1,720,986 research outputs found
Political scandals and vertical contagion in multilevel systems
Full text linkCan a scandal in one political sphere tarnish—or unexpectedly polish—the reputation of leaders and politicians in another? This study investigates the impact of political scandals in multi-level political systems and explores three possibilities: contagion, where trust erodes across all political levels; containment, where
evaluations are limited to the specific institutions involved; and contrast, where actors at other levels appear more trustworthy in comparison. This paper presents the first experimental test of vertical contagion, containment, and contrast effects following real-world scandals in UK and Scottish politics: Partygate and
Campervangate. We find weak evidence of contagion in the Scottish-level ‘Campervangate’ scandal, although trust reductions were generally small and often not statistically significant. However, the ‘Partygate’ scandal reveals a distinct contrast effect: trust decreased in UK political actors but increased at the Scottish
level. These results suggest that scandals in multi-level polities can influence evaluations of otherwise ‘innocent’ political actors with troubling consequences for democratic accountability mechanisms
The referendum that changed a nation: Scottish voting behaviour 2014–2019
No full textDrawing on data from the Scottish Referendum Study and subsequent Scottish Election Studies, this book provides the first in depth analysis of how voters engaged with the independence referendum in 2014 and what impact this has had on vote choice, polarisation and engagement in Scotland since then. The book contains eight chapters, and discusses how voters engaged with the referendum campaign, explains vote choice by examining reactions to the cues of parties, leaders and events, and compares the importance of these to calculations about risk
Scottish Labour as a case study in party failure: evidence from the 2019 UK General Election in Scotland
No full textFor Scottish Labour to be reduced to a single MP in Scotland once might seem like misfortune: that in 2019 they suffered the same fate looks like carelessness. While much focus of the 2019 UK General Election in Scotland will be on the SNP, an equally interesting puzzle is the electoral performance of the once dominant party in Scotland. In this article we explore what helps to explain why formerly successful parties fail, identifying explanations that may account for the current electoral fortunes of Labour in Scotland.To this end we rely on data from the 2019 round of the Scottish Election Survey.</p
Candidate authenticity: 'To thine own self be true'
No full textIn recent electoral contests, political observers and media outlets increasingly report on the level of “authenticity” of political candidates. However, even though this term has become commonplace in political commentary, it has received little attention in empirical electoral research. In this study, we identify the characteristics that we argue make a politician “authentic”. After theoretically discussing the different dimensions of this trait, we propose a survey battery aimed at measuring perceptions of the authenticity of political candidates. Testing our measure using data sets from different countries, we show that the answers to our items load on one latent concept that we call “authenticity”. Furthermore, perceptions of candidate authenticity seem to correlate strongly with evaluations of political parties and leaders, and with vote intention, while they are empirically distinguishable from other traits. We conclude that candidate authenticity is an important trait that should be taken into account by future research
Audit 2017: How democratic are the key institutions of devolved government in Wales?
No full textDevolved government in Wales started as a radical innovation in bringing government closer to citizen. Its generally successful development has generated great expectations about the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh government acquiring more powers – and perhaps being reformed in some respects. As part of the 2017 Audit of UK Democracy, Jac Larner and the Democratic Audit team explore how democratically and effectively these central institutions have performed
The prospects for electoral reform in Wales
No full textWith the introduction of the Wales Act of 2017, the National Assembly gains significant new powers. As part of this, it can enact its own proposals for electoral reform, including changes to the electoral system and introducing votes at 16. Jac Larner takes a look at what these changes would entail, and the prospects for implementation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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