Opposition Parties Research Articles

Deployed to the Hill: Military Experience and Legislative Behavior in Congress

Congress is more polarized than ever. At the same time, there are fewer military veterans serving in Congress than ever before. Candidates with military experience, along with their supporters, argue that electing more veterans could help reduce dysfunction and gridlock. They claim that military values, such as duty and teamwork, translate into differences in legislative behavior. But are veteran lawmakers more effective than those without military experience? Are they more bipartisan? Using House data from the 104th to 116th Congresses (1995–2021), I examine the extent to which military experience influences a lawmaker’s ability to legislate and engage in bipartisan behavior. I find that veteran lawmakers are more effective at advancing consequential legislation. Additionally, veterans appear more willing to collaborate with members of the opposite party, especially in recent Congresses. These effects are particularly evident among those who served on active duty. I conclude by considering the implications of these findings for maintaining healthy civil-military relations in America.

No coalition is an island: how pre-electoral coalitions at the national-level shape local elections

ABSTRACT The rise of populist parties has affected the structure of electoral competition on the national level. To evaluate the depth of such changes, this paper examines whether pre-electoral coalitions (PEC) that contested the 2021 Czech general election aiming to replace the populist ANO in the government were replicated at the local level. Using the probit multilevel model estimated on the dyads, the results indicate that local pre-electoral coalitions were more likely to form if they were based on two (of three) pre-electoral coalitions that contested the 2021 general election. The strength of the populist party, however, does not increase the probability of anti-populist PECs. Instead, parties in local opposition are more likely to coalesce together, no matter which party governs. In addition, forming PEC in the Senate election is associated with a higher probability of forming the same PEC in local election.

Discourse Analysis of Conflict and Resolution in History Textbooks: Representations of the Referendum in Indonesia

This study explores how Indonesian history textbooks represent conflict and its resolution with a focus on the theme of East Timor. The research applies the methodology of Historical Discourse Analysis, examining various elements of representation, including nomination, predication, argumentation, perspective, and intensification. The primary objects of study are two Indonesian history textbooks that are currently used in schools. The results show that textbook I adopts a pragmatic and binary approach, framing the Indonesian government as the protagonist that seeks to include East Timor as part of its national territory. In this narrative, the East Timorese people are portrayed as the antagonists who resist the integration process with Indonesia. This approach reflects a polarized view of the conflict, emphasizing the roles of both parties in opposition. On the other hand, Textbook II takes a more constructive and reconciliation-oriented approach. It presents a vision for future cooperation and understanding between Indonesia and East Timor, highlighting possibilities for peaceful resolution and long-term collaboration between the two countries. Despite these different approaches, this study identifies an ongoing challenge in the writing of Indonesian history textbooks, which can be termed as "schizo-history." This concept refers to the paradox faced by historians in balancing efforts to reconstruct historical events with the anxiety surrounding the potential impact of those narratives on national unity. The study argues that Indonesian historians must continue to seek alternative methodologies that can address these tensions while providing more nuanced and balanced representations of historical events. This research contributes to broader discussions on the role of history textbooks in shaping national identity and calls for further investigation into the challenges and opportunities in writing history textbooks in post-conflict contexts.

Research on the Reform and Transformation of Singapore's Political Election System and Political System

Singapore is an important country in Southeast Asia, which has been established for less than 60 years. In the early days of its establishment, its survival situation was very difficult. But under the struggle of the People's Action Party (PAP) led by Lee Kuan Yew and the "founding generation" of the people, Singapore has harmoniously coexisted with different ethnic and religious groups and has forcefully embarked on a rapid development path. According to data released by the World Bank, as of 2022, Singapore's per capita GDP has reached over 82000 US dollars and has been steadily increasing for many years. The People's Action Party has won every election since its founding and has been in power ever since. However, as the public increasingly enjoys the oversight and balance of the government by the opposition in parliament, the party's support rate for the election has gradually declined, and its vote share in the most recent election has dropped to 60%. The rapid development of Singapore since its founding cannot be separated from the continuity policies implemented by the fixed ruling party, which attract a large amount of foreign capital investment. However, the people's call for democracy forces the ruling party to face strong opposition in the upcoming general election. For the ruling party, more support from voters for the opposition party has entered an irreversible path. This article will explore the path of political system reform in Singapore.

Educational Metaphor in the Polish press: a perspective on presenting the political situation in Poland at the beginning of the Russia–Ukraine war

The following paper investigates the topic of educational metaphors about the Russia–Ukraine War in Polish press articles. Educational metaphor relates to the use of concepts connected with schooling or teaching in order to describe other concepts. The research material is composed of texts published after 24 February 2022 in the following newspapers: Do Rzeczy, Gazeta Polska, Polityka, and Krytyka Polityczna. This article aims to present one of the metaphorical mappings together with its critical analysis with the use of the conceptual metaphor theory (Лакофф, Джонсон 2004) and critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004). According to the research, the trichotomy which includes the Polish Government, the opposition parties, and the Polish society may be distinguished in the Polish press. Amidst these oppositions, the metaphorical mapping is discerned, according to which the war is understood as the teacher, the politicians and society as the students, and the help offered to Ukraine is interpreted as the examination. Assessment of the actions undertaken by the Government, the opposition parties and the society has been the subject of the ideological and political profile of a particular magazine.

Political parties and Russia’s escalation of the war in Ukraine: consequences for left-wing parties in Moldova

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had a significant impact on Moldova, particularly due to its geographic proximity to Ukraine. Although Moldova has long balanced relationships between Russia and the European Union, the war prompted a re-evaluation of its geopolitical stance. In order to better understand domestic political party contestation of foreign policies, this article analyses Moldovan parliamentary debates between February 2022 and December 2023. The analysis focuses on the arguments used by members of the left-wing political parties that had previously adopted a more pro-Russian stance for the country’s foreign policy. The findings show reduced political contestation after Russia’s full-scale invasion with the left-wing parties, avoiding articulating clear positions on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Compared to the clear stance of the ruling PAS party, the opposition parties were inconsistent in their views on Russia and the EU, often ambiguous about Russia and divided on EU integration.

Cultural Censorship and Institutional Trust in Africa

What are the consequences of cultural censorship on trust? Previous literature on institutional and political trust informs this article which extends the work to consider the importance of artistic spaces for shaping political attitudes. These spaces may allow individuals to form trust relationships with each other. The importance of these cultural spaces is highlighted when, in both democracies and autocracies, we observed cultural censorship. While the rationale for censorship may differ across regime types, some of the effects look strikingly similar. Using survey data from the Afrobarometer and measures of censorship from Varieties of Democracy, this article suggests that trust in executive and legislative institutions among regime supporters is increased, when autocracies engage in cultural censorship. Additionally, this article argues that trust in the ruling party increases and trust in the opposition party decreases with more cultural censorship in both autocracies and democracies. Taken together this descriptive initial test of the theory, consistent with the theory presented, offers additional insights about how authoritarian regimes might use cultural censorship to maintain system support, but also suggest reasons why even democratic regimes can be motivated to engage in censorship for political gain.

Limited Congruence: Citizens’ Attitudes and Party Rhetoric About Referendums and Deliberative Practices

Both citizens and political parties refer to novel participatory practices in the contemporary crisis of representative democracy. Survey data indicate a growing demand for such practices within the electorate, while political parties have also begun discussing them more frequently. However, previous studies on citizens’ attitudes and parties’ discourse on democratic innovations rarely speak to each other. It remains unclear whether citizens’ attitudes and parties’ discourse are congruent. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature and analyses the extent to which political parties reflect citizens’ attitudes towards referendums and citizens’ deliberation in their manifestos. We cover 15 political parties in Germany and the UK. Our analysis uses party manifesto data between 2010 and 2024, and data from surveys conducted on national representative samples. Our findings reveal that political parties and citizens rarely have congruent approaches towards referendums and deliberative practices. People’s enthusiasm about referendums is hardly reflected in parties’ rhetoric, but the latter reacts gradually to the public appetite for deliberation. There are visible differences between opposition parties and those in government.

Beyond acceptable criticism

Abstract This paper utilizes the concept of debasement to examine politicians’ rhetoric in Japan. It focuses on 3,233 questions posed by opposition party members to Cabinet ministers during the 2023 meetings of the Budget Committee in both houses of the National Diet. The analysis identifies debasement comments, examining the linkage between the use of such language and a list of socio-political variables, including ideological orientation, differences in electoral systems, and previous career occupation. From a cross-cultural perspective, abusive rhetoric in Japan might not seem to be an extreme phenomenon, but because of cultural factors even the use of “mild” invective language indicates a clear intention of politicians to debase the reputation of their counterparts in the parliament.

The Stability of Party Power in Turkey after President Erdogan's Victory in the 2023 Elections

The present research aims to identify the impact of Erdogan's victory on the basic budgets in Turkey and its impact on the opposition parties and the strength of the opposition, as well as on the Turkish economy, as the economic factor played a significant and influential role in the results of the Turkish elections, which led to the rise of the Justice and Development Party with Erdogan's victory. This party has an effect on the political and democratic process in the country. Thus, the investigation includes two axes: the first, political parties in Turkey, and the second, the Turkish elections in 2023 AD.

In defence of democracy: parliamentary opposition and democratic resilience in Poland

ABSTRACT The 2023 electoral victory of Poland's liberal opposition halted democratic backsliding and exemplified democratic resilience. This study provides a novel empirical analysis of discursive strategies used by the main opposition party, Civic Platform/Civic Coalition, in parliamentary speeches on democracy from 2001 to 2020. Using a mixed-method approach with temporally sensitive word embeddings and discourse analysis, we highlight shifts in opposition discourse since 2015 – from radicalisation to a more moderate, focused response addressing key aspects of democratic breakdown – demonstrating an adaptive strategy of democratic resilience.

Book Review: Keeping the red flag flying: The labour party in opposition since 1922

Book Review: Keeping the red flag flying: The labour party in opposition since 1922

Tackling transparency in UK politics: application of large language models to clustering and classification of UK parliamentary divisions

For a healthier democracy in the UK, novel methods of visualising political data are key to improving transparency, and encouraging engagement. The paper proposes a visualisation tool, using Large language models (LLMs), such as GPT3.5 and GPT4, to conduct Natural Language Processing (NLP) in a novel methodology. We investigate partisan voting profiles, specifically of the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat parties along 11 predetermined dimensions, ranging from Immigration and Borders, over Welfare and Social Housing, to European Union and Foreign Affairs. Higher order dimensions reveals shifts in party preference over time, while clear trends of more extreme voting behaviour can be seen across parties between 2016 and 2023. The novel visualisation methodology reveals that voting behaviour has become more polarised along party lines, with Labour becoming more left-wing and Conservatives becoming more right-wing regarding most political topics. Liberal Democrats voting behaviour has typically been those of an opposition party, albeit becoming somewhat more extreme.

Caretaker Conventions in Crisis Times: Dutch Government‐Opposition Dynamics After the Fall of the Government

How does the caretaker status of a government affect party political dynamics in parliament during a crisis? Generally, caretaker governments are not mandated to introduce important policy changes. Yet major crises can demand decisive political action. This article aims to understand the consequences of the caretaker status of the Rutte III government in the Netherlands (after its resignation in January 2021) for government-opposition dynamics during the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. We first analyse party voting behaviour in parliament and then draw on a qualitative text analysis of nine critical parliamentary debates. Surprisingly, we find that differences between mandated and caretaker status have little effect on parliamentary dynamics. Opposition parties with coalition potential are supportive of the government and take on a cooperative tone; opposition parties without coalition potential are not supportive and take on a combative tone and oppose in harsher terms, yet even they barely mention caretaker status. As such, this case provides unique insights into the functioning of caretaker conventions during crises which offer opportunities for new theorising in the undertheorised field of caretaker cabinets and parliaments.

The 2024 European parliament elections in Ireland

ABSTRACT On the eve of the 2024 European elections in Ireland, predictions suggested a potential seismic shift in the political landscape. Sinn Féin, the leading opposition party, was expected to make significant gains at the expense of the coalition government. However, when the dust settled, it became clear that a Sinn Féin surge did not materialise; Ireland maintained its political centre. Fine Gael held firm, losing only one seat, while Fianna Fáil doubled its seat count. The Green Party suffered the most, losing both its seats. Opposition parties fared worse than expected with Sinn Féin managing to gain only one additional seat, and Labour securing its first win since 2009. Independent candidates performed well overall, maintaining their seat count, but with their composition altered. This report offers a detailed review of the election, highlighting key issues and results, and examining the electoral context, main candidates, campaign trail, and opinion polls. Domestic issues dominated the discussions, with European matters barely mentioned. Immigration, housing, and agriculture took precedence, while climate change, and the wars in Ukraine and Middle East were largely overlooked. This reinforces the argument that European elections often resemble as second-order elections, albeit with some differences.

Jealousy as Predicted by Allocation and Reception of Resources in an Economic Game.

Evidence is abundant that evolution by selection has produced sex differences in the design of adaptations to solve the problems surrounding reproduction. A prime example is the design of human jealousy, which research suggests is triggered by distinct evoking acts that are specific challenges for women and men in their exclusive reproductive bond. It follows that jealousy would be directed toward driving away interlopers who could potentially threaten the bond with the romantic partner or increase mate retention efforts in response to sex-specific threats. To explore this possibility, we use as a methodological innovation an economic game for the evocation of jealousy. With a modified dictator game, we showed men and women in a committed relationship, conditions in which the partner or an intrasexual rival allocates money to (investing condition), or obtains money from (receiving condition), the partner or an opposite sex third party that they recently met. A sample of 56 heterosexual couples (n = 112) participated in a laboratory setting. Our results show the different scenarios of this dictator game exerted the expected evocation of jealousy (controlling individual differences), with women being more jealous by the partner's allocation of resources to a rival, and men reporting slightly more jealousy by their partner receiving money from a rival. We discuss the implications of this method to advance the comprehension of the adaptive function of sex differences in jealousy, the use of economic games, and possible modifications to improve the similarity of the game to a real assessment of actual male jealousy.

Political party building in populist style

This article assesses the local organisation of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in its first participation in South Africa’s local government elections in 2016. Drawing on original interviews with local party activists, it explains how the EFF’s brand of populism mobilised at the grassroots level during its formative years. The study argues that the party’s populist style was effective because it helped appropriate existing diverse networks of political activists by positioning itself as the voice of ‘ordinary black people’ against business and government ‘elites’. This orientation of the EFF appealed to youth, activists, and mineworkers who felt excluded from the African National Congress (ANC); while the protests and regalia of its populist style nurtured feelings of collective identity and efficacy among local party organisers. The article indicates how a populist style can be effective in exploiting generational cleavages to build a viable opposition party within the constraints of a dominant party system.

Kłamstwo procesowe i zaprzeczenie jako forma nadużycia prawa w procesie cywilnym

"Both, false statement and denial of facts can be a form of defense in civil proce-edings, but also source of claims. evidentiary agreement False statement is both violation of good practice and an abuse of procedural law. Court is allowed to apply measures referred in Article 2262 § 2 k.p.c. and 103 § 1-2 k.p.c. on participant who brings forth false statements during civil proceed-ings. However, in order to apply measures referred in Article 2262 § 2 k.p.c., it is necessary to prior instruct this participant about that possibility. General rejection of facts is not an abuse of procedural law because it is a vio-lation of law (Article 127 k.p.c. and 210 § 2 k.p.c.). That is the reason why it does not cause any effect during civil proceedings. However, it is not always possible to apply Article 230 k.p.c. in that situation. Denying facts in last phase of civil proceedings is a form of violation of good practice, but it will take effect if opposite party did not present evidence in the complaint or in the statement of defense and proceedings in commercial cases apply (Article 4855 § 1 k.p.c.). It is allowed to penalize that party with measures referred in Article 2262 § 2 k.p.c. In other cases court may consider this procedural. action as ineffective, however the rule should be to apply Article 2262 § 2 k.p.c. and 103 § 1-2 k.p.c. Denial of fact that can be proven only by an evidence which is prohibited by ev-identiary agreement may also be a form of abuse of procedural law."

Left Behind Economically or Politically? Economic Grievances, Representation, and Populist Attitudes

Research on the relationship between discontent and populist attitudes abounds. However, whether this discontent arises in response to economic grievances or a perceived lack of representation remains understudied. While previous research has considered both as independent factors, we assume their interaction drives populist attitudes. We argue that deprivation and sentiments of being left behind exacerbate the feeling that one’s policy positions are not recognized and represented in politics. To test this claim empirically, we draw on recent data from the German Longitudinal Election Study of 2021. We combine egocentric and sociotropic indicators of being left behind and interact these with the perceived distance of one’s own policy positions to the positions of the opposition and government parties represented in parliament. We find that both perceptions of personal and societal deprivation, as well as a greater perceived distance from the government, are associated with populist attitudes. Furthermore, we find that the effect of distance from the government is contingent on someone’s economic position, albeit the direction of the interaction effect contradicts our initial expectations: The effect of perceived ideological distance from the government on populist attitudes is primarily reinforced among those who are better off rather than for those who struggle economically. This implies that populist attitudes ought to be addressed depending on the source of discontent rather than treating populism as a general expression of indiscriminate protest. Our analysis contributes to understanding the various origins of populist attitudes and to developing possible ways of mitigation.

#Godisinit! Nelson Chamisa’s theology to address the sociopolitical crisis in Zimbabwe

The Bible presents God journeying with the weak and the poor. God’s involvement in the affairs of the less privileged was because of God’s nature of being just, compassionate, eternal, omnipresent and unchangeable. These attributes gave the weak hope as God intervened in their circumstances. Although in perpetual suffering, one would expect God’s nature to remain unchanging, unfortunately, the oppressed people grapple with the Doctrine of God in the context of different sociopolitical and economic traumas. For example, Zimbabwe suffered a sociopolitical ordeal for more than two decades resulting in the weak and the oppressed questioning God’s divine justice, the just and the omnipotence of God. To invite God to be on the side of the oppressed, the leader of the opposition party, Nelson Chamisa coined a mantra titled #Godisinit to involve Godself in the Zimbabwean sociopolitical crisis. The hashtag became a slogan and a campaigning strategy inviting God to arbitrate on the side of the weak. Moreover, the hashtag represents the decoloniality of theology where the elite apply it to empower the weak of the society suffering different forms of socioeconomic challenges. In addition, the hashtag remained the hope of the people as they believed that God would intervene in the Zimbabwean sociopolitical and economic crisis. This literature research used secondary sources and the Internet to explore how Nelson Chamisa used #Godisinit to invoke the Doctrine of God in the Zimbabwean sociopolitical environment.Contribution: The contribution of this study lies in its clarification of the role of hashtags, its analysis of how Nelson Chamisa utilised #Godisinit to engage the Doctrine of God within Zimbabwe’s sociopolitical sphere, and its demonstration of how the infinite nature of God is intertwined with the struggles of the weak and oppressed.