June 26, 2009: be there!

On June 26, 2009, we – a group of former and actual collaborators of Hanspeter Kriesi – organize a symposium to promote a prolific exchange amongst distinguished scholars on past achievements and future perspectives in selected areas of research, such as elections and cleavage structures, social movements, comparative political economy, decision-making structures and Swiss politics. Contributors will present topical research from their field of specialization and will discuss their personal approach to meeting the upcoming challenges.

We look forward to contributions by Stefano Bartolini, Giuliano Bonoli, Liesbet Hooghe, Evelyne Huber, Herbert Kitschelt, Ruud Koopmans, Gary Marks, Philippe C. Schmitter, Marco Steenbergen, Jürg Steiner, John D. Stephens, Sidney Tarrow and many guests.

Get more information on the site of the IPZ.

Die Christdemokratie in Westeuropa. Der schmale Grat zum Erfolg.

Für einmal etwas Werbung in eigener Sache: Meine Dissertation über den Erfolg christdemokratischer Parteien ist seit wenigen Tagen im Buchhandel erhältlich.

Bei diesem Buch handelt es sich um eine der wenigen umfassenden, empirisch-vergleichenden  Studien zu christdemokratischen Parteien in Westeuropa, die aufgrund ihrer starken Präsenz in den Parteiensystemen westeuropäischer Länder in den vergangenen 60 Jahren die Politik in Westeuropa maßgeblich mitgeprägt haben. Nach wie vor verfügen sie in vielen Ländern über eine starke Stellung, trotz einer Schwächung ihres traditionellen Wählerpotentials. Anhand empirischer Modelle und Analysen des Wahlkampfverhaltens kann ich aufzeigen, dass ihre Erfolgschancen noch intakt, aber in einem höheren Maße von der Organisation und Führung der Parteien abhängig sind, als dies bei anderen, auf strukturellen Konflikten basierenden Parteien der Fall ist. [Info @ Nomos Verlag]

Background info needed?

The ETH-based International Relations and Security Network (ISN) is the world’s leading open access information service for International Relations and security professionals. It provides a impressive collection of original documents as like country constitutions, legal acts, government papers, research documents and a lot more from all over the world [visit ISN].

What we can learn from media

In consolidated democracies, characterized by programmatic linkages between political actors and the electorate, the today’s key role of media in the political process is to establish and ensure the link between the political supply and demand side. Hence, media represent a rich source for scholars investigating in mechanisms behind the political mobilization. But how can information of programmatic positions be extracted? In this paper, I give an overview of recent theoretical and methodological approaches in the concerned field. A comparison of different widely used measurement techniques shows that results heavily depends on employed techniques. Read more:

• Media as Data Source for the Analysis of Democratic Processes: Theoretical Considerations and Empirical Challenges – Paper presented at University of Mauritius, August, 20th, 2008 [pdf, 297kB]

Why electors participated in Burkina Faso’s presidential election 2005?

Well, this is a little ad for a recent publication of one of our students which merites to be considered:

• Monsch, Gian-Andrea, 2008. “Der Klient und sein Patron – oder warum man in Burkina Faso wählen geht.” CIS Working Paper No. 37, ISSN 1662-7504. [pdf, available online, in german]

Abstract: Monsch analyzes the varying voter turnouts in the 45 provinces of Burkina Faso on the occasion of the presidential elections on the 13th november of 2005. Through a comparative macroanalysis he shows that the force of President Compaore’s patron-clients relations, measured by the total result of his electoral victory, strongly influences the level of the provincial turnout. In addition to this, local poverty, ethnic aliation and geographical proximity to the capital bears on positively the voter turnout.

Afrobarometer II

Afrobarometer data doesn’t cover the whole continent yet, but the collection increases rapidly. But as different research institutes work on that project, you need to run around for obtaining recent updates. Here’s an example: if you’re looking for not aggregated data on Cape Verde which was included in the second round, you’ll find the data actually on the project site of ICPSR at Michigan University.

Demand side in Africa

While there’s a wide range of data available on political attitudes and values in Europe and northern America, very few can be found on african countries. But nevertheless, data exists, for example the Afrobarometer. The Afrobarometer data collection is public,  you just need to fill in a little questionnaire if you like to get access. Check the following link: http://www.afrobarometer.org/

Data on armed conflicts in the world

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program records all armed conflicts – following their definitions – around the world. Data from the Uppsala Conflict Database covers the whole world since 1989 and includes today 122 armed conflicts.

Elections in Africa

	You need electoral results from African countries? Check the African Election Database by Albert C. Nunley, it’s quite complete!
Image: Polling station in a village in southern Mali, legislative elections 2007. Image released under CC-by-sa, 2008, Tim Frey.

Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI)

Other interesting data – conceptually inspired by the transformation theory – provides us the Bertelsmann Foundation with their BTI. Check this discussion on the CRRC-blog and the reference below.

References

• BTI – Detailled data 2008. now available here.
• Schmidt, Siegmar, 2006. “Wie viel Demokratie gibt es in Afrika?” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, APuZ 32-33:2006. This article is online available here.

Data on democratization

Often, students ask me where to find indicators measuring democracy. Hum. Well known and commonly used is the data provided by freedomhouse.org, an US-based NGO. Freedomhouse data are handy, but their operationalization and measuring is sometimes quite rough. An other well known dataset, Tatu Vanhanen’s Polyarchy dataset including Vanhanen’s index of democracy, is much more sophisticated but also more complex. Check the CSCW website to get the original data. Updates and additional data by Lars Wilhelmsen can also be found there.

There are many other datasets available, unfortunately there are only few covering a broader range of countries over a longer timespan. E. g. Schmidt (1997, 264-291; 2000, 539-550) gives a good overview of datasets and indicators on democratization.

References

• Schmidt, Manfred G., 1997. Demokratietheorien, 2. Auflage, Opladen: Leske & Budrich
• Schmidt, Manfred G., 2000 (unveränderter Nachdruck 2006). Demokratietheorien, 3. Auflage, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.