In the Swedish European Parliamentary Election in 2009 the Swedish Pirate Party took two seats in the parliament and 7.1 per cent of the Swedish voters’ support. The party was absolutely new and the usual concept of populist parties does not seem to fit the Pirate movement very well. It is anti-authoritarian and aims to enhance civic liberties for youngsters, to give open access to culture through the internet and to improve personal integrity and human dignity on the World Wide Web. Transnationalism is one foundation for the party but another is a value foundation of universal human rights and individual freedom, disregarding national borders. This article is an investigation of the Pirate Party as a possible new party family, driven by new sociopolitical cleavages in the modern information society.

This study explores how a party's organizational mode affects its stability in new democracies. A party organization was stable under these three conditions: when the relationship from lower to upper organizations has institutionalized a strong vertical organization mode; when the central party power is concentrated on the leadership; and when the leadership has been safely shifted after elections. In the case of two ruling parties in South Korea, each mode produced differences in party stability. The dissimilar organization modes of two parties resulted in different organizational stability.

When it comes to analyses of financial power in Latin America, there has been a tendency to assume it is mostly external, relatively homogeneous, and usually constraining of domestic policy autonomy. Increasingly, however, when speaking of financial power in the region, a focus exclusively on foreign capital misses a significant part of the empirical landscape, one inhabited by large domestic institutional investors: public and private pension funds. A focus on these funds reveals that a neat state–finance dichotomy is often unrepresentative of the type of blurred web of interests, influence and ownership that characterizes even those economies that have embraced a significant degree of liberalization. In fact, pension finance is far from uniform across countries. In order to capture this diversity in Latin America, a new typology is suggested that departs from the Anglo-American notion of ‘pension fund capitalism’ and further specifies pension finance as also revealing dynamics best described as ‘pension fund developmentalism and statism’. The typology is not only aimed at capturing more empirical nuance in Latin America; it can also serve as reference for cross-regional analyses of these often neglected, but increasingly powerful financial actors in emerging economies.

In June 1979, 110,968,000 citizens of the nine European Community countries voted to select representatives to the European Parliament - the fvst directlyelected supranational parliament in history.

Representatives from nine nations sit together as members of transnational party federations that have, in varying degrees, worked out joint political programmes. As a democratically elected body, the new European Parliament possesses a political legitimacy that the former, appointed, Parliament never had. By itself, this does not automatically give it a more influential role in decision-making at the European level, but it certainly strengthens the Parliament's potential to do so.

The experience of the European Communities confirms not only that, as the late Otto Kirchheimer put it, ‘opposition is to be found under one form or another in every political community’; but also that a political community is to be found wherever opposition exists in one form or another. The purpose of this study is to investigate the manner in which opposition forces develop in the European Communities to block or to enhance integration.

Since the turn of the century, much comparative politics scholarship has examined whether and how income inequality affects the prospects of democratization and, to a lesser extent, whether democracy reduces inequality. What is lacking, however, is a close examination of the extent of income inequality in authoritarian regimes. This article examines the variation in inequality across authoritarian regimes and argues that electoral competition – in conjunction with party ideology and the extent of party institutionalization – helps explain the pattern of inequality under authoritarian rule. I find that electoral authoritarian (EA) regimes – regimes in which multiple parties legally compete in elections – have lower levels of inequality compared to non-EA regimes. I further find that inequality is lower in EA regimes with left-leaning ruling parties and more institutionalized party systems. This analysis highlights the value of exploring the dynamics and contingent effects of electoral competition in authoritarian regimes.

Despite an investigation lasting almost a year there is still no clarity as to why the perpetrators of the London bombings of 2005 acted as they did. Many commentators projected their own views into the vacuum left by the terrorists. These ideas, ranging from revenge for British foreign policy to the logical outcome of social exclusion, may shape security and community-related policies adversely. This article suggests that the bombers reflected a wider sense of disgruntlement in contemporary culture, one that is largely home grown and inculcated. Exploring the recent development of this politics of alienation, and a concomitant search for identity and meaning, it is proposed that the biggest danger is to live in a society with no clear sense of direction or purpose.

Coalitions with left-of-centre parties have traditionally been regarded as the only viable option for Green parties that have shed their stance of radical opposition. The German Greens are investigated as a case study putting this assumption into doubt. Historical analysis of their relationship with the Social Democratic Party reveals how they slipped into life-threatening dependency on the latter. A survey of consecutive reinterpretations of the positioning formula ‘Neither right, nor left but ahead’ maps the struggle for an independent Green identity. An appraisal of recent debates about Conservative– Green alliances investigates the basis for Green coalition politics beyond the Social Democratic embrace.

‘WITHOUT TRUST WE WILL NOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS,’ WARNED Johannes Rau, the former German Federal president in his last ‘Berlin speech’ in May 2004. As one reason for an alarming loss of trust in Germany, creating a serious obstacle to necessary changes, he identified an irresponsible, egoistic and greedy behaviour among parts of German elites. Actually, Johannes Rau did not blame only political elites but also elite members in other sectors such as business, trade unions or mass media. His statement implies that parts of German elites are causing a decline in trust in Germany by losing touch with the people. Likewise, various observers in the public discourse argue that the immoral, cynical and increasingly incompetent behaviour of several elite members especially fosters a crisis of trust in Germany by creating a diffuse climate of distrust, pessimism, uncertainty and Zukunftsangst.

‘When the market is buying, sell, and when the market is selling, buy.’ This Stock Exchange maxim might be equally productive applied to academic fashions; and that it has been fashionable to extol the ‘single or single-dominant party system’ in Africa is undeniable.

One way of questioning this fashion – and a fruitful one – is to examine the very concept of a ‘single or single-dominant party’. Its very clumsiness discloses the difficulties of conceptualization, when states in which only one party is legal are classed together with others where one party has succeeded in winning an overwhelming preponderance of seats, or where states whose governments have seized every chance to harass opposition elements are lumped together with others where little or no such pressure has been applied. Not only that. The word ‘party’ itself requires further definition. In what sense was the (now defunct) PDD of Dahomey a ‘party’? Or the FLN of Algeria? The party in Mali or in Guinea is quite clearly a very different animal from the party in Malawi. And so is the style of politics.

Some polities have strong cultural diversity, some of which is territorially based and politically articulated by significant groups that, in the name of nationalism, and self-determination, advance claims for independence. In this article such polities are defined as ‘politically robustly multinational’. If the goal is peace and democracy in one state in such a polity, this article advances theoretical and empirical arguments to show that ideal typical ‘nation-state’ making policies are less appropriate than policies associated with new ideal type I construct called ‘state-nation’. Countries discussed are Spain, Belgium, and Canada and the ‘matched pair’ of successful Tamil political integration via state nation policies in India, and failed Tamil political integration due to nation-state policies in Sri Lanka.

This article examines levels of interest and trust among the public in relation to Northern Ireland's newly established political institutions and actors, through an analysis of the results of the 2007 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (NILT). It is important to reveal the specific groups of people with the highest levels of political disenchantment, particularly in the context of the longer-term stability of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, since the willingness of the electorate to have faith and trust in the workability of these political institutions and in the various political actors in whose custody they lie is considered vital.

Since the separate independence of Senegal in June 1960, after the breakup of the Mali Federation, organized political opposition in Senegal has not been able to maintain the position which it enjoyed before independence. The failure of the opposition can be explained only in part by reference to the repressive measures adopted by the government over this period; it should also be seen as a result of the internal weaknesses of the opposition itself. The purpose of this article is to outline the various conditions which have enabled the governing party, the Union Progressiste Sénégalaise (UPS) of M. Leopold Sédar Senghor, to remain in power until the present time, despite its own lack of strict internal discipline or general sense of purpose.

The 2002 Elections In France Were A Gripping Drama Unfolding in four acts. Each act has to be understood as part of a whole, as each election was ultimately dependent upon the results of the first round of the presidential election on 21 April. However untypical in the context of Fifth Republican history, the first round of the presidential election strongly inf luenced the peculiar course of the subsequent contests. The outcome of the first election on the 21 April – at which the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen won through to the second ballot against Jacques Chirac, narrowly distancing the outgoing premier Lionel Jospin – created an electric shock which reverberated around the streets of Paris and other French cities and sparked a civic mobilization without parallel since May '68. The end-result of this exceptional republican mobilization was to secure the easy (initially rather unexpected) re-election of Chirac as president at the second round two weeks later. The election of 5 May was unlike a typical second-round election. Rather than a bipolar contest pitting left and right over a choice of future governmental orientations, it was a plebiscite in favour of democracy (hence Chirac) against the far-right (Le Pen). Chirac was re-elected overwhelmingly as president, supported by at least as many leftwing as right-wing voters. This enforced plebiscite against the extreme right allowed a resurgent Jacques Chirac to claim a renewed presidential authority. At the parliamentary election of 9 and 16 June, the Fifth Republic reverted to a more traditional mode of operation, as a new ‘presidential party’, informally launched just weeks before the elections, obtained a large overall majority of seats to ‘support the President’ in time-honoured Fifth Republican tradition.

The article examines the response of the French National Rally (Rassemblement National – RN) to COVID-19. It combines computer-based and qualitative content analysis of Facebook posts and press releases to uncover the salience and frames of the infection. I find that the RN used an ambivalent strategy to respond to the pandemic, linking an unexpected problem to its core ideological tenets, while also adapting its programmatic profile. Specifically, the RN interpreted COVID-19 in terms of immigration and defence. Diagnostic frames drew on nativist, authoritarian and populist tenets to identify the origin of the infection (migrants), and to attribute blame for its spread (lack of border controls). Moreover, prognostic frames used disagreement within the scientific community to criticize governments' policies and propose alternatives. While this strategy allowed the RN to address an issue outside its ‘comfort zone’, its support base remained stable. These results point at the radical right's strategic use of expert knowledge and populist logics to try to improve its credibility in mainstream public debates.

One of the most glaring differences between traditional and emerging middle powers relates to their projection of societal values abroad. Since most emerging powers are essentially fragmented multiclass states, class compromise often emerges to intermediate contradictory demands emanating from fragile political coalitions. Against the backdrop of vast income inequalities, and facing some domestic constituencies favouring liberalization on the one hand against pro-redistributive groups on the other, adopting a middle power role, in the cases of South Africa and Brazil, emerges in order to ameliorate these conflicting demands. Two dimensions are examined very briefly, namely recent mediation efforts in Iran and Libya and attempts to effect redistribution by reforming processes of global governance.

The American aggression in Iraq and the campaign in Afghanistan resulted from the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. 9/11 has had a massive, catalysing effect on the American public, press, main political parties and official foreign policy makers. This article assesses the impact of 9/11 in changing US foreign policy and especially in creating a new foreign policy establishment by comparing it to the consequences of an historical military attack on the United States – Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. It concludes that there is adequate evidence to suggest that a new bipartisan foreign policy consensus/establishment has emerged.

Recent reforms of family policy signal a turning point in the Korean welfare state, as they undermine the welfare developmentalism that is commonly ascribed to Korean social policy. Drawing on the East Asian as well as Western welfare state literatures, this research seeks to understand the politics behind family policy reforms. In doing so, this research argues that political parties were the driver of these reforms, contrary to the conventional ‘parties do not matter’ perspective that dominates the East Asian welfare state literature. Utilizing the party competition thesis from the study of Western welfare states, this article demonstrates that political parties, the unlikely reform agency due to their perceived non-policy orientation, moved family policy to centre stage in election campaigns. Far-reaching changes in the electorate, namely the diminishing effect of regionalism and the increasing importance of young voters, incentivized parties to promote family policy. Thus, this research calls for bringing political parties into the analysis of East Asian welfare politics.

Northern Ireland’s consociational institutions were reviewed by a committee of its Assembly in 2012–13. The arguments of both critics and exponents of the arrangements are of general interest to scholars of comparative politics, power-sharing and constitutional design. The authors of this article review the debates and evidence on the d’Hondt rule of executive formation, political designation, the likely impact of changing district magnitudes for assembly elections, and existing patterns of opposition and accountability. They evaluate the scholarly, political and legal literature before commending the merits of maintaining the existing system, including the rules under which the system might be modified in future.

This article makes a two-fold contribution to the European Parliament (EP) literature. First, it challenges the dominant assumption that post-Amsterdam the EP has experienced an increase in its powers. Through analysis of the Socrates case the article shows that the EP is now potentially weaker under the post-Amsterdam co-decision procedure (co-decision II), than it was under the earlier variant, co-decision I. Second, the article uncovers a hitherto overlooked aspect of internal divisions within the parliament, by revealing that there is scope for inter-committee conflict in the EP over budgetary allocations for multi-annual programmes. It is argued that such conflict can weaken the parliament in co-decision negotiations with the council, and that the negotiation of the EU's new multi-annual budgetary framework provides the perfect conditions for such internecine conflict to occur once more.