UK prime minister will likely remain in power for now

Significance As many as a dozen lockdown parties are now alleged to have been held at Downing Street, significantly damaging Johnson’s support among the public and his Conservative Party. His position as party leader and prime minister is gravely threatened. Impacts Johnson’s domestic troubles, coupled with rising economic concerns, increase the chance of an agreement with the EU over Northern Ireland. Disillusionment with Johnson, opposition to net-zero and culture wars open the door for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party to revive its appeal. Rising inflation threatens to undermine consumer confidence and slow the economic recovery over the coming year.

Corruption in the "First Order": Predicting the influence of scandal on voting behaviour and media perceptions during a General Election

<p><b>This thesis investigates responses in voting behaviour and media perceptions to the presence of media scandals about politicians and associated political parties during the 2017 New Zealand general election. A repeated measures design was used wherein 351 participants were recruited before the start of the election campaign, primarily from an Introductory Psychology course at Victoria University of Wellington. Follow-up surveys were conducted at three time points throughout the two month campaign. Participants were randomly allocated into one of two conditions for each follow-up survey. Half the participants were given a real news article to read about a media scandal, the other half read an article about a policy platform by the same political party. At the end of the election campaign, participants were asked about their voting behaviours. A second study was conducted after Labour Party leader, Jacinda Ardern, was announced Prime Minister with participants recruited via social media sites ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook’. In this study, 153 participants recalled information about scandals that were present in the media during the election campaign.</b></p> <p>Results showed that political scandals in news media do have an influence on voter perceptions, but not in an easily predictable way. Prior perceptions of political parties were the best predictors of who participants intended to vote for. Participants responded most strongly to public policy articles rather than scandal information, particularly those more knowledgeable of New Zealand’s political system, and therefore likely more engaged with politics in general. Further, there was evidence that information presented in the media influenced how participants viewed political parties that were not involved in the scandal, which is an important under a proportional voting system like MMP which requires understanding of the relationships between parties.</p> <p>Evidence was also found for a backlash effect towards the media wherein participants who were exposed to scandal information would displayed a decrease in trust towards the general media, consistent with the idea that one reason why voters may not respond negatively to scandal information reflects the decision that the source of the information is not credible. Future research should consider more targeted analysis on the different sources of news media, especially new media like blogs, social media, and entertainment news.</p>

Corruption in the "First Order": Predicting the influence of scandal on voting behaviour and media perceptions during a General Election

<p><b>This thesis investigates responses in voting behaviour and media perceptions to the presence of media scandals about politicians and associated political parties during the 2017 New Zealand general election. A repeated measures design was used wherein 351 participants were recruited before the start of the election campaign, primarily from an Introductory Psychology course at Victoria University of Wellington. Follow-up surveys were conducted at three time points throughout the two month campaign. Participants were randomly allocated into one of two conditions for each follow-up survey. Half the participants were given a real news article to read about a media scandal, the other half read an article about a policy platform by the same political party. At the end of the election campaign, participants were asked about their voting behaviours. A second study was conducted after Labour Party leader, Jacinda Ardern, was announced Prime Minister with participants recruited via social media sites ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook’. In this study, 153 participants recalled information about scandals that were present in the media during the election campaign.</b></p> <p>Results showed that political scandals in news media do have an influence on voter perceptions, but not in an easily predictable way. Prior perceptions of political parties were the best predictors of who participants intended to vote for. Participants responded most strongly to public policy articles rather than scandal information, particularly those more knowledgeable of New Zealand’s political system, and therefore likely more engaged with politics in general. Further, there was evidence that information presented in the media influenced how participants viewed political parties that were not involved in the scandal, which is an important under a proportional voting system like MMP which requires understanding of the relationships between parties.</p> <p>Evidence was also found for a backlash effect towards the media wherein participants who were exposed to scandal information would displayed a decrease in trust towards the general media, consistent with the idea that one reason why voters may not respond negatively to scandal information reflects the decision that the source of the information is not credible. Future research should consider more targeted analysis on the different sources of news media, especially new media like blogs, social media, and entertainment news.</p>

AUSTRIAN POLITICAL SCANDALS: «KURTZ AFFAIR»

The article focuses on the political biography of Sebastian Kurz, who held the post of Federal Chancellor of Austria till autumn of 2021. He is being accused of abuse of power in order to achieve political goals. In Europe Kurz was considered to be one of the most promising politics, who came all the way to the top over the decade – a stellar career path, which would require entire political lifetimes for others to cross. Without higher education degree he over the few years rose from the position of a mere activist of youth movement of Austrian’s People’s Party to the role of the party leader. At the age of 27 he took up the post of Foreign Minister, and aged 31 he reached the top of the national politic as the Federal Austrian Chancellor. During the second decade of the XXI century Kurz used to be one of the interlocutors of the European and world leaders and one of the main officials in EU.

The domestic and foreign policy of the Canadian Liberals under Justin Trudeau in 2015-2020: achievements and challenges

The key idea of this article is that, for the first time, on the example of the domestic and foreign policy of the Canadian Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, we discuss the problems and prospects of Canadian Liberalism. The recent defeat of the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2019 parliamentary elections gave the impression that only the Liberal Party contributes to the prosperity of the modern Canadian state. The closest attention to the activities of the Liberal Party allows us to identify its absolute advantages and corresponding shortcomings. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to analyze and investigate both the indisputable advantages and current shortcomings of the Liberal Party in power, and against this background to determine the effectiveness, or vice versa, the incompetence of Canadian liberalism as a political ideology. At the same time, according to the author, it is necessary to separate objective and subjective factors associated with the presence of liberals in power. The objective ones are related to how the Liberals program settings meet the needs of the time, while the subjective ones characterize how an individual, and, above all, the party leader, implements the partys requests and the electorates hopes. In this regard, the reputation of its leader is of crucial importance. On the basis of the considered source base, and, first of all, the electoral programs of Liberals under Trudeau, since coming to power in 2015. In the first part of the article, the author presents a comparative analysis of the results of the liberals in the parliamentary elections in 2015 and 2019, explaining the reasons for the victory of the latter, and obtaining, respectively, a parliamentary majority, and then a minority. The second part of the article is devoted directly to the aspects of the domestic and foreign policy of the Liberals in 2015-2020. The author comes to the conclusion that the Canadian liberalism, implemented by Justin Trudeau is currently the leading political ideology that unites a significant part of the electorate.

“Les gens qui vous ressemblent”: Discursive Negotiation of Identity and Construction of Affiliation in the 2019 Canadian Federal Election Party Leader Debates

In the weeks leading up to the Canadian federal election, federal party leaders seek to appeal to a crucial part of the electorate - Québec voters, most of whom are of French-Canadian background - through a series of televised debates. As party leaders engage in discourse aimed at creating proximity with and enacting an affiliative stance toward these voters, the debates become a platform for discursive negotiation of Québec identity, in which identity stances and narratives are reflected, reproduced, and challenged. This study examines a corpus of party leaders’ discourse as these political actors interactively negotiate Québec identity during three party leader debates in the 2019 federal election. Following the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, the inquiry discusses the following aspects of the party leaders’ discourse: discursive representation of Quebecers’ group identity and self-positioning with respect to that identity, use of symbolic lexis and references that signal attachment to the French-Canadian majority’s collective memory, and self-positioning with respect to the French language. In addition, the discussion addresses implications of the bilingual nature of political discourse in the Canadian context, focusing on party leaders’ use of code-switching and metapragmatic commentary. Crucially, the study’s conclusions suggest that a shared vision of Québec identity has not yet been widely ratified. While the party leaders’ discourse appears largely felicitous with the inclusive, civic vision of Québec identity, the study’s findings point to continued primacy of the French-Canadian fact in its current conceptualization.

Enacting Candor

Most citizens of representative democracies do not take political decisions in their everyday lives. Although participation in periodic elections, political parties, or social movements varies, above all, according to socio-economic status, taking a political decision is, in general, a relatively extraordinary event for the vast majority of citizens. The everyday political experience of these citizens is rather structured by watching and listening to political elites. Unlike the tenor of democratic theory, this quotidian mode of passively following politics is ocular democracy’s starting point. So far, the debate on ocular democracy has emphasized its shortcomings as a normative theory. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, this article illustrates the potential of ocular democracy as an analytical tool in the context of intra-party democracy. Podemos’ intra-party procedures are analyzed by complementing an institutional perspective with ocular democracy, thus showing how a party leader inclined to appear particularly venturesome undermines ambitious forms of intra-party democracy.

When a Right-Wing Populist Party Inherits a Mass Party Organisation: The Case of EKRE

When the Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (EKRE, Estonian Conservative People’s Party) took over the defunct but extensive party organisation of the Estonian People’s Union, it placed great emphasis on rebooting and extending the organisation and bringing in new activists. As a result, EKRE has grown into a full-fledged mass party type of organisation with all the characteristics associated to it. Furthermore, it has become the fastest-growing party in Estonia in terms of membership and been notably successful in electoral terms. This article focuses primarily on the question of how EKRE developed a mass party organisation with a strong, ideologically-devoted activist core and a remarkable presence on the ground. The article also demonstrates how the party offers a variety of opportunities for engagement to its members. In contrast to an archetypical right-wing populist party, the decision-making power is somewhat diffused within the party, though the party leader remains the public face and mouthpiece of the party. EKRE’s online engagement strategies have been among the most successful in recent Estonian politics and make the party stand out. The article demonstrates that parties can often revise as well as repurpose the features of the predecessor parties and even build defunct mainstream parties into mass parties with a firm ideological core.

Austria

In the Austrian parliament a strict time regime keeps the length of debates at bay. While the government sets most of the agenda, opposition parties can get some proposals debated, and new instruments provide room for debate of topics independent of government legislation and reports. Debates are under tight party control with regard to the speakers’ nomination and the speakers sticking to the party line. Individual MPs do have electoral incentives to seek speaking assignments, but for most this results in low-level satisficing rather than maximizing speaking assignments. Party-size is a crucial factor determining the floor presence: MPs belonging to a small party have better chances to speak. Within parties, individual talent of MPs as speakers and their occupation of key party functions such as parliamentary party leader, or party spokesperson in a specific policy area are crucial for nominations.

Russian-Bulgarian relations after the Bulgarian parliamentary elections: outcomes and forecasts

The article examines the results of the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria held on 4 April and 11 July 2021. It compares the results of the leading political parties in the 2017 and 2021 elections, and describes all leading Bulgarian political parties represented in parliament from 2017 to 2021. The results of the government led by GERB party leader Boyko Borisov, formed as a result of the 2017 elections, are analyzed. The reasons for this government's falling rating and its impact on the election campaign are identified. How the coronavirus pandemic and the government's actions to deal with its consequences have affected the course and results of the election campaign. The activities of the country's main opposition parties, the centre-left Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Social Liberal Movement for Rights and Freedoms, are assessed. The course of the election campaign and its main topics are examined, as well as the new political parties that were elected to the parliament: the left-populist coalition "Rise Up! Mafia Get Out!", the right-populist party "There's Such a People!", and the liberal coalition "Democratic Bulgaria". The positions of the leading political parties of the country regarding their possible participation in the new government coalition are shown. The state of Russian-Bulgarian relations is analyzed and forecasts of how the results of the elections will affect the formation of the new government of that country and the relations between Russia and Bulgaria are given.