Anti-immigration Agenda of Populist Parties in Switzerland

The article analyzes the problem of right-wing populism in Switzerland. The study of the features of the country's political and electoral system highlights the issues of its immigration policy and relations with the European Union. The authors argue that the phenomenon of Swiss populism should be considered in a broader context, in connection with which attention is paid not only to the Swiss people's party, the Ticino League and the Geneva citizens ' Movement, but also to the populist parties of countries belonging to the Alpine macroregion – the Austrian freedom party (Austria) and the League (Italy). A discursive analysis of the programs shows that the anti-immigrant program is an essential part of the identity of right-wing populists. All of them are opposed to European integration and globalization, linking them to increased ethnic and religious tensions, unemployment and increased crime. At the same time, a special feature of Swiss parties is the fact that they position migration as a phenomenon mainly associated with cross-border movement of European citizens. Already complex, during the COVID-19 pandemic, this issue has become even more acute, and has become an integral part of their agenda. Meanwhile, the 2015-2018 migration crisis that preceded the pandemic allowed the Swiss people's party to strengthen its identity as a right-wing populist neoliberal party with a strong localist and conservative program aimed at cultural dominance over migrants. The authors also note that the Germanic focus on environmental protection is part of the populist agenda of right-wing regional parties, although it is usually characteristic of the left parties.

The Contemporary Yemen Unity (1990-2019) the Foregrounds and Aftermaths, (Historical Perspective)

The Yemen Unity has always been and will remain a vital and crucial issue for Yemen, the Yemeni people, and the Arabian Peninsula's present and future generations. It corresponds to its entities political future, the Arabian Peninsula's strategic position, wealth, regional and international role, the effects of such unity "or division" upon the region's peoples and the overall reflection on the problems and risks which threaten the Arab World and, as a consequence, the region, and the world as a whole. This study tries, in the light of such importance, to present an objective summary over the development of this unity, indicating the contributing factors and the division reasons through a historical perspective which highlights the events and tries to submit an analysis over the modern Yemeni Unity path which constitutes a point of concern for the contemporary Arab thought. The study hypothesizes that the Riyadh Agreement has constituted a turning point and focalization climax of the regional parties' attitude towards the Yemeni unity and that the development of subsequent international approaches, in this concern, will drastically affect the Yemeni future and unity.

Decentralization of power in Ukraine in the conditions of the COVID-19

Decentralization and coronavirus - these are the two words that have recently been most often used in the information space of Ukraine. Therefore, the relevance of the topic of this article is twofold, as it stems from two current social and political issues addressed in the article - the fight against coronavirus and the fateful reform of decentralization of power for Ukraine. The purpose of the article is an objective analysis of the process of decentralization of power in the face of a serious challenge facing the Ukrainian state due to the coronavirus pandemic. The methodology of historical science is used for this purpose. The study is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, specificity, systematics; analytical, descriptive methods were used in writing the article. The events of the final stage of the decentralization reform phase (2020) are considered, when the tasks of consolidation of districts, formation of a new administrative-territorial structure of the country, holding elections to new district councils and communities were solved. At the same time, all this was carried out in the context of the economic crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, the decline in the living standards of most people, and the decline in confidence in all branches of government. An important problem of decentralization of power has been the balance of state and regional interests, the establishment of interaction between the central government and local elites, mayors of large cities, whose role has increased due to anti-virus measures. An indicator of this was the successful performance in the local elections of regional parties and personally acting mayors. The novelty of the article is that it first considers the reform of decentralization of public administration in an unprecedented pandemic, which threatened the survival of large masses of people, the economy, the social order of Ukraine. Like most countries in the world.

“Give Us Liberty, or Give Us Money”: Growth of Regional Parties’ Influence in Contemporary Europe

Received 01.09.2020. In the early 21st century, many European countries saw an increased influence of political parties relying on localized communities. Many new regional parties (RPs) emerged, which put the scientific community in need of understanding the reasons behind their strengthening positions in Europe. The present research provides a critical review of the RPs’ definitions, examines their origins, place in the political spectrum, factors of electoral success and geographical distribution of their electorate. The study is based on the analysis of the parliamentary and regional elections results in 43 European countries in 2000–2019. A map of the RP support rate by region has been designed, showing areas of the strongest public support. Its correlation with ethnic and cultural composition, political structure, and uneven regional development of the countries of Western and Eastern Europe has been analyzed. Today, in parliamentary and regional elections, RPs receive more than 5% of votes in the area of around 600 sq. kms, or 40% of the European territory (overseas territories excluded). Particular attention is paid to party strategies in national and regional elections. Modern RPs diversify their programs going far beyond the interests of a particular sociocultural group. In parliamentary elections, they often make alliances with national parties. In turn, national parties sometimes speak in regional elections “under the local brand”. The satisfaction of the RPs’ demands to provide the regions with greater autonomy does not have a significant impact on their strategies, which request increasingly wider powers. Despite the fact that individual regional parties even get seats in national parliaments, they have practically no influence on the state policy shaping. Their rise is associated not with electoral results, but with trends in the European political process. One can speak not about the success of particular parties, but about the advancement of the idea of regionalism. Acknowledgements. The study was carried out at the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences as part of the work supported by a grant of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF). Project no. 19-17-00232 “Post-Soviet Non-Recognized States: Factors of Viability and Risks for Russia”. Collection of electoral data for drawing up a schematic map (Fig.) was supported by a grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) and Expert Institute of Social Research (EISR). Project no. 20-011-32284 “The Success of Regional Parties in Modern Europe: Causes and Characteristics”.

SOCIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION REGIONAL COMMUNITIES AND THE ELECTORAL SUCCESS OF REGIONAL PARTIES

The spread of regionalist movements is one of the stable trends in world politics. At the same time, among the researchers of regionalism, there has never been a consensus on the determinants of the success of the regionalist movement: some researchers attribute the structural factors of the region to such, others explain the success of regionalism by the activities of its actors. However, in this vein, the social and organizational characteristics of the regional community are also important. The aim of the study is to determine the influence of the socio-organizational characteristics of the community on the success of the regionalist movement. The research methodology consists in a quantitative (comparison of two groups, regression) analysis of the relationship between the socio-organizational characteristics of communities and the success of the regionalist movement in them. The study revealed statistically significant differences between regionalist regions and regions without a regionalist movement in terms of the parameters of social capital and trust in government bodies at various levels. At the same time, it is not possible to unequivocally declare the relationship between these characteristics and the electoral success of regionalism due to the low explanatory significance of the final regression model. Nevertheless, the study empirically proved the importance of the study of socio-organizational characteristics in the study of regionalism.

How do regional parties influence foreign policy? Insights from multilevel coalitional bargaining in India

When and how do regional parties influence foreign policy in federal democracies with multiparty coalition governments? The existing literature has focused on situations of foreign policy disagreements between subnational parties and the central government in multinational states. By contrast, we argue that under varying conditions, central governments either decide to accommodate the preferences of small regional parties when designing foreign policies, or co-opt these regional parties to push their own foreign policy agenda. Some scholars looked at the role of decentralization and federal power arrangements in providing more control to political sub-units over the external affairs of a state. Other studies showed that certain coalition-building configurations facilitated the inclusion of the concerns of small parties in the foreign policy debate. Bridging these two literatures, we argue that both structural and agential conditions behind regional and national coalition building processes—visible in federal settings—affect foreign policy-making in different ways, and not necessarily toward disagreement and obstruction. To illustrate these hypothesized mechanisms, we look at two case studies in the Indian context: the role of regional parties in the debate over the US–India nuclear deal of 2008 and the role of regional parties in shaping India’s Sri Lanka policy from 2009 to 2014.

Communal Violence in Twenty-first Century India: Moving Beyond the Hindi Heartland

Using communal violence data between 2006 and 2017, this study challenges the idea that communal violence is primarily an issue in the Hindi Heartland. The data demonstrates how Karnataka and West Bengal are also witnessing rising levels of communal violence. The study goes on to take a closer look at the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka and West Bengal. It demonstrates how a combination of factors ranging from localized narratives of Hindu nationalism, caste coalitions, alliances with regional parties and the decline of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]) in West Bengal and the Janata Party (JP)/Dal in Karnataka have been crucial factors for BJP’s rise in these two states.

Federal and Subnational Elections in Russia: Coherence and Divergence in Electoral Outcomes

This article examines the differences between Russian voting at federal elections and regional legislature elections, both combined and conducted independently. The authors analyse these differences, their character and their dynamics as an important characteristic of the nationalisation of the party system. They also test hypotheses about a higher level of oppositional voting and competitiveness in subnational elections, in accordance with the theory of second-order elections, as well as the strategic nature of voting at federal elections, by contrast with expressive voting during subnational campaigns. The empirical study is based on calculating the differences in votes for leading Russian parties at subnational elections and at federal elections (simultaneous, preceding and following) from 2003, when mandatory voting on party lists was widespread among the regions, to 2019. The level of competitiveness is measured in a similar way, by calculating the effective number of parties. The study indicates a low level of autonomy of regional party systems, in many ways caused by the fact that the law made it impossible to create regional parties, and then also by the 2005 ban on creation of regional blocs. The strong connection between federal and regional elections in Russia clearly underlines the fluid and asynchronic nature of its electoral dynamics, where subnational elections typically predetermine the results of the following federal campaigns. At the same time, the formal success of the nationalisation of the party system, achieved by increasing the homogeneity of voting at the 2016 and 2018 federal elections, is not reflected by the opposing process of desynchronisation between federal and regional elections after Putin’s third-term election. There is also a clear rise in the scale of the differences between the two. At the same time, the study demonstrates the potential presence in Russia of features common to subnational elections in many countries: their greater support for the opposition and presence of affective voting. However, there is a clear exception to this trend during the period of maximum mobilisation of the loyal electorate at the subnational elections immediately following the accession of Crimea in 2014–2015, and such tendencies are generally restrained by the conditions of electoral authoritarianism.