Anti-political Sentiments Research Articles

The Politics of Blame-Seeking: Strategic Antagonism, Effective Alignment and Benefitting From Backlash

Why would a politician ever want to be blamed? Under what contextual conditions might blame-seeking behaviour emerge as a rational strategy? What tactics, tools and strategies might they deploy? Where is the empirical evidence of blame-seeking in action and why does it matter? These are the questions this article engages with as it challenges the long-standing ‘self-evident truth’ within political science that blame-is-bad. We argue that a new ‘blame game’ has emerged in which blame generation is deployed not solely to taint opponents but also to demonstrate the blame-seeker’s willingness to challenge convention, break the rules, or side with the marginalized. In a broader context characterized by democratic dissatisfaction, anti-political sentiment and affective polarization, we suggest that blame-seeking assumes a powerful symbolic and performative dimension. Antagonizing certain sections of society and then harnessing the backlash provides a powerful political strategy which challenges traditional scholarly assumptions about credit and blame existing in a zero-sum relationship. We illustrate these arguments using the case of Boris Johnson’s rise to the British premiership. A focus on blame-seeking, we suggest, expands our understanding of what politicians say and do to achieve their goals in polarized political contexts.

Leadership in Absentia: Negotiating Distance in Centralized Solomon Islands

ABSTRACTThis article examines a tension at the heart of national leadership in Solomon Islands today: a conviction that national leaders need to spend more time in rural environments to better represent rural interests, needs and values, while having to be in town to access the individuals and organizations that, essentially, make them national leaders in the first place. Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in urban Honiara and the rural Lau Lagoon, Malaita, we are especially interested in how this tension shapes rural perceptions of the legitimacy of chiefs as national leaders. Given that development projects can only be negotiated in Honiara, where the required state institutions, international (N)GOs and major businesses are based, rural residents feel compelled to send their most important village leaders, especially clan chiefs, to town. However, the longer these leaders are away from their homes, the more they seem distracted by urban ‘luxuries’ and the less they appear committed to their rural homes. In particular, villagers complain about their chiefs' contributions to exchange relations. Villages, thus, find themselves in a double‐bind that exaggerates a broader ‘crisis of leadership’ alongside an urban‐rural divide which challenges the promise of chiefly leadership as solution to antipolitical sentiments and a centralized state.

El Movimiento 5 Estrellas: utopía digital y populismo sin adjetivos

The irruption of the Five Star Movement (M5S) has deeply transformed the Italian party system. In an unprecedented phenomenon, a protest movement constituted around an internet blog has managed to move, in only eight years, from the virtual space of the Internet to the Italian government, alternately reaching agreements with formations located on the right and the left of the ideological spectrum. In order to clarify the political nature of this sui generis phenomenon, this case study relies on primary and secondary sources to analyze the ideology, organizational structure, programmatic measures and the profile of the M5S’s voters. The analysis concludes that the M5S constitutes a rare case of «pure populism», able to discursively integrate elements of conflicting ideologies and to connect with a widespread anti-political sentiment among Italian voters, thus maximizing its electoral performance.

Why feelings trump facts: anti-politics, citizenship and emotion

This article seeks to explore and emphasise the role of emotions as a key variable in terms of understanding both the rise of anti-political sentiment and its manifestation in forms of ethno-populism. It argues that the changing emotional landscape has generally been overlooked in analyses that seek to comprehend contemporary social and political change. This argument matters, not only due to the manner in which it challenges dominant interpretations of the populist signal but also because it poses more basic questions about the limits of knowledge and evidential claims in an increasingly polarised, fractious and emotive contemporary context. The core argument concerning the existence of an emotional disconnection and why ‘feelings trump facts’ is therefore as significant for social and political scientists as it is for politicians and policy makers.

Bread or Circuses? Repoliticization in the Italian Populist Government Experience

AbstractThe majority view within political science is that populism is best understood as a (thin) ideology. We problematize the ideational approach by broadening the scope of analysis, linking populism to the rise of long-term generalized anti-political sentiments, against interpretations that tend to tie the populist wave to conjunctural factors related to recent crises. We argue that the essence of populism lies at the intersection of the ‘material constitution’ of advanced industrial democracies (that is, how macroeconomic governance relates to democratic decision-making) and the feelings of societal alienation that are at the heart of anti-political sentiments. We show the peculiar coexistence of economic turbulence, heralded by the crisis of the cartel party and of the neoliberal economic consensus, and an appeal to a post-democratic ‘virtual politics’ of performed but ineffectual popular sovereignty. The policies of the populist coalition governing Italy in 2018–19 provide a key case to test the relevance of our arguments.

Anti-politics and Global Climate Inaction: The Case of the Australian Carbon Tax

Action on climate change has enjoyed popular support in most Western countries. Despite this, successive governments have struggled to implement policy to tackle this issue. Using the case of opposition to the Clean Energy Act, passed in Australia to establish an emissions trading scheme, this paper argues that a growing and broad sentiment of distrust in political elites, described as ‘anti-politics’, can explain some of this contradiction. Particular forms of climate policy, in particular emissions trading schemes, have been successfully framed as policies that appeal to the interests of a new class of liberal elites while hurting ordinary working people. This frame was used successfully in Australia by conservative forces to oppose the Clean Energy Act. While used cynically by political leaders in this case, the paper argues that anti-political sentiment reflects genuine concerns about the detachment between the state and voting population. This detachment is reflected in neoliberal climate policies. Through briefly examining the cases of the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and the Gilets Jaunes protest movement, the paper argues that while formulating climate policy we must consider anti-political sentiment, developing responses to the climate crisis from a bottom-up rather than top-down approach.

Politicians, professionalization and anti-politics: why we want leaders who act like professionals but are paid like amateurs

Why are politicians so unpopular? One common explanation blames a professionalized political class that is increasingly detached from ‘ordinary citizens’. But, there is very little empirical investigation of what it is about the professionalization of politics that engenders distrust. This article uses 12 focus groups and 15 interviews with civil servants from the Australian Public Service—‘insiders’ with first-hand knowledge and experience of the political system—to reflect on political professionalization and its impacts. As a group, civil servants’ views on this question remain largely unexplored yet their proximity to the political process gives them a distinct vantage point from which to reflect on current explanations for rising anti-political sentiment. We find both positive and negative attitudes towards professionalization that destabilize prevailing explanations: on the demand side, civil servants share first-hand experience and knowledge of how the political process works but remain cynical about politicians, whilst on the supply side, they value governing competence more than demographic representation yet still want more ‘amateur’ politicians. Our reflections on these findings highlight contradictory expectations: we want politicians who act like professionals, but who are paid like amateurs.

The (Anti-)Politics of the General Election: Funnelling Frustration in a Divided Democracy

‘All general elections are interesting; some are surprising; only a few can be described as astonishing,’ David Denver notes in his contribution to this volume, ‘The latter certainly applies to 2017.’ This is certainly true but what also made the election remarkable was the emergence of anti-political sentiment as a key resource for a mainstream party, channelled through a particular blend of hybrid populism. To develop this argument and dissect what might be termed the (anti-) politics of the General Election this chapter is divided into three sections. The first section seeks to place the General Election within its broader historical and comparative context and places particular emphasis on the post-Brexit collapse of UKIP and how this changed the political landscape in ways that Labour would later exploit. The second section develops this argument by arguing that ‘the Corbyn effect’ was essentially synonymous with the adoption of a populist strategy that sought to re-frame the Labour Party as a fresh, new, anti-political, anti-establishment ‘outsider’ party. This re-positioning of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn represents arguably the most ‘astonishing’ element of the 2017 General Election and helps explain how the party exceeded expectations to secure ‘a glorious defeat’. The final section reflects on the long-terms risks of this strategy in terms of the perils of playing with populism.

“I’m Paying, So I Decide”

Business-firm parties founded on the initiative of a political entrepreneur are a phenomenon of growing importance in contemporary party politics. In practice, these are either commercial companies, whose structure is used for a political project, or new and separate organisations constructed on business principles. This article examines the case of Czech party ANO (“YES”), established by the owner of the Agrofert holding company Andrej Babiš. The party achieved remarkable success in the 2013 Czech general election. The opportunity for ANO’s success was provided by strong voter dissatisfaction, reinforced by the scandalous circumstances of the centre-right government’s fall. This context created a fertile ground for the introduction of a new entity espousing anti-party, anti-corruption, and anti-political sentiments. In ANO’s organisation and functioning, a strengthening of certain traits characteristic of this type of parties is apparent. A robust system for screening party members and representatives has been gradually put into place, and human resources–style techniques of psychological testing were employed at the party’s inception. Furthermore, the power in the party has been wholly centralised around the leader, and the party’s territorial structures assigned merely service tasks. ANO has also maximised its electoral-professional orientation. The strengthening of the typical traits of a business-firm party can be explained by reference to the party’s origin in the business environment and the notions entertained by its leader. In many respects, Babiš’s party has brought the organisational model of a business-firm party to its limits.

The election campaign and the ‘last-minute’ deciders

The general election of 2013 marked a ‘turning point’. Voting indecision was significantly higher than in the past while voting choices were made later, with the proportion of ‘late deciders’ and ‘last-minute voters’ growing as compared with 2008 and 2006. Voters’ willingness to change their votes was this time reflected in their actual choices. A more open attitude towards the political offerings was also apparent and this generated a degree of interest in the campaign that was greater than at any time in the previous 10 years. The configuration of parties among which voters were called upon to choose was very different as compared with previous elections. By describing and taking these features as its point of departure, this article explores the behaviour of voters during the course of the election campaign and analyses their decision-making processes from the perspective of when they made up their minds. The analysis then focuses on a new political entity, the Five-star Movement (MoVimento 5 Stelle), and on who voted for it. As one of the competitors it was successful in providing representation for the anti-political sentiments widespread among the Italian electorate. The Five-star Movement was also able to capitalise on the climate of voting indecision, spearheading the widespread demand for political renewal. It gained such electoral advantages from this that it became the most-voted party, posing a strong challenge to Italy’s bipolar party system.

Gap Analysis: Participatory Democracy, Public Expectations and Community Assemblies in Sheffield

This article offers an argument of almost primitive simplicity: politics tends to promise too much and deliver too little. In order to substantiate this argument this article presents the results of the first attempt to analyse an experiment with participatory democracy through the lens of ‘gap analysis’. This approach focuses attention on the creation, management and fulfilment of public expectations vis-à-vis products, services or experiences. In a historical period in which the fiscal and social resources of democratic politics are severely limited the argument and empirical research set out in this article offer valuable insights for scholars and practitioners of politics and public policy. Central amongst these is the suggestion that responding to unprecedented levels of anti-political sentiment is likely to demand that politicians pay more attention to the management of public expectations (i.e. demand) and less on how to maximise political outputs in terms of public services (i.e. supply).

Personalistic leadership, party politics, and the quality of democracy: the case of Italy

Italian political history has not been marked by the presence of major political leaders. Only exceptionally have leadership figures, such as the Risorgimento hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, played a significant and widely acclaimed role. Others, especially Benito Mussolini, were associated with the authoritarian regime of the interwar period, therefore contributing to the general distrust of powerful leaders. This paper explores what have been, and are, the cultural and institutional obstacles to the emergence of powerful leaders. The most important can be found in the presence of widely shared anti-political sentiments. In the post–Second World War period, the prevailing attitude of dislike of strong leaders was expressed by both major parties, the Christian Democrats and the Communists. This dislike was institutionalised in the Italian Constitution, which provides for a traditional model of weak parliamentary government. In spite of Silvio Berlusconi’s emphasis on his personal leadership qualities, or perhaps precisely because of his extreme personalisation, mistrust of possibly dominant political leaders remains widespread. Its consequences do not seem to be positive for the quality of Italian democracy.

Italy: the political right and concepts of civil society

In this paper I will argue that civil society has come to represent a new ‘grand narrative’ which is used by all political forces, and notably by the right, as an alternative channel of political representation which in part substitutes and in part integrates a discredited electoral process. Catering to mounting anti-parties and anti-state views, which in the Italian context often amount to tout-court anti-political sentiments, an ideological emphasis on civil society is also an idealized alternative channel for service delivery in key policy sectors. Idealizing these features has enabled the right to claim ideological cohesion. However, on the basis of an empirical examination of the electoral texts of the Italian centre-right, the paper argues that different kinds of right conceive civil society in different ways, variously stressing its anti-state and anti-parties features, its contribution to a reconstruction and enhancement of an idealized national public sphere, and its local-community integrative functions.

Populism and euroscepticism: Towards uncivil society?

This paper examines and classifies “uncivil society” in Europe, that is, a set of associational activities characterized by discursively exclusionist, undemocratic or violent features. With particular reference to organizations connected to the political right, it examines the relation between political systems and civil society, identifying the factors that have made civil society relevant for political actors and pointing to a relation of mutual dependence between the associational world and political movements and parties. It is argued that membership in uncivil society organizations is an alternative type of political participation which articulates growing anti-political sentiments, and that the emergence of uncivil society activities is rooted in newly relevant conceptions of social and political life which are anti-modern and based on ascriptive criteria of membership. Uncivil society organizations are classified as racist, nationalist and populist, and characterized as biologically essentialist, or territorially or culturally exclusionist.

Landscapes of Immorality: Scandals in the Italian Press (1998 – 2006)

Italian politicians are growing ever less popular with the public. Mistrust of government, the political system and public services is growing, as is hostility towards the ‘political class’ – seen as a ‘caste’ that is barricading itself in its ‘ivory tower’ and strenuously defending its privileges. Once again, then, the risk is growing that we shall witness the onset of a new cycle of the kinds of anti-political sentiments that manifested themselves at the time of Tangentopoli (Bribesville). But how do people construct their negative perceptions of politics, politicians and public administrators? It is clear that there is a close link between these perceptions, on the one hand, and media representations, on the other. So this paper analyses the image of politics and politicians in the Italian press: In particular, this is a study of the coverage of scandals from a medium- to long-term sociological perspective. The final aim of the author is to reconstruct the ‘landscape of immorality’ of Italian politics. The following aspects have been considered: The frequency of scandal events in the weekly press; the cyclical nature of the coverage of scandals in daily and weekly papers; the ‘fields’ of the most significant scandals; the kinds of deviant behaviour that underlie scandals in the ‘political field’.

The Diplomacies of New Small States: The Case of Slovenia with Some Comparison from the Baltics by Milan s> Jazbec (review)

REVIEWS 587 anti-authoritarianism for the authors to remark, perhaps presciently, that 'Ukrainians are ready for something better, or at least different, than their elites generally offered' (p. I29). Within the war-torn states, the prevalent discourses stress order and effectiveness rather than democracy or participation , but the authors stress the possibilities of enlightened leadership and the apparent lack of virulent nationalism, even in Moldova. Despite their reservations about the implications of their findings, the authors are not afraid to make challenging claims. The discussion of the 'late developers' repeatedly rebuts claims that South East Europe is somehow culturally doomed to democratic deficit, while conceding present deficiencies. Concurring that Czechia and Poland are the most developed democratizers, doubters are shown that what appears to be anti-political sentiment there is in fact a form of republicanism that emphasizes public virtue and aims for authentic democracy, not authoritarianism. Generally, such statements are well argued, though on occasion the authors' obvious enthusiasm for democratic ideals leads to effusive or incautious statements. The assertion that the prospects for democratization are better in Belarus than Russia (p. 9I) clearly, and not for the only time, underestimates institutional constraints, while describing Russia as the 'Rossky Horror Picture Show' (p. 93) is a dreadful and perhaps offensive pun. Nevertheless, these are relatively minor quibbles, and overall this volume succeeds in both presenting a rich mosaic of discourses which provide great depth to the study of postCommunist countries, as well as convincingly arguing for nationally-sensitive 'authentic' democracy -no single model, but nothing suigeneriseither. Department ofPolitics LUKE MARCH UniversityofEdinburgh Jazbec, Milan. TheDiplomacies ofNewSmallStates.TheCaseofSlovenia withSome Comparisonfrom theBaltics.Ashgate,Aldershot,and Burlington,VT, 2001. X+ 237 pp. Notes. Figures.Tables. /42.oo. THISvolume can be read in one of two ways. Forthose that are interestedin the foreign policy of post-Communist states, this volume leaves many questions unanswered. The author fails to consider how the diplomatic behaviour of small, post-Communist statesdiffersfrom either largerstatesor more establisheddemocracies.However forthose that areinterestedin public administration and organizational theory as they relate to foreign policy organization, this volume provides one of the few studies of how small, postCommunist states structuretheir diplomatic apparatus.While Jazbec spends considerabletime explaining the generalissuesinvolved in diplomatichuman resource management, recruitment and organization, he devotes relatively little attention to the actual development of diplomatic organizations in his four-countrycase study(e.g., Slovenia, Estonia, Latviaand Lithuania).While this work will be of interest to those who are concerned with basic issues of diplomatic public administration, I doubt that those that are interested in 588 SEER, 8i, 3, 2003 internationalrelationsand diplomacy more broadlywill gain much from this volume. AsJazbec notes, the definition of a 'smallstate' in the internationalsystem is subject to different interpretations. Most theorists define a small state in termsof the independent variablewhetherit is size, GDP or the perception of the state itself. However, these variables are only important if small states exhibit a foreignpolicy orientationand behaviour substantiallydifferentthan bigger states.Indeed,Jazbec arguesthathe is 'not interestedin the behaviour of these countriesregardingtheirforeignpolicies, but in the genesis of one of the basic state-formingstructures'(p. 41, emphasis in the original). However by describing the differencesin how these four states establish their diplomatic structures, the author is explaining their organizational behavior. The key question is whether there is a difference in this organizational behaviour between large and small states, and ultimately how does this translate into the crafting of foreign policy. Mlost of the case study is devoted to Slovenia which is an interesting country example given how active Slovenia has been in diplomatic circles. As the author points out, Slovenia was in the late i ggos elected from the East European Group as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. An interesting question not considered by the author is why Slovenia was able to gain this important position over larger states such as Romania or Poland. Once again in order to appreciate the uniqueness of small states foreign policy, it is instructive to compare these policies and institutions to large states. The volume devotes a great deal of attention to the human resource element of diplomatic institutions. It is here that some of the best comparative data are presented...