scholarly journals Poland: A Case of Top-Down Polarization

2018 ◽  
Vol 681 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert Tworzecki
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Strong Preference ◽  
The Political ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
The Media ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Poland represents a surprising case of democratic backsliding since the return to power of the PiS party in 2015, given that positive conditions associated with democracy are present—consistent strong per capita economic growth since 1989, moderate inequality, rising wages, strong preference for democracy, high levels of happiness, and a parliamentary system with proportional representation. The lack of strong underlying cleavages indicates the polarization was not bottom up. Instead, this article argues that polarization was driven from the top down by a segment of the political class that donned the cloak of radical populist anti-establishmentarianism to gain popular support, win an election, and rewrite the constitutional rules of the game to its own benefit. The Polish case points to the importance of elite cues, and especially the pernicious consequences of system-delegitimizing rhetoric, creating distrust in the media and institutions.

Political Agreements — A Critical Introduction

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kretzmer
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Political System ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
System A ◽  
Absolute Majority ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Dominant Parties

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.

The Press and the Emergent Political Class in Nigeria

2020 ◽  
pp. 606-618
Author(s):  
Ibitayo Samuel Popoola
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Media Access ◽  
Media Ownership ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media

This probing thesis in this study is on how the political class in colonial and post-colonial Nigeria established, maintained, improved and controls the machinery of the state through the press. While establishing media ownership and unequal media access as key factors responsible for the emergence of the political class, the study similarly discovered that the political class emerged because they were read, advertised or packaged by the press. Robert C. North (1967:301) says “politics could not exist without communication, nor could wars be fought.” The media are also the playing field on which politics occurs” (Perloff 2014:37). They are also the strategic routes through which aspiring politicians must travel during elections. Through a case study method of analysis, this study discovered that the political class emerged because they were read, advertised, and publicized by the press. For this reason, the political class regarded the press as partners in progress.

Strategic Voting Versus Sincere Voting

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien Bol ◽  
Tom Verthé
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Strategic Voting ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
The Government ◽  
Sincere Voting

People do not always vote for the party that they like the most. Sometimes, they choose to vote for another one because they want to maximize their influence on the outcome of the election. This behavior driven by strategic considerations is often labeled as “strategic voting.” It is opposed to “sincere voting,” which refers to the act of voting for one’s favorite party. Strategic voting can take different forms. It can consist in deserting a small party for a bigger one that has more chances of forming the government, or to the contrary, deserting a big party for a smaller one in order to send a signal to the political class. More importantly the strategies employed by voters differ across electoral systems. The presence of frequent government coalitions in proportional representation systems gives different opportunities, or ways, for people to influence the electoral outcome with their vote. In total, the literature identifies four main forms of strategic voting. Some of them are specific to some electoral systems; others apply to all.

Political crisis threatens Brazil's tentative recovery

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Construction Company ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

Significance The requests are based on plea bargains from former executives of construction company Odebrecht. While the names in ‘Janot’s list’ have not been disclosed, several of them have leaked to the media. They include six ministers in the government of President Michel Temer, two former presidents, ten state governors, and the heads of both houses of Congress. If confirmed, this would make the list a potent bombshell for the Brazilian political class. Impacts The corruption scandal looks set to disrupt next year’s presidential election. Politicians’ disdain for accountability will fuel outrage with the political class. The ground could be fertile for a candidate claiming to be an ‘outsider’.

Africa and World Economy: Prospects for Real Economic Growth

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 46-49
Author(s):  
Ann Seidman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
World Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Agricultural Resources ◽  
The World ◽  
Potential Alternative ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Year 2000

Crystal ball gazing is hardly the province of social scientists. The best one can do, in attempting to assess the prospects for real economic growth by the year 2000, is to examine the contradictory trends and struggles shaping the political economy of Africa and the world today, and suggest potential alternative outcomes. Even the possibilities are obscure.What is clear is that, despite over ten years of independence for over 40 African countries, the majority of African peoples still confront the overriding problem of poverty. Living on a continent endowed with extensive mineral agricultural resources, they still suffer from among the lowest per capita incomes and the highest mortality rates in the world.

Het optreden van de koning in België, in het bijzonder tijdens regeringscrisissen

Res Publica ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-129
Author(s):  
Karel Rimanque ◽  
Mark Wouters
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Rule ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Parliamentary System ◽  
Linguistic Groups ◽  
Objective Context ◽  
Freedom Of Action

In the Belgian constitutional order, there is no room for any direct political powers to be exercised by the King. Even on the occasion of a crisis- when the Cabinet tenders its resignation or when the Kingperforms His constitutional mission in the process towards the formation of a new government ; His freedom of action is restricted by the objective context, defined mainly by the political parties.The King, however, retains the possibility of exercising his political influence.  This influence may be all the more important in a country, such as Belgium, where the parliamentary system of proportional representation and the constitutional rule that both major linguistic groups be equally represented in the Cabinet -amongst other factors - cause a cabinet formation to be a complex and delicate process.

Technological Illusions and Educational Resistances

2016 ◽  
pp. 428-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The Public ◽  
One Laptop Per Child ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One

OLPC, the One Laptop Per Child initiative, was accepted by just a few countries, including Peru. The largest acquisition of computers has produced a fairly low impact in education and is now being quietly phased-out. Peru's government decision to adopt the computers, back in 2007, was not contested or questioned by the political class, the media or even teachers, with just a rather small number of specialists arguing against it. This chapters discussed the political and argumentative processes that brought OLPC into the public sphere, through the use of a specific narrative, that of hackerism, i.e., the hacker attitude towards computers, and how social and political validation resulted in adoption. An assessment of the process of framing OLPC as a hacker product and the perils of such reasoning lead to discuss the need for a counter-narrative about the role of computers in society.

An Uneven Resistance

2021 ◽  
pp. 355-402
Author(s):  
Christophe Jaffrelot ◽  
Pratinav Anil
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Many

This chapter deals with the regime’s few opponents. The resistance came from sections of the press, judiciary, political class and civil society—albeit in a feeble manner. The deficient performance of the media, in particular, was highlighted by Advani’s phrase: ‘When you were merely asked to bend, you chose to crawl.’ The political opposition was comprised of socialists, Hindu nationalists, Akali Dal and CPI(M) cadres, and revolutionaries were among the many who went underground and resisted the regime. The chapter describes the resistance as uneven and unimpressive, plagued by factionalism and tokenistic gestures. The chapter goes on to characterise the Emergency as a dictatorship by consent.

Defying expectations: what leader insurgencies reveal about media and party incapacity in the time of ‘audience democracy’

2018 ◽  
Vol 167 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Walter ◽  
Zareh Ghazarian
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
New Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Engagement ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Political communication and citizen engagement have been impacted by crises in both political parties and conventional media models. This article contends that the confluence of these crises has been insufficiently understood, and that this lack of understanding depends upon a third element: the dissolution of a ‘holding culture’, a sense of the ‘rules of the game’ that has constituted the ground on which parties and the media operated and generated the imaginative space for constituting community. This dissolution might be represented as resistance to a now discredited political class, once constituted by ‘old’ political and media elites, and promising a new culture – with the potential for parties to be more responsive to ‘the people’, and for a more diversified and representative media. By looking at case studies of leadership insurgency in parties and the impact of new media in creating the discursive conditions for their emergence, this article explores the realities in relation to political communication and democratic engagement.

scholarly journals Geographies of African corruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barney Warf
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Bright Spot ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Transparency International ◽  
The Media ◽  
Per Capita

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the uneven geographies of corruption on the African continent. Corruption is an entrenched part of African political culture. However, the degree and impacts of corruption vary widely across the continent, ranging from failed states such as Somalia to the region’s bright spot Botswana. This paper first defines corruption and discusses its causes and effects. It then delves into the specifics of African corruption, including its causes and effects such as patrimonial political cultures, clientelism and the role of natural resource exports. Design/methodology/approach The study uses data from Transparency International to assess African corruption empirically and geographically, and links its levels of severity using correlations to gross domestic product per capita, literacy, income inequality and freedom of the media. Findings The major findings are that while the vast majority of the continent’s one billion people live under very corrupt regimes, the impacts of corruption on economic growth are questionable. Few geographic studies of corruption exist. Originality/value The paper’s novelty stems in part from being the first to explore African corruption from a spatial perspective, illustrating its widely varying contexts and consequences.

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