Research Frontier Essay: When Are Interests Interesting? The Problem of Political Representation of Women

1981 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 701-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virginia Sapiro
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Research ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Increasing Demand

Recent years have witnessed an increasing demand by women for political representation of women. This demand points the way toward a number of important problems for political research, many of which remain unsolved primarily because of the segregation of women's studies from the dominant concerns of political science. This discussion focuses on the problem of group interests and representation, drawing on and suggesting further research on public opinion, interest groups, social movements, international politics, political elites, and public policy.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Rachel Kahn Best
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Time Changes ◽  
Or Organization

For more than a century, disease campaigns have been the causes Americans ask their neighbors to donate to and the issues that inspire them to march and volunteer. Studies of social movements, interest groups, agenda setting, and social problems tend to focus on contentious politics and study one movement or organization at a time. But these approaches cannot reveal why disease campaigns are the battles Americans can agree to fight, why some diseases attract more attention than others, and how fighting one disease at a time changes charity and public policy. Understanding the causes and effects of disease campaigns, requires studying consensus politics and collecting data on fields of organizations over long time periods.

Rereading Skowronek

2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-453
Author(s):  
Elisabeth S. Clemens
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American History ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The Impact

Although American Political Development is one of the more sociological corners of political science, for the most part sociologists have not been attuned to its contributions. Even among historical sociologists, the central conversations have been motivated by classic questions about transitions to capitalism and revolution in Europe rather than by puzzles of American exceptionalism.Much of political sociology has focused on individual voting behavior and public opinion; social movements research focuses heavily on the most recent decades in American history. Consequently, a review of the impact of Stephen Skowronek’s Building a New American State within sociology reveals a sharply delimited set of direct influences beyond the research already well known to scholars in American Political Development, largely the work of Theda Skocpol (1992) and her many students and collaborators (e.g., Orloff and Skocpol 1984). A rereading, by contrast, highlights the importance of the book for contemporary discussions of the forms and processes of institutional change.

: Pressure Groups and Parties

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Centre Of Gravity ◽  
International Impact ◽  
Distribution Of Power

The central paradox in reviewing the contribution of British political scientists to the understanding of these intermediary institutions is that both the number of scholars and the output have been considerable, yet the international impact has been relatively modest. Two explanations seem plausible. First, with a few notable exceptions, the centre of gravity of these studies has coincided with the centre of gravity of British political science as a whole – it is largely atheoretical in its research style. A second possible explanation is that studies in these fields have tended to focus on activities (of groups and social movements) or on office-holding (parties) and have been much less interested in power as a concept. Relatively little is known about the effects that this activity has on outcomes in terms of public policy or the distribution of power in society.

14. The Europeanization of Interest Groups and Social Movements

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Saurugger
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
European Union ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Member States ◽  
New Member States ◽  
European Union Member States

This chapter examines the dynamics of Europeanization of interest groups and social movements in European Union member states. European integration has influenced interest groups and social movements since the beginning of the process in the 1950s. However, transformation has been induced by other elements such as globalization or the transformation of the state. Drawing on findings from empirical studies, this chapter analyses the change in interests, strategies, and internal organizational structures of interest groups and social movements, both in the ‘old’ and ‘new’ member states. It shows that the Europeanization of interest groups and social movements is highly differentiated, according to public policy areas, group types, and national origins.

scholarly journals Public Opinion and Public Policy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Wlezien ◽  
Stuart N. Soroka
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Public Preferences ◽  
The Public ◽  
Basic Model ◽  
Policy Representation

The link between the public opinion and public policy is fundamental to political representation. The current empirical literature tests a general model in which policy is considered to be a function of public preferences. The mechanics by which preferences are converted to policy are considered along with extensions of the basic model - extensions through which the magnitude of opinion representation varies systematically acorss issues and political institutions. Thus, public opinion is an independent variable - an important driver of public policy change. With the consideration of 12/1 opinion as a dependent variable, specifically, its responsiveness to policy change - the ongoing existence of both policy representation and public responsiveness is critical to the functioning of representative democracy.

Representative Government and Constitutional Reality: Spain between Literature and Political Thought

Pólemos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-105
Author(s):  
Daniel Fernández Cañueto
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Law And Literature ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Multidisciplinary Perspective

Abstract The article analyses how the features of modern political representation have developed in Spanish constitutional history from a multidisciplinary perspective (political philosophy, political science, constitutional law and literature). Between the eighteenth- to the twentieth-century, indeed, the Kingdom of Spain experienced transformations in the concepts of sovereignty, periodic suffrage, free public opinion, and the free and non-revocable mandate. The article also takes into account how the evolution of concepts at stake affected the evolution of the others.

scholarly journals Critical analysis of political system in Yugoslav socialism: Jovan Miric’s theoretical contribution

Sociologija ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 691-710
Author(s):  
Dejan Jovic
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Political System ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Political Sciences

In this article we analyse theoretical contribution to critical analysis of political system of socialist Yugoslavia by (1934-2015), professor of Political Science at University of Zagreb. The article focesses on his writings during the socialist period (before 1989). Of 10 books he published during his life, five are relevant for the topic of this paper: Interest Groups and Political Power (1973), Work and Politics (1978), Pluralism of Interests and Self-Managing Democracy (1982), System and Crisis (1984) and Challenges of Democracy (1990). We also refer to the book of his interviews and articles, which was published after his death. In is writings Miric gave interesting and relevant contribution to Marxist Political Science, both in terms of his theoretical work and in his analysis of Yugoslav Political System. In later period, from 1989 onwards, he evolves towards Liberalism, but remains highly critical towards the objects of his analysis. Critical thinking remained a continuity in his writings and public appearences, in both his Marxist and Liberal phases. His articles on the origins of the crisis of Yugoslav Political System were in fact warnings that Yugoslavia could collapse, largely due to its own internal structure and the lack of trust between various segments of its political elites. In this sense, Miric?s work justifies the question of predictability of events that soon led to collapse of socialism and of Yugoslavia as state. Miric already in 1987 mentions civil war as one of possible outcomes of the Yugoslav crisis. His work challenges conclusion that 1989 in Europe and 1991 in former Yugoslavia were completely unpredictable, and that these moments were (two) Black Fridays in social and political sciences.

scholarly journals Fueling the Populist Divide: Nativist and Cosmopolitan Preferences for Representation at the Elite and Mass Level

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosie Campbell ◽  
Oliver Heath
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
New Social Movements ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Mass Level ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

AbstractAlthough populist leaders often employ an anti-elite discourse which presents the elite as unable or unwilling to represent ordinary citizens, we know very little about who elites actually think should be represented, or how this differs, if at, all from what ordinary citizens want. In this article we find that there is a considerable difference between the groups that voters want to see represented in parliament and those which political elites want to see represented. In particular, we find that political elites tend to hold far more ‘cosmopolitan’ preferences than ordinary voters, and prioritize the representation of greater diversity in parliament based on the groups politicised by the new social movements and identity politics of the 60s and 70s, such as women, ethnic minorities, LGBT and the disabled. By contrast, voters more often hold nativist preferences than political elites and more often prioritize the representation of groups such as the working class, and white local people. Moreover, British voters who hold nativist preferences of political representation are more likely to be politically alienated and more likely to support Brexit.

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