1,720,964 research outputs found
Towards a critical theory of social movements : an introduction
No full textFirst published online: 22 December 2017In this introductory essay, we first argue that social movement studies have not paid enough attention to the dynamics of capitalist transformations. Second, we identify the epistemological biases of the discipline. Third, we propose some solutions to fill this gap, namely exploring the relations between the dynamics of the accumulation process and the social movement formation processes
Who Governs 4.0? Varieties of Smart Cities
No full textResearch on smart cities is still at an early stage. The conjecture of this article is that smart city strategies and their impacts will inevitably vary across contexts; however, the debate still lacks an analytical toolkit that guides the exploration of such varieties (and similarities) of smart cities. Combining existing research on the governance of smart cities with theories of business–state relations from political economy, this article develops an analytical framework and typology that captures varieties (and similarities) of smart city policies and governance. We apply this framework to four illustrative cases: Prague, Barcelona, Berlin, and Rio de Janeiro
Good apples on bad trees : explaining variation in levels of corruption in South-European local government
Get PDFDefence date: 15 February 2016Examining Board: Professor Pepper D. Culpepper, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore / formerly European University Institute; Professor Victor Lapuente, University of Gothenburg; Professor Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Hertie School of Governance.Since 1996, when James D. Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, called corruption a cancer and declared a war against it, we have seen only partial victories. The phenomenon of corruption presents exceptional resilience in contemporary societies. Yet, empirical research shows that there are countries, regions, and cities that have been able to reverse their fate and managed to bring corruption under control. By taking up this issue, my doctoral thesis attempts to determine: a) the ways in which a negative (corrupt) institutional equilibrium can be reversed; and b) in areas of widespread corruption, why some cities and their politicians decide to opt out from corruption and to limit it. In order to do this, I explore a puzzling variety of levels of corruption across and within different levels of government (national, regional and local). I aim to explain why in some cities there is corruption, collusion and bad government, while in other cities within the same institutional framework we observe non-corruption and good government. In other words, I aim to explain institution-building in societies hampered by low levels of trust and fragmented interests, and to assess if the possibilities exist for corrupt cities to alter these negative tendencies and become “good apples on bad trees". I thus focus on well-performing cities in highly corrupt regions and countries, in an attempt to understand what lies behind the variation in levels of corruption between and within regions II argue that the answer to this question lies in the cost of corruption for government, combined with the capacity of the business sector to cooperate (business association strength) and press the government to invest in administrative capacity. I contend that business associations with the strong cooperation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can press government, and that this, together with government stability, enables a shift from the government’s short-term horizons to long-term investment in administrative capacity. In that way, government’s potential “grabbing hand" can be limited. The methodology to probe this question is twofold: qualitative analysis using process tracing on eight cases of local government in Spain and Italy, and a historical analysis of the evolution of the economic circumstances and quality of government in these eight cases. My thesis contributes to the burgeoning literature on corruption and anti-corruption but also to the wider literature on political economy and collective action, by modeling endogenous institutional change and cooperation, even in the absence of trust and strong institutional control
Thorns in the side: Strategies of populist parties against local public administrations
No full textThe success of populist parties in national elections puts pressure on political leaders and their administrations, both at the central and sub‐national levels. This paper explores the political tensions between two administrative levels—a central level governed by a populist party, and the city level headed by a liberal party—and the strategies populists use to challenge local political leaders and their city administrations. This paper analyzes three case studies: Prague, Warsaw, and Budapest. In all three cities, opposition candidates are visible challengers to the populist parties in government. The results show that city administrations face increasing tasks, cuts in budget transfers, higher scrutiny from central government, and administrative bottlenecks
Competing over the ‘left behind’: the effect of independent local lists on the electoral performance of populist parties
No full textRising dissatisfaction with established politics has driven
widespread partisan dealignment, weakening mainstream parties
and fuelling the ascent of populist challengers. Yet alongside
populist parties, another group has gained traction across Europe:
independent local lists (ILLs). These locally organised groups also
present themselves as alternatives to party politics and may
channel anti-establishment sentiment. This paper investigates
how the rise of ILLs affects the performance of populist parties –
particulary in so-called ‘left behind’ places – and how this
elationship varies across populist parties of different ideological
types. The analysis draws on an original dataset of local elections
in 670 municipalities over four electoral rounds in the Czech
Republic, a country in which both populist parties and ILLs have
recently emerged and now play prominent roles. Fixed-effects
panel models show that the presence of ILLs significantly
impedes the electoral performance of populist parties, including
in economically deprived contexts. These findings shed new light
on the conditions under which local political actors are able to
constrain the development of populist parties, offering broader
insights into strategic responses to voter grievances and the
rising demand for anti-establishment politics
Platforms' regulatory disruptiveness and local regulatory outcomes in Europe
No full textOne of the manifestations of platform power is the ability of platforms to successfully ignore existing rules and disrupt established patterns of regulation, thereby challenging the pillars of the regulatory state. But while the disruptive nature of the platform economy has often been invoked, it has rarely been empirically researched. We aim to fill this gap by putting the 'disruption' thesis to the test. We investigated whether platform companies disrupt local regulations. The findings show that sectoral platform companies are less disruptive to local regulations than widely believed. Platforms face a variety of regulatory responses, including the enforcement of regulations and the banning of platforms that fail to respect local rules. We operationalise disruption as the implementation of new regulation, exploring where and whether regulatory disruption takes place. This article combines a comparative analysis of 99 city regulations in the transport (ride-hailing) and housing (apartment-sharing) sectors in which platform companies are active, with examples from qualitative case studies
Do City Managers Improve Government Performance?
No full textWhy do some local governments perform better than others that are socioeconomically, culturally, and geographically close? This paper examines variation in local government performance across 209 Catalan municipalities with over 5,000 inhabitants. We test whether the municipality’s adminis-trative structure affects local government performance. In particular, we explore the effects of re-placing a traditional public administration structure (i.e., headed by bureaucrats) with a new public management model (i.e., headed by city managers) in two dimensions: first, transparency and ac-countability; and, second, financial performance. Results indicate that, ceteris paribus, municipalities with a city manager are more transparent, responsive and open to citizens, but do not perform better in financial indicators. Financial performance seems to be more driven by political factors: Right-wing governments are associated with higher debt levels but a faster ability to reduce debt; and, conversely, coalition governments are less indebted than single-party governments but are slower in debt reduction
The Decline of Traditional Partisanship in Spanish Municipalities:Corruption, Inequality and Territorial Mobilisation
Get PDFBetween 2008 and 2014, Spain experienced a severe recession, which had a deep impact on its political system. Scholars have mainly focused on transformations occurred at the national level but have neglected changing equilibria at the local level. This paper shows that in Spain the role of traditional parties as mediators of local interests has declined and suggests that they have to face increasing competition coming from citizens' lists, which label themselves as ‘local' or ‘non-partisan’. By relying on an original dataset and quantitative analysis, this paper aims to understand to what extent these new forces are influenced by other forms of territorial mobilisation represented by regionalist parties and whether corruption and inequality, two factors that are crucial in Southern European societies, may also explain part of their success
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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