Crisis Of Political Representation Research Articles

The 15M, Podemos and the Long Crisis in Spain: Gramscian Perspectives

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze the 15M movement and its outcomes through Gramscian lenses. The 15M expressed a crisis of ruling class hegemony based on a crisis of political representation. It was a moment of collective splintering and political subjectivation. Viewed from Gramsci’s distinction between small and big politics, the 15M marked the beginning of a phase in which big politics ceased to be the exclusive prerogative of the dominant classes and shifted towards subaltern groups. The sequence from 15M to Podemos can be analyzed as a cathartic moment in the Gramscian sense of the term and can also be read with the help of his concept of translation. Discussing Machiavelli’s work, Gramsci defined the party as a modern Prince. However, the conception of the party that prevailed in Podemos is narrower than that of Gramsci. His concept of transformism is useful to analyze Podemos’ strategic evolution.

The Political Representation Crisis in Central Africa

Abstract The crisis of political representation in Central Africa is structural. It is intrinsically linked to the failure of democracy in the region. All states of Central Africa are states of law in which the people have a major role to play as the holders of national sovereignty. In fact, the presidential regime allows the president of the republic to concentrate all powers. At each constitutional revision, the chief executive affirms his supremacy over the nation. Such a situation combined with the absence of political alternation in Central Africa is leading to a rejection of political representation by an ever growing segment of the population.

Cultural Policies as a Driver For A Participatory Transformation of Democracy in the European Union

Across Europe, culture is acquiring an increasing constitutional relevance by fostering experiments of bottom-up reflexive and self-organised participation able to bring policymakers closer to citizens. This paper adopts a European Union (EU) standpoint, observing how the EU could use cultural programs to support these practices and promote democracy and inclusion in the wake of the ‘crisis of political representation’. The objective is to draw recommendations for EU institutions to connect with local communities by multiplying the opportunities of equality and inclusion without interfering with local democracy. The investigation starts from an analysis – also through the case study of Italian constitutional transformations – of how the ‘distrust’ towards representation transformed the constitutional settlements of democratic participation. The study emphasises the need for new participatory forms and the relevance of spontaneous bottom-up initiatives in that direction, especially in the cultural field. Against this backdrop, the article will explore how EU cultural policies could be more inclusive so as to improve their social approach and trigger a direct dialogue with grassroots experiences.

Hollow parties and their movement-ization: The populist conundrum

This article focuses on the relationship between social movements and political parties in the context of populist challenges to constitutional democracy. There are many reasons for the current plight of democracy but I focus here on one aspect: the decline of mainstream political parties, the emergence of new forms of populist movement parties and the general crisis of political representation in long consolidated Western democracies. This article analyses the specific political logic and dynamics of social movements – the logic of influence, and distinguishes it from that of political parties – the logic of power. It addresses transformations in movements, parties and their relationships. It looks at the shifts in movement and party types that constitute the political opportunity structure for the emergence of new populist movement party forms and relationships, focusing on the hollowing out and movement-ization of political parties. Contemporary populist movement parties are not the cause of the hollowing out or movement-ization of political parties. Rather they are a response to the crisis of political representation exemplified by hollow parties and cartel parties. But it is my thesis that thanks to its specific logic, populism fosters the worst version of movement party relationships, undermining the democratic functions of both.

A time-series cross-sectional analysis of the impact of political distrust and the economy in the aftermath of the Great Recession

ABSTRACT The Great Recession that hit Europe since 2008 sparked the interest of many scholars in understanding its impact on voting behaviour. Some studies have argued that the economic crisis paved the way for a new resurgence of challenger parties, whereas others have argued that their success is driven by the crisis of political representation. However, the analysis of the interplay between these two competing arguments is still scarce. In this paper, I build upon the protest and economic voting theories to explain the success of challenger parties in the aftermath of the Great Recession. By performing a multilevel analysis with time-series cross-sectional data, I found that political distrust and the economy have had an impact on the voting for challenger parties, and the interaction between the two dimensions explains the further increase in their electoral success.

The Judiciary and the Crisis of Political Representation: A Constitutional Metamorphosis?

L’idea alla base di questo articolo e quella di combinare due fenomeni caratteristici del contesto odierno non sempre posti in stretta relazione: da un lato, i meccanismi messi a punto da diverse corti (fra cui la Corte EDU con la pilot judgment procedure) con cui si affrontano problemi strutturali nel mentre si da risposta a ricorsi individuali, guidando (o addirittura sostituendo) l’azione di altri poteri per correggere le distorsioni sistemiche lamentate e, dall’altro, la crisi della rappresentanza in cui legislatori ed esecutivi risultano inadeguati a perseguire la giustizia individuale e sociale a cui i cittadini aspirano. In questo stato di cose, la questione cruciale e se il crescente spostamento di fiducia dalla classica forma rappresentativa della democrazia alla tecnocrazia dei giudici vada a innescare solo cambiamenti effimeri o se, piuttosto, sia destinato a generare vere e proprie metamorfosi costituzionali: le corti finiranno per somigliare a parlamenti medievali?

Reactive vs structural approach: A public law response to populism

Abstract:Contemporary scholarship mainly focuses on the crisis of political representation as the key facilitator behind the emergence of populism. If so, populism urges public law to revisit and rethink institutional designs. This article addresses two possible responses to populism. On one hand, an intuitive response could be to hamper popular participation by avoiding plebiscites, referendums or any other kind of public consultation. Alternatively, it is possible to respond to populism from a structural point of view. In my opinion, to resist populism public law should take into account the lack of responsiveness and accountability of representative systems. The article puts forward a proposal in that direction; it advances a response to populism consisting of new institutional systems that generate strong participatory mechanisms to incorporate ‘the popular’. In doing so, the article uses the new Latin American Constitutionalism as an example of both the potentialities and difficulties of designing institutional systems in public law. In the wake of rising populism, it contributes to the existing debate by criticising populism and its constitutional expression, as well as developing arguments in favour of popular constitutionalism.

Ideational Populism in Chile? A Case Study

AbstractThis paper conducts an experimental test of the theory of ideational populism in a most‐likely case: a well‐known Chilean populist presidential candidate, Roxana Miranda. At the time of our study, Chile had the necessary conditions for ideational populism: corruption scandals and a crisis of political representation that lowered citizens’ trust in establishment elites. The stimulus was a speech that included the core elements of ideational populist discourse. Despite the careful experimental design and a ripe political atmosphere, we found no effects of populist discourse on voting intentions or evaluations of Miranda among the research participants. We discuss the possible reasons for these null findings. Rather than disqualifying the theory of ideational populism, we conclude that our research calls theorists to incorporate other elements – ideology, gender, issue positions, strategic voting – into their models of ideational populism.

“We, the People!” Community, Populism and the Crisis of Political Representation

“We, the People!” Community, Populism and the Crisis of Political Representation

Rechtspopulismus als Krisenbearbeitung

The article discusses the rise of right-wing populism in Europe in the context of neoliberal capitalism’s „crisis of hegemony“. The cases of the Austrian FPÖ and Germany’s AfD are analyzed as instances of an „autoritarian populism“, intervening into this crisis and offering subjective modes of engagement with it. Three dimensions of the crisis of hegemony are considered in particular: A crisis of political representation, a crisis of the public sphere, and an economic crisis.

Controversias, hibridez y diseño urbano: Abrir el candado de la representación y multiplicar los posibles del espacio público

The proliferation of relational approaches in human geography is reanimating urban studies which have shown signs of exhaustion. Diff erent theoretical tools incited from actor-network theory (ANT) and non-representational theory (NRT) are opening the conditions of possibility of the objects of study of our discipline, expanding their political ecologies and challenging the idea of public space conceived as a self-evident container. Moreover, this epistemological crisis coincides with a crisis of political representation that has eroded the notion of delegation, questioning the role of experts in the politics of urban design. In my paper, I study the urban controversy of the plaza de Lesseps in Barcelona, a contentious case study of urban planning which last refurbishment caused an unprecedented process of citizen participation that revealed a profound crisis of representation. In the light of the claims showed for this controversy, I want to rethink the public space, breaking the fence which the notion of representation restricted not only its study but also its design.

Representación política en los países andinos: Crisis y recuperaciones

The analysis of the political situation of the Andean countries and their current democracies usually makes mention of the difficulties and deficiencies around the political representation of their citizens. In many ways, it would even give the impression that the present andean countries suffer from a chronic crisis of political representation. The analysis of the empirical evidence that is generally used to account for the state of political representation within the andean countries reveals, however, that there are both moments of deterioration and a certain recovery in the perceptions and evaluations of citizens in relation to the functioning of democracy, representative institutions, mechanisms and channels of representation, governments and elected officials, and so on. Realizing the nature and dynamics of these changes is the main objective of this article. Along the way, it is not surprising that some of these processes, which may well be defined as the recovery of political representation, happen mainly in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Brazil’s Accountability Paradox

Brazil today faces an impeachment crisis. While the political ambitions of the president’s opponents have undeniably fueled the crisis, the electorate has also grown impatient and emboldened the opposition. This article contends that as stronger state accountability institutions uncovered endemic corruption, social and political inclusion paradoxically left the electorate less dependent on parties for the selective distributive of benefits, and more demanding of government effectiveness and probity. The equilibrium of valence voting without strong partisanship worked well during good times, but ultimately left parties vulnerable to public impatience with corruption, poor service provision, and the economic crisis—as well as to a crisis of political representation.

Partidos políticos y problemas actuales de la democracia representativa

The article examines the crisis of representation in democratic states. It discusses as hypotheses both the crisis of representation of democratic institutions and the crisis of political representation itself, questioning the role played by political parties in this context. It proposes a new interpretation of the function of political parties based on the idea of citizenship, concentrating the focus on the internal dynamics of the representation process.Keywords: theory of the state, representative democracy, political parties.

Crise de representação política no Brasil e os protestos de junho de 2013 │ Crisis of political representation in Brazil and the protests of June 2013

RESUMO Este artigo procura, sob o olhar da ciência política, traçar algumas explicações para os protestos de junho de 2013. As manifestações ocorridas naquele período se tornaram um interessante fenômeno para análise política por seu acentuado simbolismo, em que pese o pouco efeito prático que trouxe para a efetivação de mudanças sociais. Ao longo desse ensaio, será feita uma breve descrição dos protestos, a análise de possíveis relações com o ciclo de atividade política brasileira, a avaliação do que as manifestações trouxeram de novo ao repertório sócio-político e a interpretação do que foi o movimento iniciado nas ruas das grandes metrópoles.

REGIÓN ANDINA: SISTEMAS DE PARTIDOS EN ANÁLISIS

En este artículo se pretende responder por qué colapsó el sistema de partidos en Bolivia, Ecuador y Venezuela. Esta compleja pregunta tiene una respuesta multicausal; sin embargo, se desarrollarán tres conjeturas: i) diseños institucionales, ii) crisis de representación política y iii) agencia de los partidos en el gobierno. En este contexto, se pueden advertir múltiples escenarios, donde interactúen las conjeturas. Pese a las diferentes realidades de los países, se tratará de identificar semejanzas y diferencias en los procesos políticos. Al final, se advertirán posibles nuevos escenarios sin el objetivo de pronóstico, sino más bien de continuar con el debate.

La negación de la parte: la crisis de representación política argentina

The crisis of political representation in Argentina, which was developed between 1990 and 2002 and had its most intense episode in December 2001, has had various interpretations from the social sciences, as is characteristic of all complex and multidimensional phenomenon. Here we analyze some of them and especially the dimension of the phenomenon that is associated with political parties. Even if we accept that this was a crisis of political parties, it is still necessary to specify which of its dimensions is the one that was eroded. In this way, and ten years from 2001, can begin to understand what is changing in the last decade, while the parties continue to be challenged in his representative capacity, is no longer possible to describe the general situation as a crisis of political representation. We thus conclude that the parties forgot that one of its most important functions is to help establish through the word, the conflict and the political cleavages, the political difference, from which constitutes the political community.

Golpe de Estado, Colapso del Sistema de Partidos y Legitimidad Autoritaria Durante el Gobierno de Fujimori (Coup d'Etat, Collapse of the Party System and Authoritarian Legitimacy of Fujimori's Government)

During the 90's, the Peruvian Academy developed some concern about the effectiveness of political parties as a political institution mediating in state-society relations. From our perspective, this issue becomes one of the factors that facilitate democratic crisis scenario. As discussed in the first part of this paper, the mechanisms of participation and representation in the framework of a democratic regime, are functional when political parties form a system of political representation.The crisis and the collapse of the party system, therefore, was presented as a continuum in which the electoral misalignment and the emergence of outsiders, indicates that the crisis of political representation compromises the persistence of the party system. The Peruvian case is endowed with special attention by peruvians and peruvianist social scientists, because of the early collapse of the party system and the connection of this event with the establishment of competitive authoritarianism. Somehow, it is on this relationship that structured the three topics developed: coup, collapse of the party system and authoritarian legitimacy.

Latin America’s New Crisis of Democracy

Why have some countries in Latin America experienced democratic crises while others enjoyed stability? Recent scholarship suggests a number of explanations for Latin America’s ongoing instability, including economic decline, lack of development, poverty, inequality, social fragmentation, a crisis of political representation, and weaknesses in the rule of law. To assess these competing hypotheses, I conduct a qualitative comparative analysis of democratic crises in Latin America from 1990-2007. My research lends support to the argument that political-institutional conditions, specifically the nature of the political party system and the rule of law, have a determinate impact in explaining regime stability in contemporary Latin America. To promote democratic stability, the international community should therefore develop effective strategies to strengthen countries’ legislative and judicial institutions.

Understanding the Present through the Past? Quentin Skinner and Pierre Rosanvallon on the Crisis of Political Representation

Understanding the Present through the Past? Quentin Skinner and Pierre Rosanvallon on the Crisis of Political Representation