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Not all governments survive until the next scheduled election. Some are replaced during their term in office by executives with a different party composition and/or portfolio distribution. Others are able to be ‘reborn’ as the successor government, undergoing only minimal changes. Such variation has to date received scant attention in studies on government durability. By classifying non-electoral replacements according to the degree of ministerial turnover, this article shows that new cabinets are often similar to their predecessors. It hypothesises that the likelihood of this pattern occurring is greater: when members of the current cabinet face bargaining problems in forming a very different cabinet, as in the case of surplus (unnecessary) parties in oversized coalitions; when the policy distance between the parliamentary median party and the current opposition widens; and when the executive’s economic performance discourages opposition parties from forming new coalitions with some incumbent parties. The risk of experiencing different types of replacement is estimated using data on Western European cabinets (1946–2021). Consistent with the hypotheses, the results indicate that governments are able to return to power almost untouched after their termination if they are oversized, if the opposition is far from the legislative median voter, and if inflation grows during a government’s tenure.

The article focuses on the political biography of Sebastian Kurz, who held the post of Federal Chancellor of Austria till autumn of 2021. He is being accused of abuse of power in order to achieve political goals. In Europe Kurz was considered to be one of the most promising politics, who came all the way to the top over the decade – a stellar career path, which would require entire political lifetimes for others to cross. Without higher education degree he over the few years rose from the position of a mere activist of youth movement of Austrian’s People’s Party to the role of the party leader. At the age of 27 he took up the post of Foreign Minister, and aged 31 he reached the top of the national politic as the Federal Austrian Chancellor. During the second decade of the XXI century Kurz used to be one of the interlocutors of the European and world leaders and one of the main officials in EU.

In Italy, the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Northern League (LN) formed a coalition government after the legislative elections of March 2018. What has been the actual impact of the populist executive in the Italian foreign policy? Relying on the (few) existing analyses that have developed specific hypotheses on the expected international repercussions of populist parties-ruled governments, the paper examines Italy’s foreign policy under the Italian “Yellow–Green” cabinet (June 2018–August 2019). The manuscript advances three hypotheses. First, the foreign policy of the Conte’s government has been featured by a personalistic and a centralized decision-making process. Second, the Yellow-Green executive has adopted a vocal confrontational stance on the world stage, especially within multilateral frameworks, to “take back control” over national sovereignty. Third, such sovereignist foreign policy was largely symbolic because of “strategic” populist attitudes toward public opinion and due to domestic and international constraints. The manuscript—which is based on secondary and primary sources, such as interviews with former ministers, MPs, and diplomats—aims at offering a new perspective on populist parties and foreign policy, alimenting the rising debate on foreign policy change.

Parliamentary elections often result in the formation of a coalition government. While the legislative process allows actors within a coalition government to monitor each other, little attention has focused on how opposition parties respond to coalition government. We argue that opposition parties have incentives to uncover and highlight differences and tensions within the governing coalition. A strategy by the opposition to use legislative tools to uncover policy conflicts and ministerial drift within the coalition increases intra-coalition tensions, potentially generating electoral costs for the governing parties, and potentially even hastening the coalition’s demise. To test our argument, we build and analyse a new dataset of parliamentary questions in the British House of Commons covering the 2010–15 coalition. As expected, the main opposition party appears to strategically focus questions towards policy areas that uncover intra-coalition tensions. This research highlights the importance of opposition parties in parliamentary democracies.

The regulation of housing quality has a long history in England. As the state itself increasingly became a housing developer in the twentieth century, design standards were subject to self-regulation. Through this, the idea that housing quality includes minimum dwelling sizes - space standards - has entered public consciousness. The 2010-2015 coalition government introduced suggested space standards through planning control, but also extended the range of 'permitted development' - a form of deregulation - where space standards could not be applied. In this paper we explore the history of space standards in England and what these tell us about planning regulation.

Government formation in multiparty systems requires election winners to strike deals to form a coalition government. Do voters respond and how do they respond to coalition government deals? This paper examines the short-term consequences of coalition government formation on voters in European democracies relying on survey panel data and original content analysis of coalition agreements. It tests theoretical expectations that deal with both the actual and perceived ideological shifts parties make when joining coalition deals as well as the effect of a much simpler heuristic cue based on preferences. The findings indicate that coalition deals have consequences on party preferences, but voter perceptions play a much stronger effect than the actual content of coalition deals. These results have important implications for our understanding of public opinion and provide important insights into the current difficulties and challenges of government formation and representative democracy.

Cet article interroge les liens entre Podemos et le mouvement des indignés, en se demandant dans quelle mesure ce parti fondé en 2014 peut-il être considéré comme « le parti des indignés ». Il met en avant les points communs entre le 15-M, un mouvement social sans précédent d´indignation de la jeunesse, et Podemos, dont l´objectif initial était de donner un débouché politique aux nouvelles demandes sociales politisées par le 15-M : lutte contre la corruption, demandes de transparence, de participation et de démocratie directe, fin des politiques d´austérité. Mais il montre aussi que, en s´institutionnalisant au sein du jeu politique, Podemos s´est normalisé et éloigné des idéaux originels du 15-M, suscitant en retour une forme de désillusion militante. Il a néanmoins le mérite, dix ans après le 15-M, d´avoir réussi à former la première coalition de gauches depuis la Seconde République. Este artículo cuestiona los vínculos entre Podemos y el movimiento de los indignados, preguntándose en qué medida este partido fundado en 2014 puede ser considerado como “el partido de los indignados”. Destaca los puntos en común entre el 15-M, un movimiento social de indignación juvenil sin precedentes, y Podemos, cuyo objetivo inicial era dar una salida política a las nuevas demandas sociales politizadas por el 15-M : lucha contra la corrupción, demandas de transparencia, de participación y de democracia directa, fin de las políticas de austeridad. Pero también muestra que, al institucionalizarse dentro del juego político, Podemos se ha normalizado y alejado de los ideales originales del 15-M, suscitando de vuelta una forma de desilusión militante. Sin embargo, diez años después del 15-M, tiene el mérito de haber logrado formar la primera coalición de izquierdas desde la Segunda República. This article questions the links between Podemos and the Indignados movement, by wondering to what extent this party founded in 2014 can be considered as “the party of the Indignados”. It stresses the similarities between the 15-M, an unprecedented social movement of indignation among the youth, with Podemos, whose initial objective was to give a political outlet to the new social demands politicized by the 15-M : fight against corruption, transparency, participation and direct democracy demands, end of austerity policies. But it also shows that, by becoming institutionalized within the political game, Podemos has normalized and moved away from the original ideals of the 15-M, arousing in return a form of militant disillusion. He nevertheless has the merit, ten years after the 15-M, for having succeeded in forming the first coalition of the lefts since the Second Republic.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government abolished the Discretionary Social Fund and Council Tax Benefit in the Welfare Reform Act 2012 as part of their programme of austerity, with powers to design replacement schemes devolved to local authorities in England. Discretionary Housing Payments, which had long been the responsibility of local authorities, were given an expanded role – to soften the edges of welfare reform being pursued by central government. This article presents analysis of a new quantitative dataset constructed by the author detailing variations in these three payments across local authorities in England. This analysis explores the variation in provision that now exists across England and examines the extent to which the political makeup of elected councils, as well as economic and demographic differences, can explain the variations in provision that now exist. We find that there has been substantial retrenchment in the local social security schemes in the period since their localisation, indicating that the devolution of powers alongside budget cuts has proved a successful mechanism for implementing austerity. We also find that the political makeup of elected councils is associated with the degree of cutbacks in these schemes, with Labour-led councils less likely to retrench across all three payments when compared with councils led by the Conservative party, suggesting that politics remains possible even in a harsh financial climate such as that faced by local authorities in England.

On the other hand, comparing the first and second periods in terms of the governmental coalition, the allocation of power and the improvement of the coalition process can be mentioned. First, from the aspect of power allocation, the first stage handed over to the opposition party the vice governor of social integration, which is responsible for the three countries of health, welfare, environment, and women's family. In the second stage(Cho Sung-Ho et al., 2017), In this way, the opposition party is able to share power with the opposition party. At the same time, it introduced the coalition chairperson system, which further strengthened the power of political parties participating in the coalition. In addition, by establishing a unified political arbitration committee to facilitate the conflict situation that occurred under the coalition government, the coalition government made soft landing. In the future, we will suggest ways to improve the local autonomy system to revitalize the Gyeonggido coalition politics and to practice it. First, diversification of organization. Second, the introduction of local ministers. Third, the metropolitan city should strengthen its capacity. Fourth, it is a reorganization of local electoral system.

Whole-of-government (WOG) approaches have emerged as a blueprint for contemporary peace and state-building operations. Countries contributing civilian and military personnel to multinational interventions are persistently urged to improve coherence and enhance coordination between the ministries that form part of the national contingent. Despite a heated debate about what WOG should look like and how to achieve it, the causal mechanisms of WOG variance remains under-theorised. Based on 47 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, this study compares Swedish and German WOG approaches in the context of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). I argue that coalition bargaining drove the fluctuation in the Swedish and German WOG models. Strategic culture was an antecedent condition. In both cases, COIN and the war on terror clashed with foundational elements of the Swedish and German strategic cultures, paving the way for a non-debate on WOG on the political arena. Finally, bureaucratic politics was an intervening condition that obstructed or enabled coherence, depending on the ambition of the incumbent coalition government to progress WOG. Overall, the results suggest that coalitions face limitations in implementing a WOG framework when the nature of the military engagement is highly disputed in national parliaments.

The purpose of this article is to detect the lack of coincidence regarding foreign affairs in the electoral programs of the two members of the Spanish center-left coalition1. The main assumption of this article is that the Socialist Party maintains its foreign affairs program, while Unidas Podemos, the coalition partner, does not because it focuses its priorities on other areas of its political agenda at the sacrifice of foreign policy. This article explores the tensions and resignations experienced in the field of foreign policy by the two government partners. It also explains how both political forces had to revise their proposals in order to allow the formation of a new government. This article hypothesizes that the resignations have been greater by Unidas Podemos, and that the Socialist Party has been able to maintain the core of its doctrine on foreign policy, security, and defense. The main challenge that this government will face in the upcoming months is the enlargement of the agreement between Spain and the United States regarding the establishment of the U.S. Army at the Spanish military bases of Rota and Morón. Regarding the methodology, we analyzed the top articles literature to compare the political action of several European coalition governments in developing its foreign affairs policy.

Purpose This study aims to explore homeless-support workers’ perceptions of homeless welfare recipients and their experiences of navigating new conditions placed upon them by UK welfare reform. It examines support workers’ views of the most punitive feature of the welfare system, sanctions, on those recipients.In 2012, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government introduced the largest and most radical overhaul of the UK benefit system, significantly increasing the level of conditionality and sanctions for non-compliance, part of a shift in welfare, suggesting that rights must be balanced by responsibility and the “culture of worklessness” and “benefit dependency” should be addressed. Design/methodology/approach Welfare reforms in the UK and the increased use of sanctions as part of welfare conditionality are reviewed. Data are collected from eight semi-structured interviews taking place in five housing support groups in the South East and South West of England in 2019–2020. The interviews followed an approach from interpretive phenomenological analysis. Findings Findings from this study indicate that the government’s reforms serve as a disciplinary measure for the poor, reinforcing inequality and social marginalization. To mitigate the effects would require a comprehensive review of universal credit prior to its full rollout to claimants. Data are analyzed thematically. Originality/value Welfare conditionality and welfare reform is well-researched in the UK. There is also a significant volume of research concerning homelessness. This paper, however, fills a gap in research concerning the experiences of those working in housing support agencies working with homeless people in the UK.

The rally ‘round the flag effect is a well-known phenomenon in the nexus between public opinion and international relations. This phenomenon has been well studied for the US. It has not been studied extensively for multiparty coalition systems. This study analyses the effect of a diplomatic crisis on the popularity of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. It makes three key contributions to the literature on the rally effect. Firstly, it considers the effect of a diplomatic incident on the popularity of the head of government in a parliamentary system with coalition government. Secondly, it considers the effect of this incident on both the Prime Minister and the Vice Prime Minister who come from different parties. Thirdly, it employs a matching quasi-experimental design to get a better grip on the causal relationship between an international conflict and the support for government leaders.

When coalition leaders have powers to call a vote of confidence, they can invoke the threat of government resignation or early elections, and raise other actors��� costs of voting down the government. In this paper, this insight is applied to coalition replacements. The procedure, argued here, allows leaders to reduce their risk of losing office between elections by (i) managing the coalition���s cohesion and (ii) denying parliament the option of replacing the government without intervening elections. Premiers, moreover, can be expected to use these powers for partisan benefit, protecting primarily their own rather than their coalition partners��� incumbency status. To test this expectation, a novel measure of vote of confidence powers is applied to the analysis of coalition replacement risks in 20 European democracies. The results show that premiers with extensive confidence powers significantly reduce their risk of replacement between elections while their coalition partners do not benefit equally.

This article explores how teachers were discursively positioned in England following the formation of the Coalition government in 2010, using a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of 363 sp...

This article discusses the ethnopolitics of Vladimír Mečiar’s government in Slovakia in the period of years between 1994-1998, with a particular focus on the Hungarian minority. The introduction outlines ethnic heterogeneity in Slovakia, giving a brief historical background for some minorities. The next part covers the result of the 1994 parliamentary election, which led to the formation of the HZDS-SNS-ZRS coalition government headed by Vladimír Mečiar as Prime Minister. The study also includes the ideological profiles of the governmental parties, which are linked by strong accentuation of nationalism and statism. The article seeks to analyse the ethnopolitics of the government in the above-mentioned election term, evaluate its positive and negative aspects. In particular, the affairs, new legislation adopted and its impact on the largest Hungarian minority living in Slovakia.

Coalition governments are common in the European political landscape in various tiers ofgovernment. However, such coalitions were an exception in the history of the Valencian Autonomy until 2015, which marked a new stage with the so-called El Botànic governments. Which factors explain this change in the Valencian political system? What are the features of such coalition governments? Can this model be applied to other political systems? This paper addresses these and other issues. First, it looks at what led to coalition governments in both 2015 and 2019. Second, it studies the model of coalition government. The hypothesis tested is this: El Botànic is a coalition government whose success in terms of stability and governmental action is framed within a specific Valencian political context.

Purpose: The aim of this research study is to address the nature, prospects and challenges of coalition governments and their impacts on the community in Lesotho Approach/Methodology/Design: This paper uses desk top methodology and employs a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis technique to address the nature, prospects and challenges of coalition governments and their impacts on the community in Lesotho. Research questions that guide this study are what prompt coalition governments in Lesotho? How do coalition governments operate in Lesotho? What are the prospects and challenges of coalition governments on the government, governance, lives and livelihoods of the communities in Lesotho? What might be a sustainable democratic coalition government option in Lesotho going forward? Findings: The hypothesis of the paper is that coalition governments promote instability of government and poor governance for the Basotho. The results show that prospects for coalition governments are inclusive democracy, while challenges are community exclusion, poor service delivery, extravagant public expenditure and government instability. Practical Implications: The article provides a detailed analysis of the impact of coalition governments on the community. Originality/value: The major findings and conclusion of the paper is that coalition governments have prompted cooperation among former rival parties to form one coalition government at different times; but they have had a negative impact on the Basotho community as a whole and benefited only a minority aligned to some of the major coalition parties under different coalition regimes.

This article focuses on the role played by polarisation in the Spanish party system. It first analyses the failure in the attempts to form a government after the 28 April 2019 general election in S...

Amidst the arrival of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Kosovo, the new coalition government of Vetevendosje and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) under the leadership of Prime Minister Kurti (Vetevendosje) collapsed after a vote of no confidence on 25 March 2020. On the surface, the vote, initiated by LDK, was the consequence of a conflict over the appropriate Corona strategy. A two-month power struggle under the extraordinary circumstances of Corona-related restriction followed, resulting in a new LDK-led government in early June. The political crisis in Kosovo in the early-phase of Corona has to be analyzed against the background of a political crisis with legacies in the post-conflict period, the polarization between Vetevendosje and other parties, and the strong influence of external actors in Kosovo. In this forum article, I ask how the discourse on the “state of emergency” and the pandemic has influenced power struggles in Kosovo and how the conflicts have challenged the democratic competition and institutions. My main argument is that the pandemic indeed did not lead to any form of cooperation, but the political competitors used the pandemic for an intensification of their power struggle, which—for now—led to the restoration of a government of established elites, supported by diplomatic interventions from external actors.

Voters in many advanced democracies increasingly dislike their political opponents, a phenomenon that is known as affective polarisation. The growing animosity between electorates is particularly c...

Since the election of the Coalition government in 2010, an increasing number of primary schools in England have converted to academy status. This article explores how executive leaders working in primary academies construct academy freedoms and their attitudes towards their local authorities. Interviews with four executive leaders working in two contrasting Multi-Academy Trusts were analysed using critical discourse analysis. Findings show that in these primary academies, leaders chose to discursively distance themselves from other academy schools, and instead construct themselves as continuing the best traditions of local authority support. The findings indicate that the professional identities of academy leaders, as key policy actors, have an impact on how national policy is interpreted and enacted. The discourse of these academy leaders suggests that primary academisation has led to school leaders appropriating methods of strategic redefinition, to navigate the new post-2010 education landscape and construct new professional identities.

One of the forms of the government in the parliamentary democratic system is the coalition government. The coalition is definied as the cooperating of more than one political party within the framework of common aims and principles, and the way of forming a government based on unity of power by working communication and cohesion with each other for these collective goals. Turkey is known to have a history of the coalition between 1961-1965, 1974-1979 and 1991-2002. The concept of coalition as a parliamentary democratic system is generally said to be equivalent to instability by regarding the functions of the governments in Turkey. In this study, coalition is defined first and then the types of the coalition and the coalition governments established in Turkey are briefly explained. After that, the coalition governments established between 1991 and 2002, which are the main part of the study, are analyzed in terms of their democratic attitudes and stability. The effects of the political events of the period on the coalition governments are also discussed within the analysis. Research questions in the study were determined as “Are managements of coalition efficient in terms of stability?”, “Is there a relationship between the coalition governments and the existing political events between 1991-2002?”. Library resources, internet-based articles and newspapers were used as sources in this study to analyze the answers to these questions.

This article argues that new governance spaces evidence a paradigm shift that has irretrievably changed how formal governmental relations with Britain’s Muslim communities are established, facilitated and maintained. It is a paradigm shift that is driven by the ideology of neoliberalism and the efficacy of the market. Having begun under New Labour, this shift was further catalysed by the election of the Conservative-led Coalition government in 2010 and successive Conservative-majority governments since premised on the basis of the ‘problematisation’ of Muslims and the religion of Islam. This article evidences that in addition to transforming the nature of formal governmental relations, so too has it transformed who ‘represents’ Britain’s Muslims as indeed the issues engaged. Drawing on participatory approaches that afford unprecedented access to the political spaces and mechanisms within which formal governmental relations with Britain’s Muslims were facilitated, this article uses critical analyses of three social issues—counter extremism, Islamophobia and child sexual exploitation—to illustrate the article’s overarching narrative.

Summary Subject and purpose of work: This article analyzes the factors depicted in the literature as essential for the emergence of far-right parties and assesses the importance of unemployment, immigration and political establishments in the failures of the far-right wing parties in Sweden and Finland in early 2000s. Materials and methods: Multi-methods approach is used in this study including case studies and a novel technique based on Boolean algebra. Results: The findings of this paper lead to the conclusion that the correlation between unemployment rates and the electoral strength of far-right parties is weak and does not support simplistic thesis such as high unemployment leads to extremism. Moreover, despite objectively favorable conditions in terms of high immigration rates, the presence of non-European immigrants in a country does not in itself explain the emergence of far-right parties. Conclusions: The study points to the importance of political factors such as the differences between the mainstream parties and tackling the immigration issue by the Liberal Party in Sweden and the wide ideological span of the coalition government and the role of Finland’s special relationship with the USSR that militated against the emergence of far-right parties in these countries.

In 2021, Angela Merkel's fourth and last term as the chancellor of Germany will end. To understand Merkel's domestic and foreign policy, one must understand the country she inherited. She came to power in 2005 following the first center-left government since 1982, the government of Gerhard Schröder, and was in the fortunate position of becoming chancellor after a coalition government of social democrats and Greens had done the devil's bidding of implementing very unpopular neoliberal policies to the sole benefit of German capital and the rich.

This article argues that the police accountability and governance reforms introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government (2010–2015) have created a new window for ‘international-subnational’ crime and justice policy transfer to occur in England and Wales by placing Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) into a local strategic leadership position. It begins by providing an account of the emergence of PCCs and the controversies that have surrounded them, while at the same time maintaining that they are unlikely to be abolished in the foreseeable future. Three reasons as to why PCCs may seek to import policies from abroad are then presented, encompassing ballot-box politicking, hyper-awareness of constituency discontent and a demonstrated willingness to pioneer new crime control initiatives. Subsequent to presenting an international-subnational policy transfer case study - that of London’s Compulsory Sobriety Pilot - several analytical and practice-based ‘lessons’ are outlined pertaining to the process of emulating non-indigenous subnational crime control innovations.

Almost all observers believed that India’s 2019 general election would result in a hung parliament and a coalition government. Yet, the election returned Prime Minister Narendra of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a second five-year term in office. The BJP not only increased its parliamentary majority, it also won seats in states and regions beyond the Hindi heartland. Indeed, Modi is the first prime minister since Indira Gandhi in 1971 to be reelected with a larger majority. What explains Modi’s spectacular electoral victory, and what does his victory bode for India’s representative democratic political order? Will India turn towards illiberalism as Modi tries to turn India into a Hindu majoritarian state? The following pages argue that such pessimism is unwarranted since India’s democracy is far more resilient, with built-in mechanisms against potential strongmen.

How do voters sort within an electoral coalition? Voting literatures on ideology, character valence, and issue ownership provide explanations for inter-coalition or inter-party voting, yet the coalition context remains understudied. Do voters in proportional coalition-based systems use the same ideological and issue-based heuristics ascribed to them in two-party systems that favor single-party government? Voting behavior in Italy in the 2000s is used to explore this question. This paper examines what motivates the voters of the large center-left and center-right coalitions, specifically whether ideology, economic issues, or other considerations lead voters to select their party of choice. Results indicate that, on average, voters select a coalition ideologically-proximal and deemed the more competent on issues, while they select a specific party based upon character and reputation issues. Findings thus suggest that voters sort for both coalition and party-specific reasons.

In 2014, the United Kingdom Coalition Government, after the now infamous Trojan Horse incident, insisted that all children learn Fundamental British Values. Cameron, as Prime Minister, argued that such values, coupled with “muscular liberalism” would “challenge extremist ideology, exposing it for the lie that it is.” This article exists at the place of the apostrophe—as the scare mark (‘ ’) becomes an enclosure, enclosing a manufactured possession. “Is Britishness just a made up concept? Who determines what is or is not fundamental? I want to problematize what they include and exclude in their concept of “British Values.” What is this “British” they talk about and why do they feel a need for this “Britain” to exist? Within the enclosures provided by ‘ten scare marks’, I present research into historical and contemporary formulations of Britishness taken from academic texts, school textbooks, and websites. In addition, by invoking the work of Serres, Bhabba, and Billig, I seek to confront Cameron’s challenging discourse. Within this article, I do not though attempt to detail an authentic Britishness but rather from the outset argue that there is, and This analysis is disturbing. It disturbs my thoughts but also my personal history- it is troubling. never was any authenticity in this concept. What I seek to argue here is that their “British-ness” is nothing more than a portable, lean-to concept of violence. A “manufactured concept” (Nationalism and the origins of prejudice, International Journal of Historical Teaching, Learning and Research) which locates an inclusion but by default formulates an exclusion whose antecedents lie more in the government counter terrorists’ strategies than any substantial historical fact If it is manufactured where does this leave my schooling – which told me Britain was great? (Britishness from a linguistic perspective in school textbooks). The paper concludes by suggesting that their “Britain” is a rhetorical trope. It is itself a Trojan horse—which through flagging and banal nationalism (Banal nationalism) indoctrinates and radicalizes our children into an invented—pererted nationalism that the political elite employs to deal with a perceived/conceived/contrived threat of an internal other to our geographical, historical, and ideological borders.

Just as Downton Abbey seasons 1–6 coincided with the Coalition government, the production schedule for the 2019 movie paralleled key moments in the Brexit campaign. The film offers a comforting, op...

The birth of the yellow-green ‘government of change’ − formed by the Five-star Movement (M5 s) and the League in 2018 − was a significant novelty in Italian politics. Concerns about its populist character co-existed with enthusiastic expectations concerning its capacity to overhaul politics. In what respects did the Conte I government mark a significant departure from its predecessors? To answer this question, we rely on data concerning legislative activity to analyse the executive’s capacity to implement its policy agenda. Given the uneasy alliance upon which the coalition was based, we also attempt to evaluate whether or not the coalition agreement signed by the coalition partners actually worked as a focal point for government action. We find that, despite rhetorical claims about radical change, the Conte I government was less pro-active than its predecessors. We also find that the League was better able to affect the Government’s policy priorities than was the M5s.

The American Democratic leadership in the White House and Congress in 2009–10 and the British Conservative/Liberal-Democrat Coalition government in 2010–12 each pursued a strategy of rapidly assembled multiple adjustments to the prevailing policy framework for health care rather than attempting a “big-bang” strategy of sweeping institutional change. Despite their relative modesty, each set of reforms encountered a highly conflictual and tortuous process of legislative passage. Subsequently, the reforms failed to gain broad public acceptance and were variously hobbled (in the United States) and transformed (in the United Kingdom) in the course of implementation. These two cases thus offer some common lessons about the potential and the pitfalls of such complex “mosaic” reforms.

Durante la XVIII legislatura, i leader della maggioranza parlamentare italiana hanno accettato di formare un governo di coalizione attraverso il "Contratto per il governo del cambiamento". L'approvazione di questo documento ha rappresentato una novità significativa nella politica italiana e, di conseguenza, merita un'attenta considerazione. Il saggio si concentra sulla forma giuridica del "Contratto" e prende in considerazione i suoi effetti sul funzionamento del Parlamento e del Gabinetto italiano.

This article highlights the electoral effects of holding salient portfolios within a coalition government. For voters, holding ministries can be seen as a symbol of a party’s success within the coalition. As a voting heuristic, parties not controlling the portfolios on issues important to their platforms signal their failure to achieve these goals. Following this perspective, we hypothesize that the difference between coalition parties that hold salient portfolios and those that do not partially predicts the extent of the electoral cost of coalition participation. Using a data set that covers 11 European parliamentary democracies between 1966 and 2002, we show that for junior coalition partners there is an electoral reward for holding their most salient portfolio. There is also an electoral benefit for a junior partner to hold a larger number of portfolios if they do not control their most salient portfolio. Conversely, holding their most salient portfolio and a larger number of additional ministries results in greater electoral losses in the subsequent parliamentary election. These results indicate that parties’ success at negotiating for their policy priorities in coalition governments holds consequences for their future electoral success.

The revocation of the regional tier of planning by the UK Coalition Government in 2010 removed the established framework of strategic planning in England. Using a case study of green infrastructure (GI), this paper examines whether revocation has negatively impacted the development of environmental, and specifically GI policies and practice. It questions if changing government policy narratives have hindered advocacy and subsequently the delivery of GI and the extent to which it has been able to position itself as a mainstream approach in planning. Using the development of the RSS in England, and the North-East and East of England sub-regional GI strategies (areas of significant policy development), as case studies, the paper presents an ex-ante evaluation prior to revocation of the evolution of GI policy at a regional scale, alongside an ex-post assessment (2011-2015) of its continued growth within sub-regional policies. The paper concludes that whilst RSSs provided a promotional forum, that revocation has not negatively impacted upon GI development, as its advocates have facilitated a supportive policy-implementation environment which has led to the development of more integrated approaches in planning praxis.

Garašanin's Progressive Government proposed to the National Assembly, which was held in Niš in May 1884, to adopt amendments to several laws of a political nature after the demise of the Timok rebellion. These were the bills amending the law: on the press, on the associations and choirs, on the municipality, and on the gendarmerie. By adopting these repressive laws, the progressives practically prevented the work of political parties, reinforced police surveillance over the municipalities, and increased the gendarmerie forces further. The lost war with Bulgaria in 1885 marked the beginning of the political breakdown of the Progressives and King Milan, who was close to them, although they repeatedly disagreed with his political actions. However, their departure from the political scene did not begin immediately after the lost war, as many expected, but took another year and a half for the Progressives, and three years for King Milan. On the other hand, the Radicals began to believe in the possibility that the defeat that they experienced during the Timok rebellion could come to a victory, that is, to power. A long-standing march against the Radical Party was halted, as King Milan realized that he could not rule with the constant ignorance of the will of the people. The broad popular masses led by the People's Radical Party should have approached the throne and the dynasty and together with the representatives of the Progressive Party alleviate the difficult situation created by the war against Bulgaria, and later provide the crown prince with a safer ruler. The royal attempt to persuade the Radicals to agree with the Progressives failed, as representatives of the Radical Party at the assembly held in February 1886 in Niš resolutely refused an agreement with the Progressives. In April 1886, they signed an agreement with the Liberals, which contained a joint program of work of both parties. The most important points of this program, which was a reflection of the compromise on both sides, concerned the change of the Constitution in the internal and the improvement of relations with the Russians in foreign policy. In June 1887, a liberal-radical government was formed, the first coalition government in the political history of Serbia.

This study analyzes and comments on the different reform proposals that in terms of employment and protection are included in the Agreement entitled “Progressive Coalition: A new agreement for Spain”, a text that was made public on December 30, 2019 and that develops the programmatic content of the pre-agreement reached two days after the last elections, just on November 12, 2019, between the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) and United We Can (UP) to form a “progressive coalition government to place Spain as a benchmark for the protection of social rights in Europe, just as citizens have decided at the ballot box”. Based on this analysis, a legal review of the agreed measures that have been adopted so far is carried out. Finally, after the previous examination, it is a question of finding an adequate answer to the following question: will the introduction of the rest of the agreed measures be postponed until the crisis caused by COVID-19 is resolved?

The article aims to identify the specifics of the position of Germany on humanitarian intervention in Libya in 2011. Germany abstained from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 1973. Germany did not support a military solution to the conflict as provided for in paragraphs 4 and 8 of the Resolution. Germany did not intend to sponsor foreign troops. It has taken a different position than its main allies – France, Great Britain, and the United States. The reason is not due to disagreements with allies in the Alliance, but due to domestic political pressure on the coalition government. Another interesting explanation for government policy is the economic indicators according to which Libya did not play an important role in the German economy.It can be concluded that the USD / FDR government decided to abstain from the UN vote on Resolution 1973 because it was not a priority for Germany and because Guido Westerwelle believed that the goals of France, Britain and the United States could be achieved without intervention, only through sanctions. Germany's limited role in the Libyan crisis and its special NATO policies suggest that German politicians, faced with the financial crisis and its potential consequences in Europe, deliberately sought to limit Germany's international obligations and therefore refused to participate in securing the no-fly zone. However, Germany's reputation among its Western allies was almost shattered. The Merkel government's retention has surprised not only its closest allies – France, Britain and the United States – but also accused Berlin of playing on Russia's side. Germany became considered an unreliable ally. However, the decision not to take part in the operation in Libya indicates that Germany will continue to evaluate each military operation on its own terms, rather than reflecting British and French policies.

In the last decades Religious Zionism moved from the margins to the center of Israeli society and politics. Members of this sector (RZS) are located today in top positions in Israeli politics, businesses, and among professional elites, academia, and the military, gaining growing influence over the national decision-making processes and policies. No wonder, then, that public opinion polls indicate that the members of the RZS are the most satisfied and optimistic in Israel today. The fact that the RZS is positioned mostly on one side of the political spectrum (Right), the tight interrelations within this sector and its widening periphery have further increased its national impact. It is argued here that this is a critical development in Israeli politics as this sector’s members, and in particular those voting for the RZS parties, show relatively low commitment to core democratic values together with a clear preference for the Jewish aspect over the democratic aspect of the state of Israel. Furthermore, whereas in the past the RZS was politically represented by one main party (with some splinter groups coming and going), in the 2021 elections two parties (Yamina and the Religious Zionist Party (RZP)) collided head-on. For the first time each of these parties, the first more modernist and the second more fundamentalist, claimed to be the only authentic representative of this sector. The competition between them intensified when the election results showed that each of the two had gained the same number of seats in the Knesset, with the leader of Yamina unexpectedly becoming the new Israeli prime minister. It is argued here that the future balance of power between these two parties and their respective constituencies will determine the future of the RZS as a whole—whether it will establish itself as a pivotal actor in Israeli politics or remain at the margins.

In the UK, as in many other countries, welfare reform in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis has had a detrimental effect on gender equality. Between 2010 and 2015 the UK Coalition government initiated far-reaching cuts to public spending, as well as an increase in welfare conditionality. These reforms have hit women harder than men as they are more likely to rely on welfare benefits and services due to unpaid care responsibilities. Many have suggested that the way in which issues are represented by policymakers can limit what can be conceived as appropriate policy solutions. In line with this, Bacchi’s What’s the problem represented to be? (WPR) approach is used in this article to interrogate the way in which welfare was problematised by the UK Coalition government. Findings suggest that the Coalition’s represented reform as necessary to make work pay, with ‘work’ promoted as paid work and unpaid care work (predominantly undertaken by women) ignored. It also highlights the ways in which the Coalition’s promotion of paid work silenced the necessity and value of care, allowing for the implementation of welfare reforms which have disproportionately disadvantaged women and exacerbated gender inequality.

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There is a large part of the population today whose perception of Swedish political parties assumes a pronounced distrust. Often, this mistrust is linked to whether politicians act on the election promises made during the election campaigns. This is a view that opposition parties often encourage through negative criticism during election campaigns and media platforms. The paradox that arises then becomes markedly confusing because research actually shows that parties almost fulfill most of the election promises made. Furthermore, a society characterized by widespread distrust of political activity risks gradually undermining the representative democracy system, which may lead to diminished democratic legitimacy. In the field of research, therefore, there is often talk of making knowledge regarding election promises more accessible to voters, who then may examine political activity more effectively themselves. The study has analyzed the Alliance's and the Social Democrats' election promise fulfillment during the mandate periods 2006-2010 and 2014-2018, through qualitative analysis of the election manifesto and data collection from the Riksdag's website. The aim was to investigate and compare which of these party organizations best achieved good representation during the alternative government periods through clear method choices that could present data in an easily accessible way. The study arrives at a result that shows a balancing election promise fulfillment between the Alliance and the Social Democrats, with a small statistical advantage for the Alliance. It also shows how the Alliance has achieved a slightly better representation by succeeding in fulfilling more election promises in key policy areas that the party organization has given higher priority to during the election campaigns and election manifestos.

This paper draws from Foucauldian understandings of the sociology of the professions to explore legitimacy, identity, and practice in probation after the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms to services in England and Wales. A discourse of ‘professionalism’ was crucial to the Coalition Government’s mobilization of TR; however, the contested nature of the term is rarely acknowledged in a probation context. Based on an ethnographic study of a privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Company, the paper demonstrates how professionalism in probation has been reshaped by punitive, managerial, and rehabilitative ‘adaptations’. It argues that professionalism has been detached from its ideal-typical groundings, becoming a malleable practice of (self-)government which is integral to how probation professionals demonstrate their legitimacy to multiple (and competing) actors in a network of accountability – the state, the public, offenders, adjacent organizations, and, additionally, private providers. Accordingly, appeals to a discourse of professionalism are a source of meaning for staff and a disciplinary mechanism that governs their conduct ‘at a distance’.

В статье рассматривается проблема эффективности борьбы с пандемией в Испании в 2020 году с точки зрения формирования общественного мнения по данному вопросу в испанской прессе на примере публикаций газеты El Mundo. Цель исследования заключается в выявлении влияния на общественное мнение публикаций испанской газеты El Mundo, посвященных вопросу эффективности борьбы с COVID-19. Задачи работы состоят в контент-анализе научной литературы по теме исследования и в последующем изложении методики анализа публикаций газеты El Mundo по темам, касающимся борьбы с пандемией COVID-19: деятельность правительства по борьбе с пандемией, отношения с Европейским союзом в период пандемии, общественные беспорядки в Испании в период пандемии. Методология исследования основана на системном научном подходе и включает в себя методы общенаучной группы (анализ, синтез, сравнение); а также специальные методы: содержательный контент-анализ; метод исторической ретроспекции; метод статистического анализа., The article examines the problem of the fight against the pandemic in Spain in 2020, from the point of view of the formation of public opinion on this issue in the Spanish press on the example of publications of “El Mundo” newspaper. The objective of the study is to identify the impact on public opinion of publications of the Spanish newspaper on the effectiveness of the fight against COVID-19. The tasks of the work are content analysis of scientific literature on the research topic and the subsequent presentation in the methodology for analyzing publications of the newspaper on topics related to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic: government activities to combat the pandemic, relations with the European Union during a pandemic, civil unrest in Spain during the pandemic.

The emergence of a unified state in the Republic of Yemen proceeded unevenly and mainly within the framework of a primitive tribal system. It is noteworthy that until 1962 there was no talk of democracy as such on the territory of this state, since the imamate completely denied the possibility of the functioning of this system. Despite these contradictions, according to a number of researchers, Yemen is one of those political and territorial entities that not only hypothetically demonstrated a predisposition to federalism due to physical-geographical, religious-cultural or socio-economic heterogeneity, but and from time to time they practiced some elements of federalism — even if spontaneously and implicitly. Зарождение единой государственности в Йеменской Республике протекало неравномерно и преимущественно в рамках примитивного племенного строя. Примечательно, что до 1962 г. на территории этого государства речи о демократии как таковой даже не было, т. к. имамат полностью отрицал возможность функционирования такой системы. Несмотря на эти противоречия, как считает ряд исследователей, Йемен принадлежит к числу тех политико-территориальных образований, которые не только гипотетически демонстрировали предрасположенность к федерализму в силу физико-географической, религиозно-культурной или социально-экономической неоднородности, но и время от времени практиковали некоторые элементы федерализма пусть даже стихийно и неявно.

In 2017 an old law recirculated in Germany which illegalized doctors from informing about abortion other than verbally in person. According to previous research on feminist policy change, a removal (liberalization), of the law hinges on: the presence of an autonomous feminist organization, if civil society, norms and a political majority supports the removal. The more of these factors are present the higher the likelihood of liberalization. All these factors were present in the German case but the outcome of the debate and policy process that occurred, a preservation of the law after a one-year long struggle, was highly unexpected. This thesis aims to understand and explain the outcome focussing on the struggle between the confessional and secular government coalition members CDU/CSU and SPD, as the latter, as expected, supported the removal but then unexpectedly voted for preservation. The study is conducted as an abductive explanatory process tracing, concentrates on the factions within the SPD as well as the CDU/CSU throughout the different stages of the process. The main findings are that confessional parties can utilize formal and informal institutions in a parliamentary setting to avoid a substantial liberalization of abortion regulatory laws. The SPD was split on the issue where its leadership, who compromised to keep the government running, overrun the large faction within the party supporting revocation.

The Hungarian coalition government (Fidesz-KDNP), dwarfed by the much larger Fidesz party, has not only dominated the domestic political landscape since 2010 but also embarked on a widespread organ...