Elite Behavior Research Articles

Does the Communist Mentality Explain the Behaviour of Albanian Politicians During the Transition Period?

During the three decades since Albania overthrew the communist dictatorial system and began its democratic changes, the existence of a line of thought in Albanian society has been noted, which tends to explain the behaviour of Albanian politicians during the transition period based on the assumption of a “communist mentality” carried by them. This line of thought has often been dominant and has been reflected in the Albanian media and public space as a form of “main” explanation to show many of the failures that Albanian democracy has faced during these 30 years, the authoritarian behaviour of political elites, the “state capture” by political parties, the crisis of state institutions, etc. Applying the concept of “communist mentality” in the Albanian media and public space and explaining through it (almost) any kind of negative phenomenon, problem, or behaviour that contradicts the idea of democracy or prevents it from developing, is very problematic, therefore it has served as an impetus in undertaking this study. In this paper, a critical approach will be offered to this discourse that has often dominated the Albanian media and public space, questioning whether is this “communist mentality” the determining factor for the behaviour of Albanian politicians and the failures of Albanian democracy or there are other factors that may explain these phenomena.

ANALYSE SOCIOLOGIQUE DES PERCEPTIONS DES JEUNES BENINOIS SUR LA MODERNITE POLITIQUE DES ELITES

Political modernity is a negotiated reality, which requires adaptation, innovation. The representations or perceptions of young Beninese constitute variables of recognition of political modernity, even of the modernity of political figures or elites. These are criteria for the recognition and validation of political leadership. How do young Beninese build their criteria of political modernity? In addition, how do they state their perceptions of the modernity of elites or political figures in Benin? Essentially qualitative and based on comprehensive interviews carried out in Benin from a survey integrating about thirty (30) people, this research appropriates the dynamics of interpretative sociology and adopts the model of analysis based on the social construction of reality, with an opening on interactionism and strategic analysis. By postulating that the perceptions of young people on political modernity structure the relationships between their expectations and the behavior of elites or political figures in society, this work has made it possible to elucidate the social representations which guide the modernity of political elites in Benin. It revealed the over-intellectualization of the political arena, the pervasiveness of the bó or gris-gris, the emergence of a new relationship to way of life, to technology, then the modernization of public action and marginalization of the opposition.

Party influence in presidential primaries: Evidence from Mexico

Over recent decades, an increasing number of presidential candidates across the world have been nominated in primary elections. Yet, our understanding of presidential primaries outside of the U.S. remains very limited. This paper advances a theoretical argument linking presidential primary outcomes to the strategic behavior of subnational party elites, particularly those with the resources to mobilize primary voters in their regions. I provide support for this claim using an original dataset from the 2012 presidential primary of the Mexican Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), in which one of the candidates was very closely linked to (and informally endorsed by) the PAN leadership. The results show the levels of support for this candidate were higher in places with PAN officeholders. Additional evidence suggests this pattern is driven by PAN officeholders (1) investing resources into electoral mobilization and (2) tampering with the lists of registered voters.

Militarization of Electoral Process and Political Participation in the 2019 General Elections in Rivers State, Nigeria

Africa has encountered colossal challenges in its quest for democratization; one of which has been the militarization of politics. Though Nigeria is gradually shedding the black history of militarism that spanned the 1960s-1990s and embracing democratization, militarism still lingers, remaining a ghost that has haunted the country's democracy venture. This scenario has prompted Ntalaja to argue that democratic process in Nigeria is bedeviled by poor party politics as a result of not only excessive westernization of the concept ‘democracy', but also the politicization of the higher echelon of the military profession among others. Although the 2019 general elections have come and gone, but the credibility of the entire process received a lot of criticisms based on how those allotted different roles by law and the relevant authorities conducted themselves. Amidst the raging bubbling anger among Nigerians over the involvement of military in the 2019 general elections, many political analysts dug into how due process was subverted in some states across the country during the elections. Rivers State, the oil and gas capital of Nigeria, is one of the states embroiled in controversies associated with the elections whose process was suspended and declared inconclusive by INEC due to the sheer number of military personnel on duty during the elections and the partisan role they played. This paper by employing the post-colonial state theory argues that the involvement of the military in Rivers state 2019 General Elections is a reflection of the authoritarian character of the Nigerian state. The findings revealed that military presence in Rivers state in the 2019General Elections accounts for the low voters' turnout in the state. The paper depended on documentary method and utilizes content analysis. This paper recommended among other that in spite of the non-tolerant nature and behavior of the political elites, the military of whatever status or nature be kept from being part and parcel of the electoral processes by allowing the civilian authorities to conduct and carry out the entire processes at all levels.

How Moral Motives Link Party Stereotypes

Citizens hold robust stereotypes about the parties and their leaders, including the issues they are most competent at handling and the character traits they exemplify. Yet, we know less about whether and how party stereotypes are linked in the minds of voters. I argue that there are strong links between issues and traits, and that these links are not merely the byproduct of elite ideology. Rather, issue ownership is structured, in part, by the moral problems those issues represent (e.g., suffering) and the character traits (e.g., compassion) that are relevant to solving those problems. As a result, there should be strong and widespread links between the issues and character traits that parties own. Alternatively, any issue-trait linkages might be wholly a product of elite behavior, in which case these links should be limited to the politically engaged. I find support for my hypotheses across three studies that include a national sample, within-subjects analyses, and open-ended responses. Issue-trait linkages are not reducible to ideology and persist even among the least politically informed. These findings help explain the structure of issue ownership, why issue ownership is so stable over time, and how politicians might successfully trespass on their opponent’s owned issues.

Party Competition and Coalitional Stability: Evidence from American Local Government

For decades, political scientists have argued that competition is a fundamental component of a responsible party system, such that when one party dominates politics, legislative coalitions destabilize and democratic accountability suffers. In this paper, I evaluate these predictions in an important but largely unexplored legislative environment: American local government. Using an original collection of roll-call records from 151 municipal councils, I show that legislative behavior is more one-dimensional when elections are partisan and the electorate is evenly balanced between the parties. When either of these features is absent, however, elite behavior remains unstructured, with coalitions shifting over time and across issues. These differences across institutional and competitive contexts suggest that partisan elections—and the party organizations that nearly always come with them—are critical for translating electoral insecurity into organized government, raising questions about the capacity for electoral accountability in a growing set of one-party dominant governments across the country.

Extractive industries transparency initiative and the politics of institutional innovation in Ghana's oil industry

Implicit in the predominant dogma that upholds transparency as the panacea for the ill-effects of resource endowment is a belief that public disclosure undermines the predatory landscape for elite patronage and clientelistic politics. Nonetheless, there is surprisingly little empirical information about how reforms geared towards promoting transparency impinge on elite behaviour in resource-rich countries. Focusing on the experience of EITI implementation in Ghana's oil industry, this article addresses this gap by foregrounding institutions of transparency on the distinctive patterns of elite choices and behaviour in the wake of commodity booms in low-income countries. It pieces together primary field data that were compiled between 2013 and 2016, along with heuristic tools drawn from elite and network theories to make sense of how the EITI and associated institutional innovations influence elite behaviour and its ramifications for oil-led development. Our findings link EITI with an emerging governance complex, marked by a multiplicity of technocratic fixes by various actors – that has concurrently offered opportunities to incorporate other actors into policy reforms and legitimize elite instrumentalization. This is used to highlight the negative effects of Ghana's inherent ‘winner-takes-all’ politics on oil governance and the limits of technocratic reforms in altering elite incentives in resource-rich countries.

Collaborative Governance Actor in the Revitalization Program of Old Banten Religious Tourism Area

This study discusses the interactions of collaborative governance actors in the revitalization program of the Banten Religious Tourism Area. The purpose of this study is to show the factors that influence the cooperation of local governments as well as analysis of the interaction between local government in the Revitalization Program of the Banten Religious Area. The research method is qualitative descriptive with interview and observation data collection techniques. Data in this study were obtained through primary data and secondary data. The results showed that various factors such as commitment, identification of priority needs, the process of integration and harmonization, participatory and institutional models supported the success of regional cooperation in the revitalization program. The interaction between regional cooperation policy actors in the Revitalization Program of the Old Banten Tourism Area in Serang City at the implementation level has run well, although there are still problems, which include interactions that are indirectly influenced by systems such as politics, economic and social systems. Problems also include the behavior of elites and officials who lean on certain groups.

Problematika Kebijakan Dana Hibah dan Bantuan Sosial Sumber APBD: Relasi Korupsi Terhadap Kekuasaan Kepemimpinan, dan Perilaku Elit

Studi ini mencoba untuk memberikan informasi kepada pembaca bahwa problematika program dana hibah dan bantuan sosial memiliki kerentanan tinggi terhadap kepentingan korupsi dan politik. Studi ini merupakan penelitian normatif dengan pendekatan konseptual, karena penelitian ini merupakan studi yang menggabungkan pembahasan ilmu politik dan administrasi publik untuk menjelaskan suatu fenomena. Pada artikel ini penulis akan menjelaskan tiga pembahasan. Pertama Relasi Kekuasaan dan Korupsi. Kedua adalah moral dan kepemimpinan politik pada praktik korupsi. Ketiga adalah Problem perilaku elit, birokrasi dan budaya korupsi di daerah. Tujuan artikel ini adalah memberikan tuntutan kepada Negara untuk mengawasi dan mengawal implementasi kebijakan dana hibah dan bantuan sosial. Kontrol publik juga diperlukan bukan saja untuk memastikan bahwa dana hibah maupun bantuan sosial dapat terealisasi dengan baik dan tepat sasaran, namun juga menghindarkan pelaksanaanya dari problematika korupsi dan kepentingan politik elit tertentu.
 
 Kata kunci: dana hibah, bantuan social, kebijakan, elit, birokrasi, korupsi

A partial micro-foundation for the ‘two-worlds’ theory of morality policymaking: Evidence from Germany

The two-worlds framework is currently the most important account of morality policymaking in Europe. For this theory of elite behaviour to be valid, a number of implicit assumptions about political belief systems at the mass level must hold. This contribution spells out these assumptions and tests them within a structural equation modelling framework, using original survey data from Germany, a country that constitutes a crucial case for the two-worlds theory. The results showed that the implicit individual-level preconditions of the two-worlds framework were fulfilled. Political secularism and partisanship were strongly associated. Political secularism also had strong effects on morality policy preferences regarding the preferred regulation of abortion, embryo and stem cell research, and gene therapies, even when controlling for a host of background variables. However, the size of the effects did not vary across politicised and non-politicised issues. This casts some doubt over the ability of partisan actors to unilaterally control the morality policy agenda.

Ближневосточный узел Большого Средиземноморья в контексте элитологического анализа

Геополитические и этнорелигиозные проблемы Ближнего Востока всегда несли в себе угрозу миропорядка и безопасности не только непосредственно странам этого региона, но и Африканского и Средиземноморского региона тоже. Особый интерес представляет роль этнополитических и религиозно-политических элит, которые формировали здесь повестку дня и осуществляли на практике конкретные политические проекты. Именно элиты несут на себе главную нагрузку в управлении политическими процессами и от качества принимаемых ими решений зависят судьбы целых народов.
 В настоящей работе дается анализ современного состояния политических элит государств Ближнего и Среднего Востока с разным уровнем суверенности. Именно качество полноты суверенитета конкретного государства является своего рода барометров в выборе тех или иных стратегий поведения политических элит. В качестве основных черт, присущих большинству правящих элитных групп этого региона, указывается коррупция, культ силы, предпочтение авторитарного стиля управления, а в качестве доминирующей политической культуры выступает традиционализм и консерватизм. Преобладающей в политической психологии эгоизм мешает элитам конструктивно договариваться по насущным проблемам, что создает благоприятные условия для различного рода конфликтов. Налицо усиливающийся хаос, связанный с несоблюдением ранее достигнутых политиками договоренностей. Ситуация ухудшается из-за постоянного вмешательства в региональные дела третьих стран, имеющих здесь свои национальные интересы (США, КНР, ЕС). Однако, окончательное решение остается не за местными элитными сообществами, а за крупными игроками (государственными и негосударственными), которые рассматривают Ближний и Средний Восток как арену своего глобального противоборства.

Opposition to Ethnic Territorial Autonomy in the Indian Parliament

ABSTRACT Why do central governments resist regional ethnic autonomy? Is it nationalism? A fear of lost revenues? Scholars rarely investigate these questions with fine-grained data on elite behavior. The author analyzes new data on Indian parliamentarians during that country’s federal reorganization in the 1950s. Legislators debated dozens of proposals for ethnic autonomy. What kinds of proposals met the most opposition? Contrary to existing theory, central legislators were not opposed to autonomy for revenue- or resource-rich areas. Religious and linguistic nationalism were influential but they did not create a direct relationship between ethnic differences and MPs’ stances on autonomy. Regional ethnic rivalries were a key driver of opposition to autonomy. Parliamentarians rebuffed proposals that threatened to undermine their constituents’ position relative to neighboring non-coethnics. These findings suggest new insights for the comparative study of ethnoterritorial politics.

‘Party competition and dual accountability in multi-level systems’ the independence echo: the rise of the constitutional question in Scottish election manifestos and voter behaviour

ABSTRACT Since the formation of the Scottish Parliament, the idea of Scottish independence increased in salience and popularity among Scottish voters to such an extent that it now constitutes the country’s defining political cleavage. Given that Scottish politics is increasingly organized around this constitutional question, support for either side of the debate among voters and elites drives political engagement, election turnout and public attitudes to other major issues. Although much popular and academic work has sought to explain the rise of support for independence, few scholars have explored changes in elite behaviour or its consequences for public opinion. From an elite-driven perspective, the increased salience of independence may be but an echo of elite and partisan attention. Developing hypotheses from this approach, we predict that voters identifying with parties developed stronger views on independence following increased attention in parties’ campaigns. We examine these hypotheses by performing computer assisted, unsupervised content analysis of Scottish Parties’ election manifestos. We then use estimates from a structural topic model to predict change in voter support for independence from the British Election Study. The theory and results suggest that increasing salience on alternative dimensions of politics likely closely relates to elite-driven choices in their election campaigns.

The patterns of Chinese authoritarian patronage and implications for foreign policy: Lessons from Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Cambodia

This study compares Chinese autocracy promotion in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Cambodia from the perspective of mass atrocities. Theory posits that foreign powers influence the thinking and behaviour of domestic elites through external incentives. It is the purpose of the article to identify the incentives that link Chinese foreign policy to repressive outcomes as they unintentionally and indirectly reinforce domestic ethno-nationalist narratives and therefore the likelihood and risk of mass atrocities. What are the implications? The so-called “black knight” is not as powerful as some scholars wish to portray: China has become hostage to its own incentives and this will ultimately threaten to undermine its foreign policy goals as the reorientation of foreign policy in Sri Lanka, opposition against Chinese projects in Myanmar and public discontent of the Cambodian opposition with China have demonstrated.

‘Dearly Beloved Relations’? A Study of Elite Family Emotions in Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Northamptonshire

Despite its reputation as an age of sensibility, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were periods in which prescribed codes of conduct and the constraints of polite societal expectations influenced elite behaviour. Consequently, emotions have often been considered in terms of what shaped their expression rather than on how or why they were expressed. This article, however, will look beyond these controls and examine the agentive nature of emotions and the impact that their expression had on three elite Northamptonshire families. With a focus on gentry families, and a review of their correspondence, it will demonstrate the ways in which emotional rhetoric was used in letters to negotiate relationships and influence the behaviour of other family members. Moreover, it will analyse the function of anger and argue that its expression within the family, was on occasion, deemed necessary. Finally, the study will explore from what these families sought emotional comfort, and will suggest that the closeness and the bonds of family were the principal sources, but that letters, which were more than a formulaic product of a polite society, provided emotional comfort in the absence of physical and geographical proximity.

Exploring the strategy of government: A statecraft assessment of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship from 2005 to 2017

As chancellor Angela Merkel is on course to tie with Helmut Kohl as the longest serving democratically elected German head of government, it is time to attempt an initial assessment of the first 12 years of her chancellorship from 2005 to 2017 which left its marks both on German politics and European affairs. Bulpitt’s statecraft model is applied to evaluate the chancellor’s performance and to judge both achievements and shortcomings of Merkel’s incumbency. The theoretical approach chosen provides a scaffolding to direct the research which casts particular attention on four descriptive categories that help condition judgements of a leader’s success and failure and take into consideration attitude and behaviour of elites within the system whose actions and degree of allegiance may have advanced or constrained Merkel’s leadership. The findings suggest a mixed record that portrays Merkel as an efficient operator whose clout hinged on a firm grip on the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) apparatus and effective management of the parliamentary party. Yet even at the apex of her power, Merkel did not achieve or seek argument hegemony in the public discourse.

Military Service and Congressional Decision-Making: Self-Selection, Socialization, and the Vietnam Draft Lottery

Research suggests military service influences the policy preferences of elites, including members of the U.S. Congress. These studies have not considered how self-selection may confound these results. I employ vulnerability to the Vietnam draft lottery to consider two mechanisms for the influence of military service on policy preferences: self-selection and socialization. I compare the roll call votes of Representatives across the 94th to 113th Congresses who were eligible for the draft and who served in the military to those who were eligible for the draft but did not serve. There is a significant difference in the roll call voting behavior between these two groups on foreign and defense policy issues. This distinction cannot be explained by self-selection effects alone, indicating military service is transformative and carrying implications for Congressional oversight, the influence of military experience on elite behavior, and how the personal experiences of elites influence their decision-making.

Economic Diversification and Institutional Quality\u2014Issues of Concentrated Interests

Recent research has provided broad accounts of what high institutional quality is; bureaucrats should be impartial and recruited on merit, public power should not be used for private gain, there should be rule of law, and property rights should be secure. Many scholars argue the reason why, in spite of this knowledge, recent institutional reforms have had limited success is that improvements are not in the interest of incumbent elites. Constraining elites is, therefore, crucial for institutional improvements. In this article, I argue that economic diversification functions as one such constraint on elite behavior, affecting their ability to form collusive coalitions. When the economy is concentrated to a few sectors, elite interests are more uniform making it easier for them to organize. However, as the economy becomes more diverse, collusion becomes harder and elites must settle for impartial institutions more often. I test the theory using cross-national time series data covering the last 25 years; the results corroborate the theory, as the economy of a country becomes more diverse, institutions become more impartial.

Time-dependent legislative behavior and election outcomes

Previous studies find that legislators who adopt a partisan voting record are penalized come election time. To date, these studies examine the electoral effects of aggregate legislative behavior. While useful for identifying macro-level relationships, this approach discards valuable information about the timing of elite partisanship that contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between legislative behavior and election outcomes. After all, studies find that recent elite behavior tends to factor more prominently in voters’ decision calculus. We offer a model that more explicitly accounts for the timing of elite partisanship, and we test it using US House elections data from 1956 to 2004. Even when accounting for aggregate party voting, we find that electoral success is significantly dependent on the temporal patterns of members’ party loyalty as elections approach. We attribute this, in part, to voters paying disproportionate attention to legislative activity around elections.

The Political Side of Consociationalism Reconsidered: Switzerland between a Polarized Parliament and Delicate Government Collegiality

AbstractThis paper builds upon the concept of “coalescent elite behaviour” which is crucial in consociational theory, but contested regarding its actual conceptualization. Contrary to Lijphart's (1968) original assumption that elites are generally committed to an “overarching cooperation”, we hypothesize that institutional venues must be taken in account. Thus, the aim of this paper is twofold: Conceptually, we try to clarify the nature of “amicable agreement” regarding two core institutions (i.e. parliament, government), and regarding executive‐legislative relations. Empirically, we follow a two‐step empirical approach that combines a cross‐time comparison of the decision‐making process regarding the revision of the Swiss basic pension scheme (AHV) with a cross‐case assessment following Fischer's two‐dimensional typology. More generally, our findings serve to inductively refine the “political side” of consociationalism.