Competitive Political Environment Research Articles

Civic factions, denied conversions and the first European narrative of Jewish infanticide: Praejectus of Clermont’s Deeds of Austremonius (c.650/75)

Abstract This is the first dedicated study of the long-overlooked Gesta (‘deeds’) of Austremonius of Clermont, now understood to be a seventh-century composition. Its central focus is the Gesta’s remarkable anti-Jewish emphases, which reinvent this hitherto obscure missionary as an early apostle martyred by Jews. Building upon earlier research on civic factionalism in Merovingian Clermont, it situates this reinvention within the city’s competitive political environment, and its fraught recent history of Christian-Jewish confrontation. It further explores the long-term significance of the Gesta’s portrayal of Clermont’s Jews as child murderers, perhaps the first of its kind in Latin Europe. A critical translation follows.

Demographic structure and voting behaviour during democratization: evidence from Malaysia’s 2022 election

ABSTRACT Malaysia’s fifteenth general election (GE15) was a milestone in the country’s democratization process, with three major coalitions contesting for national power after years of political instability. In this article, we investigate how Malaysia’s cleavage structure – a central feature of Malaysia’s prior authoritarian regime – shapes electoral competition in a newly competitive political environment. We find that the ethnic structure remains central to explaining party strategy and coalition behaviour in GE15, but that more democratic competition has increased the salience of regional differences – both between peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, and within peninsular Malaysia itself. Our analysis reveals the structural foundations of political competition in democratizing countries and contribute to the emerging literature on authoritarian legacies in such contexts.

Can even still be uneven? The effect of quotas in Portuguese local governments

ABSTRACTPortuguese society has undergone considerable progress towards addressing gender issues. From the education system to the job market, many changes promoting gender equity have taken place. In the political sphere, the implementation of regulations on gender quotas marked a significant milestone. Since 2006, party lists have been required to meet a gender diversity quota of at least 33%. However, the implementation of such policies necessitate a more detailed analysis. This paper focusses on the impact of quota regulations on the composition of municipal councils. Based on an analysis of the data from the municipal elections from 1978 to 2017, our research supports two major findings. First, the introduction of quota regulations considerably increased the number of women in office, but also created a glass ceiling around the legal threshold. Second, an institutional history of gender diversity and a competitive political environment are both factors that boost the number of women elected.

Constructing a ‘staying’ problem. On the role of statistical indicators in consolidating an enduring bureaucratic jurisdiction for immigrant integration

ABSTRACT The article examines the introduction of quantitative perspectives from the sociology of immigration into administrative departments for immigrant integration in Germany. Using Andrew Abbott’s concept of professional jurisdictions within competitive ecologies, the article shows how statistical indicators enabled administrators to consolidate a lasting responsibility for the problem of immigrant integration within public administrations. In investigating administrative departments on the municipal and state level in Germany, the article highlights five crucial functions of integration statistics: They stylise integration as a problem amenable to bureaucratic intervention; they construct integration as an enduring problem that warrants the attention of a permanent agency; they offer persuasive force in securing a departmental budget; they durably redraw jurisdictional boundaries by creating a new client out of problems previously processed elsewhere; and they help monopolise a definition of integration realities among competing understandings of integration problems. The article thus extends recent research on the science-policy nexus in the field of immigration by highlighting the as yet neglected role social-scientific indicators play in securing a lasting jurisdiction for bureaucratic work in a competitive political environment.

Inquiry into the educational implications of voting practices of young adults in U.S. mid-term elections

This study examines political attitudes and experiences of young adults in the United States, with particular focus on voting practices. Since young adults are just beyond K-12 schooling they are the voting segment arguably most affected by their educational experience. Their political habits and attitudes should inform educational policy and practice. The concern under focus is that young adults, including college students, vote at low rates, especially during mid-term elections. Just 22% of citizens ages 18–29 voted in the 2014 mid-term elections, 31% in 2018. Authors surveyed 476 young adults in two states. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 36 participants in both states, who were asked if and why they voted, and about their familial, social, academic, and political experiences. The study found many obstacles to voting, including logistical and educational barriers. Authors suggest how educators might better prepare future voters for the complex and competitive political environment in the U.S.

Strategic agenda setting and Prime Ministers’ approval ratings: the heresthetic and rhetoric of political survival

Prime Ministers who want to improve the likelihood of their political survival must increase their approval ratings. To do so, they must rely on their party’s popularity, their own reputation for competence and their ability to strategically set the public agenda. This paper focuses on strategic agenda setting and its contribution to Prime Ministers’ approval rating. Strategic agenda setting includes heresthetic moves that set the public agenda and rhetoric that frames the policy options that the agenda includes. Prime Ministers in competitive political environments use heresthetic moves to anchor the public agenda around policy dimensions they dominate and use rhetoric to frame policies as hopeful and certain in comparison to competing policies. I verify this claim using an extensive dataset of British Prime Ministers' approval ratings between 1960 and 2000.

The Development of Panoramic Sensibilities in Art, Literature, Architecture and Gardens in the Villas of Rome in the Late Republic and Early Empire: The Perspective from Stabiae

This paper proposes that the highly innovative panoramic cross-axial architectural compositions in Roman monumental and villa architecture come about very rapidly in stages from mid-3rd to late 1st centuries B.C. in a world in which a very mobile and cosmopolitan Roman senatorial elite and a Hellenisticroyal elite, with their professional staffs, formed a unitary, multi-polar international culture. The developmentof axial compositions, vs. mid-space compositional volumes of classical Greece, began in the 280s in Ptolemaic Egypt with Greek forms modified by influence of New Kingdom axial sanctuaries. From the mid-3rd to mid-2nd centuries enclosed agorai and sanctuaries develop cross-axial, often outward-facing panoramic designs (Lindos, Kos, Pergamon). From mid-2nd century, the innovative energy, the resources, and sometimes the architects, pass to the intensely competitive political environment of the Late Roman Republic (after the architects, pass to the intensely competitive political environment of the Late Roman Republic (after Pydna in 168 and the sieges of Corinth and Carthage in 146 B.C.). Axial, and soon cross-axial sanctuary and forum designs proliferate (Porticus Metelli, Gabii, Tivoli, Praenest, Forum of Caesar), usually in part inward facing,sometimes outward facing and panoramic (Praeneste, Tivoli). Such large compositions begin to affect large villa design by mid-1st century (Villa of the Papyri) and only after c. 50–30 B.C. panoramic outwardfacing colonnaded designs begin to be seen in architectural vignettes in wall painting (Villa San Marco, Stabiae), and actual villas (later additions to Oplontis, modifications and new villas at Stabiae, at the same time that there is an intense interest in elegiac landscape painting (Odyssey landscapes) and bucolic nature (Virgil,Georgics, c. 29 B.C.). The phenomenon seems to be a unified Mediterranean wide feature of elite culture since the same begins to be seen at Masada and Caesarea Maritima after Actium (31 B.C.).

How the West Was Won: Competition, Mobilization, and Women’s Enfranchisement in the United States

A long-standing puzzle in American political development is why western states extended voting rights to women before states in the East. Building on theories of democratization and women’s suffrage, I argue that politicians have incentives to seek out new voters in competitive political environments. A strong suffrage movement reinforces these incentives by providing information and infrastructure that parties can capitalize on in future elections. If politicians believe they can mobilize the latent female vote, then large movements and competitive political environments should produce franchise expansion. Using data on legislative decisions pertaining to suffrage in 45 states from 1893 to 1920, I show that political competition and movement strength are robust predictors of support for women’s suffrage in state legislatures. In the West, fluid partisan politics and relatively strong mobilization produced early reform. Since states determine who voted for national, state, and local offices, these decisions mattered for advancing political equality.

Promoting a Bi-partisan Approach in Responding to the Contemporary Socio-economic Challenges in Kenya

The contemporary political landscape in Kenya has been marred by political antagonism and unhealthy competition among the political actors. The Kenyan citizens have bore the brunt of the negative outcomes of this approach to political engagement in seeking solutions to their socioeconomic challenges like poor roads, lack of access to health and educational facilities especially in marginalized areas, high crime rate, inflation, unemployment among others. There is need for a paradigm shift to ensure positive socio-economic outcomes are achieved. This paper therefore seeks to demonstrate how a bi-partisan approach in responding to the contemporary socio-economic challenges can help achieve socioeconomic development and milestones in Kenya. This study is grounded on political theory while the Search, Appraisal, Synthesis and Analysis (SALSA) framework was used to review different articles from revered journals related to bipartisan policy, non-confrontational political approaches and pragmatic political ideals. The reviewed literatures revealed that achieving bipartisanship in a competitive political environment is a tedious process but ultimately if achieved produces positive socio-economic outcomes like fast tracking of bills and policies in parliament meant to ensure provision of services to the people, value addition to suggested ideas and minimal obstruction in the implementation of projects and services to the people. The study recommends a wide stakeholder engagement and intensive training of Non state actors like the Civil Society groups, State actors like elected representatives at the, Constituency, County and National assembly on the value of bipartisanship and how to engage positively on issues of common good. These bipartisan ideals that will enhance their service delivery and ensure socio-economic development at the constituency. County and National levels.

Tales Bent Backward: Early Modern Local History in Persianate Transregional Contexts

AbstractThis article contributes to a growing body of scholarship on immigrants from Safavid Iran who travelled back and forth between their home cities and Hind during the early modern period. Intending to better comprehend some of the key mentalities and social practices of these cosmopolitan Persianate communities, I explore the literary strategies by which migrants worked to negotiate their place in rapidly transforming and highly competitive political environments in both Hind and Iran. Focusing on migration narratives that were commonly embedded in Persian historical works, I examine a cluster of local and dynastic histories that were composed in dialogue with one another and that emerged around a particular corridor of migration linking the Iranian city of Yazd with various cities in the Deccan. Previous scholarship has argued that immigrants could acquire social capital in their new environments by commemorating ties to Iranian cities through narratives of migration. I demonstrate that migrants also brought migration stories they had found in the Deccan back to their hometowns in Iran, where they redeployed them for similar political ends in new works of history.

Консерваторы о консерваторах

In this critical review of the issue of the almanac Essays on Conservatism (Institute of Socio-economic and Political Research, ISEPR), which offers a deep insight in the contemporary history of conservatism, the author analyzes the current state of conservatism as a political movement in the United States on the basis of the Essays devoted to this subject, and of the recent presidential elections in the USA. The author proceeds from the fact that, existing in a competitive political environment, conservatism faces challenges of a changing public demand for policies, due to both the socio-economic situation and changing demographic composition of the population. The author shows how radicalism increased in response to frustration of the society and analyzes the roots of the radical and powerful demand for right populism in the United States in general. For decades, democratic political regimes provided stability both in politics and economics: population of these counties profited from integration, globalization, “open economy”: therefore, dominant position of establishment – the political “center”, left- and center-right parties was accepted without doubt. However, the last decades changed this trend. American conservatism, on the one hand, found a new base of support that helped Republican candidates win in the elections; on the other hand, conservatism deepened the divisions and contradictions in American society, and thus came into a conflict with a number of other traditional settings of conservatism. The author concludes that after the presidential elections of 2016, American conservatism faces serious top-down redefinition.

Preference Change in Competitive Political Environments

Political actions and outcomes depend on people's preferences over candidates, policies, and other politically relevant phenomena. For this reason, a great deal of political activity entails attempts to change other people's preferences. When do politically relevant preferences change? Addressing this question requires recognition of two realities: (a) Many stimuli compete for every person's attention, and (b) every person's capacity to pay attention to information is limited. With these realities in mind, we review research on preference change in competitive environments. We discuss how individuals allocate attention and how individuals' values and identities affect their use of the information to which they attend. We then discuss how this work has been applied to a new problem: improving the communication of scientific facts in increasingly politicized environments.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Hardship and Happiness by Elaine Fantham, Harry M. Hine, James Ker and Gareth Williams

BOOK REVIEWS 503 departure for exile and return to Rome. According to Luke, the Ciceronian theology, a more civic one since based on the notion of pater patriae, would have important ramifications in the future ideologyof the Principate. Caesar’s ovatio of 44BC isinterpretedbyLukeinrelationtoCicero’sthought.Inhiswords,“Caesar’s response to Cicero was to return to a gentilician theology rooted in the regal period and to assert thatCicero’s vision ofthe Republic asa gatheringof senators, while compelling, had a history that allowed him to propose for himself a continuingroleinthatsenatorialgathering,asanofficiatorinRome”(138).But,if, ontheonehand,Caesar’sperformancehasbeenassociatedwithmonarchy,onthe other hand, Augustus has succeed in mobilizing the precedent theological tradition to present himself as the true savior of the Republic. To make this point clear,LukeoffersanilluminatingreadingoftheResGestaeasan“arrivaltext”,inthe sense that it “implicates its reader into a cultural process that unfolds in a series of arrivals culminating in the full restoration of the Republic, the birth of a new age, and the apex of Augustus’ personal career” (197). Augustus’ self-presentation emerges asa new Numa, a monarch, butan electedone. Luke’s book deserves to be read for its detailed narrative of the interconnections between the theologies of arrival performed from Marius to Augustus. He convincingly shows how each one has appropriated and reframed the previous ones to build the public image of important members of the elite. Lukethusapproachesasubjectonlybrieflytreated,forexample,byGeoffreySumi in his Ceremonyand Power: Performing Politics in Rome Between RepublicandEmpire (2005). Finally, the book will also interest those who study the political culture of the Principate. Emperors after Augustus also sought to forge imperial theologies to justifytheirrising to supremepower,and,indoingso,theymaintained alive the competitive political environment of the Republic. FÁBIO D.JOLY Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, joly.fabio@gmail.com * * * * * * Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Hardship and Happiness. Translated by ELAINE FANTHAM, HARRYM.HINE,JAMESKERANDGARETH WILLIAMS.ChicagoandLondon:The University of Chicago Press, 2014. Pp. xxix + 318. Hardcover, $55.00. ISBN 9780 -226-74832-0. BOOK REVIEWS 504 Hardship and Happiness represents the fourth of a planned eight volume series of Seneca’s complete works in translation edited by Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum. Earlier volumes include Natural Questions May 2010; Anger, Mercy, Revenge July2010; and On BenefitsApril 2011. This series brings together many preeminent anglophone scholars of Seneca aseditorsandtranslatorsandsucceedsinitsaimtoreachawideraudiencethrough readable, modern English translations and to provide guidance for students and scholars of various disciplines through the scholarly apparatus that accompanies each work. This apparatus offers useful contextual information to a novice reader ofSenecaandofRomanimperialhistorywithhistorical,literary,andphilosophical references. Some translations certainly benefit from the translator's expertise of thatparticularwork,asseenintheintroductionandnotes.Theminorcriticismsof this volume that follow fall more in the category of missed opportunities than of major technical or scholarly flaws. This volume contains translations to the majority of Seneca’s essays on ethical topics, or the Dialogi, in chronological order (Griffin 1976: 396-98)1 : Consolation toMarcia byHarryM. Hine, Consolation toHelvia by Gareth Williams, Consolation to Polybius by Harry M. Hine, On the Shortness of Life by Gareth Williams, On the constancy of the wise person by James Ker, On Tranquility of Mind byElaineFantham,OnleisurebyGarethWilliams,OntheHappyLifebyJamesKer, and On Providence by James Ker. Although the series does not include the Latin text, this volume updates the Loeb translation of John Basore from (1928, 1932, respectively) of the Moral Essays in a way that it could be usefully used alongside Reynolds’ OCT (or Williams 2003 text and commentary of De otio and De brevitate vitae) for scholars familiar with the Latin text. In general, the notes include references to the Latin text and variations,especiallywhen there isambiguityor difficulty in translation. As a possible textbook, this volume offers the most extensive collection of Seneca’s dialogues in English. Other modern English translations of Seneca's dialogues, John Davie with Oxford Classics (2007), C.D.N. Costa with Penguin (1997), and John M. Cooper and J. F. Procopé with Cambridge Texts (1995), include only select essays and excerpts. Cooper and Procopé’s collection only overlaps with this volume in its inclusion of De otio, but it is perhaps the most 1 Miriam Griffin. 1976. Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Cambridge BOOK REVIEWS 505 similar in that its introductions and notes aim to satisfy a scholarly readership...

The Papacy and Christian Mercenaries of Thirteenth-Century North Africa

In the medieval period, Muslim rulers frequently hired Christian mercenary soldiers to defend their persons and bolster their armies. Nowhere was this practice more common than in North Africa, a region, then as now, linked to Europe through migration, diplomacy, and trade. From the twelfth century to the sixteenth, North African regimes of all types found it useful to recruit European fighters to their sides. Some of these mercenaries were former prisoners of war, while others were prominent political exiles. Most, though, were of humbler origin, fighting men who found a lively market for their services in the decentralized, fiercely competitive political environment of the late medieval Maghrib.

The Political Origins of Transparency

Transparency has been hailed as the key to better governance, yet political actors have many reasons to resist transparency. This article studies one prominent transparency policy, Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, which have been passed by over 80 countries. By institutionalizing transparency, FOI laws increase the costs for political actors to use public office—and public information—for private gain. Why have so many states passed FOI laws despite this? I argue that, in competitive political environments, FOI laws can create benefits for political actors as well as costs. Uncertainty over future control creates incentives for incumbents to pass FOI laws in order to ensure their own future access to government information and to credibly commit to future transparency. Event-history-model results show that FOI law passage is more likely when opposition parties pose more credible challenges to incumbents and when recent turnover in executive office has been frequent.

Democratic Consolidation in Timor-Leste: Achievements, Problems and Prospects

Timor-Leste has had three rounds of major elections, all of which have been widely regarded as meeting international criteria for being free and fair. There has also been one change of government on the basis of these elections. On these grounds, some observers have suggested that Timor-Leste has met the benchmark for having consolidated its democracy. Timor-Leste can be said to meet the criteria for an expanded minimalist definition of democracy, holding regular, free and fair elections within an open competitive political environment, with relatively little violence and intimidation and general freedom of expression. This political process has, as defined by the literature, also consolidated. However, Timor-Leste continues to face future economic challenges. The literature indicates that states with high levels of poverty, unemployment and with food shortages are more prone to political instability. Given that Timor-Leste's political party system relies heavily on charismatic individuals and, apart from Fretilin, has poor party structures, loss of current political leaders will add a further destabilising effect. Expected economic problems are likely to manifest around the same time that the current generation of political leaders are no longer active. The question will be, in this increasingly challenging environment, whether Timor-Leste can sustain its democracy.

The local electoral impacts of conditional cash transfers: Evidence from a field experiment

I assess the impacts of targeted government transfers on a local incumbent's electoral performance. I use the randomized roll-out of a CCT program in the Philippines. Although the program was usually implemented in all villages in a municipality, a subset of beneficiary municipalities were randomly selected to receive the program in a randomly selected subset of villages. A number of municipalities are tightly controlled by political dynasties and, thus, I can test whether the effects are dependent upon the political environment. In a competitive political environment, incumbent vote share is 26 percentage-points higher in municipalities where the program was implemented in all villages than in municipalities where the program was implemented in half of them. The program had no impact in municipalities with low levels of political competition. Further, there is evidence consistent with the argument that incumbents compensated households in control villages by redistributing their own budget there.

Party and power: between representation and mobilisation in contemporary Russia

The reasons for the under-development of the Russian party system remain contested, yet significant changes took place in the 2000s. The system became more regulated and streamlined. There were far fewer parties, but the rights of those that survived were consolidated. Above all, the regime identified itself with a single major party, United Russia, although the relationship between the regime and the party was problematical. Russia practises a heavily presidential model of executive dominance, but the polity is characterised by a dominant power system. This system was careful to preserve its autonomy, and thus guarded against the emergence of a dominant party system. The regime party and its allies acted less as instruments of representation than as tools to achieve political mobilisation, and by the same token the role of political opposition was marginalised. However, the dual state character of the political order allowed contradictions to develop that made possible the strengthening of the constitutional state, and with it a greater autonomous representative role for political parties. The accelerated political reforms following the flawed December 2011 parliamentary elections sought to limit the arbitrariness of the administrative regime to permit the emergence of a more genuinely competitive political environment.

Ambiguous Institutions: Traditional Governance and Local Democracy in Rural South India

In India, ‘customary village councils’ are generally believed to be disappearing vestiges of a pre-democratic, hierarchical socio-political order. However, while remaining informal and maintaining a low public profile, in Karnataka state they are actively taking on new roles, adapting to the democratic, competitive political environment, becoming more representative and pluralist, and providing a wide range of services that are highly valued by the populations they serve. The relationship of customary village councils to the formal, elected local councils (Grama Panchayats) – and to electoral democracy generally – is more synergistic and complementary than competitive.

Symbol or Substance? An Empirical Assessment of State Responses toKelo

The Kelo decision provoked considerable legislative activity as 46 states adopted legislation on eminent domain in its aftermath. Only about half adopted restrictions that were more than symbolic, however. This paper examines those responses using a logistic regression analysis and finds that all else equal: (1) states where legislatures were more constrained by tax and expenditure limits were less likely to adopt substantive restrictions; (2) a larger number of Republicans in the state legislature made a state more likely to adopt a substantive restriction; (3) overall Republican strength (as measured by gubinatorial elections) made states less likely to adopt a substantive response, suggesting political competitiveness not ideology motivated action; (4) there was no evidence that measures of an electorate’s overall ideology (with respect to environmental, liberal, or conservative causes) made a difference; (5) economically growing states were more likely to adopt substantive restrictions; and (6) greater degrees of inequality and larger African-American populations were not correlated with the type of response. Taken together, these results suggest a public choice model of legislative action, rather than an ideological one, with legislatures facing other constraints (e.g. TEL and slower growth) being less likely to give up valuable eminent domain powers and legislatures where adoption of real reform was less costly (faster growth) or more beneficial (more competitive political environments) more likely to do so.