Die AfD in den Parlamenten – die „zweite Runde“

The AfD was successful in each of the six elections held in 2019/20 (European Parliament, Bremen, Hamburg, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia) . The right-wing party either renewed or in most cases managed to enlarge its parliamentary representation . These successful elections were accompanied by a new adjustment of AfD’s ideological performance since its split in 2015 . The result of this split was the dominance of right-wing and national conservative, right-wing populist as well as folkish-nationalist positions within the party . Whether and if so, how, those shifts are reflected in the reand newly elected AfD MPs is studied by analyzing their social profiles . Some of them strengthened the “movement oriented” and anti-parliamentary focus of the AfD factions: (1) Only some of the former MPs managed to get re-nominated . It was mostly these politicians who shaped the ideological changes, represent these and are now the politically and parliamentary experienced core of the parliamentary parties . (2) They are accompanied by new MPs, who had been in the staff of the party, the parliamentary party or a single MP before they were nominated as candidates; in that way they are part of the process of political professionalization and the party’s self-recruitment . (3) Some of the new MPs were nominated as candidates because of their former commitment to the AfD’s youth organisation (JA) . (4) Furthermore, some of the new AfD-MPs were members of rather small right-wing parties (i .e ., DSU, Die Freiheit) and gained their political experience especially in municipal councils . However, most of the new AfD-MPs - in particular of the three state parliaments (Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia) and also of the EP - can be characterised as lacking political and parliamentary experience before becoming AfD members . As to constructive activities of a parliamentary party in the opposition, the AfD MPs are partly missing the political willingness, partly the parliamentary experience .

Develop the recruitment criteria for professionalisation of politicians: a focus to group study

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify the fundamental elements necessary for formulating criteria to be used when recruiting politicians into the Sri Lankan political system with a view to professionalization. By means of a thorough examination of political practice issues, the paper focuses on the possibility of introducing the concept of political professionalization and endeavors to determine the prerequisite conditions needed to resolve or minimize those issues. Design/methodology/approach A total of 27 respondents: academics, clergy and journalists were purposively selected for this study and they were divided into three groups to enable data collection through focus group discussions. A thematic analysis method was used to analyze the data. Findings The main political practice problems were bribery and corruption, the misuse of state resources by politicians, the involvement of family in politics, and unscrupulous and unethical political campaigning. The majority of respondents cited greed for political power, low levels of education and an inadequate understanding of the parliamentary process as the leading factors which cause problems to arise in politics as practiced in Sri Lanka. The analysis revealed three main themes: “knowledge”, “skills” and “values”. Respondents recommended policy initiatives for political recruitment. Originality/value The findings suggested that the professionalization of political practice should be promoted by introducing knowledge C skills and values as criteria for political recruitment. And it also suggested that the introduction of professional political practice methods is vitally necessary to reduce political practice issues in the current political scenario of Sri Lanka.

Political Advertising on the Wikipedia Marketplace of Information

We point to a popular yet underresearched platform of political information, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Considering the supply side of the marketplace, we argue that personal biographies on the platform are an attractive medium for politicians to enhance their appearance. We trace changes to biographies coming from the parliament using data that cover the entire edit histories for biographies on all German members of parliament for the three last legislative periods. Our findings show editing of personal biographies to be a persistent phenomenon. Moreover, type, timing, and driving factors of editing behavior highlight the importance politicians’ attribute to Wikipedia for pursuing reelection. Our results speak to the domains of political professionalization, voting behavior, and the general measurement of communicative patterns.

Parliamentary elites as a democratic thermometer: Estonia, Lithuania and Moldova compared

This article assesses how the character of emerging legislative elites conforms to the broader patterns of post-communist social transformation by comparing Estonia, Lithuania and Moldova. We argue that the pace and direction of change among MPs has been significantly shaped by the nature of regime change in each country. We first address the issue of pace and scope of elite replacement. Second, we examine whether and to what extent, over time, changes occurred in the parliamentary representation of major social categories (in particular, ethnic minorities, women, age groups). Third, we examine the dynamics of political professionalization.