Political Studies Review

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-09-06

ISBN:: 1478-9299

Issue Number

No. 22-2, May 2024

Latest documents

Commissioned Book Review: Matthew Smith, The First Resort: A History of Social Psychiatry in the United States
It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over: Interest-Group Influence in Policy Implementation
Current research on interest-group influence in the European Union tends to focus on just one stage of the policy cycle, being agenda setting, the legislative process or (some aspects) of the implementation stage. We argue that this bifurcation of the research agenda is a serious shortcoming, as lobby dynamics may vary throughout different consecutive policymaking stages. As a consequence, lobby gains or losses in the legislative stage can be overturned in the implementation. This research note therefore explores how the influence of interest organisations travels across different stages of the policy cycle, most importantly between the legislative stage and the implementation stage. First, we observe that as policymaking is a continuous rather than a static process, also lobbying tends to stretch beyond the legislative stage. Second, we argue that the specific characteristics of the implementation vis-à-vis the legislative stage may structurally favour business and resourceful organisations over smaller groups and nongovernmental organisationss. Third, we illustrate the plausibility of our argument by means of an in-depth case study: the European Union Industrial Emissions Directive. We conclude with a call for a more integral approach to researching lobby powers throughout the policy cycle and provide a preliminary agenda for future research.
Testing Causal Inference Between Social Media News Reliance and (Dis)trust of EU Institutions with an Instrumental Variable Approach: Lessons From a Null-Hypothesis Case
Given the well-documented negativity bias and attitudinal entrenchment associated with sharing and debating news in social media, a reasonable and already substantially investigated assumption is that those getting news about the European Union (EU) mostly from social media would be more sceptical of its institutions than others. Empirical research on this topic has thus far largely deployed experimental and observational methods to investigate this assumption. We contribute to the existing literature with an instrumental variable approach well-suited to establishing causal relationships in non-experimental data. However, we find no blanket causal relationship between relying on social media for news about the EU polity and becoming less trustful of its institutions. EU policies aiming to tackle negative effects of social media news consumption, therefore, need to be tailored to different demographic groups.
Ignore, Rebut or Embrace: Political Elite Responses to Conspiracy Theories
The attention to and concerns about conspiracy theories have increased in recent years, fuelled by a surge in conspiratorial discourse during the Donald Trump presidency in the United States. Responding to this development, the scholarship on how democracies should deal with conspiracy theories has focused on what new regulations and institutions ought to be introduced to tackle its threats to democracy. In this article, I consider this practical question from a different angle by exploring the discursive strategies that are available to political elites when they encounter a conspiracy theory. I flesh out three general strategies – ignore, rebut and embrace – and identify the circumstances that shape when each strategy should be used in order to maximize the effects of discourse as an anti-conspiracy mechanism. This perspective thereby aims to reveal the elements of skill and nuance that are required of a politician who seeks to engage a conspiracy theory in a way that advances democratic values.
From ‘Anomaly’ to ‘Laboratory’? Fratelli d’Italia, Illiberalism and the Study of Right-Wing Parties in Western Europe
Once considered an anomaly for its polarized pluralism, then marked, over the last three decades, by frequent alternations between populist and technocratic governments, Italy is now the only country in Western Europe whose coalition government is led by a party usually classified in the populist radical right family, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia). While this means that the country has finally its first female Prime Minister, understanding the trajectory of the party is important not just for the state of Italian politics but also for comparative politics more in general. Taking stock of the recent literature on Meloni’s party, it appears that the choices made by the Fratelli d’Italia – in Italy and in Europe – can resonate beyond the national borders especially in terms of illiberal ideologies and practices of right-wing parties.
Conspiracy Everywhere
Conspiracy seems to be everywhere, and not only in the United States, where the “rigged election” conspiracy led a US president to reverse the results of a national election. We consider what is distinctive about contemporary conspiracism and argue that the prevalence of fact-free conspiratorial narratives marks a shift from what Hofstadter called the “pedantic” style of conspiracy theory. We show how conspiracism today threatens democratic institutions and sketch how the articles in this volume (on conspiracism) advance our understanding of conspiracy and democracy.
Introduction to the Symposium Conspiracism and Democracy: New Perspectives and Challenges
This Introduction outlines the rationale for the symposium by providing an overview of the main information pathologies that are increasingly affecting liberal democratic polities, including misinformation, disinformation, fake news, rumours, and conspiracism. It then zooms in on Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum’s (2019) book A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, from which this symposium takes inspiration and outlines its key argument. Finally, the Introduction provides a brief summary of the articles in the symposium, explaining their contribution to debates on conspiracism and on other key areas of research in contemporary political theory and political science.
The Proper Scope of the All-Subjected Principle
This article shows that the democratic borders argument is defensible, albeit not in the way Arash Abizadeh proposes. The democratic borders argument depends on the All-Subjected Principle, according to which the exercise of political power is justified only insofar as everyone who is subjected to that power is guaranteed a right to vote. According to the so-called “scope objection,” the scope of the All-Subjected Principle is too broad, however, and therefore, the argument can be refuted by reductio ad absurdum. Here I argue that Abizadeh’s appeal to the narrow-scope interpretation of jurisdictionally circumscribed legal requirements is not a plausible way of defusing this reductio. Instead, I show that the democratic borders argument is successful if the All-Subjected Principle consists of two individually sufficient conditions corresponding to narrow-scope and qualified wide-scope interpretations.
Conspiracism and Civility
Conspiracism has become a topical issue in democracies around the world, eliciting debate in political theory and philosophy regarding its normative and practical implications, especially its potential negative effects on democratic systems. In this article, we analyse conspiracism through the lens of civility. The public virtue of civility plays a key role in democratic politics and in public life more generally, by helping to sustain democratic institutions and facilitating social interaction despite disagreement. If conspiracism undermines civility and contributes to incivility, as we argue in this article, that might have distinctively deleterious effects on democratic life. We begin by unpacking the concept of civility into three key dimensions: (a) civility as politeness, (b) moral civility and (c) justificatory civility. We then illustrate how conspiracism can contribute to incivility and harm democracy in each of the three dimensions but also how it can sometimes be harmless or even helpful for democracy.
Democracy and the Corruption of Speech
In the developed democracies, the public discourse of political corruption and conspiracy remains stubbornly pervasive, in spite of the fact that these countries are, comparatively, the cleanest in the world. Everyday talk about corruption expresses a politics of distrust and disaffection, corrodes deliberative responses to political conflict and – most alarmingly – can be mobilized by populist authoritarians who would replace democratic institutions with decisionism. The phenomenon that Rosenblum and Muirhead call ‘the new conspiracism’ – assertions of conspiracies without evidence or even claims that could be refuted – is deepening the discourse of corruption, particularly in the United States. These discourses are expressive rather than discursive: they cannot be refuted because they signal fears and discontents rather than positions within public arguments. Because democracies only work when they channel political conflict into credible speech, these developments corrode the life-blood of democracies. A key problem for democrats today is to diagnose this pathology, identify powers of speech and devise responses that might protect the common pool resource of promise and commitment in speech-based politics.