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Social democracy is in a state of change and flux, and the electoral fortunes of many centre-left political parties are poor. This article offers an analysis of the current trajectory of the centre left, by detailing a systematic mapping of policy change across the family of social democratic political parties. Many of the parties, especially in the 1990s, took a ‘third way’ turn, or a shift to what has been called the ‘new social democracy’. Yet, the ‘third way’ label is a poor descriptor to capture the changing policy profile and dynamics of the family of mainstream centre-left political parties. In Adam Przeworski's view, there have been four main waves of social democracy. We employ the ‘wave’ frame to examine if there is an emergent, fifth, breaking wave of social democracy. Overall, we find that social democratic parties have moved beyond the ‘third way’; they are shifting leftwards, but they are a new kind of ‘left’ from that of previous decades.

Why has the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria supported a total glyphosate ban proposed by the Social Democratic Party? We examine this research question and pursue two goals: first, to ...

This article discusses how study material created for intra-party education for the Swedish Social Democratic Party and the Swedish Left Party constructs party identities, by analysing how study ma...

In 2019, a Der Spiegel poll asked German readers which party has the best answers to the ‘questions of the future?' Just two percent nominated the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), once Germany...

Political parties learn from foreign incumbents, that is, parties abroad that won office. But does the scope of this cross-national policy diffusion vary with the party family that generates those incumbents? The authors argue that party family conditions transnational policy learning when it makes information on the positions of sister parties more readily available and relevant. Both conditions apply to social democratic parties. Unlike other party families, social democrats have faced major competitive challenges since the 1970s and they exhibit exceptionally strong transnational organizations—factors, the authors contend, that uniquely facilitate cross-national policy learning from successful parties within the family. The authors analyze parties’ policy positions using spatial methods and find that social democratic parties are indeed exceptional because they emulate one another across borders more than do Christian democratic and conservative parties. These findings have important implications for our understanding of political representation and of social democratic parties’ election strategies over the past forty years.

Whatever happened to Willy? The ex-chancellor did not disappear following his surprise resignation as West German leader in May 1974. He stayed on as chair of the Social Democratic Party [SPD] unti...

Using individual-level data from three Lithuanian legislative elections (2008, 2012, 2016), this article investigates voter bias in an open-list proportional representation system in which parties rank candidates but voters are able to fully influence the rank order through preferential voting. This study examines the average effects of and variation in gender bias among voters of different parties. Most importantly, it also investigates how party cues interact with gender cues—that is, whether discriminatory tendencies vary by a candidate's party-determined viability. After establishing that there is no evidence of elite bias in favor of or against women candidates, with the exception of the Social Democrats and a few other parties, I demonstrate that, on average, female Lithuanian politicians receive approximately 7% fewer preferential votes than their male counterparts. In addition, the models predict that gender bias is most pronounced against the female candidates who are best placed to enter parliament. Finally, I demonstrate that Social Democratic voters are, on average, the most undisposed toward female candidates, correcting for positive elite bias toward female candidates from the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, while voters of the Homeland Union party (conservatives) strongly prefer women politicians.

Immediately after the parliamentary elections in December 2016, the Social Democratic Party wants to amend the criminal legislation and pardon through an revolting ordinance, which caused a third wave of protests in post-December Romania. The core of the protests was made of social activists who held the position of network nodes, had previous experience and acted as rallying coagulant factors in the January-February 2017 events. In the present study, we focused our attention only on the online community: Corruption kills (in Romanian: Coruptia ucide), this being the oldest and most active in the Romanian social media. We wanted to show to what extent the representatives of this community managed to: a) increase the number of fans (involved) who supported the cause of the anti-corruption protests; and b) how Facebook was used as an interactive communication tool for users between January and February 2017. The Corruption Kills Community was perceived as a powerful tool of organization and rallying in the 2017 protest.

In recent years, green parties have gained, at least in some Western democracies, access to government at different levels. In 2011, a coalition between the Green Party under Winfried Kretschmann and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) came to power in Baden-Wurttemberg (BW) following 58 years of predominantly Christian Democratic (CDU) government in the state. The present paper analyzes whether this change of government has led to a corresponding “green–red” policy change. Applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to 12 different policy sectors, we find evidence of remarkable changes in policy in some key areas related to Green politics, and evidence also of both Social Democratic reforms and path dependence in many other sectors. The results of our fsQCA show that the responsibility of Social Democratic politicians for the ministries in the respective policy sectors in financially relevant policy sectors was enough reason for the implementation of far-reaching reforms. Social Democratic ministries in financially relevant policy sectors with a rather low degree of political leeway brought in Social Democratic policy solutions. Moreover, a sufficient reason for some Green policy manifestations was the combination of Green Party ministries in more regulatory policy sectors with a rather high degree of political leeway.

This article examines selected political party positions on a Eurozone budget and fiscal transfers between 2018 and 2021. It posits that German government positions on common European debt and fiscal policy have undergone a significant but fragile shift. It must contend with continued domestic hostility before it can be said to be a lasting realignment. A great deal with depend less on the Social Democratic Party that is largely responsible for bringing it about with the support of German Greens, and more on the willingness of the Christian Democratic Union, their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union and the German voting public to adopt a more interventionist fiscal policy as well, generating shared commitments to economic policy at home and in Europe. That has not happened yet.

El presente trabajo analiza la despenalización de la homosexualidad como una medida adoptada por las revoluciones burguesas que, abandonado por los partidos burgueses a medida que el ascenso del proletariado impulsaba a la burguesía a buscar un compromiso con los terratenientes, el clero y las monarquías de los diferentes países, fue recogida como una demanda por los partidos obreros marxistas, tales como el Partido Socialdemócrata de Alemania antes de la Primera Guerra Mundial y el Partido Bolchevique en Rusia después de la revolución de octubre de 1917. El trabajo describe la cooperación entre la Socialdemocracia alemana y el Comité Científico-Humanitario dirigido por Magnus Hirschfeld a fin de despenalizar la homosexualidad mediante la eliminación del párrafo 175 del Código Penal alemán. El artículo describe también la despenalización de la homosexualidad en Rusia bajo Lenin, con la adopción del primer Código Penal soviético en junio de 1922, y la reversión de dicha medida en marzo de 1934, en el marco de la reacción estalinista. El delito de sodomía fue reintroducido en la legislación de la RSFSR en conjunción con medidas que en 1936 prohibieron el aborto e hicieron el divorcio menos accesible -es decir, con una opresión creciente no sólo de los varones homosexuales, sino también de las mujeres. The present work analyzes the decriminalization of homosexuality as a measure adopted by the bourgeois revolutions that, abandoned by the bourgeois parties as the rise of the proletariat impelled the bourgeoisie to seek a compromise with the landlords, the clergy and the monarchies of the different countries, was taken over as a demand by the Marxist workers' parties, such as the Social Democratic Party of Germany before the First World War and the Bolshevik Party in Russia after the Revolution of October 1917. The article outlines the cooperation between Social Democracy and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee led by Magnus Hirschfeld in order to decriminalize homosexuality by removing paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. The article also describes the decriminalization of homosexuality in Russia under Lenin, with the adoption of the first Soviet Penal Code in June 1922, and the reversal of that measure in March 1934, within the framework of Stalinist reaction. The crime of sodomy was reintroduced into the legislation of the RSFSR in conjunction with measures that in 1936 prohibited abortion and made divorce less accessible - that is, with an increasing oppression not only of homosexual men, but also of women. Fil: Gaido, Daniel Fernando. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina Fil: Frencia, Cintia Mariel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia; Argentina

Contains fulltext : 214215.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) Ethnic affinity voting is the term for when political party candidates with an ethnic minority background receive a larger share of the vote in ethnically dense neighbourhoods. This study is one of the first to provide a detailed test for ethnic affinity voting during a national election in an open-list proportional representation system, with the same ballots in every polling station. It tests the conditions under which ethnic affinity voting is greater, studying the proportion of votes for ethnic minority candidates at neighbourhood level in the Netherlands in 2017, when a minority-interest party entered parliament and the traditional ethnic vote for the social democratic party (PvdA) imploded. This study disentangles party and candidate effects and finds evidence for (general and specific) ethnic affinity voting at candidate level. Even though ethnic minority candidates attract fewer votes, they perform better in neighbourhoods where more minorities live, especially when the group size of co-ethnics is larger. Ethnic affinity effects are relatively strong for candidates affiliated with minority-oriented and left-wing parties, and absent or negative for ethnic candidates of right-wing parties. Moreover, whether male or female ethnic candidates are more likely to attract the ethnic vote also depends on the ethnic background and party affiliation of the candidate. 12 p.

This article discusses the connection between Western socialist parties and technological development during the 1950s. The cases of the British Labour Party (LP), the German Social Democracy (SPD)...

This article explores national dimensions of transnational interaction between the French Socialist Party (SFIO) and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the 1940s–1950s within a comparative...

U radu se nakon kratkoga teorijskog razmatranja kulture sjećanja i političke komunikacije u izbornim kampanjama analiziraju prilozi s izjavama političara tijekom kampanje za parlamentarne izbore 2015. godine u Hrvatskoj. Glavni je cilj rada ustanoviti na koji su način događaji i pojave iz suvremene hrvatske povijesti, te oko njih prisutna različita "kolektivna sjećanja", bili prisutni u analiziranim prilozima. Istraživanje priloga objavljenih u vodećim hrvatskim medijima (dnevne novine, TV-stanice, web- -portali) provedeno je metodom analize sadržaja. Rezultati pokazuju da su prilozi koji uključuju političku komunikaciju o suvremenim povijesnim temama bili znatno zastupljeni, a da su rasprave o njima prije svega potencirane u najvećim strankama, HDZ-u i SDP-u. Na općenitoj razini zaključivanja može se reći da je izborna kampanja u znatnoj mjeri postala "mjesto sjećanja" na kojem se generiraju daljnji politički konflikti oko povijesnih pitanja, a zanemaruju rasprave oko rješavanja mnogih društvenih problema., After a brief theoretical consideration of the cultural memory and political communication in electoral campaigns, this paper analyses statements of politicians during the 2015 Croatian parliamentary campaign. The main goal of the paper is to establish the manner in which events and happenings from modern Croatian history and the various ‘collective memories' surrounding them were present in the media excerpts analysed. Research of excerpts from the leading Croatian media outlets (daily newspapers, TV stations, web portals) was performed through content analysis. The results show that excerpts including political communication about modern historical themes were present to a significant extent, and that discussions of these topics were most often provoked by the largest political parties, Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). On the level of general conclusion, it can be claimed that the electoral campaign largely became a "site of memory" where further political conflicts surrounding historical issues were generated, while discussions of solutions to numerous social problems were neglected.

There are many studies analysing the ability of parties to enact their election pledges. Most of these focus on established Western democracies and conclude that pledges made by parties that enter the government after elections are more likely to be enacted than those made by parties stuck in opposition. As the ability to keep election promises has important consequences for the quality of democracy, it is important to extend the analyses to the Central and Eastern European countries. We find a lack of such studies, however. This article seeks to make a contribution in this area. In this paper we analyse the case of the Czech Republic from 2002 to the parliamentary elections in 2013. The analysis includes pledges given in electoral manifestos by the two main parties in that period, the Czech Social Democratic Party and the Civic Democratic Party, which alternated in coalition governments. Unlike other studies from this region, we focus on a longer period, not just the last elections, so the results reflect a longer term trend, and not just the current situation.In the total sample of 1800 pledges made by the two parties in three elections we found that there is a larger success rate in keeping promises for the governing party; the CSSD fulfilled fewer pledges when they were in power than the ODS. Surprisingly, the Social democrats had a greater percent-age of enacted pledges while they were in opposition than in government. The analysis shows the shift in the composition of manifestos since the 2006 elections and the thematic composition of pledges and different success ratios among them.

The paper deals with the topic of militia as a phenomenon in Central Europe after WW I. It is analysed using the example of the Heimwehr movement in Austria, which was a regionally differentiated group with a radical anti-Marxist stance and bearing all signs of fascist orientation. The research looks for specific features of this type of militia in the context of the First Austrian Republic from the beginning of the movement in 1919 until the thirties when its influence peaked. Also the ideological background of the Heimwehr and the idea of the “Estates state” (Standestaat) of Othmar Spann is a part of the analysis. The Heimwehr had been steadily pushing for an anti-democratic change of the political system. The authoritarian course of the Dollfuss’ government that Heimwehr helped establish culminated in a civil war in February 1934. The Austrian Social Democratic Party was outlawed. In spite of the problematic sympathy with Nazism of the Styrian group of the Heimwehr, the part of the Heimwehr under the leadership of Ernst Rudiger Starhemberg decisively helped the Austrian government to successfully withstand he onslaught from Austrian Nazis and the pressure coming from the Third Reich in the critical time between Spring 1933 and Summer 1934.

espanolEn marzo de 1902 Lenin publico un opusculo titulado ?Que hacer? Problemas candentes de nuestro movimiento, en el cual propuso un modelo de organizacion partidaria para el naciente movimiento socialdemocrata ruso, que debia organizarse a nivel nacional. Dicho libro ha planteado historicamente una serie de interrogantes, de los cuales los mas importantes son los siguientes: ?Estaba Lenin proponiendo un nuevo modelo de organizacion partidaria (un “partido de cuadros” en contraposicion a un “partido de masas”) o simplemente adaptando el ejemplo del Partido Socialdemocrata de Alemania (SPD, el “partido-guia” de la Segunda Internacional) a las condiciones de la clandestinidad rusa y de la lucha fraccional contra los “economistas”, el Bund judio y una serie de organizaciones locales? ?Representaba dicho modelo de organizacion partidaria una iniciativa individual de Lenin, o era el proyecto conjunto del grupo que editaba el periodico Iskra (La chispa), que venia publicandose desde el primero de diciembre de 1900 y que organizaria el Segundo Congreso del Partido Obrero Socialdemocrata de Rusia (POSDR) en julio-agosto de 1903? Finalmente: ?Que relacion existe entre el modelo de organizacion partidaria propuesto en el libro de Lenin y la subsecuente escision entre bolcheviques y mencheviques en el Segundo Congreso del POSDR? En el presente articulo intentaremos responder a estas preguntas a la luz de una serie de documentos primarios recientemente traducidos del ruso, asi como de la critica de Vera Zasulich, una de las representantes mas destacadas del grupo editorial de Iskra, a la tactica del terrorismo individual empleada por el recientemente creado Partido Socialista Revolucionario ruso, critica que fue publicada en el organo teorico de la Socialdemocracia alemana, Die neue Zeit, en diciembre de 1902. EnglishIn March 1902, Lenin published a book entitled What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement, proposing a model of party organization for the nascent Russian social democratic movement, which had to be organized nationally. The book has historically raised a number of questions, of which the most important are: Was Lenin proposing a new model of party organization (a "cadre party" as opposed to a "mass party") or simply adapting the example of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD, the backbone of the Second International) to the conditions of Russian autocracy and to the factional struggle against the "economists", the Jewish Bund and a series of local organizations? Did that model of party organization represent an individual initiative of Lenin, or was it the joint project of the group that published the newspaper Iskra (Spark), which had been appearing since the first of December 1900 and which would organize the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in July-August 1903? Finally, what was the connection between the model of party organization proposed in Lenin’s book and the subsequent split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at the Second Congress of the RSDLP? In this article we will try to answer these questions in the light of a number of primary documents recently translated from Russian as well as of the criticism by Vera Zasulich, one of the most prominent representatives of the Iskra editorial board, of the tactics of individual terrorism employed by the newly created Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party, a criticism published in the theoretical organ of the German Social Democracy, Die neue Zeit, in December 1902.

The goal of the paper is to learn what democratic socialism is and to discuss the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP), what their model is, and how it works. Despite the fears Americans have of socialism, Sweden is home to some of the happiest people in the world. This must mean the fears that Americans have of socialism are unfounded. The Swedish people benefit from a wide range of socialist programs - programs which, if instituted in America, would be very popular. Once a thorough understanding of democratic socialism has been achieved, this paper illustrate examples of its use in America. It explore the various ways America has already benefited from democratic socialism and how Americans can move away from capitalism and towards a model such as this. In the end, two points become clear; one, that democratic socialism works, and two, that democratic socialism has been an American ideal all along. Resumo O artigo tem o objetivo de aprender o que é o socialismo democrático e discutir a história do partido social democrático sueco (SAP), que tipo de modelo ele é e como ele funciona. A despeito do medo que os estadunidenses detêm do socialismo, a Suécia abriga um dos locais com pessoas mais felizes no mundo. Isso deve significar que o medo que os estadunidenses têm sobre o socialismo está errado. Os suecos se beneficiam de um gama de programas sociais importantes, programas que, instituídos nos Estados Unidos, seriam bastante populares. Uma vez realizada uma compreensão minuciosa do que o socialismo democrático alcançou, este trabalho ilustra exemplo de seu uso nos Estados Unidos. O trabalho explora os vários meios em que os Estados Unidos já se beneficiaram do socialismo democrático e como os estadunidenses podem deixar de lado o capitalismo para um modelo como esse. Ao fim, dois pontos ficam claros; um, o socialismo democrático funciona, e dois; o socialismo democrático tem sido um ideal dos Estados Unidos desde sempre.

Parties and social movements play an important role in many theories of political science. Yet, the study of intraparty politics remains underdeveloped as random samples are difficult to conduct among political activists. This paper proposes a novel procedure to sample different parties over time and space by utilizing the advertising option of the social media webpage Facebook. As this method allows for quotas and the collection of large samples at relatively low cost, it becomes possible to improve the representativeness through poststratification and subsample robustness checks. Three examples illustrate these advantages of Facebook sampling: First, a Facebook sample approximated intraparty decisions and the outcome of a leadership contest of the Alternative for Germany. Second, a weighted Facebook sample achieved similar estimates as a representative local leader survey of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Third, by evaluating subgroups of key demographics for parties with unknown population parameters, two Facebook samples show that the color-coded conflict in Thailand was driven by different concepts of regime type, but not by a left–right divide on economic policy-making. Facebook sampling appears to be the best and cheapest method to conduct time-series cross-sectional studies for political activists.

Following the election of the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ) to a minority government in September 2012, the federal New Democratic Party (NDP), which had used a large number of first-time victories in Quebec to help propel them to a record number of seats and the status of Official Opposition in the federal election the previous year, was forced by the media to clarify its position on Quebec sovereignty. The official policy had been drafted in 2005 under then-leader Jack Layton in what became known as the Sherbrooke Declaration; it stated that the party would support Quebec's claim to independence if a majority of voters, or 50 per cent plus one, voted in favour in a referendum. The media, however, claimed that this position seemed to 'run counter to the federal Clarity Act, which was passed into law in 2000. It says negotiations leading to the secession of Quebec from Canada could take place only after a referendum result with a "clear majority", as determined by the House of Commons' (Galloway 2012). Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, referencing the Clarity Act rather than the Sherbrooke Declaration, later admitted that a 50 per cent plus one vote would require the federal government to negotiate but not necessarily accept independence (Macpherson 2012). Yet in January 2013, the NDP tabled a private member's bill in the House of Commons that attempted to put 'clarity back into the "Clarity Act"' (Pfeffer 2013); the so-called Unity Bill 'would see the federal government enter into negotiations after a simple majority vote on a clear question' (Macfarlane 2013). While these attempts to clarify the NDP's position and establish a process by which to negotiate sovereignty perhaps did not satisfy anyone, they nevertheless highlight the struggle the NDP has had addressing nationalist sentiment in Quebec.As a social democratic party that takes seriously government intervention and involvement as a way to improve the lives of Canadians, and as an explicitly federalist political party that has historically viewed the unity of the country as imperative to progress, nationalist sentiment remains a difficult issue. Yet in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as separatism gained support within Quebec, one group within the NDP sought to acknowledge these ideas while at the same time promoting a different Canadian nationalism. This group, which came to be known as the Waffle, recognised the 'existence of two nations within Canada, each with its own language, culture and aspiration', and insisted that '[a]n English Canada concerned with its own national survival would create common aspirations that would help tie the two nations together once more'. Concerned with the increasing dominance and influence of the United States over Canada, they argued that the country could maintain unity if it adopted socialism and acknowledged that Canada was comprised of two nations ('For an Independent Socialist Canada' 1969). Yet members of the Waffle also recognised Quebec's right to self-determination; they insisted that all people, including Quebeckers, should have the right to make their own decisions free from external force or influence. These positions proved to be enormously controversial and divisive at the time. Nevertheless, the Waffle played an important role in the ongoing struggles within the NDP to develop a position regarding Quebec sovereignty and self-determination.Time for reassessment: literature on the NDP and QuebecShockingly little scholarly attention has been paid to the history and development of the New Democratic Party. Monographs by Desmond Morton (1974, 1986), Ivan Avakumovic (1978), Norman Penner (1992), and Alan Whitehorn (1992) chronicle the existence of socialism in Canada, the emergence of the NDP, and the evolution of the party. As well, there are biographies and autobiographies of varying quality on many of the major players in the NDP that provide further insight into the evolution of social democracy in Canada (see Lewis 1981; MacDonald 1998; Shackleton 1975; Smith 1989; and Stewart 2003). …

The welfare state literature argues that Social Democratic party representation is of key importance for welfare state outcomes. However, few papers are able to separate the influence of parties from voter preferences, which implies that the partisan effects will be overstated. I study a natural experiment to identify a partisan effect. In 1995, the Labour Party (Ap) in the Norwegian municipality of Flå filed their candidate list too late and could not participate in the local election. Ap was the largest party in Flå in the entire post-World War period, but have not regained this position. I use the synthetic control method to study the effects on welfare spending priorities. I find small and insignificant partisan effects.

Michael Foot had good reasons for resenting Dr David Owen, who played a prominent role in the formation of the breakaway Social Democratic Party (SDP) while Foot was Labour's leader. In Loyalists and Loners (1986), a book of political pen-portraits, Foot duly delivered a blistering attack on Owen, focusing on two charges – that Owen was consumed by personal ambition from an early stage of his career, and that he was an ideological turncoat who had wilfully misused the word ‘socialism’. The present article examines Foot's allegations in the light of various historical sources, including the private papers of both protagonists. It is argued that, though Foot's charges seem devastating at first sight – and have never been refuted by Owen or his admirers – they cannot be sustained after an impartial review of the evidence. This reappraisal provides new insights into Owen's remarkable and controversial career at two pivotal stages – his initial rise to ministerial office, and his decision to leave Labour.

One counterintuitive variation in wage-setting regulation is that countries with the highest labor standards and strongest labor movements are among the least likely to set a statutory minimum wage. This, the author argues, is due largely to trade union opposition. Trade unions oppose the minimum wage when they face minimal low-wage competition, which is affected by the political institutions regulating industrial action, collective agreements, and employment, as well as by the skill and wage levels of their members. When political institutions effectively regulate low-wage competition, unions oppose the minimum wage. When political institutions are less favorable toward unions, there may be a cleavage between high- and low-wage unions in their minimum wage preferences. The argument is illustrated with case studies of the UK, Germany, and Sweden. The author demonstrates how the regulation of low-wage competition affects unions’ minimum wage preferences by exploiting the following labor market institutional shocks: the Conservatives’ labor law reforms in the UK, the Hartz labor market reforms in Germany, and the European Court of Justice'sLavalruling in Sweden. The importance of union preferences for minimum wage adoption is also shown by how trade union confederation preferences influenced the position of the Labour Party in the UK and the Social Democratic Party in Germany.

Though more than 100 countries have adopted gender quotas, the effects of these reforms on women's political leadership are largely unknown. We exploit a natural experiment—a 50–50 quota imposed by the national board of the Swedish Social Democratic Party on 290 municipal branches—to examine quotas’ influence on women's selection to, and survival in, top political posts. We find that those municipalities where the quota had a larger impact became more likely to select (but not reappoint) female leaders. Extending this analysis, we show that the quota increased the number of women perceived as qualified for these positions. Our findings support the notion that quotas can have an acceleration effect on women's representation in leadership positions, particularly when they augment the pool of female candidates for these posts. These results help dispel the myth that quotas trade short-term gains in women's descriptive representation for long-term exclusion from political power.

The September 2013 Bundestag election, which reelected Angela Merkel as chancellor, was a clear defeat for the Green Party. Alliance 90/The Greens (henceforth the Greens) fared far better than the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which failed even to score the five percent of the vote required for representation in parliament, but still fell from 10.7 percent to 8.4 percent, losing five of their sixty-eight seats in parliament. Since in March of that same year, surveys had shown their support at 17 percent, this disappointing result forced Jurgen Trittin, the leader of the parliamentary delegation to step down.1 In many ways, this perceived electoral debacle marked the end of an era. The former Federal Minister of the Envi ron ment, who had originally joined the party in 1980, told reporters that “a new gen eration” would have to step forward and lead the party into the 2017 campaign. This statement suggested not only that the Greens’ rebellious founding impulse was spent, but also that they had become part of the establishment in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), now requiring a reinvigoration of their own. Since the Greens were once expected to be little more than a short-lived byproduct of the social conflicts of the 1970s, a closer look at the party’s founding moment at the beginning of the 1980s might shed new light on its current predicament. Though the Greens remain a small party and have been in the opposition throughout most of their time in parliament, their present travails have been linked to a larger crisis of democracy in the FRG. With the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in another grand coalition, the parliamentary delegations of the Greens and the Left Party are all that remains of the opposition. In the eyes of political scientists

Our aim is to probe the applicability of multiple streams approach (MSA) on the case of the Czech Social Democratic Party modernization’s project (2006–2008), as well as to extend it to settings beyond the government. This case offers not only a different domain to test MSA, but also a good case of problem solving under conditions of crisis. We argue that it is possible to apply MSA to political parties because they represent the same kind of organizations as governments, i.e., organized anarchies. Applying the MSA framework helps us understand the organizational transformation of the party. We identified favorable essential elements of three streams that were coupled in two opportunity windows by a skillful policy entrepreneur, the party chair Paroubek. His designation to the party leadership opened the window for successful adoption and realization of the narrow modernization project focusing on the introduction of political marketing and managerial methods. The defeat in the 2006 elections unlocked the window for adoption of the broad modernization project, but ambiguity of the issue hindered implementation leading to a loss of attention by party decision makers, the main entrepreneur and the dominant vote-seeking orientation of the party.

In this paper, we study the ways in which affirmative action for one political minority, gender quotas, impact on intersectional representation. In a quantitative analysis of detailed panel data from 285 Swedish municipal assemblies, the numerical impact of a zipper placement mandate in Sweden's largest political party, the Social Democratic Party, is analyzed. No evidence that this quota helped, or hindered, the intersectional representation of men or women is found in the short run, but it is found that a weak numerical impact may exist in the long run. A qualitative analysis of party records and interviews with key actors sheds further light on these results. Differences in the norms of representation for women and polyethnic minorities, coupled with weak organizational and practical constraints for formulating policies for the latter, appear to be likely explanations.

This article provides a study of political positions concerning the role of religion in modern society in Sweden between 1920 and 1939. It aims to increase understanding of the Swedish secularization path, with special emphasis on issues related to heritage and national identity, by comparing the dominant perspectives on these issues in the Church of Sweden and in the Social Democratic Party during that period. It addresses how these positions have influenced policies during the period, as well as some of their implications for later path dependence. It explores relations between religious issues and the concept of national heritage, as well as how the fact that both were at that time commonly seen as legitimate tasks of the state came to influence the development of Swedish church-and-state relations and heritage policies. Special attention is given to the positions of the Young Church Movement, a movement within the Church emphasizing its role as a national church with a central position in national identity, as well as to the views of Arthur Engberg, the anti-clerical Social Democratic government minister responsible for church, education, and culture in the 1930s. peerReviewed

How is it that the Swedish populist nationalist party the Sweden Democrats receives its strongest support from the established working class, in spite of the high degree of class voting and left–right mobilization which is known to characterize Swedish politics? Based on surveys from the SOM (Society, Opinion, Media) Institute as well as the Swedish National Elections Studies, this article shows that this is not a result of increasing anti-immigrant attitudes in the working class or of decreasing left–right polarization among voters. Rather, we present the argument that the weakening alignment between the working class and the Social Democratic Party and the weakened left–right polarization between the main parties have created a structure which has left room for a realignment between large parts of the working class and the Sweden Democrats along the alternative underlying ideological dimension of authoritarianism/libertarianism.

En este artículo analizamos los debates y disputas políticas en la Social Democracia sobre la cuestión nacional judía. Nos enfocamos en distintas organizaciones políticas de varias zonas de Europa oriental: El Imperio Ruso, donde abordamos las relaciones entre el Bund y el resto de la Social Democracia Rusa; la zona polaca del Imperio (la Polonia del Congreso), donde analizamos las relaciones entre el Bund, la Social Democracia Polaca y el Partido Socialista Polaco (PPS); finalmente nos enfocamos en la provincia de Galitzia, en ese momento parte de Austria, para evaluar la disputa entre el Partido Social Demócrata Polaco de Austria (parte del partido Pan-Austríaco) y los activistas judíos que, viniendo de este partido, rompieron con el mismo para crear un partido judío de orientación bundista. En todos los casos examinados combinamos un análisis de las posiciones que estas distintas organizaciones desarrollaron sobre la cuestión nacional judía, enmarcadas en sus disputas y debates generales. Nos centramos en sus posiciones sobre la existencia de la nacionalidad judía, su posición sobre el futuro de la población judía (asimilacionista, neutralista, nacionalista, etc.) y la relación de estas cuestiones con una posición general sobre el problema nacional. Este trabajo se centra en analizar las regiones donde surgieron distintas posturas sobre la conveniencia de una organización socialista judía, factor que estimuló el conjunto del debate sobre la cuestión nacional judía. Finalizamos analizamos la lucha que algunas organizaciones socialistas judías libraron por ser reconocidas por la Segunda Internacional y los cruces internacionales entre las distintas posturas. In this article we analyze the debates and political disputes in the Second International about the Jewish Question as a national question. We focus on different political organizations of various zones of Eastern Europe: The Russian Empire, where we address the relations between the Bund and the rest of Russian Social Democracy; the polish zone of the Empire (Congress Poland), where we analyze the relations between the Bund, Polish Social Democracy and the Polish Socialist Party (PPS); finally, we focus on the Province of Galitzia, in that moment a part of Austria, to assess the struggle between the Polish Social Democratic Party of Austria (part of the All-Austrian party) and the Jewish activists that, coming from this party, broke with it to create a Jewish party of bundist orientation. In all the examined cases we combine an analysis of the positions that these different organizations developed over time about the Jewish national question, framed in their general disputes and debates. We focus in their positions about the existence of a Jewish nationality, their position on the future of Jewish population (assimilationist, neutralist, nationalist, etc.) and the relationship of these questions with a general position on the national question. This work focuses in analyzing the regions where different positions on the convenience of a separate Jewish socialist organization emerged, a factor that stimulated the whole debate on the Jewish National Question. We finish by analyzing the struggle that some socialist Jewish organizations fought to be recognized by the Second International and the international connections between the different postures. Fil: Quiroga, Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina Fil: Masso, Mariana Guillermina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia; Argentina

The 2017 German federal election delivered dramatic electoral decline of the two traditional main parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who had governed Germany in a ‘grand coalition’ government since 2013. The main reason for this outcome was the decision by Chancellor Angela Merkel to open Germany’s borders for refugees and migrants, an unprecedented policy that abandoned border controls and remained in place between September 2015 and March 2016. This article focuses on how the refugee and migration problem subsequently turned into a wedge issue, splitting most German political parties and handing a major election victory to the main critics of Merkel’s decision, namely the rightist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the right-wing liberals of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Rather than explaining these developments in isolation, the article highlights how past welfare state retrenchment and fear over future economic prosperity make significant groups of the electorate, including former supporters of left-of-centre parties, lose confidence in the ability of the political system to deliver stability and social integration.

Following significant electoral defeats in 2010, both the British Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) have been re-considering their approach to the welfare state. This article outlines some of the key themes of social democracy and social democratic social policy before discussing the evolution of the latter in both Sweden and Britain. The paper explores the cumulative effect of the revisionist approaches adopted by both parties over time which has resulted in a distancing from a welfare state strategy based on equality, universalism and publicly provided services. It is concluded that both parties now have little road left to construct a modern welfare state narrative that reflects “core” social democratic principles.

In the afternoon of July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb near the central government building in Oslo, Norway, killing eight people. About an hour later, he arrived, disguised as a policeman, at the social democratic summer camp on the small island of Utoya near Oslo, shooting another 69 people, mostly teenagers. The survivors hid in bushes, played dead beside their dead friends, or swam to the mainland. In the morning of the next day, the police announced that Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian islamophobic right-wing extremist, had been arrested for the attacks. The terror attacks received a lot of attention in both the international and Norwegian press. According to the compendium of texts, which he distributed on the web a few hours before the attacks, Breivik regarded Islam as the main enemy and argued for the deportation of all Muslims from Europe (Kremer, Stigset, & Treloar, 2011). The political debate in the aftermath of the attacks was calm and temperate, and the media coverage in Norway of the ruling social democratic party and the prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, has been characterized as objective and positive (Bihlar & Brathell, 2011). In this article, we examine whether the attacks had observable effects on Norwegians’ attitudes toward immigrants. Our study relates to the literature on the attitudinal consequences of terrorism. In a small sample of 206 respondents, Echebarria-Echabe and Fernandez-Guede (2006) show that Spanish respondents interviewed immediately after the Madrid terror attack of 2004 expressed more anti-Arab and conservative attitudes than respondents interviewed just before the attack. Bozzoli and Muller (2009) find that the London terrorist attacks in 2005 increased concern regarding future attacks and decreased

This article analyses the change and politicisation of management in the Lithuanian government agencies and agencies under the ministries in the period 1990–2012. Changes in de jure politicisation of the higher civil service depended on structural and civil service reforms. The start of Lithuania’s accession to the EU marked a decline in structural politicisation, but de facto politicisation increased throughout this period. However, the politicisation trend was opposite during the 2008–2012 Government term: structural politicisation faced an upward trend, while actual politicisation was going down. Our analysis of the Lithuanian agency politicisation also revealed some differences in the pattern of politicisation according to the Lithuanian political parties. The Lithuanian Social Democratic Party more frequently pursues the strategy of de facto politicisation by recruiting agency heads involved in its political activities, while the Homeland Union (Lithuanian Christian Democrats) tends to adopt the structural form of politicisation by using government-wide civil service reforms to dismiss the incumbent managers. This research indicated that de facto politicisation of the Lithuanian agencies is relatively small with only 19.1% of all agency heads engaged in party networks. However, this measure of politicisation is more pesimistic than optimistic – it ispossible the higher civil service employs more politically affiliated managers than our analysis based on personal biographies was able to detect. Furthermore, there is variation across different types of agencies. Heads of the government agencies who acted as political appointees at certain periods of time were more politicised than managers in charge of the ministerial agencies who held career civil service positions more frequently. The turnover of agency managers is best explained by alterations of ruling majorities and governments, taking into account more the intensive turnover of agency managers during the Lithuanian governments controlled by the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party. Cases of one government agency and one agency under the ministries indicated how their managers were replaced after actual changes of government. However, there is no single straightforward explanation of politicisation. First, politicisation of the agency management could be explained in terms of certain ‘push’ factors: politicisation is associated with party entrenchment in power and density of the party networks. Political parties with longer government experience have more opportunities to make use of political appoitments. Second, politicisation is linked to some ‘pull’ factors: party patronage is exercised more frequently over more politically salient areas of public services. Therefore, the mix of political and administrative factors can be used to understand the change and politicisation of the Lithuanian agency management. On the one hand, the political parties that are better entrenched in power possess longer lists of loyal candidates for filling up managerial positions in the Lithuanian agencies. On the other hand, political parties tend to control the performance of more salient agencies through politically motivated appointments and dismissals. However, it is politicians’ beliefs and their power to exercise party patronage that brings politicisation in the higher civil service. The future research of politicisation can assess how civil service legislation and its enforcement affect the dynamics of politicisation in the Lithuanian agencies. Also, it could be useful to examine the change and politicisation of management in other Lithuanian public sector organisations.

This study analyses the discussion of four Finnish parties – Centre Party, National Coalition Party, Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) and Finnish People’s Democratic League/Left Alliance (SKDL/VAS; Suomen kansan demokraattinen liitto/Vasemmistoliitto) – on foreign workers, refugees and asylum seekers in 1986–1991. The turn of the 1990s marked a period of substantial change in Finnish immigration policy and legislation and included the first comprehensive immigration policy papers by the parties. The study sheds light on the contemporary history of Finnish party politics and discourses on immigration and the challenges faced by mainstream right-wing and left-wing parties when dealing with immigration. The analysis of a wide range of policy papers and documents produced for parties’ internal use indicates that the changes in foreign policy, developments in national demographic and economic circumstances as well as the parties’ broad base of supporters and distinctive ideological traditions facilitate explanation of party stances. The parties’ objectives of the period represented both continuity and revision in relation to previous decades’ considerably restrictive politics.

This paper focuses on the ideological development of 19 social democratic party ideologies in Western Europe. The years of interest are the last three decades of the twentieth century, when the broadly cherished Keynesian model was gradually replaced by a revived form of classical liberal economic thinking, i.e., neoliberalism. In order to measure the impact of these neoliberal values on social democratic parties, I use the widely utilized Manifesto Data Set and develop a new, exclusively socioeconomic, left–right scale that mainly focuses on core political questions regarding the scope of the state, the role of markets and the allocation of public goods. The results from the descriptive analysis reveal that neoliberal values did gain influence also within social democratic parties, although no more than four parties demonstrate a significant and long-standing ideological change towards the neoliberal pole. A less clear neoliberal trend, moreover, can be distinguished in five additional parties wh...

Existing analyses of the Turkish party system suggest that it is unique in several respects. Upper-class voters tend to support the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the centre-left social democratic party, while poorer voters support the right. Unlike party systems in Western democracies, expert surveys find that a religious–secular divide, and not a socio-economic divide, best explains the general left–right dimension. Qualitative literature stresses Turkey’s uniqueness due to the long history of the CHP, its close ties to the bureaucracy and military, and the role of the military in politics. Lastly, existing quantitative measures of policy positions disagree about the placement of major parties. We estimate the principal dimension of Turkish party competition using electoral manifestos as data by applying the Wordfish scaling algorithm. We find that ideology in Turkish politics is reversed, with the nominally centre-left CHP employing more populist rhetoric typically associated with right-wing parties in the West, and vice versa.

Austrian mainstream parties perpetuated one of the longest standing grand coalition governments across Western Europe. Over at least two decades, the balance of power had shifted firmly toward the ideological right. The post-war Austrian party system has lacked viable centre parties and has failed to produce a green party on the scale of importance of those of many of its West European neighbours. It does not have workers parties apart from the mainstream Social Democratic Party of Austria (Sozialdemokratische Partei Osterreichs, SPO). The lack of depth or options for coalition-building on the political left in the Austrian party system has produced unique opportunities for coalition governments on the right in the early twenty-first century. Yet, Austrian parties on the right proved seemingly unable to capitalize upon such opportunities in order to entrench a right of centre bloc of power. Despite the break with grand coalition government in 1999 to form the coalition government between the Austrian Peop...

On 15 March 2005, Brazil celebrated twenty consecutive years of democracy, an achievement without precedent in its 183 years of na- tional independence. In the early months of this year, however, Brazilians were less likely to ruminate on democracy's twentieth birth- day than they were to note another, more immediate milestone: the halfway mark of President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva's first four-year term. That Lula's first two years generated more discussion than democracy's first twenty is a testimony to the fascination sparked by this most unusual of modern Brazilian presidents. Many saw Lula's inauguration on New Year's Day 2003 as the begin- ning of an era. The event drew attention to a person, a party, and an agenda. The person—the president himself—has a compelling back- ground, by now well known, as a lathe operator turned trade-union leader who had been defeated in the 1989, 1994, and 1998 presidential elections. 1 His party, the Workers' Party (PT), is Latin America's largest, best-organized, and best-financed leftist party. The agenda, which the PT-led coalition government has rolled out slowly over the past two years, is quite different from the program that many had come to expect from Lula and the PT after their two decades in opposition. The person, the party, and the agenda—and the emerging contradictions among the three—provide us with an opportune moment to assess the Lula govern- ment at midterm. Before embarking on such an assessment, one needs first to revisit the October 2002 presidential election and the administration of Lula's predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PDSB)—the first modern Brazilian president Wendy Hunter is associate professor of government at the University of Texas-Austin. Timothy J. Power is associate professor of political sci- ence at Florida International University and president of the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA).

The German Social Democratic Party's approach to issues of immigration and integration is paradoxical: on the one hand, the SPD has traditionally been the ‘party of and for immigrants’, enjoying the support of the overwhelming majority of the ‘guest workers’ and their descendants. At the same time, however, the SPD has been extremely timid when it comes to promoting immigration and integration policies and capitalising on the immigrant vote. Using a frame analysis of party discourse, this article explores the reasons for the SPD's unwillingness to address immigration more forcefully, taking into consideration three main factors: the ideological divisiveness of the questions attached to immigration, the tactical choices of the SPD positioning itself in the strategic terrain of party competition and the challenges resulting from how the centre–right and smaller parties have made inroads into this field of highly contested electoral politics.

International audience; This article draws from the fields of political science and of organisational studies to explore the short-term and long-term impact of New Labour's party management on the quality of party processes as well as on party reputation. It is based on the long-term ethnographic participant observation of the Labour Party at local and regional levels, as well as national events such as annual conferences. The article starts by identifying the distinctive features of New Labour's party management. It then examines the " unintended consequences " of this brand of party management, showing this model to be mainly self-defeating. The final section provides a general assessment of the impact of New Labour's party management from the perspective of organisational learning and innovation. Overall the article stresses the long-term poisonous effects of this brand of leadership and management on political organisations and on politics in general.

This article contributes to a burgeoning literature on political leadership, offering an interim assessment of Jeremy Corbyn's tenure as leader of the UK Labour party. At the time of writing, the candidate of the party's Left had been leader for a mere seven months. Media commentators and pundits have been critical of Corbyn's platform and performance, gleefully predicting his imminent demise. On the other hand, the 'Corbynistas' who swelled Labour's ranks in the aftermath of the 2015 defeat have remained steadfast and committed supporters. Their hope is not only that Labour will win the next election, but that Corbyn can recast the landscape of British politics by challenging the economic and political establishment which has assented to the growth of inequality and austerity. (author's abstract)

It is puzzling that social democratic parties are rarely the main focus of attention in the migration policy making literature, despite their crucial role in most European party systems and their frequent tenure in government. In this article, we seek to address this shortcoming by examining key immigration policies advocated by the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) over the past 40 years. This article shows that the SAP believes there are distinct limits to the ability of ‘the people’s home’ to make room for immigrants. Given social democracy’s clear adherence to notions of solidarity, inclusiveness and internationalism, the empirical findings of this article are counter-intuitive. Specifically, the Swedish Social Democrats have, since the late 1960s, continuously backed, and indeed initiated, strict immigration policies. Party ideology has been the missing factor in understanding these concrete immigration policies.

O artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa sobre os efeitos da cobertura da imprensa no voto nas eleições presidenciais brasileiras de 2002 e 2006. Argumenta-se que ela foi um fator importante em ambos os pleitos. A variável dependente é formada pelas séries históricas de intenção de voto dos principais candidatos: Lula (Partido dos Trabalhadores), Serra (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira), Garotinho (Partido Socialista Brasileiro) e Ciro (Partido Popular Socialista) em 2002, e Lula, Alckmin (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira), Heloísa Helena (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade) e Cristovam Buarque (Partido Democrático Trabalhista) em 2006. A principal variável explicativa é a cobertura eleitoral de quatro grandes jornais do país: Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, O Globo e Jornal do Brasil. Completam o modelo as seguintes variáveis de controle: propaganda partidária dos candidatos, o Horário Político Gratuito Eleitoral no 1º e 2º turnos, os debates presidenciais e o índice de popularidade presidencial. Os modelos foram estimados via MQO. Os resultados dos testes indicam que, em 2002, a cobertura da imprensa de Lula e Ciro Gomes foi uma das responsáveis pela variação observada nas suas respectivas intenções de voto. Em 2006, a dinâmica foi um pouco mais complexa. Apenas as intenções de voto em Heloísa Helena foram afetadas por sua própria cobertura. A princípio, é surpreendente que a cobertura extremamente negativa de Lula não tenha lhe custado votos. Mas ela teve um impacto indireto, e importante, para Alckmin e Cristovam Buarque. Como esse impacto foi maior durante o escândalo do dossiê tucano, podese afirmar que a cobertura da imprensa contribuiu decisivamente para a ocorrência do 2º turno na última eleição presidencial. Esses resultados mantêm-se mesmo quando se analisam os votos de eleitores de grupos de escolaridade distintos, um controle para os diferentes níveis de exposição aos jornais. This article presents the results of research on the effects of press coverage of voting in the 2002 and 2006 Brazilian presidential elections of. We argue that it was an important factor in both campaigns. Our dependent variable is made up of a historical series on intention to vote for the major candidates: Lula (Worker's Party or PT, Partido dos Trabalhadores), Serra (Brazilian Social Democratic Party, or PSDB, Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira), Garotinho (Brazilian Socialist Party or PSB, Partido Socialista Brasileiro) and Ciro Gomes (Popular Socialist Party or PPS, Partido Popular Socialista) in 2002, and Lula, Alckmin (PSDB), Heloísa Helena (Party of Socialism and Freedom, or PSOL, Partido Socialismo e Liberdade) and Cristovam Buarque (Democratic Worker's Party, or PDT, Partido Democrático Trabalhista) in 2006. Our main explanatory variable is electoral coverage in the country's four major daily newspapers: Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, O Globo and Jornal do Brasil. The following control variables complete our model: candidates' party propaganda, the free publicly-sponsored electoral broadcasting time - known as Horário Político Gratuito Eleitoral - in the first and second rounds, presidential debates and presidential popularity rates. Models were estimated through MQO. Test results indicate that in 2002, press coverage given to candidates Lula and Ciro Gomes was one of factors responsible for the variation observed in voting intentions. In 2006, dynamics were a bit more complex. The only the intentions to vote affected by coverage were those for candidate Heloisa Helena. Furthermore, it is surprising that Lula's extremely negative coverage did not cost him votes. Yet this coverage did have an important indirect impact on candidates Alckmin and Cristovam Buarque. Since this impact was larger during the scandal involving PSDB activities, we can assert that press coverage contributed decisively to the need for a second round in the last presidential election. These results are sustained even when applied to analysis of voting patterns for voters with different educational levels, used as a means of controlling for different levels of exposure to newspaper coverage. L'article présente les résultats d'une recherche sur les effets de la couverture de la presse sur le vote dans les élections présidentielles brésiliennes de 2002 et 2006. On argumente qu'elle a été un facteur important dans les deux élections. La variable dépendante é formée par les séries historiques d'intention de vote des principaux candidats: Lula (Parti des Travailleurs), Serra (Parti de la Sociale-Démocratie Brésilienne), Garotinho (Parti Socialiste Brésilien) et Ciro (Parti Populaire Socialiste) en 2002, et Lula, Alckmin (Parti de la Sociale-Démocratie Brésilienne), Heloísa Helena (Parti Socialisme et Liberté) et Cristovam Buarque (Parti Démocratique Travailleur) en 2006. La variable explicative principale est la couverture électorale de quatre grands journaux du pays : Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, O Globo et Jornal do Brasil. Les variables de contrôle suivantes complètent le modèle : la propagande partidaire des candidats, l'Horaire Politique Gratuit Électoral pendant le premier tour, ainsi comme pendant le second, les débats présidentiels et l'indice de popularité présidentielle. Les modèles ont été évalués par MQO. Les résultats des tests indiquent qu'en 2002, la couverture de la presse de Lula et Ciro Gomes a été une des responsables pour la variation observée dans leurs respectives intentions de vote. En 2006, la dynamique a été un peu plus complexe. Il y a que les intentions de vote pour Heloísa Helena qui ont été affectées par sa propre couverture. D'abord, il est étonnant que la couverture extrêmement négative de Lula ne lui ait pas coûté des votes. Mais elle a eu un impact indirect, et important, pour Alckmin et Cristovam Buarque. Puisque cet impact a été plus fort pendant le scandale du « dossier tucano », il est possible d'affirmer que la couverture de la presse a contribué de manière décisive pour que le second tour ait eu lieu les dernières élections présidentielles. Ces résultats se maintiennent même lorsque qu'on analyse les votes des électeurs de groupes de scolarité distingués, un contrôle pour les différents niveaux d'exposition aux journaux.

Does declining voter turnout harm center-left parties? Although this is what many observers believe, most empirical studies fail to support this thesis. In contrast to this common wisdom, this article shows that there is a negative effect of turnout decline on the Social Democratic Party and the Left Party in Germany. For the first time, this article ana- lyzes systematically aggregate data of 1,500 urban quarters in 34 large German cities. It will be argued that the effects of social segregation and voter apathy become only visible on this small scale since social indicators and turnout data correlate very highly. Urban districts differ not only in their electoral participation but also in the election results. Left of center parties fare much better in areas that have experienced the strongest decline of turnout over the last three decades.

Olof Palme, twenty-five years later analyses the intellectual and political debate on Olof Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister murdered in 1986; after years of ritual tributes, some books published between 2008 and 2011 and the confrontation within the Swedish Social Democratic Party (as a consequence of the electoral defeat suffered in 2010) have at last favoured an open discussion around his political legacy.

David Owen entered the House of Commons as member for Plymouth in 1966. He became a junior minister under Harold Wilson by 1968 and quickly established himself as a leading figure of the Labour right. From 1977 to 1979 he was Britains youngest post-war Foreign Secretary under James Callaghan. In response to Labours apparent leftward drift, Owen defected from the party in March 1981 to jointly lead the Social Democratic Party (SDP) alongside William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams. From 1983 until the 1987 General Election, he was the partys leader, but stood down after being unable to endorse the merger of the SDP and Liberal parties. He re-launched a ‘continuing SDP’ on the 8 March 1988 which, after failing to build a base of popular support, was disbanded on 3 June 1990. Owen resigned his seat at the 1992 General Election. This article argues that understanding Owens political career, and in particular his political thought and its relationship with his role as SDP leader, is important in comprehending the fortunes of the British centre-left in the last two decades of the twentieth century. It suggests that the task of the British centre-left was defined by Owen and the SDP as a need to create a new synthesis of ideas that could keep the values and attitudes of mind that previous left thinkers had upheld on the political agenda of the 1980s. The outcome was an ideological retreat that demonstrated the difficult conditions in which social democrats were attempting to find intellectual renewal.

This article explores the impact of the leadership of Francisco Sa Carneiro, the first leader of the Portuguese Social Democratic Party, and Prime Minister, in the tumultuous years of Portugal's transition to democracy in the 1970s. Sa Carneiro was and still is revered as a unique charismatic figure within the party, and is viewed today as the founder of the Democratic Right in Portugal. This qualitative analysis emphasizes major aspects of Sa Carneiro's career and leadership, paying special attention to the development of charismatic dynamics between the leader and his supporters. The author argues that Sa Carneiro's discourse and actions throughout the years were a major factor in the emergence and consolidation of a charismatic community around the leader that persists to this day.

Given the vast amounts of research on party competition, party strategy, political communication and electoral campaigning, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the study of national party elites' perceptions of voters and public opinion. This article argues that the mindset of leading party officials, and more specifically their perceptions of voter and public opinion rationality, driving forces and knowledge, is a much-neglected explanation for why parties adopt the electoral strategies they do. Analysed here are unique internal party documents from two Swedish parties during the period 1964 to 1991: the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party. A simple analytic framework is proposed for the study of party elite perceptions of voters and public opinion. In contrast to the overwhelmingly pessimistic view of voter rationality that still prevails in contemporary research, the findings presented in this article suggest that national party elites in general have had a surprisingly positive view of voters and, in particular, public opinion. Perceptions of voters and public opinion were largely unaffected by the parties' electoral fortunes, and did not become gloomier over time.