Left Coalition Research Articles

Los nadies y las nadies: The Effect of Peacebuilding on Political Behavior in Colombia

ABSTRACT How do peacebuilding institutions affect political behavior? This article studies the historic victory of the Colombian left in the 2022 presidential elections in light of the implementation of local peacebuilding programs through the 2016 Peace Accords. Using a quasi-experimental design, we show that the Development Plans with a Territorial Focus (PDET), a central component of the 2016 Peace Accords between the government and the FARC, increased the vote share for the leftist coalition, Pacto Histórico, in the 2022 elections by increasing voter turnout in PDET regions. In a departure from existing literature, we find that the explanatory effect of violence on vote share is significantly reduced when we include an indicator for PDET implementation and additional covariates. While there is a substantial body of work examining the effects of conflict violence and the presence of armed actors on elections, there has been relatively little focus on how the peacebuilding has affected vote choice and political behavior. We see our project as a bridge to fill this gap in the literature.

Strengthening Multiparty Democracy in Nepal: An Assessment of Parliamentary Elections since 1951

Based on the secondary data, using qualitative descriptive methods, the study aims to examine the evolution of Nepal's parliamentary system and its actual practice. In the nation's first general election held in 1959, in accordance with the parliamentary system practice, the Nepali Congress won two-thirds of the vote. Similar to this, the left coalition, which includes the Nepal Communist Party (UML) and Nepal Communist Party (Maoist Centre), received nearly two-thirds of the electorate's votes in 2017. Both of those two-thirds governments were unable to function for a full term. Both internal and external factors contributed to the incapacity to work continuously for the entire time period. The findings of the study show that political parties were unable to sustain democratic norms, beliefs, customs and culture because the public opinions expressed by the Nepali people could not be properly translated into political stability and long-lasting peace. In this study, this issue regarding the overall functioning of the political system has been raised because even Nepal's majority rule is not able to remain in the government for a whole term. The study also argues that the parliamentary democratic system is not a “dirty” game, but our political leaders are the dirty players. The study concludes that that Nepal's parliamentary system requires a modification and Nepali political parties should follow democratic norms and values.

Внешнеполитическая программа совре-менных левых Уругвая: региональное и глобальное измерения

Political developments 2020–2021 in Latin America allow us to talk about the beginning of a new left turn in the region. The rise of the in-fluence of left forces on the continent is having an impact on the left in Uruguay, where the traditional right parties are now in power. The pur-pose of this article is to determine the features of the foreign policy program of the modern left forces of Uruguay. Based on party pro-grams, speeches of party leaders, parliamentary discussions, the article shows how the Uruguayan left perceives global and regional processes, how they see the future of the country's foreign policy. Article presents the expert assessments of the effectiveness of modern Uruguayan di-plomacy, shows the scenarios for its changes if the left coalition returns to power. Particular attention is paid to Russian-Uruguayan relations in the context of the left movement.

Die Bürgerschaftswahl in Bremen vom 14. Mai 2023: SPD wieder stärkste Partei, Rot-Grün-Rot wird fortgesetzt

After a rather boring election campaign the Social-Democrats (SPD) managed to achieve the position of the strongest party again which they lost to the Christian-Democrats (CDU) in 2019 . The CDU and the Left Party defended more or less their last election results whereas the Greens came up with a loss of more than five per cent of the votes . Apparently, the performance of the Greens in the three-party-coalition with the SPD and the Left Party obtained only low credit by the voters . With 5,1 per cent the Liberals were very close to enter the parliament . The SPD as the strongest party invited the Greens and the Left Party as well as the CDU to exploratory talks but came up very quickly with the decision to continue with the former left coalition . The coalition contract issued by the three coalition parties formulates ambitious goals with respect to investigations in the infrastructure, the ecological transformation of industries, and the increase of personnel in the education system, but remains vague with regard to their financing . The coalition plans to use money for many of these projects from the so-called climate-fonds that was already adopted in the last election period . Against this background the CDU announced that it will call the Bremer Staatsgerichtshof for a judicial review of constitutionality because the budgetary rights of the parliament may be violated by credit authorization without the parliament . Finally, the coalition decided to reallocate senate portfolios . Five portfolios went to the SPD, two to the Greens and the Left Party . Additionally, the representative of Bremen for national and European affairs from the SPD joins the senate in the function of a state councilor .

Wage councils, product markups and wage markdowns: Evidence from Uruguay

In 2005, after a leftist coalition won the national election for the first time, Uruguay returned to sector-level wage bargaining councils with active government participation. We estimate product markups and wage markdowns using firm-level data for the period 2002–2016, and report decreasing wage markdowns and increasing -to a lesser extent- firm-level product markups. We find statistically significant impacts of minimum mandated wages on product markups and wage markdowns, and additional effects of unions on wage markdowns. The evidence suggests that firms operate in monopsonistic labor markets. Though their bargaining power in the labor market was reduced over time as a result of wage councils, firms were able to pass a sizable part of the increases in labor costs to consumers.

Social policy expansion and segmentation in the first two decades of the 21st century in Latin America

AbstractLatin American countries saw an important expansion in social policy in the first two decades of the 21st century. Along with this increased inclusion, however, social policy remains segmented. Using recent data from ECLAC, World Bank, and other sources, this paper offers a comprehensive analysis of trends in social policy for the period 2000–2020 for 17 countries in Latin America. Four areas of social policy are assessed in longitudinal and comparative perspectives: transfers, health care, education, and family policies. Conditional cash transfers (CCT) and noncontributory pensions (NCP) are the two main policy innovations that allowed countries in the region to expand social rights to previously excluded populations (outsiders). At the same time, due to their design, these policies have introduced new layers of fragmentation to the welfare mix, without resolving—or even increasing—segmentation in social policy. Segmentation is still the rule for the areas of health care and education, and increasing privatisation went unabated even in the periods of social policy expansion and in the countries governed by left coalitions.

Communists and Community: Activism in Detroit's Labor Movement, 1941–1956

Communists and Community: Activism in Detroit's Labor Movement, 1941–1956

The “memory wars” in divided societies: the case of Spain

The author, using the identity approach and discourse analysis explores a serious political conflict in today’s Spain about historical memory, threatening solidarity and civilian identity of the Spaniards and also political stability in the society, divided on a variety of characteristics – economic, social, territorial, cultural, value, ethnic, linguistic, etc., which have acquired or are acquiring a political dimension. The alternative politics of memory, which are declared and carried out by different competing actors of political process at the country level, first of all being government and opposition parties, are analyzed in the article. The expression of authorities’ discourse of the present left coalition government on the issues of Spanish past in the country’s mediasphere is considered to understand the extent and depth of public and political debate on key problems of Spanish history and memory. The author uses a historical metaphor of conflict of the “two Spains” to assess “memory wars” in Spanish society, multicultural and divided on various grounds, identifying short-term (with a view of forthcoming general parliamentary elections, which will take place in 2022) and long-term strategic risks for inclusive nation-building and sustainable development of the country. A conclusion is made that a division based on party ideological principles is axial (dominant) in “memory wars”, despite the remaining sharpness of the vertical conflict between center and some particularist regions (primarily Catalonia); within the frame of this conflict there are attempts to reassess, anonymize, and get a hold of or mythologize various historic events and personas. Nowadays the dispute between “rightists” and “leftists” in assessment of Second Spanish Republic, number of victims on both sides during the civil war, Francoist regime, success of democratic transition in post-Francoist period and other “difficult” questions across Spanish past becomes more emotionally charged, deep and aggressive.

Parodic satire of NO-DO in «Polònia»: Iconoclasm and visual re-framing of the Spanish (far)right-wing discourse

As cultural content, Polònia constitutes an unusual case. We are dealing with one of the highest audience-share television programmes in Catalonia in recent years. Moreover, it is uncommon in the Spanish political-media system, where satire does not enjoy such a social acceptance by audiences. The purpose of this study consists of analysing how a parody of a Francoist regime newsreel (NO-DO) serves the purpose of ridiculing and satirising the extreme-rightist discourse of Vox political party. We employ a visual re-framing approach to the topic, examining keyframes of three Polònia pieces related to the formation of the leftist coalition government between the Socialist Party and Unidas Podemos, the dialogue roundtable about the Catalan political conflict and the feminist celebration of the International Women’s Day. The results refer to the re-articulation of the representation of power icons in the Catalan political sphere. Polònia mocks an alleged victimisation of the rightist discourse concerning the Catalan conflict, feminism and immigration. Those topics resonate in the old Francoist discourse of NO-DO. We relate those results to the building of national identities amid a political conflict, in the sense of how Polònia addressed a specific target with cultural and political cues. At the same time, the parodic satire of TV3 Polònia is considered in the context of (post)modern iconoclastic tradition.

Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa. Matt Buehler. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2018. xiv + 288 pp. $75.00 cloth, $33.00 paper.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Die Bürgerschaftswahl in Bremen vom 26. Mai 2019: CDU gewinnt, aber Rot-Grün-Rot regiert

The state election in Bremen in 2019 was marked by a head-to-head race between SPD and CDU and ended up with a considerably increased turnout and a historical result . The Christian Democrats managed to beat the Social Democrats for the first time in Bremen’s postwar history . The Greens achieved their second-best outcome in a Bremen state election and had the choice between a so-called Jamaica coalition or a left coalition . Whereas the pragmatic oriented Left Party succeeded to accomplish a two-digit result of 11 .3 percent, the Liberals and the Alternative of Germany underperformed with an outcome of about six percent of the votes . After a round of exploratory negotiations between Christian Democrats, Greens, and Liberals on the one hand and between Social Democrats, Greens, and The Left on the other hand, the rank and file of the Green Party decided to hold coalition talks with Social Democrats and the Left Party . Once the red-green-red coalition was built, the Senate’s president and SPD front-runner, Carsten Sieling, resigned . Instead, Andreas Bovenschulte became the Senate’s new president . Bovenschulte is a former chairman of Bremen’s Social Democrats and had already been elected to lead the SPD parliamentary party .

Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa. By Matt Buehler. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018. 304p. $75.00 cloth, $39.95 paper.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Matt Buehler, Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa, Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2018). Pp. 288. $39.95 paper. ISBN: 9780815636137

Matt Buehler, Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa, Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2018). Pp. 288. $39.95 paper. ISBN: 9780815636137 - Volume 51 Issue 4

THEORY OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: RULES TRANSFORMATION

The authors examine the mathematical modeling of methods for the coordination of collective action in the self-organization and self-governance mode. It is assumed that members of the collective create aggregate income whose value grows, as each member invests more effort. The goal pursued by each member of the collective is to maximize personal gains. As we established in the first part of the study, the lack of universal interpersonal trust prevents members of a uniform (unstructured) collective from overcoming a non-effective, Nash equilibrium outcome. Alternative options for structuring the collective were considered, such as creating small groups (coalitions) of agents sharing mutual trust within each group. The strategy of such coalition, aimed at maximizing coalitional gains rather than personal, leads to greater investment of effort by each coalition member, which in turn produces greater aggregate gains for the entire collective. We have shown that in order to secure stability of a coalition structure, first, stimuli for each coalition member are needed such that imply redistribution of quasi-rent to their benefit, and second, control must be exercised on the efforts of the agents. As models demonstrate, members of the collective left outside coalitions or forming small coalitions with a low share taken together (in aggregate) gains, have weaker stimuli for investment. The potential of increasing such stimuli and thereby increasing aggregate gains may be furnished by another, stronger hierarchic-shaped structure – provided transactional costs are sufficiently low. In order to realize this potential, entitlements to residual income must be concentrated in the hands of a single largest coalition or a number of largest coalitions, while banning all other members of the collective from receiving such income. The income of each agent is defined by the terms of the stimulating contract. We have proposed a general design of such a stimulating contract, creating all prerequisites for achieving equilibrium outcome, with Pareto-dominates equilibrium outcomes for other collective structuring options.

Oslo’s “new Track”: Norwegian Nuclear Disarmament Diplomacy, 2005–2013

ABSTRACTAdopted by 122 non-nuclear-weapon states in July 2017, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was promoted by a transnational network of government agencies, international organizations, and civil society actors. Now, as the agreement creeps towards entry into force, a debate about the history of the TPNW has begun. While supporters of the TPNW argue that the adoption of the treaty was a reasoned response to diplomatic impasse and the pileup of empirical evidence on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonations, revisionists have argued that the humanitarian initiative was never about banning nuclear weapons, but was hijacked by radicals eager to shame the Western nuclear powers or discredit the NPT. Reading the TPNW as a manifestation of “frustration” with lacking progress on disarmament in other forums, observers have framed the adoption of the TPNW as an irrational outburst of emotions. In this article, I investigate Norway’s nuclear disarmament diplomacy in the period from 2005 to 2013. Against the revisionists, I argue that the goal of negotiating a new legal instrument outlawing nuclear weapons provided a key aim for the Norwegian centre–left coalition government from 2010 onwards. Drawing on elite interviews, internal MFA documents released on freedom of information requests, and official statements by foreign policy officials, I maintain that the humanitarian initiative, including the pursuit of a new legal instrument, was products of a carefully deliberated policy of strategic social construction.

A political economy of the Poor People’s Campaign: From MLK and Polanyi to Trump

ABSTRACTA stalemate has emerged in mainstream liberal/left responses to Trump. Many commentators prefer to see our predicament in terms of either class-based or identity politics. Vis-à-vis the influence of the Chicago school of economics and its structural adjustment schemes, we crosshatch MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign and Polanyi’s Great Transformation to envision overcoming this stalemate. King’s effort to radicalize the welfare state from below by linking struggles against poverty, racism, and imperialism shares Polanyi’s focus on the economy’s embeddedness in society. We underscore the importance of King’s and Polanyi’s visions for building a leftist coalition that does not divorce social from economic justice.

Le elezioni comunali di Parma (2012-2017)

The article describes the political evolution of the Italian Five Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle - M5S) at the local level (2009-2012) with a specific reference to the «Italian Stalingrad» i.e. the city of Parma. In the administrative elections held in 2012 the M5S was able to get its first Major, Federico Pizzarotti, who was unexpectedly elected in the second round defeating the center left coalition. Born as a local and civic experience in the so called Meetup (local party meetings), the M5S of Parma is an example of «overpromising populism» (Mény & Surel 2000) accused by Beppe Grillo (the central office) of a compromise-collusion made by Pizzarotti with the «old» power (traditional parties). Firstly, a short overview of the local evolution of M5S is given in order to better understand its level of local penetration and representation between 2009-2014. Secondly, the analysis of the 2012-2017 electoral campaigns will be described taken into consideration the political characteristics of all the competitors and the main determinants of Pizzarotti's two electoral success. Thirdly, some hypothesesabout the future of the «Effetto Parma» civic party and Pizzarotti's leadership at the local and national level will be provided.

Why New Parties Split: The Schism of Peru's United Left in Comparative Perspective

AbstractWhy do new parties split? Scholars of new party schisms shy away from leadership-centred explanations for fear of excessive voluntarism and thus fail to conceptualise differences between leaders systematically. This article challenges that trend, arguing that externally appealing, internally dominant leaders generate cohesion in new parties. It analyses why some externally appealing leaders are internally dominant, while others are not, and argues that this variation can make the difference between schism and survival. The article supports its argument through a representative case study: the fatal (and consequential) schism of Peru's United Left coalition in the late 1980s.

«Eurocommunism» and the split of the Communist movement in Spain

In the period post Franco were created more favorable conditions for left parties, first of all for Communist party. However, «eurocommunists» leadership of the Communist party of Spain (KPI) led her to a deep crisis. The creation in January 1984 of the new Communist party of the people of Spain (PCPE), despite the difficulties of institutional development, the complicated financial situation, lack of personnel, became a significant factor in the national political field. After many years of political and ideological disarmament of the left forces in Spain appeared a party, acting with genuine class positions. At the same time, PCPE played the role of catalyst of processes oriented to shift to the left axis of the political life of the country. However, the current situation in the Spanish communist movement, the whole objective situation in Spain dictated the need for the unification of the communists. That goal was answered by the creation of a left electoral coalition «United left».

Monitoring the financial evolution of Portuguese regional health administrations during adjustment that followed the European sovereign debt crisis

ABSTRACTThis work aims analysing the performance of Portuguese health regional administrations by monitoring three financial variables during the adjustment that followed the European sovereign debt crisis based on analysis of variance ANOVA and multivariate cluster, HCA and discriminant, LDA analyses. The variables incomes and expenses show stable trends over the period with ANOVA results pointing to separation in four groups at the 5% significance level. A different picture is drawn from the variable of matured debt to suppliers that decreases continuously in the three different groups identified in the ANOVA and subsequently confirmed by HCA and LDA. Clear distinction between the health regions was attained through LDA with proposal of a new frame among health regional administrations with those of Algarve and Alentejo becoming aggregated. The high matured debt to suppliers in the region of Lisboa points to inefficient performance and future adjustment is suggested by subdivision in two regions with independent management and transferability of good practices namely those observed in the North region. Globally, stable levels of incomes and expenses are observed, pointing to maintenance or healthcare coverage to the Portuguese population under the severe recession context. Despite the effort to decrease matured debt to suppliers during the adjustment there is a recently threatening increasing tendency observed under the left socialist coalition government that should be closely assessed to avoid return to deranged management.