European Representation Research Articles

Job satisfaction and workplace representation in Europe

Job satisfaction and workplace representation in Europe

Voting Local? Electoral Rules and Geographical Representation in Europe

ABSTRACT In comparison with the expanding body of literature on representation, the number of studies examining geographical aspects of it remains relatively limited. This relates primarily to comparative analyses, but also to the array of methodological tools used to measure localness. Our study seeks to address this gap by introducing a novel measurement based on Gallagher’s index of disproportionality. Drawing on contemporary data from 27 European countries, we envisioned an operationalisation of geographical representation which prevents the expected lack of representation of small municipalities to affect the index values, instead focusing on relative population sizes in correlation with the relative number of elected MPs. We introduce the data, and then proceed to establish which country-level determinants influence the Index of territorial disproportionality. The findings indicate that district magnitude and number, parliament size, and the difference between established and new democracies have a high impact on the proportionality of local representation. On the other hand, the opening of lists for more voters’ influence within the PR list system, implemented mainly through preferential voting, appears to have no impact, indicating that parties tend to nominate (and voters tend to elect) local candidates even when institutional incentives of the electoral system are low.

Social Democracy and the Birth of Working-Class Representation in Europe

abstract: Despite the growing interest in the economic backgrounds of mps in Western Europe, the evolution of working-class numerical representation before 1945 has not been systematically studied. Using data from England and Wales (1832–1944), Germany (1871–1930), and Norway (1906–1936), the authors show both that working-class mps were elected when barriers were lowered and that almost all working-class parliamentarians were affiliated with socialist parties. The authors further probe the conditions that determined the electoral success of workers using data about all candidates, constituencies’ occupational profile, and unionization in Norway between 1906 and 1936. They find that socialist parties nominated workers either in relatively uncompetitive elections in which unionization was high or in competitive races in which the party’s victory was possible but not guaranteed. Using information about mps in Germany and England and Wales, the authors find similar patterns. The article discusses the implications for research about democratization, the rise of social democracy, and the numerical representation of workers.

The Digitalisation of Tools for Workers’ Representation in Europe and Spain: A First Approach

Abstract The unstoppable digitalisation of work also brings with it alterations at the collective level of labour relations. On the one hand, the dispersal of the workforce entails the breaking of traditional ties of proximity, which engendered solidarity among workers. On the other hand, however, new technologies can contribute decisively to the development of representation activity, also being a fruitful field for collective bargaining. Through a synthetic examination of comparative law, several of these possibilities are presented, and how they fit with Spanish law is analysed. Among the subjects addressed are digital tools that can favour tasks in representation. In addition to the legislative dimension, the study takes into account the latest developments in jurisprudence and collective bargaining.

INTERPRETATION OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE

The interpretation of art involves examining the meaning behind a work of art, which may include its historical, cultural, social, and political contexts. Similarly, the interpretation of architecture involves analyzing the meaning behind a building's design, style, and construction. The architecture was essentially practical in ancient times, offering shelter and security for individuals and communities. As cultures got more complicated, though, architecture became increasingly intricate and symbolic. Gothic architecture, for example, arose throughout the medieval period as a representation of Europe's spiritual beliefs.Architecture has evolved to reflect shifting ideals and views in the contemporary period. The Industrial Revolution resulted in the development of new materials and construction processes, which resulted in the rise of new architectural styles such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco. In architecture, the twentieth century saw a trend towards functionalism and minimalism, with architects like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe arguing for a machine aesthetic. The aim of this study is to explore the interpretation of art and architecture, focusing on the subjective nature of interpretation and how it is dependent on the viewer's understanding and cultural context. The objective is to analyze examples of famous architects and buildings, such as Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, Zaha Hadid's Guangzhou Opera House, and Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, to illustrate the different forms and styles of architecture and the various interpretations that they can elicit. By examining these examples, this study aims to provide insights into the ways in which architecture can reflect cultural, social, and political values, as well as the personal beliefs of the architect.

Orient Assemblage (Made in Austria): Colonial Typologies, Trade Relations, and the Politics of Architecture at the Vienna World’s Fair 1873

In contrast to the Great Exhibition in Paris in 1867 and in London in 1862, both of which were directed towards the portrayal of scientific and technological innovations, the 1873 Vienna World’s Fair exhibition concept concentrated on trade relations. One of the most prestigious sections of the exhibition grounds was the Oriental Quarter, which featured numerous collections of oriental art, marking the climax of a prevailing late 19th-century trend. This nexus of colonial and economic interests becomes legible not only in the specific ways the Orient was represented in the larger organization of the fair but also in Josef von Schwegel’s curatorial program, through which the designs of the orientalist buildings were developed, realized, and presented to visitors. In this context, we understand the European representation of the Orient to be a social construction that relies on architectural terms and practice, and we identify a new spatial type that offered visitors an experience of the Orient by enacting alleged oriental forms of architecture. The architectural enactments of the Oriental Quarter perform two main functions: first, to foster trade relationships with the Orient and second, to put on display the Austrian monarchy’s own industrial performance and artistic production. As a ‘living museum’, the Vienna World’s Fair marked the beginning of the monarchy’s complex collection history of oriental exhibits through which it continued to appropriate oriental forms for commerce-related reasons long after the fair officially closed.

Theatrum vitae humanae: Shakespeare’s Cosmographic Imagination

The article argues that maps and woodcuts in the numerous cosmographic works published in the course of the sixteenth century were an important source of inspiration for Shakespeare. The Globe playhouse, erected in Southwark in 1599, was the equivalent of a theatrum mundi where ‘men and women [were] only players’ (As You Like It). In its own way, it allowed the groundlings to be exposed and to understand something of the many cosmographic books that then circulated amongst a restricted élite. On the other hand, these texts and their superb illustrations gave an idea of yet unknown countries and people and stimulated the playwright’s as well as the spectators’ imagination. The metaphoric links established between the human body and cartography, as in Münster’s representation of Europe in his Cosmographia universalis, provided an intriguing extension of the then fashionable art of blazoning and counter-blazoning. Finally, map and globe became structurally related to each other, the word ‘globe’ serving to designate both head and skull, thus allowing painters like Holbein or the anonymous author of the Fool’s Cap Map to illustrate this idea in a compressed, small-scale and fairly cryptic representation of the links between macro and microcosm.

Becoming European Through Football Media? Representations of Europe in German Football News Coverage

In recent decades, the administrative and competitive structures of men’s elite club football in Europe have undergone a profound transformation toward Europeanization. As a result, football fans are increasingly exposed to European influences. These dynamics shape fans’ perceptions of and orientations toward Europe and contribute to constructions of collective identities. Because football is a highly mediatized sport, fans’ exposure to European influences and their constructions of identity are highly dependent on the representation of Europe in football media. To analyze this, we conducted a quantitative analysis of text-based online news media. Using selected German media outlets, we examined the extent and the patterned variation of media representation of Europe in football news articles. Our results indicate a highly selective media environment focused on a limited set of countries with high sporting relevance and a presence of German national-team players, while other countries rarely enter the media discourse.

Losers of globalization, losers in representation? The impact of education on unequal policy representation in Europe

The article focuses on the impact of education on policy representation. It examines degrees of congruence between political elites and citizens on policy preferences across different policy issues, trying to discern whether there is a representation gap between the so-called “winners” and “losers” of globalization in Europe as captured via the proxy measure of educational attainment. Additionally, we examine whether this representation gap, as well as overall levels of congruence, are affected by contextual factors related to the economy and the ideological orientation of governments. Using data from the 2014 European Election Studies and the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey, our findings largely confirm the existence of a representation gap along educational lines. Contextual factors related to the economy present weak or no direct and moderating effects whereas ideologically left-leaning governments accentuate, for the most part, the representation gap between individuals of low and high educational attainment.

Educate Some to Represent Many? Education and Female Political Representation in Europe

Educate Some to Represent Many? Education and Female Political Representation in Europe

Lucy Kinski, European Representation in EU National Parliaments , Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Lucy Kinski, European Representation in EU National Parliaments , Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Corn, Pope Leo X, and the New World in Giovanni Della Robbia's Temptation of Adan and Eve

TheWalters Museum in Baltimore houses a Temptation of Adam and Eve attributed to Giovanni Della Robbiathat is notable in two respects: itwas apparently commissioned to commemorate the entry of Pope Leo X intoFlorence in November 1515 and it contains what may be the earliest European representation of corn. Thispaper connects this most unexpected inclusion to both the iconography of the work and the fashioning ofLeo X’s papacy. The paper argues that the inclusion of corn in Della Robbia’s depiction of the Fall ofMan mustbe understood in terms of period ideas of palingenesis, the New World, and Leo’s standing as a Christusmedicus who will restore the Church and bring about a new Golden Age.

Lucy Kinski, European Representation in EU National Parliaments

Lucy Kinski, European Representation in EU National Parliaments

Visual (Mis)Representations of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad

The European representation of Islam, especially from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age, but also in our times, could in a certain way be classified within what the anthropologist Donald E. Brown (followed by Steven Pinker) calls “human universals”. Belief in the supernatural, along with fear, judgment of Others or self-image form some of the universal frameworks that have made the representation of Islam familiar throughout the world. The repetition of certain elements associated with Islam, its prophet and its society have created a prevalent image that in many respects has replaced reality. This phenomenon can be seen in a particular mindset in the representations of the Prophet Muhammad. Not all these representations are the same and not all participate fully in these traits, but the vast majority are loaded with negative connotations. This fear/ hate of Islam has meant that the more ‘neutral’ or ‘positive’ representations of Muhammad have gone quite unnoticed by the mainstream of distrust of a prophet who challenged the most classical religious beliefs in European history. Many of these representations will be discussed in this essay, in an effort to demonstrate the complexities of going from the representation of the unknown to the representation of the untrustworthy.

Nana Yaw Frimpong: A royal footprint of modern Ghanaian painting

Ghanaian modernist painting started with the establishment of Achimota school in 1927 where the artists learned to combine the traditional Ghanaian artforms with the European representation artistic techniques. Though the influences of this new movement went beyond the academically trained artists to affect the self-trained artists, very little is known about it. The main objective of this paper was to conduct a biographical study of Nana Yaw Frimpong who without any art college training, booked a notable slot for himself through his painting within the modern Ghanaian art space. An Iconographic analysis of five paintings of Nana Yaw Frimpong using Erwin Panofsky’s three-step approach which include 1. the pre-iconographical description, 2. the iconographical analysis, and 3. the iconological interpretation. The selected paintings were compared to the philosophical underpinnings of the works of the earlier academically trained artists from the Achimota school. The findings revealed that the philosophy and style of Nana’s paintings were the philosophical foundations of modern painting in Ghana hence, placing Nana within the Ghanaian modern painting space.

“Firearm art” in honor of the Russian State abroad: to the question of Russia’s representation in Europe during the time of Peter the Great

This article determines the key principles of designing fireworks and illumination compositions created in honor of the Russian State in foreign territories in the late XVII – early XVIII centuries. The analysis of themes and images contained therein in conducted in the context of the problematic of representative culture of that time. The article is first to attract the preserved graphic sources and published written archival materials discovered in recent years, including by the author of this research. Special attention is given to fireworks and illuminations on the occasion of the Treaty of Nystad, which did not receive due coverage within the scientific literature. Due to the peculiarities of “firearm art”, the research methodology relies on the scientific reconstruction with the use of art history, historical-cultural, as well as elements of iconographic and iconological analysis. It is revealed the firework festivities were one of the remarkable form of Russia’s representation abroad during the time of Peter the Great. In allegorical interpretation, they not only glorified the Russian State, but also reflected far-reaching plans of the monarch aimed at obtaining the imperial status of the country. Most of the fireworks and illumination compositions were based on the traditional for ambassadorial ceremonial culture of that time motif of the triumphal arch, and the arsenal of themes and images resembled the Russian festive complexes. The fire paintings were created in accordance with the principles similar to heraldic images: centerpoint, vertical and horizontal hierarchy, and laws of symmetry. As far back as his first trip to Europe, Peter the Great knew that fire performances is a source of creating awareness and excellent opportunity to make the country know to the world.

Geografia romanului românesc (1933-1947): străinătatea

This article analyzes the ways in which the Romanian novel published between 1933-1947 represents foreign cities, towns, peripheries, and villages in the fictional worlds. It asserts the democratization of the narrative universe through the planetary perspective of the novels and discusses the birth of the Global South imagery. The search was conducted on a corpus of 700 novels in the MDRR archive. The data is disposed through quantifying recurrences (the number of novels in which a city appears) and occurrences (the number of times a city appears) of foreign cities. This article deals with representations of Europe and the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia in the 1933-1947 Romanian novel. It separates three main categories (main cities, consolidation cities, and secondary cities) and shows the planetary distribution of space within the Romanian novel.

Representation of Europe in the Turkish Media’s Perception of “Civilization” During Period of Syrian Migrant Crisis

Medyanın bir konuyu onaylayarak veya kınayarak hükümetlerin kararlarında etki sahibi olmasının yanında, siyasi elitlerin görüşleri doğrultusunda kitleleri manipüle etme etkisi de mevcuttur. Bu çalışma medyanın kamuoyu oluşturmadaki bu iki yönlü etkisine dikkat çeken medyalaşma ve çerçeveleme yöntemlerini kullanarak, Suriyeli göçmen krizi döneminde ulusal gazetelerdeki “medenileşme” ve “Batılılaşma” algılarına odaklanmaktadır. Gazetelerin içerik analizi ile incelenmesi, bu dönemde gazetelerde yoğun ve yaygın bir AB ve Avrupa karşıtı söylemin varlığını ortaya koymaktadır. Türkiye üzerinden Avrupa’ya geçmeye çalışan Suriyeli göçmenlerin, güvenlik gerekçesiyle AB topraklarına kabul edilmemesi Türkiye’de medyanın Avrupa ve Müslümanlara ilişkin bakış açılarını keskinleştirirken, bu dönem, iktidardaki AK Parti hükümetinin Batı odaklı klasik modernleşmeye alternatif bir modernleşme arayışına uygun zemin teşkil etmektedir. Söz konusu alternatif modernleşme arayışı, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nin kuruluşunda Kemalist elitin öngördüğü “çağdaş Batı uygarlığına ulaşma” hedefine, dolayısıyla Avrupa’ya ve onun seküler modernleşme anlayışına ilişkin bir reaksiyon biçiminde ortaya çıkması ve İslam medeniyetinin yüceltilmesini içermesi bakımından “deseküler modernleşme” şeklinde kavramsallaştırılabilir. Bu çerçevede, gazetelere “Batı’nın ikiyüzlülüğü”, “Batı’da İslamofobinin yükselmesi”, “Batı medeniyetinin çöküşü” ve “İslam medeniyetinin yükselişi” çerçeveleri ile yansıyan deseküler modernleşme anlayışı medyada baskın görüş olurken, Batı medeniyetini ‘iyisiyle kötüsüyle’ medeniyetin odağı olarak gören klasik modernleşme anlayışı geri planda kalmıştır.

The (multilevel) articulation of the European participation in international financial fora: the example of the Basel Accords

Following the Great Financial Crisis, European Union (EU) rules in the area of banking supervision have become ever more strongly influenced by the (formally non-binding) standards developed by international financial fora, chief of which are the G20 and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. European representation in these fora fluctuates, as varying, though, reduced groups of individual Member States are involved directly alongside EU institutions and bodies. Taking the example of the Basel Accords, this article sets forth to examine how the European participation in those fora is articulated, whilst also assessing the existing mechanisms of democratic accountability. Indeed, in view of the important constraints these standards impose on European legislators, it is of utmost importance that they be involved early on when they are defined to avoid any democratic accountability gap from arising.

The Role of Lobbying in the Decision-Making Process in the European Union

Abstract Lobbying in the modern world is becoming part of decision-making processes at the local, state, supranational and global levels. The lobbying process is characterized by the use of various techniques and tools, which is why there are many definitions. In the European Union, it is perceived as a European representation of interests, through which different groups try to influence the decision-making process in the various institutions. Lobbying is often referred to when it is necessary to describe a particular political process, event or phenomenon that has not reached the general public or has remained opaque due to its specific nature. As lobbying becomes increasingly important, this article aims to clarify what lobbying is and what its legitimate and acceptable forms are. It is not without reason that there is a general distrust of the lobbying process and, in particular, of the real intentions of lobbyists. Therefore, many people believe that such activities distort the political process in terms of transparency, integrity and influence. Given the sensitive nature of the topic of lobbying, some good practices from existing lobbying rules at European level will also be considered.