scholarly journals The Convergence of Political and Government Advertising: Theory versus Practice

2006 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Young

Although they are sometimes confused, in theory government and political advertising are separate and quite distinct. By convention, government advertising — paid for directly by taxpayers — is to be used only for necessary government information campaigns which are neutral in nature and not liable to be perceived as creating a partisan benefit for the ruling party. By contrast, political advertising occurs predominantly during elections, is paid for by political parties or candidates, and is necessarily partisan, persuasive and usually highly emotive in nature. However, in the past two decades these distinctions have broken down. This paper explores the growing links between the two types of advertising at the federal level and concludes that there is a vast gap between the theory and reality of government advertising.

1993 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Vengroff

Although many African countries have had to address pressures for democratisation and are undergoing some form of transition, Mali is an especially interesting case which could provide useful insights into the durability of democracy on the continent and elsewhere. Mali has experienced extraordinary changes in the past two years leading to the almost total transformation of the political system from a highly authoritarian régime to one which has all the trappings of a liberal democracy. Unlike most other nations, Mali was fortunate in being able to write a new constitution and hold elections without the burden of continued participation in the process by a ruling party and head of state. Therefore, the more open procedures offer a better indication of the degree to which, given the opportunity, a modern democratic system can take root in the African milieu.


Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi

Chapter 1 introduces the long and difficult process of the theoretical legitimation of the political party as such. The analysis of the meaning and acceptance of ‘parties’ as tools of expressing contrasting visions moves forward from ancient Greece and Rome where (democratic) politics had first become a matter of speculation and practice, and ends up with the first cautious acceptance of parties by eighteenth-century British thinkers. The chapter explores how parties or factions have been constantly considered tools of division of the ‘common wealth’ and the ‘good society’. The holist and monist vision of a harmonious and compounded society, stigmatized parties and factions as an ultimate danger for the political community. Only when a new way of thinking, that is liberalism, emerged, was room for the acceptance of parties set.


Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.


Author(s):  
Caroline Fleay

Throughout the past forty years various leaders from both major political parties in Australia have categorized the arrival by boat of people seeking asylum as a “crisis” and the people themselves as “illegal.” This is despite Australia being a signatory to the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and receiving relatively few people who seek asylum compared with many other countries. Punitive government policies and processes have further reinforced these representations, such that “crisis” and “illegal” can now be understood as both categories of analysis and practice. The repeated use of such categories may be helping to produce and reproduce prejudice and racism and obscure the needs and experiences of people seeking asylum.


2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (5) ◽  
pp. 1082-1099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Marcella ◽  
Graeme Baxter ◽  
Agnieszka Walicka

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study that explored human behaviour in response to political “facts” presented online by political parties in Scotland. Design/methodology/approach The study consisted of interactive online interviews with 23 citizens in North-East Scotland, in the run-up to the 2017 UK General Election. Findings Participants demonstrated cognitive and critical responses to facts but little affective reaction. They judged facts swiftly and largely intuitively, providing evidence that facts are frequently consumed, accepted or rejected without further verification processes. Users demonstrated varying levels of engagement with the information they consume, and subject knowledge may influence the extent to which respondents trust facts, in previously unanticipated ways. Users tended to notice facts with which they disagreed and, in terms of prominence, particularly noted and responded to facts which painted extremely negative or positive pictures. Most acknowledged limitations in capacity to interrogate facts, but some were delusionally confident. Originality/value Relatively little empirical research has been conducted exploring the perceived credibility of political or government information online. It is believed that this and a companion study are the first to have specifically investigated the Scottish political arena. This paper presents a new, exploratory fact interrogation model, alongside an expanded information quality awareness model.


Author(s):  
O. Morhuniuk

An article is devoted to the analysis of the functions and formats of political parties in consociational democracies. In particular, it is defined that parties that represent the interests of certain subcultures in society and that reach a consensus among themselves at the level of political agreements are called segmental. At the same time, parties that encapsulate different subgroups of the society that cooperate inside the party within main features of the consociational theory (grand coalition, mutual veto, proportionality in representations, and independence of segments or society subcultures) are called consociational. The theory of consociationalism has received a wide range of theoretical additions and criticism from political scientists over the past fifty years. And while political parties should have been, by definition, one of the key aspects of research within such democratic regimes (parties are part of large coalitions and agents of representation of certain subcultures), there is very scarce number of literature that focuses on this aspect. Therefore, the presented article provides a description of the functions of political parties that could be observed as inside their subcultures as well as in interaction with other segmental parties. Based on the experience of two European countries in the period of “classical” consociationalism (Belgium and the Netherlands), we explain the functions of the parties we have defined in such societies with examples of relevant consociational practices in them. Simultaneously with the analysis of segmental parties, the article also offers the characteristics of consociational parties. The emergence of such parties has its own institutional and historical features. The way of further development of the party system and the level of preservation of consociational practices makes it possible to understand the nature of changes in the societies. Similarly, the analysis of the forms of party competition and interaction between segmental parties makes it possible to outline the forms of those consociational changes that are taking place in the research countries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-251
Author(s):  
Boo Teik Khoo

AbstractMalaysian politics has been turbulent over the past two decades, as seen in the damaged tradition of leadership transition, non-violent revolts against successive regimes, and unstable realignments of opposing forces. Two startling symptoms point to disorder. One is the heavy electoral losses and loss of legitimacy suffered by the post-Mahathir regimes. The other is the political re-entry of Anwar Ibrahim and Mahathir Mohamad. The persisting turbulence raises certain questions. Why has the ruling party, the United Malays National Organization, been susceptible to internal fighting, being at once a source of hegemonic stability and systemic instability? Why has the apex of the United Malays National Organization repeatedly jeopardised its traditions of leadership succession? Why has one leader, Mahathir Mohamad, been involved in all the disputes? How did the crisis of the party, not just the regime, become intimately tied to economic crisis? Conventional paradigmatic explanations of Malaysian politics – inter-ethnic rivalry in a plural society, elite solidarity, and regime type (semi-democratic, hybrid, or competitive authoritarian) – are of little help even if ethnicity, elite conduct, and authoritarian rule are relevant. Instead, this essay suggests that the turbulence is part of a long trajectory of oligarchic reconstitution bound to a peculiar nexus of state, ethnicity, and class. The paper does not construct a theory of Malaysian politics. It offers a historically informed exploration of a leitmotif of an unfinished project that runs through much of the past 20 years of political conflict and struggle.


2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis N. Ridout ◽  
Erika Franklin Fowler ◽  
Michael M. Franz ◽  
Kenneth Goldstein

Scholars agree that there has been an increase in polarization among political elites, though there continues to be debate on the extent to which polarization exists among the mass public. Still, there is general agreement that the American public has become more sorted over the past two decades, a time during which political ad volumes have increased and ads have become more negative. In this research, we explore whether there is a link between the two. We take advantage of variation in the volume and tone of political advertising across media markets to examine the link between advertising and three dependent variables: issue polarization, affective polarization, and sorting. We focus on the impact of both recent ad exposure and cumulative ad exposure across several election cycles. Ultimately, we find little impact of advertising on polarization or sorting, both overall and among subgroups of the population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-621
Author(s):  
Alenka Krašovec ◽  
Nemanja Batrićević

AbstractIn this article we identify the factors that contribute to the formation and especially the durability/stability of governments in both Slovenia and Montenegro after they formally introduced multiparty systems and following their democratic transition, with a focus on the effect of cleavages and party system characteristics generally. Although these two polities share several important similarities (small size, common institutional setting during Yugoslav era, aspirations for membership in international organisations etc.), the nature of governments’ durability/stability in the democratic era entails distinct differences. While Montenegro stands out in post-socialist Europe as the only case where the ruling party has not been overthrown, Slovenia has been led by many governments composed of different political parties. While it seems that in neither country are the ideological characteristics of the governments able to explain their duration/stability to any important extent, it is obvious that the cleavage structure in the two countries has varied, as has the importance of particular cleavages.


1994 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 565-575
Author(s):  
Howard A. Scarrow

The weakening of American political parties has been a theme featured in the writings of political scientists for the past several decades. This essay is addressed to developments which may further that decline-developments which have undermined the very purpose which American political parties are said to serve. I refer to legal standards which were established by the Supreme Court in 1964, and which have since been expanded by the Court and then incorporated into the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its amendment in 1982.


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