Volume 28, Issue 5, October-December 2023
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Political group formation in the European parliament: Negotiating democracy and gender
Party Politics, Volume 29, Issue 5, Page 817-828, September 2023.
Political group formation in the European Parliament (EP) after European elections is a core feature of supranational party politics. The research objective of this article is to scrutinise democratic practices and the role of values, more specifically gender equality, in this political group formation. Complementing extant literature, this article engages with gendered political group formation as a dynamic process consisting of three intertwined layers, which are assessed by analysing formal and informal institutions around democracy and gender. The article draws on a unique data set of 130 interviews with MEPs, political group and parliamentary staff conducted in 2018–2020. The key findings of the article show that gender plays a role in each layer of political group formation, yet there are clear differences between political groups. By deciphering the reasons behind these differences, the article enhances the understanding of the political dynamics and struggles within the political groups.
Political group formation in the European Parliament (EP) after European elections is a core feature of supranational party politics. The research objective of this article is to scrutinise democratic practices and the role of values, more specifically gender equality, in this political group formation. Complementing extant literature, this article engages with gendered political group formation as a dynamic process consisting of three intertwined layers, which are assessed by analysing formal and informal institutions around democracy and gender. The article draws on a unique data set of 130 interviews with MEPs, political group and parliamentary staff conducted in 2018–2020. The key findings of the article show that gender plays a role in each layer of political group formation, yet there are clear differences between political groups. By deciphering the reasons behind these differences, the article enhances the understanding of the political dynamics and struggles within the political groups.
Border Settlement Dynamics and Border Status Quo: A Comparative Analysis of Turkey’s Borders
Imagination, Geopolitics, and the Anthropocene
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Demystifying the Myths Associated with Caste-Based Reservation
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Affirmative action of the State policy (caste-based reservation) was essentially inserted into the Constitution of India to bring historically exploited, discriminated and marginalized scheduled castes and schedule tribes into the mainstream public life by ensuring the dignity of life through better representational opportunities in public employment. Contrary to its professed aim, it has, in practice, ensured only a skewed representation of people from reserved castes. The conscious attempts are being made to slowly eroding it by vilifying it on various pretexts such as reservation is a compromise with merit, efficiency and the most deserving candidates suffer and so on. The underlying objective of such disparaged attempts is to replace caste-based reservation with an economic-based reservation which evidently defeats the very purpose of caste-based reservation. The introduction of 13-points roster system and 10% reservation are twin attacks on caste-based reservation in recent times apart from the otherwise ‘normalized’ attacks like privatizing the public sector, recruitment on contract/ad-hoc basis and tardy implementation of reservation policy apart from attempts to weaken and demonise SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. These demonising and casteist attacks on caste-based reservation are clearly not isolated and disconnected but obvious manifestations of the interests of select castes. It defeats the essence of affirmative policy of the state. It is clearly a travesty of social justice. This article tries to explore and demystify different facets of reservation policy like the basis of reservation, flawed merit logic, the impact of privatization on reservation, newly introduced reservation for economically weaker section (EWS) and the way ahead to annihilate the caste system.
Affirmative action of the State policy (caste-based reservation) was essentially inserted into the Constitution of India to bring historically exploited, discriminated and marginalized scheduled castes and schedule tribes into the mainstream public life by ensuring the dignity of life through better representational opportunities in public employment. Contrary to its professed aim, it has, in practice, ensured only a skewed representation of people from reserved castes. The conscious attempts are being made to slowly eroding it by vilifying it on various pretexts such as reservation is a compromise with merit, efficiency and the most deserving candidates suffer and so on. The underlying objective of such disparaged attempts is to replace caste-based reservation with an economic-based reservation which evidently defeats the very purpose of caste-based reservation. The introduction of 13-points roster system and 10% reservation are twin attacks on caste-based reservation in recent times apart from the otherwise ‘normalized’ attacks like privatizing the public sector, recruitment on contract/ad-hoc basis and tardy implementation of reservation policy apart from attempts to weaken and demonise SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. These demonising and casteist attacks on caste-based reservation are clearly not isolated and disconnected but obvious manifestations of the interests of select castes. It defeats the essence of affirmative policy of the state. It is clearly a travesty of social justice. This article tries to explore and demystify different facets of reservation policy like the basis of reservation, flawed merit logic, the impact of privatization on reservation, newly introduced reservation for economically weaker section (EWS) and the way ahead to annihilate the caste system.
How non-radical right parties strategically use nativist language: Evidence from an automated content analysis of Austrian, German, and Swiss election manifestos
Party Politics, Volume 29, Issue 5, Page 865-877, September 2023.
Radical right parties and their nativist ideas have gained considerable momentum, compelling non-radical parties to “engage” with this nativist “Zeitgeist.” Yet, aside from general trends such as tougher stances on migration, we know little about the strategic choices of parties when balancing their commitment to core policy goals and the need to be “timely,” that is, to respond to changing environments. Theoretically, parties may either adapt their ideological “core” to signal commitment or merely attribute nativist ideas to secondary issue areas to signal general responsiveness. Drawing on Austrian, German, and Swiss manifestos for over two decades and establishing a novel dictionary to assess parties’ use of nativism, we find that while previous studies showing right-wing parties compete with RRPs using nativism in the same domains are correct, the strategic choices around this competition are more complex. How much commitment to nativist ideas parties show depends on whether radical right parties use the same domains to construct their nativist claims. For research on party competition, this means that more attention should be paid to how rather than if parties “engage” with their rivals.
Radical right parties and their nativist ideas have gained considerable momentum, compelling non-radical parties to “engage” with this nativist “Zeitgeist.” Yet, aside from general trends such as tougher stances on migration, we know little about the strategic choices of parties when balancing their commitment to core policy goals and the need to be “timely,” that is, to respond to changing environments. Theoretically, parties may either adapt their ideological “core” to signal commitment or merely attribute nativist ideas to secondary issue areas to signal general responsiveness. Drawing on Austrian, German, and Swiss manifestos for over two decades and establishing a novel dictionary to assess parties’ use of nativism, we find that while previous studies showing right-wing parties compete with RRPs using nativism in the same domains are correct, the strategic choices around this competition are more complex. How much commitment to nativist ideas parties show depends on whether radical right parties use the same domains to construct their nativist claims. For research on party competition, this means that more attention should be paid to how rather than if parties “engage” with their rivals.
Street-level bureaucracy in weak state institutions: a systematic review of the literature
International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
The study of street-level bureaucracy has been dominated by research from the Global North. Mainstream conceptualizations are, therefore, based on observations from institutional contexts that may vary significantly from the working conditions of frontline workers elsewhere. This article takes stock of the growing body of literature on street-level bureaucracy in weak institutional contexts and brings together relevant insights from comparative political science and public administration into a coherent analytical framework. We identify four institutional factors that shape frontline working conditions and three behavioral patterns in frontline worker agency. These patterns in frontline agency – ranging from policy improvisation to informal privatization – can be understood as an institutional waterbed effect caused by institutional deficiencies, such as resource scarcity and accountability gaps: if the complexity of public service provision is not tackled at the institutional level, it is pushed towards the street-level where frontline workers cope with it in highly diverse ways. Points for practitioners Frontline workers in weak state institutions are commonly faced with highly precarious working conditions.If the structural preconditions for policy implementation and rule enforcement are unresolved, these complexities are pushed towards frontline workers that cope with them through informal privatization, policy improvisation, or alienative commitment focused on mere job survival.Frontline agency is an indispensable factor for understanding the selective and often distributive nature of service delivery and rule enforcement in the Global South.
The study of street-level bureaucracy has been dominated by research from the Global North. Mainstream conceptualizations are, therefore, based on observations from institutional contexts that may vary significantly from the working conditions of frontline workers elsewhere. This article takes stock of the growing body of literature on street-level bureaucracy in weak institutional contexts and brings together relevant insights from comparative political science and public administration into a coherent analytical framework. We identify four institutional factors that shape frontline working conditions and three behavioral patterns in frontline worker agency. These patterns in frontline agency – ranging from policy improvisation to informal privatization – can be understood as an institutional waterbed effect caused by institutional deficiencies, such as resource scarcity and accountability gaps: if the complexity of public service provision is not tackled at the institutional level, it is pushed towards the street-level where frontline workers cope with it in highly diverse ways. Points for practitioners Frontline workers in weak state institutions are commonly faced with highly precarious working conditions.If the structural preconditions for policy implementation and rule enforcement are unresolved, these complexities are pushed towards frontline workers that cope with them through informal privatization, policy improvisation, or alienative commitment focused on mere job survival.Frontline agency is an indispensable factor for understanding the selective and often distributive nature of service delivery and rule enforcement in the Global South.
“Everything Is Revealed in Maps”: The European Far Right and the Legacy of Classical Geopolitics during the Cold War
Sikh nationalism: From a dormant minority to an ethno-religious diaspora
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Sikh nationalism: From a dormant minority to an ethno-religious diaspora
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