Popular Party Research Articles

Italy between liberalism and democracy: universal suffrage and the 1913 elections

Abstract In 1912, the Italian parliament approved the extension of male suffrage, making it ‘almost’ universal. This process of revising representation transformed the very idea of the relationship between citizens and the state and shaped a profoundly different Italy. The aim of this article is to trace both the process leading to the approval of universal suffrage and its impact on the party system. With a compilation and analysis of data developed from scratch for the elections of 1909 and 1913, it was possible to analyse the main dimensions of the two rounds in a disaggregated manner. Three aspects make 1913 a year of transition. First, the degree of competition in the electoral process, especially in the South, increased considerably. Second, the decline of liberal formations was not transformed into defeat, thanks only to the Catholic vote. Third, the birth of the Popular Party and the failure to create a mass party of conservatives were causes of the imbalance in the party structure.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the foreign and security policy of the Russian Federation

ABSTRACT For the last three decades, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been functioning as de facto states that unilaterally declared independence from Georgia. To this day, both have received substantial support from the Russian Federation. The article analyses the foreign and security policy of the Russian Federation towards Abkhazia and South Ossetia, based on the policy concepts of Russia and policy views of the most popular political parties on the basis of their electoral programs for the 2021 parliamentary elections. Whilst there was no clear strategy towards these entities in the 1990s, strategic significance was attributed to them after granting Abkhazia and South Ossetia recognition. Even though there is no clear consensus among political parties in Russia regarding the future status of these entities, it is very likely that the status quo will be the preferred choice over the next years.

The gatekeeper’s dilemma: Political selection or team effort

Political parties play a crucial gatekeeping role in elections, including controlling electoral resources, candidate recruitment, and electoral list compositions. In making these strategic choices, parties aim to encourage candidates to invest in the campaign, while also trying to secure advantages for their preferred candidates. We study how parties navigate this trade-off using a specific feature of the Norwegian local electoral system in which parties can give advantaged positions to some candidates in an otherwise open list. Our theory reveals that parties’ ex-ante electoral strength impacts their strategic decisions. Notably, the trade-off is weaker for more popular parties, allowing them to facilitate the election of their preferred candidates without compromising the party’s overall performance. We show empirically that the moral hazard concern is real, and that larger parties are indeed more likely to use their power to make some candidates safe. The advantage of large parties extends further: safeguarding specific candidates enables parties to achieve disproportionately favorable outcomes in post-electoral bargaining. These findings reveal new insights for political representations, policy outcomes, and intra-party dynamics more broadly.

Party games and prejudice: are these Cards Against Humanity?

Abstract Two experiments assess the validity of common criticisms against the popular party game Cards Against Humanity (CAH), namely that it promotes prejudice while absolving players of any moral responsibility. Study 1a (based on Prejudiced Norm Theory) finds no evidence that sexist humor in CAH encourages men to express prejudice against women. However, Study 1b (based on Social Identity Theory) provides evidence that sexist humor in CAH cues women to anticipate such discrimination. CAH’s reputation does not appear to contribute to these results. Exploratory analyses further reveal that, consistent with criticisms, people do allocate moral responsibility for offense differently in CAH than in traditional verbal exchanges of humor; however, this moral allocation is generally unrelated to prejudiced outcomes. Implications and future directions for refining these theories and understanding the intergroup functions of humor in party games are discussed in light of the studies’ mixed support of CAH’s criticisms.

Analysis of the evolution of environmental laws in Puerto Rico (1897–2021): A new classification system, trends, and political influences

This paper aims to present a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of environmental law in Puerto Rico from 1897 to 2021. The study identifies significant legislative developments, with a surge in federal and local laws post-1960, correlating with heightened environmental awareness. Political dynamics, notably party affiliations, significantly influence the level of legal protection afforded to the environment. A new classification system is introduced to analyze laws based on ecosystem and resource protection. Distinct periods of legislative activity are identified, with federal laws predominant from 1960 to 1990 and state laws from 1990 to 2021, revealing a unique pattern of legislative "pulses." Federal laws primarily address coastal ecosystems and pollution mitigation, while state laws focus on land ecosystems, reserves, and resource management. The study establishes a statistically significant correlation between the passage of time and the number of enacted laws, indicating an upward trend in environmental legislation. Additionally, it highlights the impact of political parties on lawmaking, with variations in legislative output observed under different party control scenarios. The study found that the legislative output in both the US and Puerto Rico was affected by party control. Specifically, when the Republican Party or the local Popular Democratic Party controls the House of Representatives or the Senate, the output of environmental legislation decreases. On the other hand, the study suggests that the US President's party identity has a lesser effect on enacting environmental laws. The study underscores the intricate relationship between politics and environmental policy, emphasizing the significance of political dynamics in shaping environmental law. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers, environmentalists, and stakeholders, aiding in developing more effective strategies for sustainable development and conservation in Puerto Rico. Recommendations include utilizing the comprehensive table of environmental regulations to detect agency overlaps and investigate the correlation between legal protection and ecosystem health.

The blurry lines between popular media and party propaganda: China's convergence culture through a linguistic lens.

There is a growing body of scholarly evidence that media convergence blurs the boundary between media production and media consumption and obscures the lines between institutions and individuals. Media convergence in the context of China has garnered attention in communication studies and in cultural studies. However, there is a scarcity of research on convergence culture from a linguistic perspective. Recent research has generated initial evidence that state media appropriates a pop-cultural social address for clickbait and information management in China's digital media space. However, the patterns and perceptual reality of linguistic convergence remain unexplored. This study investigates popular and party uses of xiaojiejie 'little older sister', a familiar expression of fictive kinship reborn as a viral personal reference and social address in China's convergence culture. Analysis of the Target Group Index in the Baidu search engine suggests xiaojiejie is gaining ground over its predecessor among young Chinese. Trends analysis of its usage in WeChat public accounts showed that the term has spread from popular media to state media, which employs the viral address to drive clickbait and disguise propaganda. An online survey of young Chinese WeChat users (N=330) on their perception of xiaojiejie headlines from WeChat public accounts showed that respondents could not tell state media uses from popular uses, providing perceptual evidence of the blurry boundaries between popular and state media uses of the viral address. The findings demonstrate the reality of linguistic convergence driven by participatory performance and its perceptual consequences in China's convergence culture.

"Long Live Saint John's Fete!" The Affective and Aesthetic Dimensions in Organizing Popular Parties

Context: Inspired by the documentary Viva São João, the case presents the engagement of Dona Benta, a community leader in the city of Exu, in three collective moments that constitute the organization of the São João festival: (1) the cycle of planting, cultivating and harvesting maize for preparing typical foods; (2) community games; (3) and the religious, sacred and mystical celebrations of Saint Anthony, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Peter. Dilemma: Dona Benta and her friends are faced with the challenges of organizing the São João festival. The central challenge is the lack of interest and disengagement of people in the community in organizing the festival, especially at a time marked by the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. Case Closing: The expectation is that the June festivities can be understood as organizations, based on Studies Based on Practice, highlighting the aesthetic and affective elements that make up this phenomenon.

Explaining Electoral Successes in Greek Parliamentary Elections: Is it the Economy Again?

This paper asks the following question: can the macroeconomic fluctuations of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) explain the electoral success of political parties? Notwithstanding other important determinants such as the charisma of the leader of a popular political party or ideology, the economy may very well explain electoral successes. In this paper, I use a very simple variable to account for the economy: the rate of growth of GDP. It is claimed that years of relative higher growth are associated with the incumbent government retaining its power, while years of zero or negative growth rates are related with the fall of an incumbent government. The period between 1974-2023 shows evidence of Greek economic growth and the impact on elections and therefore the hypothesis cannot be rejected that the economy plays a central role in explaining electoral successes, and especially failures, of incumbent governments. Keywords: Greece, elections, economy, GDP, political parties, time series, policy, political leaders

Kurdistan Parliament Elections 1992 and the Impact of the Results on the Popular Party

The Election of 1992 was an important result of the Kurdish movement, despite the confrontations and difficult circumstances that Kurdistan has gone through, the Kurdistan front was able to take desiccion about elections in order to establish a parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government. The elections were the first democratic examination to add legitimacy to the Kurdish government to replace the Kurdish front. In fact, the process of election which had been done was not an easy decision because the Iraqi govemnemet imposed the siege on Kurdistan and on the other hand, regional pressures to prevent the existence of any other Kurdish region.
 Also, most of the political parties affiliated with the Kurdistan Front were not with the conduct of the elections, ultimately the elections were done. This research deals with the way of how the law of the elections was taken by the Kurdistan Front, then the conduct and completion of the elections, legal violations, and the lack of credibility of political parties when conducting the elections, finally, the results were decided in favor of Party and Yekiti, and the seats were divided equally between them. The results of the elections had a negative impact on the parties that did not excel, so they made preparations and thought about forming serious alliances between the parties (Kurdistan Democratic Popular party, Kurdistan Socialist party and Kurd Socialist Party) to form the Kurdistan Union Party in 1992, but it did not last long, The year after party was dissolved, and on August 16th 1993, in the eleventh conference, the party joined with the kurdistan Democratic Party.

Russian Revolution and the Issue of Culture in Mikhail Rostovtsev’s Treatise “Society and Economy in the Roman Empire”

Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtsev (1870 – 1952) was one of the well-known Russian, and since 1920ies – American, historians of antiquity who contributed substantially to various areas of antiquity studies. Furthermore, politics and public activity were very important for him not only as the subject of study and analysis with reference to the distant past, but were also the sphere of his direct activities during many years: he was a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Popular Freedom Party) since 1905, and in 1917 he was member of the committee managing the party printing plant, and when in emigration was elected the party Central Committee member. In his publicism he many times ardently touched on various aspects of Russian revolution and post-revolutionary reality. In the present article the author attempts to interpret the key theses of Rostovtsev in his fundamental work “Society and Economy in the Roman Empire” devoted to the crises in the 3d century A.D which he termed revolution, from the point of view of his understanding of Russian revolution and the its results and consequences. In the long run the authors believe that the comparison of the two revolutions send us to the implicit vision of the existing tension between “high culture” and the “masses”, and they attempt to explicitly state this vision.

CLASS STRUCTURE AND ELECTORAL POLITICS: A STUDY OF DISTRICT MULTAN 2002 - 2013

This article aims to investigate the Class Structure and electoral politics of District Multan in 2002-2013 terms of local politics and trends. It has been observed that local politicians are the prominent candidates in these election. These politicians have historically come from the wealthy classes. Ticket distribution by popular political parties in this region is skewed toward the wealthy and those with a higher probability of voting for their party. This study has based on the mixed method cross-sectional research design and data has been collected from 406 participants from the District Multan by using probability sampling. Findings of the study have indicated that ninety percent or more of the area's residents support creating a new province to speed up the area's progress. In addition, mostly candidates have been repeated by the parties but few have changed the party and participated from a new party or independently. So, Multan's electoral politics are profoundly affected by socioeconomic status of politicians. Additionally, the electoral system needs to change to make it more effective and to reduce the issues of voters, rather than continuing to focus on the same old strategies. The current study is drived from district Multan. Keywords: Class Structure, Electoral Politics, Multan, Elite Class, Democracy , Elections, Voters.

Political and Democratic Role of The National Party in Restoring Peace and Democracy in Balochistan During the Insurgency

Balochistan is a troubled province in the country since the inception of Pakistan in 1947. The political turmoil is deeply embedded in the process of princely states joining the newly established Pakistan. Political parties including the National Party tried to curb the situation and pave the way for a peaceful reconciliation between the marginalized people of Balochistan and the state of Pakistan. The National Party (NP) is one of the bigger mass political parties in the province. It is a social-democratic and center-to-the-left party whose legacy party is linked back to the Kalat State’s National Party. In 2003, the merger of two political parties, the Balochistan National Democratic Party (BNDP) of Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo, and the Balochistan National Movement (BNM) of Abdul Hayee Baloch led to the foundation of this popular mass political party. The Baloch people have been denied their political, economic, and cultural rights. They also ignored their right to self-governance and the management of their region's natural resources, ever since Pakistan was founded. Balochistan was not represented at the state level and had little influence over how the government was run. The focus of this paper is to know about the role of the National Party in restoring peace after the insurgency and how the leadership of the National Party did an effort to bring back democracy in the province to keep the federation of Pakistan. The research is a qualitative study based on primary and secondary data collected by researchers. Primary data was collected from the key informants of political parties. The secondary data includes an analysis of the written literature of the parties. It is concluded that the role of such parties in the establishment of peace and reconciliation between the state and the people of the province is important for the prosperity of the people of Balochistan in particular, and Pakistan in general.

Factional Conflicts in the Social Popular Party and Failure of the Political United Front

Factional Conflicts in the Social Popular Party and Failure of the Political United Front

Lithuania: Political Developments and Data in 2022

AbstractAs no elections were held in Lithuania in 2022 and the Cabinet experienced no changes, the article mainly focuses on issues in national politics and institutional adjustments that have affected the conditions for non‐partisan electoral committees to compete in elections and changed the balance of power between mayors and municipal councils. Moreover, the article presents developments in the party system, mainly focusing on the newly established Democratic Party “For Lithuania,” which became one of the most popular political parties in Lithuania immediately after its establishment.

The 2021 Madrilenian regional election: how can the incumbent improve its results in times of crisis?

IntroductionAlthough there is a considerable amount of work on the effect of catastrophes on elections, we still do not have much work on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on them. This article focuses on the case of the Madrilenian regional election of 2021, looking for the causes of the improvement of the ruling party's results, the Popular Party (PP), which went from having 22.23% of the vote share in 2019 to 44.76% in 2021, and more concretely to the role that COVID-19 had on this. This election is especially interesting for this matter because the main issue was the question of how to manage the pandemic: The right-wing parties (and mainly the PP) criticized the restrictions imposed by the central government, led by the socialist Pedro Sánchez, while the left-wing parties defended them.MethodsThe article runs separate analyses at the aggregate and individual levels. At the aggregate level, it uses municipal and district-level data with electoral and socio-demographic variables; at the individual level, it uses a post-electoral survey.ResultsThere was a higher improvement in PP's results in areas with higher increase in the turnout rate, and both individual and aggregate-level data show that this improvement was also led by upper-class and young voters. However, there is no significant association with the cumulated cases of COVID-19 in the area.DiscussionThe article contributes to the understanding of the 2021 Madrilenian regional election, showing that, despite the politicization of the pandemic, there was no relationship between how hardly were the areas hit by the pandemic and the outcome of the election at the aggregated-level.

Politicization of Immigration and Language Use in Political Elites: A Study of Spanish Parliamentary Speeches

This study uses natural language processing (NLP) tools to analyze how politicians recreate the stereotype of immigrants in the Spanish Parliament. An interdisciplinary approach from computational linguistics and social psychology has been used to construct a variety of indices about content and linguistic styles. The analysis of 2,516 parliamentary interventions about immigration delivered between 1996 and 2016 by representatives of the two political parties that alternated in power during that period (conservative Popular Party and Spanish Socialist Party) shows that both the rhetorical strategy to present immigrants as “victims” or as a “threat” and the language style that politicians use reveal an interaction between the ideology of the party and the party's political position in government or in the opposition. Results also suggest some changes over time in the polarization and politicization of the debate about immigration.

Learning from Experience: Moscow’s Changing Approaches to ‘Third World’ Revolution

Starting in the 1950s, the Soviet Union, the United States, and China began to compete for the allegiance of the (emerging) post-colonial world. But which newly independent countries were ready for socialism? What paths should aspiring socialist leaders follow? How much room did they need to make for religion, nationalism, or even the market? And how did the USSR go about figuring out whom to support, what to advise, and when to cut its losses? The latter question occupied observers of the USSR during the Cold War era, and, over the last twenty years, many historians who have produced case studies and a few larger, synthetic works. Jeremy Friedman’s Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World, is an important and highly original entry into this discussion. Using well-chosen “episodes of a larger engagement between socialist powers and developing states,” Friedman analyzes the experiences of five revolutionary movements that were supported by Moscow, Beijing, or both (13). Chapter 1 traces the USSR’s support for Indonesia and its involvement with that country’s Communist Party (KPI). Indonesia was one of Nikita Khrushchev’s first targets when he decided to revive the Soviet commitment to anti-colonialism. Moscow’s relationship with Indonesian President Sukarno led it to support his elimination of a parliamentary system in favor of “Guided Democracy.” As Friedman shows, the Soviet involvement with Indonesia also forced Soviet scholars and policymakers to think more seriously about the role of religion (Islam proved to be a powerful mobilizing force not just among the bourgeoisie but also the peasantry and working class), and how to guide a popular communist party which was nevertheless locked out of power, and which refused to follow the Soviet line. Friedman sees the ties between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and socialist parties in decolonizing countries as neither a patron-client relationship nor an alliance between equals but a “franchise system, in which the local communist leaders were basically licensed to operate the local franchise of the international communist movement, while headquarters in Moscow looked after the interests of the brand as a whole” (74).

LPHYS’22

The thirtieth annual International Laser Physics Workshop (LPHYS’22) was held in an exclusively virtual format on Zoom from July 18 to July 22, 2022.This year the Workshop was carried out in an exclusively virtual format on Zoom. The LPHYS’22 Steering and Advisory&Program committees and the LPHYS’22 Management Team have worked hard to make this event possible.We kept the conference virtual Zoom format as closely as possible to the standard in-person format of the previous years, albeit without popular extravagant welcome parties, sumptuous gala dinners, and many other in-person activities and friendly gatherings. However, the cordial atmosphere that had always ruled our annual meetings was kept on.List of the Proceedings Editors, Plenary speakers were world-renowned scientists, The Workshop is being organized by, Sponsors are available in this pdf.

Young Adults’ Pathways of Negating Harms and Pleasure Related to Recreational Poly-Drug Use: A Complex Balancing Act

Background: This paper examines the drug use and harm reduction practices of a subset of young adults in the Greater London area who engage in recreational poly-drug use. It traces their complex relationships with three popular party drugs – MDMA/ ecstasy, cocaine, and alcohol – and explores the difficulties of balancing the harms and benefits within the context of situated poly-drug use practices. Method: Longitudinal qualitative interviews with 31 young adults, aged 22 to 25. Three phases of thematic, semi-structured interviews were conducted from February 2018 to April 2019. Results: This paper describes participants’ relationships to both MDMA and cocaine and the various ways they balance the risks and pleasures associated with these drugs. Participants appeared to succeed in balancing the two with MDMA, based largely on effective harm reduction messaging. With their cocaine use, however, we see a rise in challenges complicating this balancing act. Framed by ‘harm reduction from below,’ this paper shows that participants generally see cocaine’s adverse effects as less physically and mentally harmful than those of MDMA and this is reflected in their drug use choices. But the perception of cocaine’s relative safety has consequences, particularly when we consider the drug’s normalization and acceptability in spaces where it is frequently co-consumed with alcohol. In light of their consistent co-consumption of cocaine and alcohol, this pathway analysis suggests that participants’ efforts to reduce harm in one instance could create more harm and long-term negative effects in another. And as a result, participants struggle to bring the risk and pleasure of this co-consumption into balance. Conclusion: Further exploration on both young peoples’ evolving motivations of drug choice and use and on how young people navigate the nuances of balancing acts within their poly-drug use would be a helpful contribution to advancing field of harm reduction. An emphasis on the psychological and physical risks of the prevalent practice of co-consuming cocaine and alcohol are also encouraged.

Strategic Teambuilding Game: Intentional Diversity and Inclusion for Maximum Team Performance

Inclusivity and diversity are critical to maximizing team performance. This activity incorporates a popular party game that connects students with the learning objectives, demonstrating the vital roles inclusion and diversity play in the success of a business and the importance of building skills for maximizing teamwork. With little instruction to expose cultural assumptions later in the game, students form groups and learn that it takes intentionality to avoid prejudice and establish a high-performance team. Participants work to build team member skills and experience loss when problems cause members to switch teams. Appropriate for graduate, undergraduate students, and professionals, the Strategic Teambuilding Game requires team members to communicate and network, reveals judgment in teambuilding, exposes students to risk and recovery from failure, and demonstrates the power of teamwork to build a high-functioning organization. Results are used to form teams for group projects.