Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Democracy – Europe, Western'

This thesis explores the possible impact of a postmaterialist value shift on the future of democracy in advanced industrial democratic countries. Research over the past few decades has questioned the responsiveness of representative democratic institutions in advanced industrial democracies to individual and communal needs in society. Radical democratic theorists have called for direct action, structural reform, and other social and political changes to make democracy "stronger." Increased education levels brought on by continued economic and physical security in advanced industrial societies has led to a change in the ability of citizens to access the political process. How the relationship between the citizen and the state is altered as a result of continued prosperity is a primary motivation for this research. Working with World Values Survey data, I examine individual and societal level relationships between postmaterial values and direct political participation and acceptance of participatory values. Empirical evidence supports the hypotheses that postmaterial values are positively associated with direct political participation and as the level of Postmaterialists increases in a given society the level of participatory behavior and acceptance of participatory values will also increase. Substantive analysis suggests that increase in the level of postmaterialism in a country will lead to increases in alternative political activity and other forms of direct participation.
Master of Arts

The main objective of this thesis is to investigate the reciprocal direct relationship between political regimes, political instability and economic growth. However, there is a lack of fit between the political and economic science especially when it comes to political determinants of economic growth. Thus, this thesis sheds further light on the question: To what extent do political regimes and their stability affects economic performance with reference to 20 Western European countries. A panel regression analysis is employed, by adopting multiple measures of government performance. The findings suggest that political regimes have an effect on economic growth and this effect is not directly dependent upon the broader governmental structure and political environment. This thesis further examines the puzzle of the nature between political instability and economic growth in Western Europe, by using both a more comprehensive measure of political instability than has previously been developed, and Greek growth cycles form 1919 to 2008 as a case to explore the nature of the researched issue. The findings propose that the relationship between political instability (PI) and economic growth is parabolic and fragile. Furthermore, this thesis supports the intuition that political instability can slow economic growth through increasing uncertainty in economic policies. The results illustrate that economic growth and political instability are jointly determined and that governmental changes plays no significant role on economic growth (with exceptions in the case study), especially after extended spells of political stability. It appears that what matters is the longevity of the polity itself and the specific forms of political instability. Moreover, by using Greece as a case, this thesis shows that there is a strong negative link between political instability and the volatility of the economic outcomes.

Since the early 1990s, increasing academic attention has been devoted to party membership. Numerous studies have evidenced a long-term declining trend affecting almost all traditional parties in Western Europe (Mair and Van Biezen, 2001; Van Biezen et al. 2012b). Yet, in recent years, there have been some signs of a revival of party membership (Whiteley et al. 2019). What are the main factors accounting for fluctuations in party membership levels across Western Europe from the 1990s until 2014? This is the main question this dissertation seeks to answer. The main objective of this dissertation is to identify the factors that significantly affect the ability of political parties to recruit members in Western Europe. So far, the academic literature has mainly focused on micro- and macro-level determinants of membership fluctuations and have involved long-term explanations of shifts in party membership. Their general focus has been to ask why citizens join political and not so much why and in which conditions political parties are able to recruit members. The impact of meso-level and short-term factors on party membership variations has been largely underexplored. To shed new light on these issues, this study proposes to apply theoretical perspectives and empirical tools developed by sociological and economical organization studies. Four main theoretical perspectives have been developed by organizational theories to explain variations in organizations’ size and structure: the evolutionary system perspective (ES), the sociological neo-institutionalism (SI), transaction cost theory (TCT) and the resource-based view (RBV). Explanatory insights from each of these perspectives were identified and explored in each of the four empirical chapters of this dissertation. Overall, this dissertation evidences several transformations in party membership. By diversifying temporal perspectives, units of analysis and levels of observation, it shows that the decline of party membership levels is not as universal and as linear as it is often assumed. Membership levels are affected by electoral and organizational lifecycles. Not all parties have been affected by the general decrease in membership levels and some new parties have managed to attract an increasing number of members. Besides, parties that have given their members a greater say in their internal decision making have generally managed to attract new members. By looking at infra-national dynamics of party membership, this dissertation also shows the importance of regional and local context and the heterogeneity of membership trajectories within the same party. It underlines the importance of electoral mobilization at the local level and the importance of individual recruiters for the composition of the membership. By reflecting on the causes of party membership fluctuations, this dissertation sheds light on some important challenges for the future of our representative democracies.
Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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Bachelors
Arts and Sciences
Political Science

While political parties in Europe are incredibly adaptable organizations, they have varied in the extent to which they are able to adapt to social and political transformations. I explain parties' adaptability in two steps. 1) Adaptability depends on factionalism in a nonlinear way. Giving too much room and no room at all to factions undermines a party's ability to adapt. 2) Factionalism depends on early organizational characteristics. The more centralized the initially introduced leadership selection process is, the more party elites will be incentivized to form factions. This argument applies to political parties that allow for internal competition and elect their leaders according to formal rules. I use statistical tools, a medium- and small-N analysis and systematic process tracing to test my framework against competing explanations. I focus on Christian democracy to use a most-similar system design. The main empirical part of the thesis relies on a structured focused comparison of the Italian DC, Austrian ÖVP and German CDU. It is guided by a nested analysis and builds on a large amount of primary data which has not been analyzed before. I test my theory on the additional cases of the Portuguese, Dutch and Luxembourgian Christian Democrats and the French MRP. My main finding is that early organizational choices matter. The initial form the leadership selection process takes has a decisive impact on the incentives of intra-party actors to form factions. The initial level of factionalism becomes deeply entrenched in the party's organization and internal code of practice. This explains why party elites are unlikely to change it when they realize that their party's level of factionalism undermines its adaptability. Moving beyond the focus of path dependence on a single level has thus important implications for the literature on party politics, factionalism, party organizations and institutional development.

The rise of the populist parties in last decades throughout the Europe provide the ground for researches and studies. The recent success of Sweden Democrats (SD) in Swedish 2014 elections, and getting third major party position has been subjected to several studies. The present study for the dramatic rise of Sweden Democrats (SD), is based on the analysis of economical and cultural factors to find out this success, provides an analytical basis for understanding the reasons behind this phenomenon. This study tests two hypotheses by statistical data analysis, and analyses the economic and cultural perspectives by scholarly literature and provide new findings by testing these hypotheses. The study provides outcomes that reasons for the rise of Sweden Democrats (SD) in Swedish society lies somewhere in economic conditions and cultural diversity intolerance.

The debate about a possible crisis of democracy has been present over 30 years. Questionable is what researchers mean when talking about a potential crisis. What are the factors that are causing it? Are we in a crisis of democracy in Western European countries?The goal of this thesis is to evaluate how different authors characterize what some call a crisis of democracy, to define core topics and to test one of these on empirical data. This will be achieved by firstly, analyzing pieces of literature related to the scientific crisis of democracy debate. Secondly, using Hirschmann’s theory of exit and voice, mass data from will be categorized and analyzed under the light of participation and trust in political institutions.Issues that return are overload on government, individualism, participation and a new culture versus old structure. Analyzing people’s trust in political institutions depending on their intention to go to national elections shows trends: people lose trust in the institutions government, parliament and political parties. Separating the data into groups of potential voters, non-voters and blank voters shows that the latter two show a greater mistrust in political institutions and less interest in politics.Overall, the debate on a potential crisis of democracy is multifaceted and varies between different authors. People are less active in traditional ways of participating, but that does not mean that Western European democracies stand before collapse. It could however mean that new forms of participation are needed to engage people in politics again.

Serbia is said to enter the European Union (EU) in 2025 and a criteria for inclusion in the EU are the Copenhagen criteria’s. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the EU as an external and international actor acts to further the implementation of the first Copenhagen criteria concerning democratic institutions, the rule of law, human rights and protection of minorities. Through a qualitative theory consuming study this thesis investigates the EUs aims and actions in Serbia, a country outside the boards of the EU by applying a theoretical framework based on Lawrence Whiteheads theory on international dimensions of democratization. As a result the thesis finds that the European Union has an interest in democracy promotion in Serbia as defined in the Copenhagen criteria. The EU uses several different methods such as economic aid, learning resources, diplomacy and normative contagion to attain its purpose. But the true reason behind the EUs interest is Serbia is discussed among scholars as well as the effective ways of implementing EUs strategies and the development of sanctions against states that do not comply with the democratic values of the Copenhagen criteria.

La Serbie n’est certainement pas ce que l’on pourrait désigner comme étant un Etat typique de l’Europe centrale et du Sud-Est. Alliée fidèle de la Russie et de la Chine, elle a subi les plus longues sanctions internationales en Europe et des bombardements de l’OTAN en 1999. Depuis la chute du régime de Milošević en 2000, l’ « enfant terrible » du continent a vocation à adhérer à l’Union européenne, or la tendance n’est clairement pas à l’élargissement. Face aux nombreuses crises (économique, migratoire et démocratique), l’UE parait impuissante à plusieurs égards. Symbole pendant longtemps du développement, de la paix et de la démocratie, elle doit faire face à une perte d’attractivité ces dix dernières années. Toutefois, malgré les doutes de part et d’autre, Bruxelles ne peut pas se permettre de ne pas tendre la main à la Serbie qui a une place centrale dans les Balkans, de par son poids démographique et sa position géostratégique. Le 1er mars 2012, la Serbie a officiellement obtenu son statut de candidat à l’UE. En signant l’accord d’association et de stabilisation, Belgrade s’est engagé à aligner sa législation sur l’acquis communautaire et donc à effectuer de nombreuses réformes. Or, sur fond d’acculturation et de déculturation juridique, des voix s’élèvent contre les réformes en chaîne dans le seul but d’intégrer l’institution européenne. L’un des objectifs de cette thèse est d’éclairer la nature et l’avancée de ces réformes à travers les critères politiques, définis lors du Conseil européen de Copenhague en 1993. Elle étudie les difficultés que la Serbie partage avec tous les Etats du Sud-Est de l’Europe et les difficultés qui lui sont propres, tout en questionnant sur la nécessité et les conséquences de ces changements. L’étude des négociations entre Bruxelles et Belgrade est aussi l’occasion d’apporter un éclairage sur le fonctionnement de l’institution européenne et de constater les limites de l’ambigüité constructive chère à l’UE. Finalement, le comportement de l’Union européenne à l’extérieur de ses frontières est symptomatique de son comportement à l’intérieur
Serbia is certainly not a typical state of Central and Southeastern Europe. A loyal ally of Russia and China, it suffered the longest international sanctions in Europe and NATO bombings in 1999. Since the fall of the Milošević regime in 2000, the "enfant terrible" of the continent is destined to join the European Union. However, the trend is clearly not toward a enlargement. Facing multiple crises (economic, migratory and democratic), the EU seems powerless in many ways. Although the EU has been regarded as a symbol of development, peace and democracy, it has suffered a loss of attractiveness in the last ten years. However, despite doubts on both sides, Brussels cannot afford not to reach out to Serbia, which has a central position in the Balkans, because of its demographic weight and its geostrategic position. In March 2012 Serbia was granted EU candidate status. By signing the Stabilisation Agreement, Belgrade is committed to a gradual harmonization of legislation with the acquis of the European Communities and thus implement many reforms. However, in a context of legal acculturation and deculturation, some voices are rising to denounce a chain of reforms for the sole purpose of joining the European institution. One of our aims is to clarify the nature and progress of these reforms through the political criteria, defined at the Copenhagen European Council in 1993. We will hence study the difficulties that Serbia shares with all the states from Southeast Europe and its own problems, by questioning the necessity and consequences of these changes.The study of the negotiations between Brussels and Belgrade is also an opportunity to examine the functioning of the European institution and to note the limits of constructive ambiguity cherished by the EU. Finally, the behavior of the European Union outside its borders is symptomatic of its behavior inside

Defence date: 29 April 2014
Examining Board: Professor Sven Steinmo, European University Institute (Supervisor), for Professor Peter Mair (†), EUI Professor Nicolas Sauger, Sciences Po Paris (External Co-supervisor) Professor Stefano Bartolini, European University Institute Professor Jean-Benoit Pilet, Université Libre de Bruxelles.
First made available online 27 May 2019
The modification of the formal rules regulating the functioning of democracy has become an increasingly important field of research in political science, all the more so in a context of decline of political support in consolidated democracies. This thesis focuses on reforms of the core democratic rules in Western European democracies during the two last decades, adopting an expansive focus in order to adopt a multidimensional and longitudinal approach to institutional engineering. It investigates the occurrence of reform, successively examining the description and the characterisation of reforms, their contextual determinants and the mechanisms of change, articulating mixed-methods including large-N statistical analyses and case studies. The main theoretical innovation of the thesis is the concept of bundle of reform, defined as institutional reforms linked to each other and relating to several dimensions of the institutional architecture. In the first part of the thesis, thanks to an original database including 6 categories of reform, it is demonstrated that institutional reforms in the last few decades have been frequent, have happened in bundles, and have been moving towards more inclusive institutions. When studying the long- and short-term determinants of the number of reforms, certain long-term factors foster a favourable structural environment for the occurrence of institutional reforms, in particular a lack of political support from citizens for their institutions, but also the disproportional electoral systems in majoritarian democracies. In the short-term, institutional reforms in a given legislature tend to be more numerous after political alternation, and in contexts of rising electoral uncertainty. The thesis also evidences the fact that neither constitutional rigidity nor the number of partisan veto players can be considered to be the main explanation, or even relevant at all in some cases. The second part of the thesis focuses on understanding why, in favourable contexts, some reforms succeed and others fail, investigating case studies of three bundles of reforms in France, Ireland and Italy. The main finding evidences that the final outcomes of reforms are dependent on the combination of the nature of the reforms at stake (divisive or consensual) and the process used to adopt them (majoritarian, supermajoritarian or externalised). Divisive reforms tend to obey a self-interested logic, and their success depends on the ability to build an agreement in relation to a package deal of reforms. During the processes of consensual reform, credit-claiming logics prevail. When the majority chooses to exclude opposition parties and interest groups from the elaboration of reforms in order to claim sole credit, the fate of such reforms depends on the attitude of the opposition, who may choose to oppose the reform in order to symbolically defeat the government.

No
The volume, which this chapter forms a part, explores how the idea of civil society has been translated in different cultural contexts and examines its impact on politics worldwide. Comparing and contrasting civil society in Latin America and Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States, Africa and South Asia, and the Middle East, the contributors show that there are multiple interpretations of the concept that depend more on the particular political configuration in different parts of the world than on cultural predilections. They also demonstrate that the power of civil society depends less on abstract definitions, and more on the extent to which it is grounded in the context of actual experiences from around the world. This book includes some of the biggest names in the area such as Mary Kaldor, Ronnie Lipschutz and Helmut Anheier.

Defence date: 24 January 1992
Examining Board: Prof. Jean Blondel (IUE, directeur) ; Prof. Yves Mény (Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris) ; Prof. Gianfranco Pasquino (Università di Bologna) ; Prof. Jean-Louis Quermonne (Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Grenoble) ; Prof. Gordon Smith (London School of Economics)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017

ii Abstract This research project explores the impact of Western broadcasting on the public opinion of the Soviet audience in the Perestroika and Glasnost periods. Specifically, it focuses on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) contribution to changing attitudes of the Soviet public to the communist regime and ruling party, and constructing a positive image of Western democratic values during the relevant period of study. The theoretical approach to the investigation of RFE/RL broadcasting is based on media effects theories, particularly agenda-setting and framing theories. According to them, the media are not simply a conduit of information, but able to shape public opinion. By emphasising the salience of topics and particular aspects and characteristics of the issues, the media set public agenda and influence on people's perceptions about these issues. The study to assess RFE/RL's impact draws on audience research, quantitative and qualitative data analysis. It examines geographical reach and transmission frequencies of the Radio's broadcasts and analyses the content of the most featured programmes to explore how they framed the reality. The findings from the quantitative and qualitative analysis, as well as the audience research data, demonstrate that RFE/RL's programming set anticommunist agenda...

Defence date: 30 November 2009
Examining Board: Attila Agh (Corvinus University, Budapest); Michael Keating (EUI) (Supervisor); Paul G. Lweis (Open University, Milton Keynes); Peter Mair (EUI)
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
This thesis examines the impact of the changing dynamics of the international cooperation among communist (or post-communist) parties and Western social democratic parties on democratic transitions and on party change. This is done through an in-depth comparative study of the inter-party contacts between the communist and later post-communist parties of Poland and Hungary, on one hand, and the German SPD and the British Labour Party on the other. The thesis analyzes the scope of these contacts, the activity of bilateral groups, and the support offered to the Polish and Hungarian post-communist parties before and after 1989. The literature on democratization in post-communist Europe and that on post-communist parties in particular has neglected this issue, and the importance of inter-party contacts therefore tends to be overlooked. This study shows that the period prior to the system collapse in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was not a tabula rasa in terms of contacts between the parties from East and West. Relying on extensive interviews and unprecedented primary research in archival documents, it broadens the discussion, unearthing new material concerning the pre-1989 inter-party contacts and the reasons behind these contacts, as well as offering an original analysis of party goals and strategies of cooperation in the Cold War environment. It brings in international factors to offer a fuller explanation of the post-communist parties’ successful accommodation to the new reality, emphasising the importance of their antecedent socialization in the social democratic environment long before the collapse of the communist system. It points to the different trajectories of inter-party cooperation and the diverse policies pursued by parties in CEE and in Western Europe and explains these in terms of geographic proximity and their respective foreign and domestic policies. It further traces how personal links between individuals were maintained despite the communist regime collapse and party competition in post-1989 Hungary and Poland. More generally, this thesis emphasises the importance of taking these particular aspects of party activity and development into account within the context of the democratization research.

The thesis aims to unravel the relationship between the EU's enlargement strategies and democratization in the Western Balkan countries by looking on the impact of the strategies on changing democracy levels in two empirical cases: the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia. Over more than a decade, the effect of the conditionality tool on democratization has been curbed by an insufficient emphasis placed on pro-democratic reforms and by the role of security concerns which were often prioritized over aims directly linked to democracy promotion. Grounded in the conflicting objectives theory, the thesis demonstrates that the recently employed strategy appropriately sequencing goals while prioritizing democratic transition over security concerns is more effective in inflicting domestic democratic change. Subsequently, the following necessary and sufficient conditions for a successful sequencing strategy were defined: strong emphasis on democracy-related goals combined with clearly outlined temporal perspective, and corresponding action of international actors.

The paper aims at giving analytic picture of postmodern culture in its various demonstrations in mass society and in its influence upon man{\crq}s individuality and their lifestyle.The beginning of the paper deals with terminology and with description of the western culture development. The main part of the paper analyses (gradual compilation) main works of important authors with various views and approaches (G. Lipovetsky, M. Maffesoli, Z. Bauman). An interesting contribution to this topic represents futurological vision of A. and H. Tofflers spouses, who describe mankind development and creation of new forms of democracy. The last chapter deals with comparing the similarities and the differences between the works of the above mentioned authors.