scholarly journals Exceptional states: The political geography of comparative penology

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 596-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Brangan
Keyword(s):  
Political Geography ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Relative Lack ◽  
Ongoing Development ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Sociology Of Punishment ◽  
National Perspective ◽  
Cross National

It is now common in the sociology of punishment to lament that comparative penology has not matured as an area of research. While there have been seminal works in the comparative canon, their conceptual tools tend to be drawn from grand narratives and macro-structural perspectives. Comparative researchers therefore lack concepts that can help capture the complexity of penality within a single nation, limiting the cross-national perspective. Why is this relative lack of comparative refinement still the case? This article investigates this question by looking specifically at penal exceptionalism, a concept central to comparative penology. While punitiveness as a comparative and descriptive category has been critiqued, its converse, penal exceptionalism remains prevalent but undertheorised. Examining exceptionalism reveals that it is not merely the macro-structural approach to comparison that has limited the development of cross-national sociology of punishment, but the Anglocentric assumptions, which are the bedrock of comparative penology. In this essay, I argue that penal exceptionalism versus punitiveness is an Anglocentric formulation. These taken-for-granted assumptions have become so central to the comparative enterprise that they act as a barrier to developing new innovative comparative frameworks and concepts. The article concludes by suggesting some methodological strategies that are intended as a way of helping comparative penology to expand its toolkit and support the ongoing development of more equitable criminological knowledge.

Sounds without borders: Exploring the cross-national expansion of commercial European Radio Groups

2021 ◽  
pp. 026732312110121
Author(s):  
Montse Bonet ◽  
David Fernández-Quijada
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Industries ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
National Market ◽  
The Cross ◽  
National Champions ◽  
Cross National ◽  
Expansion Strategies

This article aims to study how private European radio is becoming commercially international through the expansion of radio brands beyond their national market. It is the first ever analysis of the expansion strategies of radio groups across Europe, including their footprint in each market in which they operate, from the political economy of cultural industries. The article maps the main radio groups in Europe, analyses cross-national champions in depth and establishes three main types. This study shows that, thanks to the possibilities of a deregulated market, strengthening the role of the brand and the format, and the agreements with other groups, broadcasting radio has overcome the obstacles that, historically, hindered its cross-border expansion.

Measuring political protest in Western Europe: assessing cross-national equivalence

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Quaranta
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Measurement Equivalence ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Polytomous Items ◽  
European Values ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Fourth Wave ◽  
Cross National

This article tests the cross-national equivalence of the political protest scale, as developed by Barnes and Kaase, in 20 Western European countries using a battery of items included in the fourth wave of the European Values Study. The scale measuring the concept of political protest is widely used, but no evidence of cross-country equivalence has yet been provided in the literature. The article illustrates the concept of political protest, the relationship between concept formation, operationalization, and measurement equivalence, and the possible consequences of a lack of equivalence. It is argued that comparative research may be threatened by a lack of measurement equivalence. The spread of international surveys eases comparative designs, but at the same time enlarges the chances that we compare what is not actually comparable. The article then outlines an empirical strategy to assess the political protest scale's measurement equivalence. To assess cross-country equivalence, Mokken Scale Analysis, a nonparametric scaling method within the family of Item Response Theory models, is used. This has been shown to work better than Confirmatory Factor Analysis when dealing with dichotomous and polytomous items forming ordinal scales. The results show that the cross-country equivalence of the political protest scale depends on the type of measure the scholar wishes to build and use.

Understanding Homelands

Homelands ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 8-34
Author(s):  
Nadav G. Shelef
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Combination Of Logics ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Cross National

This chapter explores the theoretical arguments that homelands matter, that their contours can change, and that evolutionary processes arising from domestic political contestation could account for such transformations. Nationalism calls homelands into being; it is the nationalist project that transforms mere land into homeland and sanctifies it. The chapter shows that, despite its importance to nationalists, two aspects of the homeland are often domestically contested: (1) exactly which tracts of land are part of it; and (2) what logic or combination of logics is used to designate land as part of the homeland. It is the outcome of the political competition between movements that vary in the answers they provide to one or both of these questions that selects which shape of the homeland becomes taken for granted in the wider society and whether lost lands come to be excluded from it. The chapter then develops the empirically observable implications of this theory as well as alternative explanations for contractions in the homeland's scope. These implications serve as the foundation for the empirical exploration in both the cases studies and the cross-national statistical analysis that follow.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Political Inequality in a Cross-National Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Gwangeun Choi
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Dynamic Panel Data ◽  
The Political ◽  
Alternative Measure ◽  
Inequality Index ◽  
Political Inequality ◽  
National Perspective ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

Abstract It is widely believed that economic inequality significantly affects political inequality, and vice versa. However, there has been a lack of empirical evidence about this relationship, particularly, in cross-national comparative research. This is largely because cross-national measures of political inequality are underdeveloped. To fill this gap, this study introduces a new way of conceptualizing and measuring political inequality and constructs the Political Inequality Index (PII), which is mainly based on objective indicators. Additionally, the Political Power Inequality Index (PPII) based on subjective indicators is presented as an alternative measure. This research then explores the features of these measures and investigates the impact of economic inequality on political inequality with the measures. The dynamic panel data analysis controlling for endogeneity provides little evidence that income inequality has a significant effect on political inequality, however.

Comparing Nations and States

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (8) ◽  
pp. 996-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Beer ◽  
Neil J. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Cross National

Democracy and the protection of human rights generally go together, but not in India. India is an outlier in the cross-national research that aims to explain human rights performance. Using state-level subnational data and drawing on the approaches pioneered at the cross-national level, the authors examine the reasons for the outlier status. Their findings suggest that the aggregate whole-nation human rights and democracy scores misrepresent the political experience of much of India. The authors find that participation, political parties, and the level and nature of opposition threat help us understand the incidence of human rights violations within India.

Roads to the Radical Right

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Damhuis
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Unique Material ◽  
Marine Le Pen ◽  
To Come ◽  
National Perspective ◽  
Western Democracies ◽  
Do So ◽  
Cross National

Trump, Wilders, Salvini, Le Pen—during the last decades, radical right-wing leaders and their parties have become important political forces in most Western democracies. Their growing appeal raises an increasingly relevant question: who are the voters that support them and why do they do so? Numerous and variegated answers have been given to this question, inside as well as outside academia. Yet, curiously, despite their quantity and diversity, these existing explanations are often based on a similar assumption: that of homogeneous electorates. Consequently, the idea that different subgroups with different profiles and preferences might coexist within the constituencies of radical right-wing parties has thus far remained underdeveloped, both theoretically and empirically. This ground-breaking book is the first one that systematically investigates the heterogeneity of radical right-wing voters. Theoretically, it introduces the concept of electoral equifinality to come to grips with this diversity. Empirically, it relies on innovative statistical analyses and no less than 125 life-history interviews with voters in France and the Netherlands. Based on this unique material, the study identifies different roads to the radical right and compares them within a cross-national perspective. In addition, through an analysis of almost 1,400 tweets posted by Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen, the book shows how the latter are able to appeal to different groups of voters. Taken together, the book thus provides a host of ground-breaking insights into the heterogeneous phenomenon of radical right support.

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