Electoral Performance of New Political Parties in Ukraine: The Context of Electoral Volatility at the Parliamentary Level (1998–2019)

This article is devoted to study and comparative analysis of the features and levels of support for new political parties during parliamentary elections in Ukraine, in particular the period 1998–2019. With this in mind, mainly based on the calculations of the indices of overall electoral volatility, intra-system electoral volatility and extra-system electoral volatility, we analyze the parameters of changes in electoral support (by voters) for political parties, in particular new ones, during the 1998–2019 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. In addition, we correlate overall, intra-system and extra-system electoral volatility, and present the correlation of overall electoral volatility in the sample of all political parties as the subjects of electoral processes in Ukraine and political parties elected to the national parliament (the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine). As a result, the study outlines two clusters of extra-system electoral volatility, which show the highest level of similarity, and calculates the dependence of the level of electoral volatility and stability of the party system in Ukraine. With this background, we conclude that electoral volatility in Ukraine is largely determined by the effect of party affiliation or desire to belong to the government or opposition, and is regulated by the special context of identity politics in this country.

Populism vs. Demagogism: What if Anti-populists are the Real Demagogues?

As the partisan meaning attached to ‘populism’ has provided this word with a negative stigma used to demonize alternative discourses, this article seeks to fill two gaps in the populist literature. First, it aims at retrieving the term ‘populism’ from a spurious understanding and reintroducing a forgotten word, which has become a synonym of populism and contributed to its negative aura: demagogy. Populism (bottom-up) and demagogy (top-down) are defined as opposite terms. While this distinction could be easily grasped from their etymological roots, it takes on a different dimension when seen from a hegemonic perspective. Second, elaborating on Gramsci and Laclau’s theory, it provides a theoretical basis for the study of anti-populism. Like populism, anti-populism results from a dislocatory experience as it is (negatively) defined by its populist antagonist. Besides considering its negative dimension, the article discusses the positivization of the anti-populist discourse, which resides in the (re)production of broken normality. Demagogism is a weapon in the hegemonic struggle between different discourses that aims to restore mainstream common sense (normality) against a counter-hegemonic project (populism). Finally, the article suggests that beyond anti-populism, demagogism, understood as a normalizing practice, could potentially be applied in the empirical analysis of neo-traditionalist discourses.

Authoritarian Populism, Environmentalism and Exceptional Governance in Hungary

This paper analyzes how the incumbent authoritarian populist Orbán government started to navi­gate itself from an anti-climate to a conservative green position. First, the theoretical background of environmentalism and democracy/autocracy will be investigated. It is to say that the relationship between democracy and the environment is quite contradictory, although democracy has a demonstrable effect on the quality of the environment and sustainability, it is not worth absolutizing. That is why we should put an emphasis on the environmental approach of authoritarian regimes, here as a case study of the Hungarian regime. From 2010, the Orbán regime elaborated an ambiguous attitude toward the environment and green politics; on the on hand, it was characterized by climate denialism and demolition of environmental institutions, on the other hand, the super-majority behind the regime accepted the Fundamental Law with several green elements. In the second half of 2019 and early 2020, the regime started to create a new conservative green agenda. This authoritarian populist greening is not based on eco-authoritarian traditions. This paper challenges the notion that authoritarian populist actors are hostile to environmental policies. The Orbán regime proved adaptive in the case of the climate emergency and is about to elaborate its own climate agenda. At the same time, the regime is unable to face the real nature of the climate and ecological emergencies. The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been used by the regime to rule by decree based on exceptional powers. In fact, the regime relied on exceptional governance before the COVID-19 crisis, ever since the migration crisis of 2015. The authoritarian populist regime recognized the political opportunities of exceptional governance in terms of overlapping crises and that is why it is characterized by authoritarian climate populism.

Paternalism: A Flawed Basis for Liberty-limiting Policies?

This article discusses coercive paternalism, a concept of liberty-limitations that has gained significant attention in recent decades. In opposition to the libertarian type of paternalism proposed by the well-known ‘Nudgers’ Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (2008), Sarah Conly (2013) advocates coercive interventions in Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism. Her influential work serves as a basis for scrutinizing the validity of coercive paternalism’s presuppositions as well as the internal coherence of the concept. Following the fundamental groundwork of especially Joel Feinberg and Gerald Dworkin, arguments against coercive paternalism are evaluated. They include the reciprocal (rather than unilateral) relationship between the ‘present self’ and the ‘future self’ in the paternalist’s account, the questionable legitimacy of punishment for self-harming behaviour and of coercion in general, the challenges of so-called ‘perfectionism’ and slippery-slopes, as well as a misconception about the alleged lack of rationality that serves as a justification for coercive paternalism. The article concludes by suggesting that – given the flaws of the concept – it may be reasonable to favour soft paternalism à la John Stuart Mill based on the harm principle over Conly’s proposal for a more extensive form of coercive paternalism.

Organized Crime in Albania: A Path Dependence Perspective

Albanian organized crime has gained attention from the media and academia due to its significant role in international criminal world. Many studies have showcased Albanian criminal groups’ main characteristics and what makes them stand out. Nevertheless, such studies lack a theoretical application that binds the findings and provides an extensive panorama of Albanian organized crime development. Implying that the formation of Albanian organized crime is not a coincidence but rather an ongoing process, this study refers to path dependence theory to explain such an occurrence. Traditionally, the study of path dependence has focused on explaining how standards or rules become reinforced and determinant in a set environment by passing through three sequential stages. Consequently, the study uses a three-phase model to analyze Albanian organized crime from its inception to its latest stage.

Tim Haughton and Kevin Deegan-Krause: The new party challenge: changing cycles of party birth and death in central Europe and beyond

This paper contains following book review: Haughton, Timothy a Deegan-Krause, Kevin. The new party challenge: changing cycles of party birth and death in central Europe and beyond. First edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. xi, 290 stran. Comparative politics. ISBN 978-0-19-881292-0.

Between Cooperation and Competition Electoral Alliances of the Parliamentary Opposition in Poland during the 2018–2019 Series of Three Elections

The 2019 Polish parliamentary elections were the last in a series of three elections held within 12 months (chronologically: local elections, European Parliament election, elections to the Sejm and the Senate). The three consecutive elections opened up the possibility for cooperation within the parliamentary opposition with the aim of political victory. This article examines the relations between opposition groups in 2018–2019. Each election is analyzed in terms of the nature of relations within the opposition as well as cooperation and interparty competition. The hypothesis assumes that the types of relations among parliamentary opposition groups were shaped by the character of the given elections and the decisions taken by individual parties choosing between maintaining their independence and steps to potentially increase their electoral chances. The analysis shows that during the period in question the opposition did not develop a stable unified model of cooperation and that relations between individual groups were dominated by competition; however, depending on the election, cooperation was possible and was pragmatically pursued by the parties, as in the case of the European Coalition. The only stable cooperation was between Civic Platform and Modern.

Battling Procedural Windmills: Introductions of Proposals to Change U.S. Senate Procedure

Procedural change in Congress, especially in the United States Senate, has been studied quite extensively over the last thirty years. One of the most remarkable aspects of Senate procedural change is the extremely low likelihood that any proposals to change the way the Senate conducts its business will actually pass the relevant procedures and become part of either the Standing Rules of the Senate, or other sources of the procedural outlay. Being fully aware of this, however, senators continue to introduce scores of proposals that deal with many different aspects of the procedural environment, despite the negligible chance of any of them being accepted or even gaining attention from fellow lawmakers or the public. This paper looks at these ‘dead on arrival’ proposals, and tries to provide an explanation for the proposals, grounded in theories that deal with legislators’ building of their personal brands, aimed at helping their chances of re-election.

Combining Laclauian Discourse Analysis and Framing Theory Václav Havel’s ‘Hegemonic Rhetoric’ in Charter 77

The literature on the resistance and protest movements of Czechoslovakian dissidents and intellectuals during the communist period is abundant, but little attention has been devoted to close rhetorical analysis of the texts by the leaders of these movements. In conducting a case study of the rhetoric of the Czechoslovakian social movement Charter 77 during its early period of activity (1977–1978) as embodied in the early political essays of its leader Václav Havel and in the declaration of the movement, this article highlights the need to combine two theories in studying the rhetoric of social movement leaders: Laclauian discourse analysis and social movement framing theory. The article claims that, in order better to explain the choice of rhetoric of social movements, the two theories can be used in a single framework as an empirical method for analyzing social movements’ strategies. The study shows how combining Laclauian discourse analysis with framing theory expands social movement analysis; in combination, this framework explains the inception, emergence and choice of strategy of the Charter 77 movement.