Majority Members’ Feelings About Political Representation of Muslim Immigrants

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 257-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maykel Verkuyten ◽  
Paul Hindriks ◽  
Marcel Coenders

Abstract. In three survey experimental studies among national samples of the native Dutch, we examined feelings towards Muslim immigrants’ political party representation. The strategy of disengagement (reject political representation) was evaluated most positively, followed by the descriptive representation strategy (participate as Muslims in existing political party). The group representation strategy (participate in the existing political system with a Muslim party) was evaluated most negatively. Furthermore, participants who perceived higher group-based power threat had more negative feelings towards political representation of Muslim immigrants, but less so towards disengaged immigrants. In addition, negative feelings were stronger towards Muslim versus Christian immigrants and this difference was somewhat more pronounced for the group representation and descriptive representation strategy compared to political disengagement.

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maykel Verkuyten

Demographic changes lead to growing political power of immigrants and their children, which raises important social psychological questions. In a survey experimental study among a national sample of the native Dutch, feelings toward Muslim immigrants’ political party representation were examined. The strategy of group representation (participate in the existing political system with a Muslim party) elicited the strongest feelings of power threat and therefore was evaluated most negatively. Compared to group representation, the descriptive representation strategy (participate as Muslims in existing political party) and the strategy of disengagement (reject political representation) were evaluated less negatively but more negatively compared to a situation in which politics was not mentioned. Furthermore, participants who more strongly endorsed ethnic national belonging had more negative feelings but not in the disengagement condition.


Author(s):  
Melody E. Valdini

Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the central theory of this book: women’s political representation depends in part on whether men in power see a benefit to associating their political party or government with women. It begins with a brief discussion of the existing literature on women’s representation to establish the foundations of what is already known about women’s path to political office. It then engages the literature on the rational incentives that drive political behavior and goes on to suggest that the self-interested motivations of gate-keepers should be considered in any analysis of women’s descriptive representation. Finally, it presents a synopsis of the following chapters of the book and briefly describes the theoretical contributions and empirical examinations presented to culminate in a new perspective on women’s descriptive representation.


Author(s):  
Catherine E. De Vries ◽  
Sara B. Hobolt ◽  
Sven-Oliver Proksch ◽  
Jonathan B. Slapin

This chapter addresses the various concepts of political representation, such as substantive, descriptive, and symbolic. It then examines which institutions foster different types of representation. It presents two different visions of democracy: proportional and majoritarian. It considers what they imply for congruence and responsiveness. The chapter delves deeper into descriptive representation by looking at the representation of women across legislatures. When considering symbolic representation it looks at action taken by members of parliament. The chapter asks the basic question: to what extent, and in what ways, does a political system represent its citizens?


2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-157
Author(s):  
Alma Bezares Calderon ◽  
Pierre Englebert ◽  
Lisa Jené

AbstractAfrican regimes commonly use strategies of balanced ethnic representation to build support. Decentralisation reforms, often promoted in order to improve political representation and state access, can undermine such strategies. In this article we use the example of the DR Congo to show the extent to which the multiplication of decentralised provinces is upending a political system largely based until now upon collective ethnic representation in the state. Not only are Congo's new provinces more ethnically homogeneous than their predecessors, but many of them have also witnessed political takeover and monopolisation by the province's dominant ethnic group. In addition, the increased number of Congolese who now find themselves non-autochthonous to their province of residence heightens their vulnerability and the potential for local conflict. Decentralisation, whose intent was proximity to governance, might well end up excluding more Congolese from the benefits of political representation. The article uses original empirical evidence on provincial ethnic distributions to support its claims.


1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kretzmer

Political agreements are an integral part of the political system in Israel. For various reasons — mainly the proportional representation electoral system and the existence of a “third bloc” of religious parties that do no fit into the centre-right and centre-left political alliances — no political party has ever enjoyed an absolute majority in the Knesset. The dominant parties have therefore always had to rely on coalition agreements with smaller parties in order to obtain, and subsequently maintain, the parliamentary majority required for a government to rule under Israel's parliamentary system. A similar situation exists in many municipal councils and in other elected bodies, such as the Bar Council.


Author(s):  
Tsolin Nalbantian

Chapter 4 investigates Armenians’ stance in the 1957 elections and in the ‘general’ Lebanese and the intra-Armenian mini-civil war of 1958. Armenian parties participated in, and contributed to, political tensions in Lebanon. Simultaneously, they used their position in the Lebanese political system to jostle for power within their own community – a development that turned violent and ended only in December 1958, almost two months after the Lebanese mini-civil war had ended. This tension and violent confrontation between Armenian parties and their armed men had a crucial spatial effect: it unprecedentedly territorialized certain neighborhoods of Beirut. Whereas parts of Lebanon were organized by sects and classes, by relative contrast, it was according to political party affiliation that in 1957/1958 many Armenians of Mar Mikael, Sin el Fil, Bourj Hamoud, and Corniche el-Nahr were re-sorted and relocated, often by force. Lebanese Armenians aligned along the right-left fault lines that divided Lebanese politics and society— more than other confessions, indeed. Vice versa, the Lebanese state was Armenianized, as it were, in that it started to pay more attention to Armenian matters than before, intervening directly and by military force in Armenian neighborhoods in order to finally end the internecine Armenian confrontation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 28-66
Author(s):  
Tim Haughton ◽  
Kevin Deegan-Krause

Scholars have disagreed over how to assess and measure what constitutes a ‘new’ political party. The different understandings of newness matter because they are used in attempts to measure the overall instability of party systems, often producing widely varying results for volatility calculations. There are multiple approaches to assessing novelty. Some are rooted in studying party origins, while others are based on party attributes, and there is a wide range of views on the thresholds for what counts as new. Combining the origin and attribute approaches provides the best way of understanding the degree of change. The chapter assesses parties on a multi-level range of change from ‘Continuation’ through to ‘Inception’. This range permits both stricter and looser definitions to be used to determine the level and extent of newness in a political system, and thus works around the problem of inconsistent evaluations of parties and conflicting methods of classification.


Author(s):  
Pamela Paxton

This chapter examines the role of gender in democracy and democratization. It first considers how gender figures in definitions of democracy, noting that while women may appear to be included in definitions of democracy, they are often not included in practice. It then explores women’s democratic representation, making a distinction between formal, descriptive, and substantive representation. Women’s formal political representation is highlighted by focusing on the fight for women’s suffrage, whereas women’s descriptive representation is illustrated with detailed information on women’s political participation around the world. Finally, the chapter discusses the role of women in recent democratization movements around the world.


2018 ◽  
pp. 158-170
Author(s):  
Pamela Paxton ◽  
Kristopher Velasco

This chapter examines the role of gender in democracy and democratization. It first considers how gender figures in definitions of democracy, noting that while women may appear to be included in definitions of democracy, they are often not included in practice. It then explores women’s democratic representation, making a distinction between formal, descriptive, and substantive representation. Women’s formal political representation is highlighted by focusing on the fight for women’s suffrage, whereas women’s descriptive representation is illustrated with detailed information on women’s political participation around the world. Finally, the chapter discusses the role of women in recent democratization movements around the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 314-336
Author(s):  
ADEEBA AZIZ KHAN

AbstractIn this article, by studying the candidate-nomination process of the two major political parties, I show how power is distributed within the political party in Bangladesh. I show that the general acceptance by scholars that political power lies in the hands of the innermost circle of the political-party leadership in Bangladesh is too simplistic. A more nuanced observation of power and influence within the party structure shows that, in the context of Bangladesh's clientelistic political system, which is based on reciprocity between patrons and clients and relies on the ability of middlemen to organize and mobilize (in order to disrupt through hartals and strikes), power is often in the hands of those mid-level leaders who are in charge of mobilizing because their demands cannot be ignored by the topmost leadership. Through studying the candidate-nomination process of the major political parties and using the Narayanganj mayoral election of 2011 as a case study, I answer questions such as whose interests political parties are representing, what channels of influence are being used, and why these channels exist.


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