Making the Case for Democracy

Political entrepreneurs put liberal democracy under pressure by fueling concerns and exploiting citizens’ fragile commitment to this system of government. As difficult trade-offs are made apparent in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, we investigate one communicative strategy that political elites who want to defend the principles and practices of self-governance in pluralist societies can pursue. We propose “democratic persuasion” as an actionable, theory-driven intervention to increase the resilience of citizens' commitment to liberal democracy. "Democratic persuasion" requires that legislators actively make the case for democracy and discuss inherent trade-offs while engaging existing doubts and misperceptions. We invited citizens on facebook to attend one of sixteen Zoom townhalls organized in collaboration with members of the German parliament. Each legislator conducted two town halls and we randomly assigned the townhall, where they employed "democratic persuasion". Results suggest that “democratic persuasion” increases support for liberal democracy among citizens in the short term.

The Marketing System of Exchange Between Regulatory and Political Entrepreneurs Engaging in Arbitrage

After receiving cease and desist letters in 2018, Bird strategically developed hospitable relationships with politicians that allowed the scooter-sharing firm to continue operating. Bird acts as a regulatory entrepreneur in seeking unfair legal treatment and the politicians brokering the legal deal as political entrepreneurs. The business models for unfairly changing or applying law represents entrepreneurial arbitrage. A mixed methods approach examines the structure of relationships between regulatory and political entrepreneurs through the Bootleggers and Baptists conceptual lens. Like Bird solving traffic and pollution problems for city leaders, Baptists served as a moral cover for illegal liquor vendors. Guided by a general systems theory, it is found that the micro-level, relational exchanges both assign value to as well as uses intellectual commodities to establish expectations guiding ongoing exchanges. Therefore, a marketing system is uncovered. This research also finds relationships structured by favors in sharp contrast to political markets governed by threats.

The 1982 Voting Rights Act Extension as a “Critical Juncture”: Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, and Republican Party-Building

Republican support for the 1982 Voting Rights Act (VRA) extension is a puzzle for scholars of racial policy coalitions. The extension contained provisions that were manifestly antithetical to core principles of the “color-blind” policy alliance said to dominate the GOP. Recent scholarship has explained this puzzling decision by arguing that conservatives were confident that the VRA's most objectionable provisions could be undone by the federal bureaucracy and judiciary, while absolving Republicans of the blame of being against voting rights. This article suggests that the picture is more complicated. Applying the concept of “critical junctures” to the 1982 VRA extension, the article highlights the importance of actors’ contingent decisions and reveals a wider range of choices available to political entrepreneurs than has been conventionally understood. Highlighting differing views within the Reagan administration, this article also identifies a wider range of reasons why Republicans supported the act's extension, including career ambition, party-building, policy agenda advancement, and genuine commitment, rather than simply a defensive stance as implied by recent histories.

Independents and the Party System

The presence of independents in the Irish political system is unusual from a comparative perspective. Sometimes seen as an idiosyncratic phenomenon, they are analysed in terms of their relation to the party system, and categorized in a manner similar to that applied to party families. Why independents do not form parties is analysed from an institutional and behavioural perspective, showing that there are a number of incentives for political entrepreneurs to remain as independents rather than transition to a new party. The nature of support for independents is assessed through a populist lens, considering if independents take the place of populist parties in the electoral marketplace. It is found that independents have more in common with left-wing progressives than right-wing nativists. The final section examines the role of independents in the government formation process, showing that the levels of stability and output are not as low as might be expected.

Diasporic Foreign Policy Interest Groups in the United States: Democracy, Conflict, and Political Entrepreneurship

Why do some immigrant diasporas in the United States (U.S.) establish foreign policy interest groups while others do not? While scholars have demonstrated that diasporic interest groups often successfully influence U.S. foreign policy, we take a step back to ask why only certain diasporas attempt to do so in the first place. We argue that two factors increase the likelihood of diaspora mobilization: a community’s experience with democratic governance and conflict in its country of origin. We posit that these conditions make it more likely that political entrepreneurs emerge to serve as catalysts for top-down mobilization. To test our hypotheses, we collect and analyze novel data on diasporic interest groups as well as the characteristics of their respective countries of origin. In turn, we conduct the first in-depth case studies of the historical and contemporary Indian-American lobbies, using original archival and interview evidence.

Political parties abroad as actors of transnational politics

This paper argues that parties abroad are the actors of a new arena for citizenship and party politics. The proliferation of overseas voting and the development of representative institutions for emigrants has transformed and reinforced the civic and political links between sending-states and their diaspora. This has also created new opportunities for political entrepreneurs and political parties tasked with reaching out to citizens living abroad. Yet research on political parties and on transnationalism has almost never crossed paths. This has created a gap in our knowledge on political parties abroad, demonstrating the timeliness of a special issue on political parties abroad. This paper introduces this special issue and presents an overview of the main theoretical questions and debates addressed in the articles. We emphasize existing gaps in the literature and stress the importance of a better understanding of the growing phenomenon of political parties abroad. We also explain why a comparative approach is necessary to tackle the issue of political parties abroad, offering a theoretically-minded framework. Our summaries of the papers in this special issue highlight how they relate to the more general questions discussed in our introduction.

Votes in eastern EU cities will reflect rural divide

Significance The electoral success of activists, political entrepreneurs, more liberal-minded or pro-EU politicians in capital cities is not a strong signal that attitudes and voting patterns are shifting at the national level. Many Central-East European (CEE) citizens still have strong preferences for socially conservative policies and politicians, despite economic preferences increasingly leaning leftwards. Impacts The European Commission will have more supporters in key places to push for more climate change awareness and Green policies. Newcomers into the system will challenge entrenched corruption and clientelism. Firms allied to mainstream parties will resist losing advantageous contracts. Nationalist or anti-EU parties will moderate their rhetoric and adapt their strategies so as not to alienate their urban supporters further.