Europe generally, and the EU specifically. Germany and Sweden have been chosen as critical case studies because their experiences can likely offer useful guidance about the concrete limits to utility of this approach. This paper is divided into three sections. First, it analyzes the issue of investment and private control and shows how difficult it has been for democratic societies to challenge private interests on this core issue. Despite the growing predominance of collective funds (e.g. private pensions and public social insurance funds), democratic societies have never been able to ?democratize? investment decisions. The general arguments raised against such radical proposals by traditional controllers of investment have been that they too directly challenge ?managerial autonomy? or, alternatively, such radical steps are unnecessary because the free choice of individuals to decide where to invest is the essence of individualistic shareholder democracy. Second, the paper looks at the origins of German and Swedish attempts to democratize investment via two different paths and two different kinds of political institutions. It then analyzes their evolution through the 1970s and 1980s and suggests why they ultimately were unsuccessful in achieving their respective goals. Third, the paper concludes with some speculative consideration ? and perhaps more questions than answers ? on the relationship between democracy and investment in societies, such as those in Western Europe and/or the EU, that are both democratic and capitalist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the new institutional architecture of Eastern Europe. It extends Lijphart?s study of democratic institutions to fourteen new democracies in Eastern Europe. In his analysis of advanced democracies, Lijphart found that ten institutional variables cluster on two clearly separate dimensions. This clustering does not occur in the new democracies of Eastern Europe; they do not fall clearly into Lijphart?s consensus and majoritarian camps. On the executives-parties dimension, Eastern European countries are basically consensus except for highly majoritarian forms of interest group representation. On the federal-unity dimension, they are even more divided. While they tend to have unitary, unicameral governments (both majoritarian traits), they have adopted highly consensual modes of constitutional amendment, judicial review, and central banks. While Lijphart suggests that his two types of democracy have a logical coherence, this paper attributes these hybrids to the circumstances prevailing at the time when new institutions were adopted. In particular, communist legacies and international conditions have influenced the choice of new institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular participation in the electoral process plays a very important role in enhancing the legitimacy of democratic regimes. However, democracies differ widely in the degree to which voters exercise their franchise. This paper examines the effect of political institutions on electoral turnout in the new democracies of East Central Europe (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia). The paper considers a number of hypotheses. First, electoral turnout should increase with the proportionality of the electoral system (Blais and Carty 1990, Cox 1999). Second, electoral turnout should be greater where concurrent elections are held to multiple political offices, such as a strong presidency or a second chamber. Conversely, nonconcurring elections should reduce voter turnout. Finally, the party system may also have an impact both on electoral turnout as well as the magnitude of the effect of political institutions: the more competitive the party system, the higher the turnout and the stronger the impact of the political institutions are expected to be. The selection of the four cases from a well defined geo-political region allows to control the comparison for a number of sociological and historical variables. At the same time, the institutional diversity among the four new democracies provides for an excellent laboratory to test the above hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature that has sought to explain the affects of the economy on voting is extensive. However, these findings are for the most part based on Western democratic models. Consequently, political scientists have failed to take advantage of the emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe to see if these models are robust. Given the changes over the past decade, this paper tests the extent to which extant theories can be used to explain election outcomes in this region of the world. In this particular study, Polish monthly public opinion data is utilized to determine more accurately whom the electorate holds accountable during periods of economic stress in semi-presidential systems?the president or the prime minister. The findings in this paper suggest that a strong determinant of electoral accountability and the allocation of blame are dependent upon whether the government is unified or divided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previously it has been perceived as a citizen's duty to follow the news and to keep oneself informed about politics and current affairs. Recently however, it appears as if a growing number of citizens ignore the information opportunities given to them. Changes in the media environment have given people cross-nationally more of a choice as to which media diet they prefer, and for the American case, Prior (2007) have demonstrated that in an era of cable TV and Internet people more readily remove themselves from political knowledge and political action then they did before. In this paper we study how the public's consumption of news vs entertainment has developed over the last decade in countries with significantly different media systems. Is there a general increase in preference for entertainment across Europe, and has the gap between news and entertainment seekers increased like Prior documented for the US case? Who are the European citizens who remove themselves from news and current affairs in the environment of increased choice? Based on pooled data from five waves of the European Social Survey, covering more than 30 European countries from 2002 to 2010, using several innovative multilevel analyze techniques like fixed effect regression models with pseudo panel data (Verbeek 1995, Girma 2000, Jæger 2011), we demonstrate how national context or the media environment moderates the influence of individual level factors in news consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clientelism remains to be an important channel of political mobilization in some mature democracies, despite a series of political reform aimed at making politics fair and transparent since the 1990s. By examining local political dynamics mainly in Italy and Japan, this paper argues that the resurgence of clientelism is a paradoxical result of recent reform. More specifically, the introduction of majoritarian electoral rules has intensified competition in each district and, therefore, given patrons incentives to secure firm political support from their constituencies through provision of patronage. Devolution has increased authority and discretion of the local elites, who have dominated clientelist exchanges at the local level. On the demand side of clientelism, the budget constraints facing countries since the 1990s have ironically raised value of patronage. Clients, or local constituencies, might compete even more fiercely for the limited public money. In the absence of substantial policy issues in dispute, clientelism thus continues to prevail as a means to mobilize political support. The authors also point to the significant effects of local electoral institutions which have helped clientelistic practices survive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is describing and explaining the democratic revolutions and multidirectional regime changes, which occurred in the two decades between 1989 and 2009 in post-Communist Europe and post-Soviet Eurasia. It analyses at the beginning the decline of Communism and the failed attempts to reform Communist One-Party States in the period between 1970 and 1988 as stage one of democratization. The next section is dealing with the end of Communist regimes as second stage of democratization between 1989 and 1991. The following part is devoted to stage three of the democratization process, which is focusing on the creation of new democracies. The dynamics of post-Communist democratization is differentiated into three separate paths of development: the path towards consolidated and liberal democracies, the second path to partial and electoral democracies and finally the transformation of post-Soviet countries into illiberal autocracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines how patronage ties might moderate otherwise polarizing categories in politics, such as those based in religious ideology or ethnic identity. Patronage networks can serve as an informal institutional means to incorporate diverse actors into the control structures of the state, effectively co-opting potential rivals to state control. Patronage structures can have these moderating effects in both non-democracies and democracies. The form or structure of patronage networks matters greatly here - as incorporating important individuals into the hierarchy can serve as an important means to entice their cooperation. But the content of the ties is also relevant. Encouraging the pursuit of material or resource interests can reduce elites' focus on ideological or identity interests that could otherwise prove difficult for the state to control. They also emphasize shared interests. Elites can agree on the pursuit of wealth or power - shared interests that provide a counter to oppositional categories based on ideology or identity. We sketch how patronage control mechanisms work through a diverse array of examples from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the degree of policy responsiveness in the new democracies of Eastern Europe. Using panel data on the rate of economic reforms and public opinion towards reform, it finds that public support for reform has a large and significant effect on reform progress. Where public support for reform is high, reform proceeds more quickly. This effect remains strong even when controlling for other economic and political causes of reform, though it is strongest in the more democratic countries in the region and quite in non-democracies. These results suggest that economic reform may be better promoted by persuading the public of the beneficial consequences of reform than by trying to insulate reformers from the public. They also indicate that the quality of democracy in the region may be higher than commonly perceived. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which brought into being the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the path of European integration has meant the difference between a strong and secure Europe and the disintegration of a grand, idealistic experiment. In this post-9/11 world, with recent terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, and several attempted terrorist plots foiled, Europe now faces a critical juncture when it comes to dealing with the problem of security. Sovereignty is the key obstacle to security integration because security has traditionally been the prerogative of individual member-states. Are strongly held beliefs about sovereignty ceding ground to an untested supranational order? I argue that key epistemic communities of military strategists, technology experts, and diplomats are already breaking down this resistance because they are in a unique position to persuade others of certain shared norms.These knowledge-based networks, or "epistemic communities", are comprised of non-governmental professionals who share policy relevant expertise, and have actually gained acceptance for the beginnings of a European homeland security. I seek to explain why they are succeeding in pushing forward security integration despite the strong inclination for national governments to hold onto this authority. In this paper, I compare three epistemic communities - military strategists, technology experts, and diplomats - to shed light on the interaction of competing epistemic communities with different motivations and norms. A shortcoming of the current epistemic community literature is that it tends to assume that each epistemic community is operating in a transnational vacuum. Even though I demonstrate that all three epistemic communities support further security integration, their motivations, preferences, processes of socialization, and shared norms vary immensely.I engage in process-tracing and comparative case-studies for each of these epistemic communities to determine the origins of their allegiance, the social background of their membership, the creation and evolution of norms, their overlap with other epistemic communities, and the subsequent success or failure of their efforts to persuade and socialize others. In particular, I seek to determine the degree of impact these norms have had on the general political will for security integration. In this regard, I focus primarily on elite-level acceptance, and whether this has led to particular policy outcomes that support the gradual development of a kind of homeland security in Europe. The implications for sovereignty, democracy, and the limits of integration cannot be ignored. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the collapse of communist in Central and Eastern Europe, political actors in several transitioning democracies became temporary electoral engineers, either adopting election systems commonly used in established democracies (e.g. Latvia, Estonia, and Romania) or producing hybrid systems with a combination of plurality and proportional representation rules (e.g. Lithuania and Hungary). The effect of the new election rules on voter behavior was unpredictable and, at times, surprising. As a result, several of these countries made subsequent changes to their electoral systems, from modifications of the electoral formula in proportional representation systems (i.e. Poland changed from Sainte-Laguë to D'Hondt in 2005) to a new electoral system (i.e. Ukraine changed from a mixed electoral system a proportional representation system in 2006). However, elites and political parties enacted several of these changes with little information on how voters would behave following the implementation of the new rules. One important factor to consider is whether voters learn to coordinate their votes strategically to the degree seen in established democracies. This is important for what Cox (1997) calls the equilibrium of the party system and is evidence of party system institutionalization. This paper attempts to test for learning effects on the strategic coordination of voters using an experimental technique and election results from Germany. The focus is on a pilot experiment from Germany analyzing strategic coordination of voters under three electoral rules: plurality, plurality runoff and majority runoff. The theoretical argument is straightforward: the frequency of strategic coordination will increase with repeated exposure to new voting rules. The results of the pilot experiment are preliminary and insignificant, thus suggesting further refinements to the experiment design and procedure. Future iterations of the experiment and supplemental empirical analysis will reveal the probability and frequency at which voters "learn" to behave strategically and have the potential to inform electoral engineers of the consequences of different voting arrangements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Control over government portfolios is the key to power over policy and patronage and is commonly understood to lie with parties in European democracies. But since the democratic transitions of the 1990s, Europe has had nearly equal numbers of parliamentary and semi-presidential regimes, and there is evidence that the ability of parties to control government posts in these two regime types differs. As yet, political scientists have a limited understanding of the scale and causes of these differences. In this paper we propose a principal-agent theoretical explanation. We examine our account using data on 28 parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies in Europe, and show that differences in party control over government portfolios cannot be understood without reference to the underlying principal-agent relationships between voters, elected politicians, and governments, that characterize Europe's semi-presidential and parliamentary regimes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the extent and duration of democratic politics in postcommunist Europe, paying particular attention to the possible impact of the European Union. It concludes with a brief discussion of why it is that the postcommunist democracies that are now members of the EU or soon-to-be members register such high levels of dissatisfaction with the way democracy works and distrust of government, parliament, and political parties. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In nineteenth-century Europe, democracy was not embraced with the same enthusiasm it now enjoys. Conservative critics questioned central democratic normative principles, while liberals often tried to correct the limitations of democracy. While accepting the inevitability of democracy, nineteenth-century liberals often resisted the idea that universal suffrage guaranteed the wisdom of the people?s choices. Nothing better illustrates this difficult apprenticeship of democracy than the writings of François Guizot, whose political thought focused on the relationship between liberalism and democracy. This paper explores Guizot?s theory of representative government with special emphasis on his theory of political capacity and publicity. The final section concentrates on the issue of ?moderating? democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Europe is the heartland of parliamentary democracy, it has over the past century experienced an impressive increase in the number of presidential heads of state. And the new democratic regimes that have emerged in Europe since the mid-1970s have overwhelmingly adopted republican constitutions, and many of them feature popularly elected presidents, a regime type Duverger (1980) termed semi-presidential. The actual power of presidents in semi-presidential systems seems to vary considerably, both cross-nationally and over time. In this paper we examine the impact of popularly elected presidents on a critical and distinctive process in parliamentary democracy: the appointment of cabinet ministers. It is in the appointment of cabinet members that parliamentary systems most critically depart from presidential ones, and it is perhaps here that the role of political parties is most critical. Semi-presidentialism alters both of these features fundamentally and consequentially. We develop a game-theoretic model of cabinet appointment under semi-presidential government. This model identifies the conditions under which presidents can influence the policy process, specifically through their influence on the selection of cabinet members. We test the implications of our model against a sample of 134 cabinets representing 12 semi-presidential and 12 pure parliamentary regimes in the 1990s and find support for most of the predictions of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how voters decide in referendums on European integration. More specifically, it investigates how political information influences voting behavior. It argues that political information conditions the way in which people make decisions in referendums by altering the impact of the decision criteria that voters use. The impact of political information is examined not only at the individual, but also at the contextual level. It is hypothesized that variations in the context of the referendum - the intensity of the campaign - produce differences in the way in which citizens act in referendums. As the intensity of the referendum campaign increases, more information is available to citizens and voters will rely more heavily on sophisticated criteria, such as attitudes and issue positions on the EU. While the informational context influences voting patterns, individuals also vary in their awareness of politics. It is argued that people with high levels of political awareness receive more information, and consequently rely more on their own attitudes and less on elite cues when deciding. These theoretical propositions are tested by analyzing survey data from European referendums in Denmark, Ireland and Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a larger project looking into several facets of individual-level media effects in countries transitioning to democracy, this paper examines the effects of variation in individuals? content consumption on the development of Central and Eastern Europeans? political and economic attitudes during the early period of transition. The high/low content debate suggests discernable differences in individuals? attitudes and opinions that correlate with the predominant consumption of either information (high content) or entertainment (low content). The argument is predicated on the assumption that individuals? content consumption patterns imply their intentions in using media; that is, choices between entertainment and news, for example, imply that individuals are using media for different purposes, namely, distraction or information. Based on the literature we expect individuals? choices of informational content usage (high content and news) to be correlated with higher levels of democratic political and economic attitudes. This expectation is further buttressed by the information seeking media choices of individuals during the period of tremendous political, economic, and social change. Those citizens who choose to engage the new realities and gather information are more likely to be adaptive to the demands that are placed on them. The reverse effect is expected for low content usage. Disengaging behavioral choices, such as a strong preference for low content, suggests a less viable means to political socialization for individuals. However, what we find is information and naïve distraction usage that distinguishes patterns of media consumption in democratizing countries that from the west. Patterns of content consumption in Central and Eastern Europe suggest that the more information an individual seeks out through news and high content, the less likely he/she is to have more democratic political and economic attitudes. Conversely, those who consume content in a pattern of distraction, demonstrate higher political and economic attitudes. These findings suggest an ?ignorance is bliss? orientation of the citizens of democratizing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central European citizens have recently found themselves confronted by dilemmas of democratic self-governance that have vexed democratic thinkers and practitioners for centuries. I look at one such dilemma, identified by Alexis DeTocqueville (Democracy in America). Equality of condition is for Tocqueville a defining feature of democracy. That very equality, however, promotes an excessive individualism that undermines democracy. Thus, the very condition that for Tocqueville is essential to democracy threatens always to destroy it. I find this dilemma relevant not only in the established democracies of western Europe, but also in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe. That is, a certain equality of condition, with a concomitant type of individualism, was present in Communist societies as well, and its legacy continues to complicate democratic politics today. This paper explores how different societies confront Tocqueville’s dilemma at the local level on both sides of the former east-west divide. Their experiences, I argue, may be generally instructive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the origins and development of electoral systems and constitutions in postcommunist Europe and observes marked differences in relative institutional staying power. While typically the first to be put in place, electoral laws were frequently replaced, whereas constitutions, once ratified, were not. Electoral laws also tended to be easier to amend than constitutions. Despite these patterns, our theories of institutional effects presently consider both constitutions and electoral systems to be formal political institutions and treat them as functional equivalents. The paper argues that we may need to draw some basic distinctions within the category of formal political institutions and render explicit the implicit role of duration in our theorizing if we are to avoid a distorted understanding of stable democracy’s foundations. At the most general level, the findings therefore highlight the critical importance of tackling questions of institutional stability and change concurrently rather than attempting to analyze them as discrete phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions constrain the role orientations of representatives, i.e. in whose interest they claim to act. Electoral institutions shape the incentives that representations have to nurture a personal reputation by looking after the economic and social interests of the local area. Electoral institutions also affect the balance between mainstream and niche parties. Using data of the PARTIREP MP survey in thirteen European democracies it is demonstrated that how constituencies are defined conditions patterns of territorial representation. The probability that mainstream party representatives prioritize looking after the economic and social needs of the local area increases with district magnitude in open-list systems, but decreases in closed-list systems as magnitude grows. Niche party representatives are unresponsive to the effect of district magnitude. As district magnitude grows, representatives shift their focus of representation away from the district to either the party electorate or some territorial constituency smaller than the district. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is hardly any political actor that has come under more severe scrutiny and critique in contemporary democracies than political parties. Underlying of much of this critique is the notion that political parties no longer fulfil their central role in representative democracies: to represent the interests of their supporters. While the process of representation has various stages that pose different demands for parties, the first step of making sure that there is a high degree of congruence between parties and party supporters pre-electoral positions is arguably the foundation of the whole process. If parties and their specific supporters do not match ideologically in the run-up to an election, parties are logically not able to represent their supporters positions in parliament or government. I investigate the charge of an increasing disparity between parties and their supporters by employing an innovative measure of the quality of congruence. For the first time, this measure makes a single left-right party position comparable to the whole distribution of party supporters left-right positions. In order to achieve this goal, I create a theoretical distribution of a partys left-right positions over a point estimate and compare this distribution with that of the partys supporters. I employ this measure to a unique data set that matches party positions from the Manifesto Project's data set (former CMP) to voter positions taken from survey data (Eurobarometer and CSES) for Western European countries, resulting in data for 709 parties in elections between 1973 and 2009. The analysis explores whether certain parties show better congruence than others and why that might be the case. On the level of parties, I find that the parties belonging to the traditional Western European party families create the highest congruence with their supporters and larger as well as more right parties perform better than small and left parties. On systemic level, I find that the electoral system does not have an effect on congruence, which goes against much of the received wisdom in the representation literature (Powell 2000) but confirms newer findings by authors like Golder and Stramski (2010). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries restrict hate speech, the United States does not. This much is clear. What explains this difference? Too often the current discussion falls back on a culturally rich but normatively vacant exceptionalism (American or otherwise) or a normatively driven convergence perspective that fails to address historical, cultural and experiential differences that distinguish countries and legal systems. Inspired by the development discourse of historical sociology, this article seeks to record instances where Americans or Europeans have argued their approach to hate speech laws was more "advanced" or "modern." This article focuses on two authors whose writing appears to make these claims: Karl Loewenstein and Robert Post. A German Jewish émigré fleeing Nazi Germany, Loewenstein warned Americans that fascism was a new, modern phenomenon that required a new democracy, one that could protect itself by restricting speech. Post's position on democracy is quite different - he finds hate speech restrictions largely incompatible with democratic legitimacy. While at times Post shows an exceptionalist unwillingness to judge Europe for its lack of hate speech laws, at other points he is quite willing to say that a stable successful democracy does not ban hate speech. Tracking the competing claims of Loewenstein and Post opens the door to a more fluid analysis of European and American positions on hate speech - one that is both comparative and normative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While increased levels of migration in many European democracies have generated a growing body of research into the causes of anti-immigrant attitudes among native populations, we know surprisingly little about attitudes immigrants themselves hold towards immigration. How immigrants think about the issue of immigration is important because it affects the prospects of their political alliances and the effectiveness of advocacy on their behalf. We focus on two competing motivations that may underlie migrants' attitudes about immigration: their kinship, solidarity, and shared experiences with other immigrants, but also their allegiance toward the host society. The former should lead to more favorable attitudes about immigration; the latter is likely to have the opposite effect. We examine these propositions using the European Social Survey (ESS) three-round cumulative data collected between 2002 and 2006 in 23 European democracies. We find that foreign-born individuals have more positive attitudes toward immigrants and immigration than natives. At the same time, we find that immigrants' concerns about immigration are shaped by economic and political considerations in ways that are consistent with the literature on anti-immigration sentiment among native populations. Moreover, these effects are particularly strong among immigrants who have acquired citizenship status in their host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the concept of revitalizing democracy related to civic education in the U.S. and Europe. It mentions that the declining participation of citizens in democracy is a theme for policy-makers and academics in liberal democracies. It states that civic education is related to institutional structures.

The article focuses on the use of inheritance focused on democratic competition in the integration of minorities in New European democracies. It mentions that the minority integration is political issue focused on contemporary democracies among scholars and policy-makers. It presents information on democratizing region of post-Cold War Europe.

The article focuses on elections in mixed regimes in postcommunist Europe and Eurasia from 1996 to 2005. It states that democratic oppositions do win sometimes inspite of efforts of authoritarian leaders to stop them. It mentions diffusion, which is an approach to defeat dictators with the help of elections. It discusses defeat of dictators in elections which began in countries like Serbia and Romania.

The article proposes an alternative explanation to the presence or absence of inequality in voting. It is suggested that unequal turnout might be due to changes in the costs of voting prompted by institutional arrangements. The impact of education on the vote is examined based on the notion that education is a good proxy of social position. Data gathered by the European Social Survey and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems in 28 advanced democracies are presented and analyzed.

The article investigates the robustness of results based on the employment of two configurational comparative methods, crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and fuzzy-set QCA. A background of QCA as a technique that has been refined with multi-value and fuzzy-set extensions in social science studies is presented. Data and theoretical model from a major research project on the conditions of authoritarianism and democracy in interwar Europe were used in analyzing the logic of QCA.

The article discusses the evolution of Christian Democracy in Europe. It examines the extent to which the electoral decline of Christian Democracy may indeed be explained by long-term social structural transformation, and explores the changing characteristics of the long-standing support base of this movement. The social bases of contemporary European Christian Democracy is discussed by relying in particular on major international survey datasets.

Although immigrants constitute an increasing share of the population and the electorate in many established democracies, we know surprisingly little about how immigrants participate in civic life and how migration may help to transform the patterns of political engagement in contemporary democracies. In particular, we know little about the differences in impact of citizenship versus immigrant status on participation. While citizenship is a requirement for electoral participation, research is less clear about the impact of citizenship on other forms of political engagement. Drawing a distinction between citizenship and foreign-born status, and using survey data collected as part of the European Social Survey (ESS) in 21 European democracies, we find that the impact of citizenship on nonelectoral participation is positive but modest compared to its effect on electoral participation. Moreover, the impact of citizenship is reduced further when we control for immigrant experiences in their country of origin and their host environment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the character and consequences of the rise of innovative emerging political action repertoires in advanced industrialized democracies. It used the Political Action dataset, various waves of the World Values Surveys as well as the results from the first European Social Survey in its investigation.

In the spring of this year, within only a couple of weeks, the institutional order of the European Union (EU) has been thoroughly shaken, turning into sheer institutional "disorder". After the referenda on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe held in France and in the Netherlands, hardly anybody will question that the Union finds itself in an utterly dramatic situation. Seen from the point of view I am going to sketch out in the following sections, what became manifest with the turbulences of May and June 2005 are the symptoms of a crisis that had remained more or less latent for a longer period of time. The trends culminating in the rejection of the European Constitution by a majority of French and Dutch citizens reflect a crisis of political legitimation. I will argue that this crisis is basically the crisis of 2 specific mode of political legitimation, or, to be more precise, a consequence of the tendencies to link governance in the EU primarily to this mode. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The democratic peace may be the most salient institutionally-driven peace, but it is not the first. This essay explores how dynasticism brought about a process of peaceful territorial aggregation in the midst of a world that was as violent as the twentieth century by changing the rules that governed inheritance and succession via the introduction of primogeniture and female inheritance. These innovations eliminated the problems created by partible inheritance by restricting the number of legitimate claimants upon property (which included political offices) and in the process dramatically reduced the uncertainty and potential for conflict that had surrounded the disposition of property upon the death of a feudal lord. As a result, the fragmentation of landholdings and political power that was on the verge of destroying the economic viability and security of Latin Europe was reversed in only a few decades and a process of nonviolent consolidation took place that was not to be rivaled until the creation of the EU in the late twentieth century. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a theory about the institutional determinants and the political consequences of party systems. We look at a select number of cases drawn from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. We argue that the party system format is a central determinant of democratic quality. In turn, institutional engineering largely shapes the party system. Parliamentary systems and party list proportional representation are more conducive to a strong party system with competitive, programmatic and institutionalized political parties, and consequently to a better democratic quality. In order to show this, we take a closer look at a subset of post-Communist polities, those with a majority Orthodox population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Romanian dissident movement does not conform to the commonly known models of the Czech and Polish anti-Communist opposition. Protest against the intransigent Ceausescu regime is better understood in terms of personalities than it is by counting the number of dissidents or dissident organizations. One of the defining figures for the Romanian anti-Communist movement is Paul Goma. Born in 1935, Goma's life was defined early on by the fight against the Communist authorities. His debut, first as a journalist and soon after as a writer, made public his inflexible stance towards the regime. He intensified his critique after leaving Romania in 1977-soon after joining Charta 77-by pursuing his literary and public anti-Communist activities on French soil. The dubious end of Romanian Communism in 1989 gave Goma renewed energy as he labored to strip away the new-found democratic cloak of old Communist ideas. Paul Goma is the living proof that consistency and moral dignity can stay alive against all odds and that repression and fear should not justify silence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]