{"title":"The anti-elitist strategy of political parties as a populist tool to (re)gain electoral support","authors":"Anna Pacześniak","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2288238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2288238","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"179 7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139238298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Through the looking glass? Lessons from party Europeanisation in Denmark","authors":"Gilles Pittoors","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2287209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2287209","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"118 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139238901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Illiberal spectatorship – the disfigurement of citizenship in Hungary and Poland","authors":"Robert Sata, Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2280977","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2280977","url":null,"abstract":"Hungary and Poland have been forerunners of democratic backsliding in Europe. Both governments have been building an ‘illiberal democracy’ using the populist promise to return power to the people. We argue that despite this promise, the Fidesz and PiS governments have undertaken political reforms that turn citizens into spectators with a very limited say or take in politics and willing objects of propaganda and disinformation. The turning of citizens into spectators is integral part of democratic backsliding as illiberal policies empty citizenship of its meaning, thus facilitating transition to autocracy. Illiberal regimes 1) capture media to control public opinion, 2) remove the opportunities for citizens to exercise their political agency, 3) redefine the contours of the political community to the extent that critical citizens’ belonging is questioned, 4) and instead of political choices, they present an emotional spectacle, often based on propaganda, fake news or straight lies. Spectators do not merely watch the show, they assist in its creation as fans of leaders who supposedly express and realize their collective will – the voice of true people. This way, spectatorship becomes the societal and cultural underpinning of the illiberal regime, where leaders fake democracy to hoard and hold onto power.","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"1 9","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135037639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"European Union funds and corruption in the ex-communist member states","authors":"Mihai Mutascu","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2280971","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2280971","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe paper analyses the impact of European Union (EU) funds on corruption in the EU ex-communist countries by following a panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The panel includes 10 former EU communist countries, over 2007–2019. The key findings reveal that an improvement in the EU funds paid and their rate of absorption can reduce the level of corruption in the long-run in the recipient EU ex-communist countries. This is due to better monitoring of EU funds paid compared with national resources, and a more efficient and fairer channel of EU funds absorption. In parallel with the EU funds, corruption can be controlled in certain conditions by the degree of economic development, size of government, level of democratisation and religiosity.KEYWORDS: CorruptionEU fundspanel analysisex-communist countriesimplications Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementThe data that support the findings of this study are available in [ecrg.ro] at [ecrg.ro/dataset.xlsx], reference number [not applicable]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: Worldwide Governance Indicators, and World Development Indicators (World Bank online database); European Commission DG REGIO online database; EUROSTAT online database; Heritage Foundation online database; Economist Intelligence Unit of the Economist Group online database; Association of Religion Data Archives online database.Notes1. The sample includes only the countries being EU members whole considered period (i.e. Croatia is not included in the sample, as that country became EU member in 2013).2. Many other amendments have been done, notable being the Regulation (EU) 2017/1371 of 17 July 2017 (EU Regulation Citation2017), and Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of 18 July 2018 (EU Regulation Citation2018).3. After years of investigations, OLAF reports in 2022: 256 investigations concluded; 275 financial, judicial, disciplinary and administrative recommendations; 426.8 mil. Euro recommended for recovery; 192 investigations opened; 1017 selections made; and 197.9 mil. Euro prevented from being lost (OLAF, Citation2022). Herein, Hungary, Poland and Romania occupy the top five of investigations.","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"8 23","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135137769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From qualified to conspirative Euroscepticism: how the German AfD frames the EU in multiple crisis","authors":"Juan Roch","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2271854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2271854","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"5 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135871518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Show me how to live: transactional advocacy organizations, managerial populism, and the EU","authors":"Jiří Navrátil, Ondřej Císař","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2271852","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2271852","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"194 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136102274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"For things to remain the same, everything must change? Studying National front’s and National rally’s platforms on education","authors":"Ismaïl Ferhat","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2269378","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2269378","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe Rassemblement national, or National Rally (previously known as Front national, or National Front, until 2018) has been the only European far-right party that has constantly been among the major political organizations of its country since the 1980s. However, its agendas, ideas and proposals on education are relatively unknown and have barely been studied. Its manifestos, from its rise in the 1980s to the mid-2000s, showed a mix of a conservative perception of school curricula, an intense hostility towards teachers and a market-oriented approach of education (including school vouchers). Since the party has been led by Marine le Pen in 2011, the National Front/National Rally’s agenda seems to have substantially changed, and now promotes state schools and professionals working in them, while opposing any cuts in educational spending. The idea this research wants to investigate is that such a shift is actually limited, as it does not change what could be theorized as a ‘pedagogical core’ of the French far-right, defined here as a stable corpus of proposals and beliefs towards education. This core has remained remarkably stable since the first platform of the party released in 1973: selective, pessimistic about the outcomes and effects of mass schooling, nationalistic.KEYWORDS: Far-rightFrancepoliticseducationschools Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. The National Front will be referred as NF and the National Rally as NR afterwards.2. Front national, Droite et démocratie économique, 1978 (Contemporaine, Archive reference : S78805).","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135113932","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Non-recognizing the Other? Discursive deligitimation of the EAEU by the EU","authors":"Zhanibek Arynov, Serik Orazgaliyev, Laura Issova","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2271849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2271849","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThe Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), despite being regarded as the most developed integration project in the post-Soviet area, has faced different hurdles in acquiring international recognition. Especially, the EU, the EAEU’s Significant Other, has been reluctant to formally recognize it, in spite of close ties with EAEU member states as well as of its own self-image as a supporter of regional integrations. This paper focuses on this puzzle and examines how the EU has been discursively explaining its non-recognition of the EAEU at the institutional level. Based on the analysis of EU-articulated narratives since 2010, the paper reveals three dominant representations of the EAEU in the EU discourse: (1) Russia’s geopolitical project; (2) a protectionist union; and (3) a dysfunctional union. These narratives have been used by Brussels to create the EAEU’s image as a threatening Other, thus justifying why the EU cannot formally recognize the EAEU and officially engage with it. The paper also identifies five different stages of the EU’s discursive representation of the EAEU since 2010, when its tone and content varied. The paper concludes that such non-recognition from the Significant Other still limits the EAEU’s international agency despite its increasing interest in cooperation with non-Western actors.KEYWORDS: European UnionEurasian Economic Unionrecognitionlegitimacydiscourse AcknowledgmentsZhanibek Arynov wants to thank Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH) and Institut Français d’Etudes sur l’Asie Centrale (IFEAC) for providing the ATLAS fellowship in May-June 2022 to visit Intégration et Coopération dans l’Espace Européen (ICEE), Sorbonne Nouvelle, and develop the earliest draft of this work. He thanks Professor Laure Delcour of Sorbonne Nouvelle for hosting him at ICEE and providing invaluable feedback on the project. All shortcomings belong to the authors.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. The EAEU, which initially started as the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, came into existence in January 2015. In the same year, it was joined by Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.2. The Eurasian Customs Union (EACU), the first step in creating the EAEU, officially entered into force on January 1, 2010.3. We acknowledge that the EU is a complex entity with multiple internal institutions. Yet, the European Commission is the EU’s main executive institution that deals with day-to-day relations with other external entities. When we mention ‘the EU’s refusal to recognise the EAEU’, we mainly refer to the absence of any formal relations between, first of all, the European Commission and Eurasian Economic Commission, as well as between any other institutions of the two sides.4. Such suspicion regarding the EAEU’s geopolitical nature existed in EAEU member-states too. For instance, in Kazakhstan, EAEU-critics were mostly concerned about losing sovereignty to Russia (e.g. Nursha Citatio","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135462813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spain as the EU’s ‘champion’ in Latin America: elites, government trustworthiness, and free trade","authors":"José Manuel Rivas Otero, Asbel Bohigues","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2271846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2271846","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTThis paper addresses attitudes around the projection of the EU among Latin American elites, namely the determinants of support for a Free Trade Agreement between the two regions and the trustworthiness of the EU government. We take as data elite surveys conducted in 15 Latin American countries (2014–2019) and consider sociodemographics, ideology, support for democracy, views of foreign powers, exports to the EU, and electoral democracy. Results show that ideology and support for democracy are key determinants of support for an interregional FTA, and that the trustworthiness of governments in the US, China, and Spain covary with attitudes toward the EU. The latter (trust in the government in Spain) proves to be the main driver and, furthermore, its impact is conditional on the economic strength (observed as exports) of the EU: wherever the EU is not a strong economic actor in Latin America, trust in the Spanish government does nothing but improve the image of the EU.KEYWORDS: Elitesgovernment trustworthinessFTAEULatin America Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Supplemental dataSupplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2271846.Notes1. Lower Chambers in the case of bicameralism. For more information on the dataset see: https://oir.org.es/pela/en/2. Not national governments, but the European guiding authorities (that is, the Executive), regardless of the name appearing in the questionnaire. This question is one of a battery where legislators are also asked about the trustworthiness of the governments of the US, Russia, China, and Spain.3. The levels of confidence that LAC legislators express in the Spanish government vary from 66.7% (Uruguay in 2015) to 91.4% (Dominican Republic in 2017). There seems to be no impact on these percentages based on the government’s ideology. In 2017, for example, 86.2% of Nicaraguan legislators, mostly left-leaning, expressed confidence in the Spanish government, which was led at that time by conservative Mariano Rajoy. In comparison, during 2018, 84.9% of Colombian legislators, mostly right-leaning, voiced trust in the current Spanish government led by socialist Pedro Sánchez.4. The two questions on trustworthiness correlate positively (0.51), as expected. In the paper, we build the case that views on the EU in LAC are in part driven by attitudes toward specific EU members, especially Spain. A positive perception of the EU might have a feedback effect on the perception of EU members, but in the case of Spain we expect the causality to extend from that single EU member to the EU as a whole. Unlike other EU countries, Spain has maintained a long-term special relationship with LAC (Ayuso Pozo Citation2014).5. For more information on the descriptives of the variables and details of the analysis, see the supplementary file.6. Although the trade share of the EU might seem low when compared to countries like China","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135779558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The sense of nations for cooperation. How threat perception and ideology influence counterterrorism cooperation between EU members","authors":"Francesco Baraldi","doi":"10.1080/14782804.2023.2269376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14782804.2023.2269376","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTWhich factors influence bilateral counterterrorism (CT) cooperation between EU Member States? Although scholars have studied European CT, the question still needs to be answered. This paper addresses the issue by introducing a new theoretical framework that combines CT and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) literature. As citizens’ threat perception increases, governments are pressed to act. Overall, centrist cabinets tend to rely more on cooperation agreements; likewise, pushed by threat perception, left-wing executives also recourse to international cooperation. I tested this framework on a newly collected dataset, which comprehends bilateral CT agreements signed among EU Members from 2002 to 2017. As such, this paper fosters studies on EU CT, focusing on a less debated issue: bilateral cooperation between EU Member States. The results support the initial hypotheses, disclosing a robust influence of threat perception and cabinet ideology on the number of bilateral CT agreements signed. Furthermore, they show that the perception of the threat is more influential on cooperation than the actual impact of terrorism.KEYWORDS: CounterterrorismcooperationForeign Policy AnalysisEuropean Union Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. https://www.osce.org/resources/documents2. First, I conducted different pre-estimation tests. I tested the DV for overdispersion and an excessive number of zeros. Both were absent. Then, I tested the independent variables. Threat perception and GDP have been transformed in logarithms to avoid skewness problems (Balžekienė Citation2019). Secondly, I tested the independent variables for unit-root. The government’s ideology, military and police expenditure and GDP showed signs of unit-root; thus, its first difference has been taken. A deeper explanation of these tests is in the appendix.3. These models are in the appendix.","PeriodicalId":46035,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary European Studies","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135883544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}