PSR Interviews #21: Perceiving Freedom: Civil Liberties and COVID-19 Vaccinations – Dr Hayley Munir and Dr Syed Rashid Munir

In their research, Hayley Munir and Syed Rashid Munir address the question of why certain countries have experienced greater success in their COVID-19 vaccine rollouts compared to others. As they assert, “civil liberties—especially long histories of protections for civil liberties—complicate the government’s job in two ways regarding vaccine rollouts.” Some factors influencing the vaccine rollout can be related to very deep elements of the social tissue. For instance, as the authors claim, “Groups with conservative religious values in developed democracies had a slower rate of vaccination in comparison with residents of the same area who did not share the conservative ideas.”

The interview is based on the PSR article Perceiving Freedom: Civil Liberties and COVID-19 Vaccinations – Hayley Munir, Syed Rashid Munir, 2023 (sagepub.com)

PSR: Your theory posits that nations with greater civil liberties will experience lower COVID-19 vaccination rates. Could you elaborate on your findings?

Hayley Munir, Syed Rashid Munir: Our hypothesis builds on the observation that economically developed and consolidated democracies had a harder time achieving high vaccination in comparison with less economically developed, authoritarian states. All of the literature on development, regime type, and institutional characteristics leads to the expectation that the former category of states should have been more successful, and yet we did not observe this. To explain this, we suggest that civil liberties – especially long histories of protections for civil liberties – complicate the government’s job in two ways regarding vaccine rollouts. First, they imbibe within the citizenry a sense of freedom from government overreach, which allows them to resist directives they perceive to be insufficiently inclusive or transparent. Second, institutional regard for civil liberties also ties the governments’ hands: they cannot simply force their citizens to follow their orders. These two mechanisms combine together to produce the result.

Have datasets you analysed confirmed this hypothesis? If so, to what extent?

Yes, we have seen promising empirical evidence so far, even though the data is fairly limited with regard to its time coverage. We set a cut-off date of November 2021 and measured vaccination rates from the first availability of COVID-19 vaccines until the cutoff. Improvements in technology and data collection allow for such analysis, and we are currently working on extending our idea and findings since more data has become available now.

We suggest that civil liberties – especially long histories of protections for civil liberties – complicate the government’s job in two ways regarding vaccine rollouts.

What are the additional variables that can influence the proportion of a population that is vaccinated?

One factor that we could not satisfactorily include in our analysis is the role of misinformation around government policy in general and COVID-19 vaccines in particular. Access to the internet could be one reasonable proxy, but it would require abstractions in the theory that we did not think were suitable. Prevalence of alternative sources of media – somewhat tied to internet access – could be a more definitive way to capture this effect, but empirical data in this regard is still quite new. Beyond that, there might be other group-level dynamics and socio-cultural factors at play; for instance, we observed that groups with conservative religious values in developed democracies had a slower rate of vaccination in comparison with residents of the same area who did not share the conservative ideas. We expect this pattern to be present in less-developed countries, too.

Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/flag-coronavirus-covid-19-uk-5201916/

What about the countries with only a slight difference in levels of civil liberties? For instance: the UK vs Poland. The average number of vaccinated people is significantly much higher in the UK (93%)[1], compared to Poland (62% – the first dose)[2]. The same applies to civil liberties (UK 93/100, Poland 81/100, according to Freedom House)[3]. What other variables could have influenced such a result?

We know that the UK government was pretty forceful in its demand for citizens to be vaccinated, so directed government campaigns could be one explanation. It is entirely possible that the Polish government was also vocal in its efforts, but such efforts are not easily observable due to a language barrier. Furthermore, it could be that social elites other than politicians (religious leaders, for instance) could play a role in vaccine uptake. This effect could be expected to be more pronounced in more conservative countries, such as Poland.

Would there be any policy implications that follow from your analyses?

One major implication is that civil liberties – a most cherished feature of democracies – can become a hurdle in the way of policy efficacy in crisis situations. This does not mean that we ought to do away with civil liberties in such extenuating circumstances, but only that they can be an additional constraint on state policy. Beyond just COVID, other crises like natural disasters also require governments to respond quickly and effectively, but we typically do not see opposition regarding government efforts to provide welfare. With pandemics in the current day and age, however, we have seen that politics can become a causal factor towards predicting citizen response. For the future, governments ought to keep this hurdle in mind.

We observed that groups with conservative religious values in developed democracies had a slower rate of vaccination in comparison with residents of the same area who did not share the conservative ideas.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

We started out trying to address two specific grievances. First, Political Scientists were not addressing the effect of the pandemic towards their theories. Some of this was related to timing and data availability, but reasonable theoretical conjectures could still have been made. This had the expected result of explanations regarding political behavior being sidelined in discussions regarding the pandemic. Second, we wanted to show how state leaders, health officials, and media were missing the `political’ side of things. In other words, while there was wide-ranging consensus about the need for safety and vaccinations, efforts to promote the same were being met with resistance. Typical explanations centred around health infrastructure, economic development, literacy rate, etc. failed to account for this behavioral anomaly, and we think that political explanations have a central role here.

ABOUT

Hayley Munir is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Science at the Illinois State University. She specializes in law and courts.

Syed Rashid Munir is a Political Scientist doing research on domestic sources of foreign policy. I am presently serving as an Assistant Professor of Politics at LUMS, and have previously served as an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Forman Christian College University (FCCU) and as a Lecturer at the University of Management and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan.

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR Interviews #20: Professor Matthew Flinders, Democratic Decline and the Politics of the Upswing

Political science is more important than ever before, but it may need to be slightly more nimble and agile — passionate, dare I say. Where’s the passion in political science?” asks Professor Matthew Flinders. “I think to some extent, what political science has allowed to happen is almost to take the passion and emotion out of the subject, which leaves you with an empty vessel” – he adds. In this interview discussing his reflections on Robert Putnam’s book, “The Upswing: How We Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again(co-authored with Shaylyn Romney Garrett), Professor Flinders delves into the evolving landscape of political science and its implications. Putnam’s book serves as a gateway to a broader discussion on US politics, societal progress, engaged scholarship, the significance of the ‘so what’ question, and the future of political science.

The interview is based on the PSR article Democratic Decline and the Politics of the Upswing: How the United States May Have Come Together a Century Ago but Can It Do It Again? – Matthew Flinders, 2022 (sagepub.com)

PSR: In ‘The Upswing,’ Robert Putnam, with Shayla Romney Garrett, describes the American shift from the individualist, self-centred ‘I’ society to a more communitarian, socially conscious ‘We’ society. What are the major characteristics of this phase of U.S. history?

Prof Matthew Flinders: Every fantastic book is actually very simple. The best scholarship has a very simple argument. It’s clean, it’s a sharp focus. And the focus of this book is simple, it’s that we have moved from a ‘We’ society to a ‘Me’ society. We’ve moved from a very collective-eye society to a highly individualised and fragmented society.

The argument is that America went through a transition before where it recognized that the balance between the Me and the We had gone too far and it proactively and collectively introduced policies through the political system to shift the balance back towards a fairer, more egalitarian, more equal society. The high point in this argument is the 1960s. But then it has lost it, and the balance has gone once again too far.

There are a couple of things that are interesting about this book. First, on the one hand, this is a book about American politics and history.  On the other hand, it’s not a book about American politics at all. Actually, the broader, macro-political themes and issues that the book identifies are visible around the world in different forms, different contexts, and different textures. But essentially: concern about democratic disaffection, falling levels of trust, high levels of social inequality, increasing fragmentation, democratic dissatisfaction, backswing, backsliding, pitchfork politics, whatever you want to call it. You can see this in many parts of the world. So, there are strong comparative insights from this detailed analysis of American politics. And I think those comparative insights are still there to be fully drawn out.

A second, really interesting issue is that the book was written and submitted to the publisher before Donald Trump became president. In fact, that’s fascinating in many ways (I don’t know if Robert is thinking about doing this), but there needs to be an updated Upswing with the new chapter, which is the Trump years. It just seems that in many ways all of the issues about the ‘We’ collective to the individualisticMe‘ and many of the broader socio-political things that he’s warning against came to a head with the populism of Donald Trump. And yet, the book was finished just before, probably the strongest evidence in favour of his whole thesis happened. So, in that way, The Upswing was pointing towards an emerging pathology that came to its head after the book was published.

You also mentioned that the vision of a ‘We’ society described in the book sometimes downplays the extent of discrimination on various levels. Could you elaborate on that?

I think that’s one of the interesting elements that Robert Putnam and Shayla Romney are working on within certain datasets and they highlight social progress in key areas: education, equality, housing, and culture. And this allows them to design and offer an incredibly simplistic pattern. It’s as if the data, no matter what the topic, show this arc of social progress: growing, growing, growing from the first half of the 20th century, peaking in the 60s and then rapidly falling away. Essentially Putnam is arguing that we need to go back up against progressive politics, interventions, and the role of the state in creating a more equal society.

Now, the slight problem, or the slight issue which other people have now recognized, as in some ways the arc of social progress that Putnam offers is too neat. It’s too simple. Not only the themes that he looks at, there were peaks and troughs throughout the 20th century, but also throughout the whole 20th century. There were areas where certain social groups did feel marginalized and didn’t feel taken into account by the progressive politics that Putnam is essentially praising.

That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t huge social progress, but it means the arc of social progress wasn’t as inclusive as Putnam suggests. And in some ways, the 1960s is almost seen as this golden Age of American Society. And of course, the end of the 1960s is known as being around social protests about race, gender and war. It was a time of complete upheaval in American politics by social groups who felt completely overlooked. Now, thinking aloud, Robert Putnam may well suggest yes, but those protests, those interventions, were themselves based on other cultural and educational games that put the foundations in place for that protest.

But overall, the arc is slightly too neat.  And doesn’t quite capture some of the variations in texture and tone and some of the big elements of American Society that didn’t feel part of the gain of the 20th century. And in fact, if you look at some determinants of social and political inequality, they have increased and are increasing, and have increased since that book was published. So, I think what’s interesting, and I don’t want to get too academic on this, but you might say that a macro-political level Robert Putnam’s thesis might be broadly correct.

However, if you were to apply a slightly more fine-grained, mid-level meso-level analysis, I think you would find higher levels of variation which doesn’t really get picked up in the discussion. But again, (and this is a broader issue for political science) I would say Robert Putnam is not a political scientist as such. Robert Putnam has moved into a position where he is a rare breed of political science/ public intellectual.

This is a man who speaks to presidents regularly. This is a man who’s heavily involved in Community Action and trying to change politics. So, this is a book that I think isn’t written purely for an academic audience. It’s written to be read by a wider audience within and beyond academia. And that might explain why some of the more detailed micro-political, methodological issues are not explored in the detail that maybe members of the academic community would like.

Throughout the whole 20th century, there were areas where certain social groups did feel marginalized and didn’t feel taken into account by the progressive politics that, that Putnam is essentially praising. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t huge social progress, but it means the arc of social progress wasn’t as inclusive as Putnam suggests.

Can we say that Putnam’s book is a critique of neoliberal policies?

For me the most interesting element of the book and where if I were to say there was the book provides a foundation for more work to be done. Or if I was talking to Robert Putnam, having a cup of tea and saying, you know, great book, what about X? It would be: the book has a long title. It’s The Upswing. How America Became Great or Solved Social Issues, And How It Can Do It Again. So, what’s interesting about the book is it isn’t designed to be just a historical analysis. It’s designed and explicitly about how we’ve done it before in history. History offers lessons on how we can make the art go back up again. What’s really interesting about the book is: that it is about 250 to 300 pages long, of the main chapters, 95% are historical analyses of the past. And to be honest yes, you could see it as a criticism of neoliberalism, but we don’t really need more criticisms of neoliberalism. It’s sort of some extent what political science has been doing for a long time.

The interesting part for me was what can be done, which is squeezed into about 20 pages of the book.  And is also fairly broad apple pie, sort of we’ve got to get together. We’ve got to find new solutions. It isn’t actually detailed technical policy prescriptions and for me, that was the interesting element that a book that is set up that we’ve done it before. We can learn from history. We can procreate an upswing. It almost takes you to the brink of an intellectual cliff. And you want to jump off and you get there. And you’re left hanging. Because actually that last bit of what should be done it’s nowhere near substantive or detailed. And for me, that’s a really interesting question, not just about why those more solution-orientated content isn’t there because none of these issues are easy. But, there is a broader issue here that Putnam is suggesting that we can learn from history. We can learn about what happened between 1900 and 1910, and we can take those insights and lessons. He talks about investigative journalists and the muckrakers and the role they played in politics.

You could see it as a criticism of neoliberalism, but we don’t really need more criticisms of neoliberalism. It’s sort of some extent what political science has been doing for a long time. The interesting part for me was the and what can be done.

But we’re talking about the 21st century. We’re talking about an age now of Internet social media, algorithmic governance, and globalisation. I’m not wholly convinced that actually, the lessons from the 20th century are going to provide us with insights for the 21st century. Just because the pace of socio-political change and technology has moved, I made some rather terribly cliched statements that the book is on a carthorse and now we’re on the information superhighway. But the scope of change is so massive. I’m just not convinced that we can automatically say because we’ve done it again, we’ve done it in the past. We can do it again.

And coming back to reinforcing inequalities: you mentioned Donald Trump and his presidency. How has it influenced the quality in the US society, also in the context of The Upswing?

There is an obvious link between the, in many ways, declining arc of social progress that Putnam followed up until around, I think his data goes up to the mid-1999 or something like that. In many ways, what Trump has done now, if you were to carry on the data was that the dip today has gone far lower than Putnam even thought it would have done.

In many ways, again, I think what’s interesting is that populism is itself a reaction against sections of the community that feel lost, vulnerable, dejected, peripheral, and overwhelmed. They don’t support the populist strongman. They often feel they don’t have any choice. It’s almost a protest vote to make those more mainstream parties take notice of a broader constituency. So, in many ways, Trump funnelled and inflamed frustrations for his own benefit. Those in many ways came ahead in the assault on Capitol Hill itself.  But I do think what’s interesting now, and I know Donald Trump thinks that he may have a second crack at the Presidency, is that if you look at current data in America about what are their key political issues and concerns, what’s fascinating is the economy is still #1. But #2 is the health of democracy. So, I think a really interesting legacy effect, which might be slightly more positive, is that a lot of Americans now realise that democracy, faith in democracy, participation and listening not just talking, are aspects of democracy that are far more fragile than they ever really understood.

Now, whether that legacy effect of alerting people to the fragility of democracy will last or have some practical value in the next elections, I’m not sure. But it is fascinating. In opinion polls at the moment, constitutional democratic issues would never really be up there as a list of key concerns. It’s right up at the moment in a post-Trump context.

What I think is interesting is that in many ways, political science doesn’t have a choice. Research funding for the discipline will increasingly require political scientists to demonstrate or provide an answer to the so what question.

So, can this book be considered a part of solution-orientated political science? What would be – in your opinion – the implications of this book for the condition of political science in general?

What I think is really interesting at the moment is that Universities and higher education academics are increasingly expected to work in a different context. That is a context where their work is expected to have some – not direct, not simplistic – but it’s able to have some relevance, potentially some impact beyond academia. I know, and I completely understand that many academics don’t agree with this agenda. And actually, I’ve just written a big piece which is actually about the importance of political science and whether political science should reject the impact agenda. Putting that to one side, what I think is interesting is that in many ways, political science doesn’t have a choice. Research funding for the discipline will increasingly require political scientists to demonstrate or provide an answer to the so what question. And for too long, political science didn’t have an answer to the so what question. That’s it,  simple.

If you’re going to have public money, you need to have an explanation that you can give to anybody beyond the academic arena as to why your research should have public funding. And I think that what’s interesting about Putnam’s book is it demonstrates that there is a big public demand in public appetite out there for what I call engaged scholarship.

Putnam’s work is based on absolutely top-class political science. But it is translated and written for a more engaged mass public audience. Of course, there are many other political scientists, and social scientists who are very good at doing this sort of work. Hochschild’s book Strangers In Their Own Land around why American voters in the Deep South find Trump attractive. I’m not on commission, but Hochschild’s book is the most beautiful book that has been read by a massive audience within and beyond academia.

So, I think the importance of Putting’s book is it demonstrates that writing for a public audience doesn’t have to involve dumbing down your scholarship. In fact, I think that in many areas political science suffers. And particularly the social sciences suffer from a cultural barrier which says: if this work is readable and accessible to a broad audience, it can’t be real scholarship. And the truth is, as I said before, if you look at all the strongest, most seminal books in political science, they share a common issue: a simple, concise argument, accessible, flowing, coherent, and readable. And too much political science still is teched up, verbose, and beyond the understanding of all but the four or five people in that tiny subfield that read that work.

Now, I think things are changing. I think younger early career researchers, want to engage, they’ve got a passion for engaging. But the problem is the incentive structure within political science still has a very narrow academic currency. Whether you get a job or whether you get promoted is based on how much external research you can bring in and your peer-reviewed academic publications. Now again, people will say “Oh, that’s changing”, and it is changing, but it is changing very slowly. Because universities and higher education tend to be very risk-averse.

And I think until there is an opportunity for political science to almost cease the impact agenda and redefine what relevance is, and why the discipline therefore matters. In a sense, this is what Putnam’s book does show – that you might argue, looking around the world today, that there’s been no time when an engaged, vibrant political science was more needed in society. To help people understand some of the clashes, challenges, arguments and truths, alternative truths and fake news that’s out there. It doesn’t mean telling people what’s right or wrong. But it’s about engaging with different publics, and different communities in different ways to help them have the tools and frameworks to think for themselves more deeply about that increasingly fluid, loud and polarised context in which they’re living. So, in a sense, political science is more important than ever before, but it may need to be slightly more nimble and agile. Passionate, dare I say. I mean, where’s the passion in political science? When’s the last time anybody read a journal article and came away thinking: Blimey, that really fired me up with an interest in an area?

So in a sense, political science is more important than ever before, but it may need to be slightly more nimble and agile. Passionate dare I say. I mean where’s the passion in political science?

I read something that I had completely not thought of before. I mean, maybe people can write to me and say that they’ve read those pieces, but a lot of academics would say to me: Oh, politics study is not supposed to be passionate. It’s supposed to be technical, sophisticated, scientific. I don’t believe that politics is about emotions. It’s about relationships. And I think to some extent, what political science has allowed to happen is almost to take the passion and emotion out of the subject, which leaves you with an empty vessel.



When it comes to engagement and the ever-pressing “so what” question, some researchers emphasise that engagement can lead to a pitfall, as sometimes it means focusing on negative processes and phenomena, and it often does not bring expected effects. What’s the solution in such a case?

And then what’s really good is that there is a new strand of what’s called positive political science. This is exactly on studying success in politics, what can we learn from success instead of always studying failure where we can find success, how can we scale up, scale out, and scale down?

First of all, I think that political science has got very much hung up on problem-focused analysis. We know what most of the problems are, what we actually need is more solution-orientated political science. Now, a lot of people again will say “No, that’s not the job of political science”, but I think there is space to do both problem and solution-orientated. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. And then what’s really good is that there is a new strand of what’s called positive political science, particularly within the governance and public administration sphere led by scholars, at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and this is exactly on studying success in politics, what can we learn from success instead of always studying failure where we can find success. How can we scale up, scale-out, and scale down?

But again, there is a danger that a political science that only ever studies and promotes examples of failure, blunders, disasters, etcetera. It just becomes part of a broader negativity which fires up a politics of pessimism amongst the public. So, in a sense, I’m not calling for the political scientist to be naively positive, but it is to at least acknowledge, that many governments around the world got many things wrong. But there were also examples of where things went well and where we might learn positive lessons for building up resilience for the future.

MORE

Democratic Decline and the Politics of the Upswing: How the United States May Have Come Together a Century Ago but Can It Do It Again? – Matthew Flinders, 2022 (sagepub.com)

Listen to the full interview: PSR Interviews #20: Professor Matthew Flinders, Democratic Decline and the Politics of the Upswing – YouTube

ABOUT

Matthew Flinders is Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre and Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. He is also Vice President of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom and is currently Chair of the Universities Policy Engagement Network.

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR Interviews #19: Nightly News or Nightly Jokes? News Parody as a Form of Political Communication: A Review of the Literature – Caroline V. Leicht

“Research has found that citizens in the United States are more likely to turn to late-night comedy programs than to national newspapers for their election news. As we continue to observe these phenomena, it is increasingly more important to expand the research agenda as well” – claims Caroline V. Leicht. In this interview, based on the research article Nightly News or Nightly Jokes? News Parody as a Form of Political Communication: A Review of the Literature, Leicht elaborates on the consequences of the increasing popularity of political satire, gender stereotypes and US Politics.

PSR: In your PSR article, you argued that for some people, political satire is not only entertainment but also a source of political information. How widespread is this phenomenon?

Caroline V. Leicht: In the United States, it is certainly a widespread phenomenon. Political satire is a key element of the US-American entertainment industry. Programs like Saturday Night Live (SNL) have been on the air for almost 50 years and more recently, news parody shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report or Last Week Tonight have had wide success as they rose to prominence in the age of social media where content is spread more rapidly and more widely. The jokes and humour on these programs are highly political; however, it is not just a means to make fun of politics but also a means to provide political commentary and contextualization. In a way, it can help in making political processes and issues more accessible to viewers. A prominent example that comes to mind is John Oliver’s segment on Last Week Tonight about Net Neutrality in which he explains the issue in more depth and provides the background that citizens would need to engage in informed discourse about the topic. And there are many other examples like this. As I detail in my PSR article, studies have shown that there are real learning effects associated with watching these types of programs. In addition to this, research has found that citizens in the United States are more likely to turn to late-night comedy programs than to national newspapers for their election news. As we continue to observe these phenomena, it is increasingly more important to expand the research agenda as well. In my PhD project, I examine the role of gender in political satire representations of candidates, a subject that I believe is immensely important for this research area but has unfortunately remained substantially unexplored to date.

You argue that “Research has shown that these programs have real effects on political attitudes and candidate evaluations”. How does political satire affect its audiences? How can political satire programmes influence political behaviours or electoral behaviours?

In my PSR article, I identified three key strands of the literature that reflect the different types of audience effects: political knowledge acquisition, political attitudes, and political participation. First, research has found that political satire programs like The Daily Show feature substantive information about politics that is comparable to traditional news media, and experimental studies have confirmed that exposure to political satire can lead to higher levels of political knowledge. Second, the literature on political satire suggests that this media format can affect issue salience and candidate evaluations. We know that news media have the power to set the agenda for their respective audience, making some political issues or characteristics of political actors more salient than others through editorial decisions and filtering. The same is true for political satire, so the issues or versions of politicians presented in these programs could become more salient for audience members. And third, prior research has found that political satire can mobilize its viewers politically, for instance through calls to action. Political participation is often measured through voting, but a slightly different “real world example” that comes to mind is the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” organized by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in 2010, just a few weeks before the midterm elections in the US that year. Over 200,000 people turned out for this rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC – that certainly shows that political satire can mobilize audience members politically and in the real world. Taking these three types of audience effects into account and considering the similarities with more traditional news media, it just becomes even clearer that political satire is a media format that should receive more research attention in political science.

We know that news media have the power to set the agenda for their respective audience, making some political issues or characteristics of political actors more salient than others through editorial decisions and filtering. The same is true for political satire, so the issues or versions of politicians presented in these programs could become more salient for audience members.

In your recent research, you’ve undertaken an impressive analysis of SNL sketches from the 2016 election cycle, referring to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Could you elaborate on the conceptual framework of this research, as well as on your latest research on the 2020 Democratic Primaries?

We know that citizens turn to political satire for election news, and we know that political satire can have real effects on its audiences; however, there are still significant gaps in the research on political satire. The literature has thus far been primarily concerned with audience effects studies, the format of news parody shows, and partisanship as a mediating factor. In my PhD research, I thus decided to address these limitations by exploring the role of gender as a mediating factor for candidate representations and focusing on an understudied genre of political satire, namely sketch comedy. My current paper combines frameworks from the research on gendered media representations and political satire to make a novel theoretical and methodological contribution to the field. Role congruity theory and gendered framing built the basis for my research questions and hypotheses as I wanted to test whether the gender stereotypes and biases that have been observed in traditional news media are also present in political satire. Understanding these gendered representations of candidates is important because it provides insights into how voters perceive political processes and actors, particularly if we take into account that political satire has effects on candidate evaluations. To test my hypotheses, I examined all Saturday Night Live sketches about the 2016 and 2020 Democratic Primaries and general elections, using a mixed-methods approach consisting of content analysis – for which I developed a comprehensive coding scheme – and framing analysis.

Saturday Night Show highlights: Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, and Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton, Creative Commons License

What kind of gendered stereotypes were the most visible in your research?

It is still a working paper, so the results are preliminary, but the initial results reflect observations from studies of more traditional news media. Female candidates were often framed through more personal characteristics or relationships. For instance, sketches about Hillary Clinton often referenced her husband, former President Bill Clinton. In 2020, Kamala Harris was often portrayed as a maternal figure. An example of this is the SNL sketch about the first presidential debate: Harris (played by Maya Rudolph) enters the stage and tells Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) and Joe Biden (Jim Carrey) to calm down, apologize for their rowdy debate behaviour, and then says she has snacks for them backstage for after the debate. She even refers to herself as “Momala” which is what the real Harris’ stepchildren call her. My initial results indicate that the male candidates were more likely to be framed through issues and policy proposals than the female candidates. So far, the results reflect a number of “typical” gendered stereotypes and show that representations and framing of candidates in political satire are indeed gendered. This is an important observation to make as it helps in tracing the origins of gendered biases observed in political processes and voting behaviours: Voters who watched the SNL sketches will have been exposed to gendered representations of the candidates as well as framing mediated by gender stereotypes, and this could influence their candidate evaluations.

What were the major differences in portraying the three analysed candidates in terms of masculine and feminine traits?

For my study, I built on existing works on gendered traits to categorize the SNL characterizations of the candidates. As an example of initial results: In the 2016 general election, Hillary Clinton was often characterized as “assertive” or as a “leader”, both of which are categorized as masculine traits in the coding instrument. A possible explanation for this portrayal could be that the real Clinton was “performing” a political leadership role as the presidential candidate and political leadership roles are still regarded in more masculine terms, as research has shown. We know that gendered characterizations of candidates have been observed in traditional news media coverage, so my results could be evidence that SNL is comparable to news media in this way. This would link back to what we talked about earlier: That political satire is comparable to traditional news media in several ways and therefore warrants more research attention as a political information source

My initial results indicate that the male candidates were more likely to be framed through issues and policy proposals than the female candidates. So far, the results reflect a number of “typical” gendered stereotypes and show that representations and framing of candidates in political satire are indeed gendered.

Can you think of any examples of political satire sketches/ shows reflecting on recent political turmoil, for instance in Ukraine or Iran?  

Political satire does not always have to be something to laugh about, and I think certainly with the examples you mention, there is nothing funny about them at all. But political satire, at its core, is about speaking truth to power and about reflecting opinions, discourse or the mood of a given audience. And we can definitely observe this in the examples you mentioned. For instance, the Saturday after Russia invaded Ukraine, SNL did a very somber yet also political cold open. They had the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York perform “Prayer for Ukraine”. No wigs, no costumes, no jokes – just a somber two-minute song. I think that really captured the mood at the time. A few weeks later, SNL opened with a sketch about a fictional “Fox News Ukrainian Invasion Celebration Spectacular” in which Tucker Carlson (played by Alex Moffat) and Laura Ingraham (Kate McKinnon) “apologize” for previous comments in support of Russia and then proceed to host guests like Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) to raise money for “the real victims of this invasion, the oligarchs.” The sketch does not make fun of the war, but rather offers a critique of media coverage, the focus on the war’s effect on oligarchs, and politicians’ statements. That is certainly something we can observe for these types of political topics, like the war in Ukraine or the current turmoil in Iran: Political satire offers critiques of news media coverage, critiques of international responses and politicians’ actions or lack thereof.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

As I outlined before, my research addresses gaps in the current literature on political satire. There was a bit of a trend for more political satire research around the 2008 and 2012 US elections, but there is still a lot that has not been explored. The research has thus far been focused primarily on news parody shows, audience effects and partisanship. My PhD research, including my current paper which we talked about earlier, instead focuses on sketch comedy, an understudied genre of political satire, and examines the role of gender in candidate representations. My current paper combines and builds on frameworks from different sub-fields and introduces a comprehensive coding scheme for the content analysis of sketches, thus making a novel theoretical and methodological contribution to the field as well. We know that citizens use political satire programs as news sources, so it is important that we, as researchers, consider these programs news sources as well and direct more research attention to this media format. Gendered representations and framing of candidates can lead to biases in voter perceptions and can affect voting behaviour. So, it is vital to understand these biases in the coverage, examine when and how they appear, and how they are perceived by audiences. And that is precisely what I am doing in my PhD research.

MORE

Leicht, C. V. (2022). Nightly News or Nightly Jokes? News Parody as a Form of Political Communication: A Review of the LiteraturePolitical Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221100339

ABOUT

Caroline V Leicht received her MA from the University of Liverpool and is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on political satire as a form of political communication in electoral contexts in the United States.

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR Interviews #18: Far-Right Local Governments and Civil Society: Findings from France and Italy – Seongcheol Kim

“The rise of far-right parties across Europe and their entrance into government at the local, if not regional or national, levels pose challenges for established civil society actors”, – writes Dr Seongcheol Kim ( Far-Right Local Governments and Civil Society: Findings from France and Italy – Seongcheol Kim, 2023 (sagepub.com). He analyses early findings from an ongoing research project based on two case studies of far-right local governments in small industrial towns in France and Italy: Hayange and Sant’Agata Bolognese. In this interview, Dr Kim provides insights into his research design and on how far-right parties influence civil society.

PSR: You suggest that a trend of “far-right parties making increasingly visible attempts to appeal to the world of labour and trade unions” is quite a new phenomenon. What are the roots of this process?

Dr Seongcheol Kim: As I write at the beginning of the introduction, this is hardly a new phenomenon. Parties like Vlaams Blok in Belgium and Front National in France openly courted organised labour with their May Day events in the mid-1990s. In Italy, the history of this courting goes much longer, not only with the experience of fascist corporatism but also the fact that the postwar Movimiento Sociale Italiano had its own trade union front, the CISNAL. When the MSI became Alleanza Nazionale, CISNAL turned into UGL, which is still the fourth largest trade union centre in Italy and has closely cooperated with Matteo Salvini’s Lega in recent years. In France, too, one could draw a longer arc with the long history of yellow unionism, which also fed into the pro-Pétain “Chartist” tendencies during the Second World War and provided a basis for the right-wing to far-right “independent unions” that developed a significant presence in parts of the automotive sector in postwar France.

In the context of Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Salvini’s Lega, you discussed mainstreaming far-right politics. Could you clarify the meaning of this concept?

There is a sizable literature around the mainstreaming thesis, which I refer to in the paper. Scholars like Aurélien Mondon have shown how the FN (later RN) has come to take on an agenda-setting function in French politics, with governments of the centre-left and centre-right vying to outbid each other on issues like law and order and immigration. Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign and numerous measures taken by the Valls government were cases in point. But while the FN/RN has been consistently excluded from coalitions by other parties, the far right in Italy has been much more integrated into centre-right alliances since the mid-1990s, ever since Silvio Berlusconi formed an electoral bloc with Alleanza Nazionale for the 1994 elections. Notably, the Lega under Umberto Bossi eschewed a radical right image at the time but ultimately joined Forza Italia and AN in government (contrary to Bossi’s pre-election promise of “never with the fascists”). Even though that first coalition government was short-lived, the three-party setup has lasted with shifting accents up to the present, with Fratelli d’Italia taking up the post-fascist mantle in recent years and the Lega under Salvini having turned into an overtly radical right party.

In both cases, it seems clear that far-right local administrations are not interested in wooing established local trade unions with their deep roots in the industrial history of each region.

You analyse interviews conducted in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Poland, focusing on two towns in France and Italy. What was the rationale behind that selection and your research design?

The six-country study was on far-right actors in the workplace with a focus on the automotive industry, featuring a case study of a factory in each country. The exploratory research design was based on a diverse-case selection geared toward examining a wide-ranging universe of national contexts to allow for an initial mapping out of far-right strategies at the workplace level, which was a novel contribution to the literature beyond the single-country studies that have been done previously. Within this wider research project, which was published as a book titled The Far Right in the Workplace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), the Early Results article focuses on two towns in (or near) which the factory case studies for France and Italy were located, which were also selected due to the local context of far-right mayors who have been re-elected with overwhelming shares of the vote: Fabien Engelmann (FN/RN) in Hayange and Giuseppe Vicinelli (independent, later Lega) in Sant’Agata. 

Political rally in Rome, source: Flickr, FRANCO600D

How have European far-right parties generally affected trade unions and civil society actors at the local level in the countries you analysed?

This varies a lot across countries and localities, and it goes beyond the scope of this research. In the book, too, we examined the local level only in certain factory case studies where far-right actors of various stripes held the mayoralty, most notably in France, Hungary, and Italy. In France and Italy, the local contexts in Hayange and Sant’Agata Bolognese had some similarities as small industrial towns governed by the far-right after decades of left-wing rule (more so in Sant’Agata, with the Bologna area being the historical stronghold par excellence of the Italian Communist Party, whereas the Moselle region in which Hayange is located has always been more mixed). In Hungary, the situation is different altogether because Jobbik came to power in Dunaújváros and Eger (the two towns we examined) in alliance with centre-left parties as part of anti-Fidesz coalitions. Notably, trade unions and civil society practitioners in Hayange and Sant’Agata observed in the interviews a deterioration in relations with the local administration after the far right won the mayoralty, which I discuss in the article.

What were the more specific patterns you have uncovered in the case of small industrial towns in France and Italy, such as Hayange and Sant’Agata Bolognese?

A striking similarity between Hayange and Sant’Agata is the coexistence of two faces: on the one hand, the far-right-led town hall cultivates a caring image with highly visible measures for improving or prettifying the local infrastructure; on the other hand, there is a far-right politics of suppressing by various means (including financial pressure) civil society initiatives deemed unpalatable, such as left-wing cultural or charity associations. This latter aspect is even more pronounced in Hayange, which has gained notoriety for the town hall’s union-busting and the annual pork festival as a form of cultural exclusion of the town’s Muslim minority. It should be noted, however, that these experiences are hard to generalize even within these countries. Engelmann has always been something of a special case due to his left-wing past and the vindictive anti-trade unionism that he has become known for in office. With the RN winning mayoralties in larger towns like Perpignan in the south, more systematic analyses will be needed across localities and regions. The same goes for the Lega, with its wider reach in terms of holding executive office at the local and regional levels, including in cities such as Ferrara (where, anecdotally speaking, there are similar accounts as those encountered in Sant’Agata).

A striking similarity between Hayange and Sant’Agata is the coexistence of two faces: on the one hand, the far-right-led town hall cultivates a caring image with highly visible measures for improving or prettifying the local infrastructure; on the other hand, there is a far-right politics of suppressing by various means (including financial pressure) civil society initiatives deemed unpalatable, such as left-wing cultural or charity associations

What are the most significant strategies used by far-right politicians to approach trade unions at the local level?  

When it comes to trade unions specifically, the strategy in Sant’Agata seems to be more about bypassing or ignoring the trade unions to the extent possible, whereas Hayange has gotten considerable notoriety with reports in national-level media about widespread harassment of trade unionists in the public sector. In both cases, it seems clear that far-right local administrations are not interested in wooing established local trade unions with their deep roots in the industrial history of each region. Another question is to what extent far-right local governments try to form alternative (yellow) unions or analogous administration-friendly initiatives in civil society from their positions of power. While there are not so many clear-cut indications of this in the two cases examined, this is a question that deserves more systematic investigation across contexts.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

It bears emphasizing that this is an Early Results article, but even so, I think it provides numerous insights into how far-right parties govern in these two industrial towns and their relations to civil society. The interplay of a performatively enacted claim to serve the entire community with public goods on the one hand and the exclusion of undesirable elements of civil society on the other is a notable finding and may help us to understand the success of these far-right local administrations in getting re-elected on overwhelming majorities after their initially surprising victories with razor-thin margins in 2014. There is certainly a lot of potentials here for more wide-ranging comparative research on the basis of these results, both within the two countries in question and beyond.

ABOUT

Dr Seongcheol Kim is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Kassel and a visiting researcher in the Center for Civil Society Research at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. His research is centred on the application of post-foundational discourse theory for the study of party politics from a comparative European perspective, especially concerning nationalism, populism, and radical democracy.

MORE

Kim, S. (2023). Far-Right Local Governments and Civil Society: Findings from France and Italy. Political Studies Review21(1), 183–189. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221079990

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR Interviews #17: Two and a Half Crises: Serbian Institutional Design as the Cause of Democratic Declines – Dušan Spasojević

As Dr Dušan Spasojević writes in his PSR Article  Two and a Half Crises: Serbian Institutional Design as the Cause of Democratic Declines: “On 5 October 2000, hundreds of thousands gathered in front of the Serbian parliament to pressure President Slobodan Milošević to accept the victory of the opposition candidate Vojislav Koštunica. Serbia was about to start its democratic transition after 10 years of Milošević’s authoritarian rule. Exactly 20 years later, Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić announced that his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) would form the government after successful negotiation with coalition partners. The SNS won 188 of 250 MPs. Future coalition partners added an additional 56 MPs to the majority, leaving only six MPs in the opposition. There are no other opposition representatives in the parliament because they boycotted the elections due to a lack of conditions for a free and fair process. It seems like a wasted 20 years.” In this interview, Dr Spasojević describes major challenges to the political system in Serbia.  

PSR: How would you characterise the current political regime in Serbia?

Dr Dušan Spasojević: The current regime in Serbia can be described as semi-presidentialism or premier-presidentialism; however, due to strong authoritarian tendencies in the last years (after 2016) and the general decline of democratic standards, the regime has become more personalised and presidentialized. This change’s fundamental mechanism is based on the fact that Aleksandar Vučić simultaneously occupies the position of the state and party president position. Furthermore, his party, the SNS, is a predominant party with divided, atomised, and marginalised opposition. On top of that, weak institutions, especially those that should produce checks and balances and executive oversight, cannot contain the power of the most popular leader. Therefore, the actual power is not in the hands of Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, who should be the key figure according to the constitution, but in Vučić hands, and they are not even trying to hide it. Vučić is perceived and presented as the decision maker, and he often directly orders ministries what to do and provides solutions.

What unique features does this version of semi-presidentialism have?

Serbia had a long tradition of semi-presidentialism, at least for post-communist state standards, as it was introduced at the beginning of the transition and party pluralism. The key features were not changed over time, although the president’s position is slightly weaker in the new constitution (2006), compared to the first one (1990). The interesting dynamic comes from the intersection between political and electoral systems – Serbia uses proportional representation with only one electoral district and no preferential voting (closed lists system), potentially leading to the centralization of parties and the dominance of party oligarchies. Therefore, the political system outcome depends on the balance between the parties and can have three different outcomes: presidential, prime-ministerial, and cohabitation. In the period after the fall of Milošević, the balance of power between leading parties (Democratic Party- DS and Democratic party of Serbia – DSS) fulfilled the potential of both the political and electoral systems. However, once the balance was lost, it created incentives for presidentialization, which in the Serbian case also meant autocratization. Of course, an important part of every new democracy is informal rules, filling the voids left by unfinished institutions and enabling the political elite to bend the rules in their favour.

The concentration of power in the hands of the state president led to a democratic backslide. It resulted from several years of decline and pressure on democratic institutions.

You claim that “Serbia had two major democratic crises (1990–2000 and 2016–2020) and one shorter but notable decline (2010–2012)”. Can you think about any general drivers that caused these breakdowns?

The two main crises are different by their cause – the first one, in the nineties, is mostly a consequence of an unfinished transition – Milošević used preemptive reform to usurp the power and then shaped institutions, including the political and electoral system, to maximize his gains. For Milošević, the institutional framework was endogen, but he shaped his opposition to some extent by these rules. The second crisis is the result of autocratization under Aleksandar Vučić, and we can compare this to a decline (2010-2012) under Boris Tadić. In both cases, a single party has key positions – the prime minister and president; in both cases, the party president becomes the key political figure and starts to centralize power. In the case of Boris Tadić, his Democratic party never reached predominant status and the opposition and coalition partners were strong enough to counterbalance. Regardless, there were significant elements of democratic backslide during that period, although the elections remained competitive, free and fair. In the case of Vučić and the SNS, as soon as the party started to win half of the votes (since 2014), it became the predominant actor, without a proper challenger. Another difference between Tadić and Vučić is that Tadić was also challenged by his own – especially from civil society, elite and academic circles that were perceived as his strongholds, which was enough to damage his electoral success.  

Protests against former premier & new president Vučić in Serbia, April 2017, source: Flickr, stefan.T

Let’s discuss the second crisis (2016–2020) and the current political situation under President Aleksandar Vučić. You claim that Serbia is endangered by a shift to competitive authoritarianism. What sparked this breakdown, what influenced its development and how’s the situation after 2020?

This shift seems to have been completed – Levitsky and Way classified Serbia as competitive authoritarianism again, the same as during the Milošević regime. Freedom house and V Dem also see Serbia as a flawed, hybrid democracy. The concentration of power in the hands of the state president led to a democratic backslide. It resulted from several years of decline and pressure on democratic institutions. Even weak and new democracies can not be defeated easily; in Serbia, it took five years, until the presidential elections in 2017, to gain control over key institutions, including oversight and regulatory bodies. This means that power under the control of an autocrat is not only in formal institutions but also in those of ‘secondary’ importance. In other words, the space for the opposition or civil society is constantly shrinking. Post-2020 did not change much as Covid19 outbreak enhanced authoritarian tendencies, but also provided some space for the opposition.  

Of course, Vučić is not Milošević and the old regime has not return in full power. Levitsky and Way called this new competitive authoritarianism – the regime that has been adapted to a new time, with nuanced and more careful autocratization. For example, there is no censorship or police harassment of the journalists and media; a new competitive authoritarian regime will buy problematic outlets or invest funds in others and made it unfair competition for market income. Alternatively, they will make some other indirect pressure. The international landscape has also been changed – in contrast to the conflictual relations of an international community with Milošević, current Serbian leadership remains formally pro-EU and receives support for their cooperation during the Kosovo talks or migrant crisis. The Russian aggression on Ukraine changed the situation to some extent and opened some options for the entire western Balkans – the pressure from the outside is growing, but the carrot is also getting more significant. However, it is yet unclear if there can be a balance between a realistic approach in foreign relations and a necessity for the democratization of  Serbia and other regional countries.   

What were the societal responses to these crises? What are the major manifestations o social discontent?

Serbia has a proud history of democratic struggle – it lasted a decade, but people never give up, even when faced with an increasingly repressive regime. However, we now live in a different world. It seems that autocratization does not produce discontent that can be easily politically articulated. In the last ten years, there were five protests waves, none of which had crucial results. Those were protests against regime violence, students and environmental protest, covid19 protests, and protests against Belgarde Waterfront Project. All of them lasted for a few weeks, but had so significant consequences. Of course, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party significantly influences the media system. It reduces the time available for the opposition and protests, but still there are enough media outlets available for alternative voices.

Environmental issues drove the last large protests, but the regime efficiently accepted the demands and reduced the damage. Some green parties used the opportunity and entered the parliament in 2022, but it can not be a key issue against the SNS. Also, many environmental activists perceive themselves as non-political and create distance between the movement and formal political parties. This is a common characteristic of protest politics in Serbia, and it reflects a lack of trust in parties and politicians.      

Serbia has a proud history of democratic struggle – it lasted a decade, but people never give up, even when faced with an increasingly repressive regime.

On the other hand: what is the reasoning of  Vučić’s supporters?

Vučić supporters are more conservative and authoritarian part of Serbian society and, therefore, less interested in the rule of law or democracy between the elections. They see European Union as a community of wealthy nations, not a community gathered around values. Recent events, such as Brexit or the success of euro-sceptic leaders like Orban or Meloni, fortified these beliefs. So, as long as Vučić performs decently in economic terms and does not lead the country into conflicts with the west, they are satisfied. Also, the important part is related to national issues, like Kosovo or the Republic of Srpska, which trump the rule of law or media freedom for most SNS voters. Of course, the SNS domination in the media sphere prevents these views from being challenged, and most voters are subject to strong one-way propaganda.

Are there, in your opinion, any reforms or safety mechanisms that would prevent authoritarian shifts in the future?

No, I don’t believe that there can be mechanisms that can protect democracy under intense illiberal pressure if the citizens are not willing to defend it or punish the autocratic leaders in elections.

Of course, more vital institutions and a more rooted political system could resist longer than Serbian democracy. However, I would argue that no rules can prevent the Hungarian or Polish scenario if there is a robust and popular leader and predominant party. Protests currently going on in Israel are examples of this illiberal tendency that can have long-term consequences, but we see a strong reaction from the opposition and civil society.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

It represents a comprehensive overview of the democratization process from the institutional perspective, which balances between being too narrow and specific (aimed at an audience interested in institutional rules only) and being over-flexible due to changes in circumstances or volatility of the party system. Additionally, it provides an analytical framework that merges the political and electoral system with dynamic elements of the party system and cleavage structures. It also sheds some light on Serbia, an under-researched state, together with most post-Yugoslav and western Balkans countries, especially when compared to central-European and Baltic states.  

ABOUT

Dušan Spasojević is an associate professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade. His main fields of interest are political parties, civil society and the post-communist democratization process.

MORE

Two and a Half Crises: Serbian Institutional Design as the Cause of Democratic Declines – Dušan Spasojević, 2022 (sagepub.com)

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR Interviews #16: Partisanship Versus Democracy: Voting in Turkey’s Competitive Authoritarian Elections – Professor Tijen Demirel-Pegg, Professor Aaron Dusso

“The annulment of the 31 March 2019 elections in Istanbul and the subsequently re-run 23 June 2019 elections is a blatant example of undemocratic behaviour by political leaders” – claim Professor Tijen Demirel-Pegg and Professor Aaron Dusso. Learn more about whether votes care about the anti-democratic behaviours of their political leaders, and read our interview below. It contains an analysis of the political situation in Turkey and is based on the PSR original research article: Partisanship Versus Democracy: Voting in Turkey’s Competitive Authoritarian Elections – Tijen Demirel-Pegg, Aaron Dusso, 2022.

Political Studies Review: To give us a bit more context, how would you characterise the current political landscape and regime in Turkey?

Professor Tijen Demirel-Pegg and Professor Aaron Dusso: Although an ostensibly multi-party regime, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has held power since 2002. AKP’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, served as the Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and has held the presidency since then. In 2017, President Erdoğan tightened his grip on power as a result of a constitutional referendum that changed the political system from a parliamentary to an executive presidential system with weak checks and balances

Your paper focused on the local elections of 23 June 2019. Why were these elections particularly relevant?

The annulment of the 31 March 2019 elections in Istanbul and the subsequently re-run 23 June 2019 elections is a blatant example of undemocratic behaviour by political leaders. We wanted to understand if voters cared about such a clear violation of democratic norms when casting their votes. When AKP’s incumbent for the mayor of Istanbul, Binali Yıldırım, lost the March elections to the opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, AKP refused to concede its defeat. Under the leadership of President Erdoğan, AKP challenged İmamoğlu’s narrow victory and pressured Turkey’s electoral authority to overturn the Istanbul elections, citing the inclusion of non-civil servants in supervisory committees at the polling booths. The electoral authority sided with AKP and called for a re-run of the Istanbul elections on 23 June 2019.

In 2017, President Erdoğan tightened his grip on power as a result of a constitutional referendum that changed the political system from a parliamentary to an executive presidential system with weak checks and balances.

You claim that the authoritarian shift in Turkey has been progressing for more than a decade. What is the timeframe of this shift and what were the major backslides from good democratic practices?

The first signs of democratic backsliding date back to the mid-2000s when the AKP government began to limit the freedom of the press. Over time, curtailments of civil liberties, further censorship of media outlets and tilting the playing field in favour of AKP candidates throughout election campaigns took a toll on the democratic system. Following a failed coup attempt in 2016, President Erdoğan declared an emergency law and purged thousands of military and administrative personnel from governmental bodies. After the referendum that changed Turkey’s political system to a presidential system, power has become almost exclusively concentrated in President Erdoğan’s hands. Media censorship, curtailment of civil liberties, and interference with judicial processes are ongoing, if not intensifying, and have tainted Turkish democracy significantly during AKP rule.

Solidarity Demonstration for Gezi Park – Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey, 2013. Source: Rasande Tyskar, Flickr

Could you tell us more about your research methodology?

A week after the 23 June elections, we administered an online survey of eligible voters in Istanbul. We used questions from the American National Elections Survey and European Social Survey and translated them into Turkish while also modifying them to the Turkish context. We analyzed the survey responses by using categorical data analysis (binomial and multinomial logit analyses.

How strongly have concerns for democracy been reflected in voting preferences in Turkey? Do these differ from the standard scholarly understanding of that topic?

Scholars have long established that partisanship, idealogy, and the economic context are the most reliable predictors of voting behaviour. Turkey is no exception to these findings. Scholars examining voting preferences in Turkey have also found that Turkish voters behave in a similar way to voters in other electoral contexts. Alternatively, democracy scholars have suggested that elections are one of the most important bulwarks of democracy, keeping leaders with authoritarian tendencies in check. Several scholars, such as Milan Svolik (2020) have shown that in a sharply polarized political context, voters are willing to turn a blind eye to democratic concerns and vote based on partisanship or personal interests. Given that AKP has won numerous elections since they came to power in 2002 while leading the country into a gradual democratic backsliding, concerns for democracy have not been a driving force for the majority of Turkish voters.

The popular narrative was perhaps too optimistic. Our analysis shows that partisanship, and not concerns for democracy, was the primary driving force behind İmamoğlu’s victory in the second round of Istanbul elections in June.

You write: “The popular narrative within and outside of Turkey often portrayed these elections as motivated by concerns about democratic backsliding after the nullification of the first election in March.” Were these narratives correct? What drives voters to challenge the AKP?

The popular narrative was perhaps too optimistic. Our analysis shows that partisanship, and not concerns for democracy, was the primary driving force behind İmamoğlu’s victory in the second round of Istanbul elections in June. Our study aligns with several scholars, such as Milan Svolik (2020), who have also suggested that elections are one of the major bulwarks of democracy, keeping authoritarian leaders in check. Our analysis shows that even in the context of a clear violation of democratic norms, voters cast their ballots based on their partisanship and not democratic concerns.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

Our study is one of the few individual-level analyses of the concern for democracy in a polarized, competitive authoritarian context. Our study shows that the assumption that elections are a reliable check against leaders who are willing to violate democratic norms may not necessarily hold. We also found that economic dissatisfaction was not an important driving factor in the June 2019 elections, even though Turkish citizens had already been feeling the negative effects of an economic recession at the time of the elections. The effects of economic dissatisfaction on voting behaviour require further research in polarized and semi-authoritarian countries.

ABOUT

Tijen Demirel-Pegg is an Associate Professor of Political Science at IUPUI. Her research interests focus on contentious politics, political violence, human rights, and authoritarian regimes, with an emphasis on dissident-state interactions.

Aaron Dusso is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Political Science at IUPUI. His work focuses primarily on the political psychology of electoral behaviour, with an emphasis on the Big Five personality traits, authoritarianism, civic aptitude, and correct voting.

MORE

Demirel-Pegg, T., & Dusso, A. (2022). Partisanship Versus Democracy: Voting in Turkey’s Competitive Authoritarian Elections. Political Studies Review, 20(4), 648–666. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211030446

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR Interviews #15: Mathis Ebbinghaus,  Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education

Has the Black Lives Matter movement influenced not only public opinion but also HE institutions? Mathis Ebbinghaus and Sihao Huang suggest that there is a temporal association between these time series: the enrolment of Black students and the salience of BLM. Despite some concerns, it did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students. Learn more in our interview below and read the PSR article: Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education.

Political Studies Review: You claim that “universities expressed their commitment to racial diversity, but university policies aimed at rectifying historic disadvantages were also met with criticism.” What is the situation of universities in the US in terms of racial diversity?

Mathis Ebbinghaus: Yes, that’s right. Racial diversity is one of the big contentious topics in university politics – perhaps because it relates to the meritocratic promise of the American dream. Proponents argue that greater racial diversity reflects fairer conditions that enable historically disadvantaged groups to compete. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, hundreds of universities expressed their commitment to campus equity efforts. Critics are concerned that greater racial diversity comes at the cost of new racial discrimination against academically successful students. In 2020, the enrolment-to-population ratios of Asian students are 4.3 and 3.68 in elite universities and medical schools respectively. Hispanic and Black students are underrepresented compared to their representation in the general population whereas enrolment rates for White students reflect their representation in the US population. In our article, we examine how Black and Asian student representation has changed over time. Contrary to concerns that Asian student representation has declined as a result of growing enrolment rates of Black students, we observe a steady increase in the representation of Asian students alongside increases in the representation of Hispanic students over the past decade. BLM coincided with increased Black enrolment in highly selective universities. It did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students.

What are the major challenges for policies to efficiently enhance racial diversity in the HE sector?

There certainly are numerous challenges to enhancing racial diversity. As far as our research is concerned, the positive association between racial diversity and Black Lives Matter activism suggests that it will be an important challenge for social justice activists to continuously convince university staff of the worthiness of their claims and to channel the momentum of 2020 into institutional politics that fall to some extent outside the purview of legal obligations.

BLM coincided with increased Black enrolment in highly selective universities. It did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students.

Based on your research, has the Black Lives Matter protest movement influenced the HE sector in the US at the macro level?

Yes, the data that we analyzed lend credence to this interpretation. In elite education, the shares of Black students in elite undergraduate and medical schools have coincided with the growing influence of the BLM movement. Future research should investigate the same question with methods that allow for more causal interpretations.

Black Lives Matter protest, London, June 2020, phot. E. Kania

You aim at identifying the measurable impacts the BLM movement has had on elite educational institutions. Would you elaborate on your data and methods?

Certainly. But let me just stress again that it would be premature to interpret our findings causally. What we do show is that there is a temporal association between two time series: the enrolment of Black students and the salience of BLM. To measure the salience of the BLM movement we use the GDELT database that has data on TV coverage of 109 local and national television channels. Our university enrolment data span the years from 2011 to 2020. Data on medical school enrolments by race cover twelve years from 2009 to 2020. Both applicant and enrolment numbers were obtained directly from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

One of the effects that you describe is the increase in the enrolment of Black students. How can you explain that?

There are many compelling explanations that could account for this trend. We suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement may have contributed to increases in the enrolment of Black students both directly through interactions between activists and members of admission committees and indirectly through affecting the universities’ broader outlook. Awareness of the university’s values and the presence of passionate students who measure the university by their actions may create conformity pressures among admission board members. In future research, we hope to test these social mechanisms more directly.

We suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement may have contributed to increases in the enrolment of Black student both directly through interactions between acticsts and members of admission committees and indirectly through affecting the universities’ broader outlook.

Have any inter-sectional diversity challenges appeared? Were there any critical voices raised and what would be your response to them?

Yes, there were. Some critics feared that increasing Black student representation would disadvantage other racial groups. Our analysis shows that the representation of Asian students grew steadily for both types of elite education ­– the opposite of what critics feared. The representation of Hispanic students increased as well, which leaves us with a clear picture: The spikes in Black student representation following spikes in the salience of the BLM movement did not affect broader trends towards greater representation among other minority groups. While enrolment rates for the three largest minority groups in the US have increased over the past decade, enrolment rates for White students continuously decreased.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

There is more and more evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement shaped public opinion and policy. But movements can also have institutional consequences. Although studied less often, they are no less important. By focusing on the relationship between the Black Lives Matter movement and racial admission practices in elite educational institutions, we contribute to scholarship on the institutional consequences of social movements.

Black Lives Matter protest, source: Pixabay

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Mathis Ebbinghaus is a DPhil candidate in sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. His research is in political sociology and he investigates social movements and extraordinary social action. 

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Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education – Mathis Ebbinghaus, Sihao Huang, 2022 (sagepub.com)

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Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR INTERVIEWS #14: Democratic Innovations: A Look through the Kaleidoscope of Democratic Theory – Hans Asenbaum (PART 2)

“Democratic innovations always struggle with their neoliberal and capitalist context. Capitalism has produced a particular kind of democracy. We refer to it as liberal or representative democracy. Calling it capitalist democracy would actually be more fitting. What we call democracy today is a hybrid between the democratic logic of the self-rule of the people and the capitalist logic of competition and hierarchy” – says Dr Hans Asenbaum. This interview is the second and final part of our conversation with this researcher and a PSR author, who covers new forms of democratic engagement and radical democratic politics. You can learn more about democratic innovations in his PSR article: Rethinking Democratic Innovations: A Look through the Kaleidoscope of Democratic Theory – Hans Asenbaum, 2021 (sagepub.com).

Political Studies Review: You discuss a participatory approach, in which the major axis of the critique comes from the dehumanising properties of institutions. What are the most effective ways to apply participatory innovations to public institutions? Have any experiments been done in this area?

Dr Hans Asenbaum: The dehumanising effect of institutions stems from their functions to govern us. They structure interactions and decision-making procedures, leaving little leeway for creativity, playfulness, or serendipity. What is surprising, however, is that participatory democracy happens within such institutions despite their rigidity. The participatory spirit creeps in and claims space when teachers decide their curriculum in a participatory and inclusive manner together with students or when a community reparation board invites victims and perpetrators into a dialogue.

Of course, state institutions are not always open to this participatory spirit, and its realisation to a large extent depends on the goodwill of individuals in power positions. This is why social movements are crucial in challenging these institutions. The Black Lives Matter movement is a case in point. Their actions constitute democratic innovation by interrupting the racist structures that govern societies around the world. This interruption is not only realised through a negative moment of protest but also through a positive moment of building a peer-help network.

Political Studies Review: In terms of the agonistic approach, you write that it’…has long remained vague about institutional manifestations of its ideal and has mostly referred to the contentious politics of social movement.’ The transformative perspective is also linked with social movements in your article. Have you been able to spot any of the features of these approaches in any of the significant social movements in recent years, such as Occupy Wall Street, Indignados, Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, or any others?

Dr Hans Asenbaum: Movements such as Extinction Rebellion (XR), Black Lives Matter (BLM) and their predecessors have played a crucial role in inspiring theories of agonistic and transformative democracy. Hence, these theories are not only useful for analysing these movements but the movements also serve as the theories’ empirical sources. Now, this is the wonderful thing about democratic theories – and normative political theories more generally –; they each shed new and different light on the same phenomenon. This means we do not have to choose whether XR or BLM are either agonistic or transformative movements; they both harbour aspects of agonistic and transformative democracy.

State institutions are not always open to this participatory spirit, and its realisation to a large extent depends on the goodwill of individuals in power positions. This is why social movements are crucial in challenging these institutions.

The profound revolution XR calls for in the face of the dramatic climate crisis and the shattering of racist ideology and practice BLM advocates resonate with the transformative democratic perspective. Far beyond reform, it needs profound cultural and economic change to tackle the climate crisis and racism. Despite this revolutionary outlook, from an agonistic angle, we can see how both movements do not understand their opponents as enemies to be destroyed but as adversaries who are receptive to dialogue. Their views need to be challenged, and their practices disrupted. Such agonistic approaches are reflected in street protest and social media contestation of the respective movements.  

Black Lives Matter protest, London, June 2020, phot. E. Kania

Which of the developed solutions can be utilised in modern, democratic institutions most effectively?

The focus on social movements in the agonistic and transformative accounts doesn’t mean that the type of democratic innovations I’m suggesting cannot be realised within state institutions. Indeed, state actors are enablers of democratic bottom-up participation. This is what the participatory perspective highlights in particular. Participatory budgeting is a great example of how democratic innovations can be realised from a participatory democratic (rather than a deliberative) angel. The history of participatory budgeting also illustrates that whether democratic innovations emerge bottom-up or top-down is not necessarily a mutually exclusive question but that there actually can be a fruitful interface between the state and social movements.

The agonistic perspective further adds insights into how the state can facilitate democratic innovations beyond the deliberative paradigm. Mary Paxton suggests a Contestation Day, which is modelled after Ackerman and Fishkin’s Deliberation Day. Before general elections, citizens would meet for small group debates in the agonistic manner Paxton suggests. The new understanding of democratic innovations, I suggest, allows us to think even further. What if the state would provide social movements and civic initiatives the funds to set up their own democratic innovations? Democratic innovations, then, could be state-sponsored but social movement-run. I have made this suggestion together with Frederic Hanusch. We argue that instead of focusing on reasoned deliberation through the verbal expression of arguments, new democratic spaces could focus on non-verbal deliberation through artistic expression and play. This could be realised in democratic playgrounds and democratic ateliers as new democratic innovations that allow participants to prototype solutions to political problems.

What major challenges for applying democratic innovations would you highlight?

Democratic innovations always struggle with their neoliberal and capitalist context. Capitalism has produced a particular kind of democracy. We refer to it as liberal or representative democracy. Calling it capitalist democracy would actually be more fitting. What we call democracy today is a hybrid between the democratic logic of the self-rule of the people and the capitalist logic of competition and hierarchy. Capitalist democracy translates self-rule to the representation of the people by the elite. The power the people hold in this process is reduced to choosing among elite actors in staged party competition. Election campaigns follow market principles of product promotion and profit maximisation. The Schumpeterian ideal has become reality. This has been convincingly argued by Ellen Meiksins Wood.

Capitalism has produced a particular kind of democracy. We refer to it as liberal or representative democracy. Calling it capitalist democracy would actually be more fitting.

Democratic innovations, as I understand them, break with this capitalist logic and in doing so recapture democracy’s egalitarian spirit. Instead of delegating decision-making power to the elite, people deliberate and decide for themselves. Instead of competing with one another, they aim at mutual understanding – here the deliberative perspective is helpful. Democratic innovations interrupt capitalist hierarchy by demonstrating that self-rule is possible. Of course, there are convincing arguments that democratic innovations themselves are co-opted by neoliberal logic. They may only pretend to realise democracy while actually functioning as a governing tool of the powerful. We have to be aware and mindful of this problem. This is why bottom-up co-creation of democratic innovations is so important.

What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?

The kaleidoscope of democratic theory my paper introduces reaffirms the value of theory triangulation. Triangulation is highly valued in empirical research, but it is hardly used in the field of theory and, in particular, in normative theory. Normative theories are commonly seen as mutually exclusive because each theory proposes its own ontology and its own complete worldview. By employing the kaleidoscope of democratic theory, we don’t compromise the internal integrity of each perspective. But we are still able to draw on a diversity of theories. I think this approach is particularly fitting for democratic theory because the value of pluralism is at the very heart of democracy.

The kaleidoscope approach also prioritises deep normative commitments. Discussions in democratic theory lately have moved away from normativity. Instead of focusing on normative models such as deliberative, participatory, agonistic or transformative democracy, democratic theorists suggest pragmatist approaches that are more problem-oriented. While I acknowledge the value of this argument, I worry about losing democratic theory’s firm normative grounding. Instead, I encourage exploring new ways of diversifying and creatively engaging with normative models.

In which direction normative democratic theory will develop is an intriguing question. How will deliberative democracy develop, and what may come after deliberative democracy? We are all part of this debate, and I’m looking forward to participating in it.

ABOUT

Hans Asenbaum is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His work focuses on new forms of democratic engagement and radical democratic politics.

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Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR INTERVIEWS #14: Democratic Innovations: A Look through the Kaleidoscope of Democratic Theory – Hans Asenbaum (PART 1)

The wealth and diversity of democratic theory are incredible. What is fascinating about the participatory, agnostic, and transformative perspectives is that each of them offers an entire world we can dive into, immerse ourselves in, and relish in the democratic vision it generates” – says Dr Hans Asenbaum. This interview is the first part of our conversation with this researcher and a PSR author, who covers new forms of democratic engagement and radical democratic politics. You can learn more about democratic innovations in his PSR article: Rethinking Democratic Innovations: A Look through the Kaleidoscope of Democratic Theory – Hans Asenbaum, 2021 (sagepub.com).

Political Studies Review: You suggest that we need to rethink democratic innovations. Why is such a “re-innovation of democratic innovations” needed, and how do we best go about this?

Dr Hans Asenbaum: Democratic innovations are commonly understood as participatory institutions created by governments. Examples are the now very popular citizens’ assemblies which flourish across the UK and Ireland and participatory budgets which emerged in Brazil. The way the scholarly community conceptualises these instantiations of lived democracy is limiting. This established understanding draws our attention to top-down initiated governmental institutions that are meticulously designed. Design pre-structures what participants in these settings can do and what they can express. Problems range from time constraints to a too narrow focus on rational arguments and go on to include co-option by the organisers. In other words, democratic innovations often produce the decision their organisers intended them to produce, which, of course, defeats their democratic purpose.

What can we do to challenge or at least mitigate these problems? One reason why we perceive and conceptualise democratic innovations in such a narrow manner is because of the incredible success of theories of deliberative democracy, which have dominated the field in the last few decades. This success is due to the persuasiveness and the merits of deliberative democratic theory. Indeed, the scholarly and practitioner community that aims to study and realise public engagement has benefitted immensely from the vibrant field of deliberative democracy research. Deliberative democracy in theory and practice has taught us about the values of inclusion, listening, empathy, humility, learning and respect. These are values I personally cherish.

Indeed, the scholarly and practitioner community that aims to study and realise public engagement has benefitted immensely from the vibrant field of deliberative democracy research.

The problem, then, is not with the deliberative ideal – it is with the exclusivity of one ideal only, whatever it may be. There are evident problems with dogmatism that prevent learning and development. So what I’m suggesting is not to replace the deliberative ideal with another, which would entail the same exclusivity. Rather, I suggest complimenting the deliberative ideal with compatible yet diverse other ideals. Rather than understanding democratic innovations exclusively as deliberative spaces, I propose looking through the kaleidoscope of democratic theory and making use of the wide variety of existing democratic theories. In this way, we can rethink democratic innovations from agonistic, participatory, and transformative angles. This lets us see democratic innovation in a new light. It helps us both to identify aspects of existing democratic processes we haven’t been able to see before, and it also helps us to identify instantiations of democracy that we previously hadn’t identified as democratic innovations.

What, then, is the result of applying the kaleidoscope of democratic theory? What does a novel understanding of democratic innovations look like?

So far, we know what democratic innovations look like from a deliberative angle. Following their Habermasian roots, deliberative democratic innovations have been particularly concerned with creating the “ideal speech situation” – they are staged as egalitarian islands amidst a world dominated by hierarchies and exclusions. This has led to an extreme focus, if not an obsession, with design. The idea here is that we can structure participants’ interactions – not the contents they express but the way they express these contents. This has had beneficial effects, particularly for marginalised groups in society participating in democratic innovations. Nevertheless, the undemocratic aspects of this approach are evident. Design means limiting and pre-determining participants’ behaviour.

If we supplement the deliberative with agonistic, participatory, and transformative lenses,  democratic innovations take on a new meaning. Rather than top-down initiated design, democratic innovation may emerge organically from grassroots mobilising and everyday interaction. Agonistic, participatory, and transformative democratic theory teaches us that democracy may occur anywhere – not just in official democratic processes such as election campaigns, referendums, or citizens’ assemblies, but wherever people meet and exchange ideas and opinions about how society should be governed. Rather than formal, state-run institutions, in the reading I propose, democratic innovation may include informal institutions such as social movement spaces, everyday conversations, societal conventions, and even language and thinking patterns.

Could you give us a concrete example?

Take language as an informal institutional arrangement as an example. Here, let’s zoom in on the debate about personal pronouns. Many advocate explicitly identifying oneself with pronouns including she/her, he/him, or they/them. The mere act of such a declaration constitutes a democratic innovation. Previously it was assumed that we could visually deduce each other’s gender. Making a conscious gender declaration breaks with these established patterns. It democratises gendering as now the control over gender identification lies with the individual democratic subject. The option of self-identifying as they/them allows for a rejection of the established gender binary and identifying otherwise. Democratic innovation, then, can happen in every type of institutional setting that governs us – be it formal or informal.

This does not mean that formal institutions such as deliberative mini-publics are excluded from this understanding of democratic innovation. But the novel understanding presents them in a new light. It draws attention to the inherently interruptive nature of democratic innovations. Where formerly decisions were made by the political elite, mini-publics and other formal democratic innovations interrupt this mode of governance and demonstrate that democracy can be practised otherwise.

What are the major differences between participatory, agnostic and transformative perspectives?

The wealth and diversity of democratic theory are incredible. What is fascinating about the participatory, agnostic, and transformative perspectives is that each of them offers an entire world we can dive into, immerse ourselves in, and relish in the democratic vision it generates. The participatory perspective draws attention to bottom-up participation in unlikely places like workplaces, schools, public administration, and even prisons. Albert Dzur’s Democracy Inside is truly insightful. He sheds light on democratic innovations such as Inside-Out courses, in which free college students and inmates meet weekly to learn about criminal justice or community conferences in which perpetrators, victims, and witnesses meet and reflect on incidents of perceived wrongdoing from different angles. Participatory democratic innovations appear not as top-down designed political institutions but as organically emerging democratic spaces that are organised by civil society actors or public servants.

The agonistic view adds new insight to this approach. Agonistic democracy does not focus on formal political institutions but on language as an informal institutional arrangement that affords and governs how we express ourselves and what we think. In addition to the focus on language, agonistic democracy is concerned with emotion, passion, and affect. At its core, agonistic democracy is about venting suppressed conflict but at the same time preventing conflict from becoming destructive. Hence, creating a safe space is important. Mary Paxton’s Agonistic Democracy opens our eyes to a range of democratic innovations that are mostly outside the realm of the deliberative view. She suggests various seating arrangements, speech tokens, personal testimony instead of expert facts, and controversial topics for debate. More than anything, agonistic democracy does not prescribe one ideal setting but opens our view to the many forms democratic innovations can take on.

I suggest maintaining the internal integrity of each of these perspectives, including the deliberative one, and allowing ourselves to switch between them. It’s like cycling through various different landscapes, immersing ourselves, and learning something new in each of them.

While the agonistic and participatory perspectives suggest reform of a flawed democratic system, the transformative perspective proposes a profound systemic change that breaks with capitalist logic. Such deep transformation has been advocated in the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. But what transformative democracy means for democratic innovations has hardly been explored. Alexandros Kioupkioulis’ The Common and Counter-Hegemonic Politics does a magnificent job at breaking things down by focusing on one concept: the commons. Common-pool resources such as land, water, and knowledge are not simply property that is collectively owned. They constitute a democratic practice – a radical democratic innovation. Wikipedia, the Ancient Greek polis, and occupied public squares all illustrate that transparent and open collective decision-making is possible.

We can see how diverse these three perspectives are. My suggestion is not to combine and hybridise them in some sort. Rather, I suggest maintaining the internal integrity of each of these perspectives, including the deliberative one, and allowing ourselves to switch between them. It’s like cycling through various different landscapes, immersing ourselves, and learning something new in each of them.

ABOUT

Hans Asenbaum is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. His work focuses on new forms of democratic engagement and radical democratic politics.

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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PSR INTERVIEWS #13: Normativity in Realist Legitimacy – Ben Cross

Ostensibly ambitious moral values may have regressive ideological functions.  It is not hard to see how moralist legitimation narratives about freedom, equality, and human rights have provided ideological support for Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere” – says Ben Cross in this interview. You can learn more about normativity, moralism and realism in his PSR article, Normativity in Realist Legitimacy.

PSR: What are the key distinctions between moralist and realist views on normativity and legitimacy that you identify?

I think the fundamental difference stems from views about the epistemic merits of morality. 

Realists seem to be committed to the view that:

  1. some or all of what is usually called ‘morality’ – call it “S-morality” – rests on epistemically dubious assumptions. 
  2. at a minimum, S-morality includes what Bernard Williams calls “the morality system” (which is especially concerned with the notion of moral obligation and the assignment of responsibility and blame), as well as most of the moral principles that moralist theories of legitimacy typically appeal to. 

Moralists will at least reject ii), and possibly also i). 

In light of i) and ii), realists take themselves to have reason to ensure that their normative claims – including their normative claims about legitimacy – do not appeal to S-morality. 

How do realists set their standards of politics, while not appealing to a “morality that is prior to politics”?

Realists typically make one of two non-mutually exclusive moves here.  First, they claim that politics is conceptually distinct from certain other kinds of human interaction such as war or terror.  Second, they claim that the practice of political institutions seems somewhat teleologically geared towards certain purposes, notably providing stability and facilitating collective decision-making. 

Each of these two moves can be used to identify standards of “good politics”.  For example, if politics is teleologically geared towards providing stability, then it might be claimed that one important standard for assessing the goodness of political order is its stability. 

Neither of these two moves appeals to any kind of morality.  But note also that, by themselves, they are not obviously normative at all.  They might help us identify what counts as “good politics”, but they don’t clearly explain why we have a reason to pursue “good politics”. 


What are the pillars of a moralist critique of a realist critique of the morality system? Is there any universal model of morality that it refers to?

Perhaps the most common moralist objection to realism is that the various theories of “good politics” that realists propose can only have normative force if they appeal to morality.  By itself, this objection does not fault realists for failing to embrace any particular universal model of morality.  Rather, it faults them for being inconsistent.  If the objection is correct, realists can make normative judgments or avoid appealing to morality, but they can’t do both. 

I think realists can respond to this objection in one of two ways.  First, they can argue that there are certain forms of morality that are not S-morality, and hold that the normative force of their ideas of “good politics” can be explained in terms of these forms of morality.  Second, they can argue that their normative force can be explained without reference to any kind of morality at all.  For example, perhaps “good politics” is instrumentally valuable: it helps us get what we want. 

Williams-premise holds that there is a conceptual distinction between politics and war, and that this conceptual distinction can only be maintained if we suppose that politics takes the form of legitimate politics.  It thus identifies “good politics” with political legitimacy

What’s the idea behind of a so-called “Williams-premise”?

What I call the Williams-premise emphasises the first of the two moves I referred to in my answer to the second question.  It holds that there is a conceptual distinction between politics and war and that this conceptual distinction can only be maintained if we suppose that politics takes the form of legitimate politics.  It thus identifies “good politics” with political legitimacy. 

A challenge for realists who accept the Williams-premise is to then explain why political legitimacy is something that is desirable.  Without such an explanation, it is unclear that these realists can articulate a theory of legitimacy that is normative

You mention ‘concessive realism’ as well as ‘naturalist realism’ – would you elaborate on the differences between these two approaches?

Concessive realism responds to the above challenge by narrowing its aims.  It holds that realism only aims to establish the truth of the Williams-premise without appealing to morality.  It is content to delegate the task of explaining the desirability of political legitimacy to morality. 

Naturalist realism, unlike concessive realism, seeks to show that political legitimacy is desirable without thereby appealing to S-morality.  It tries to do this by asserting what I call the “naturalist premise”: avoiding politics is not a real option for human being because politics is necessary to secure certain basic goods that we all desire for ourselves. 

Ostensibly ambitious moral values may have regressive ideological functions.  It is not hard to see how moralist legitimation narratives about freedom, equality, and human rights have provided ideological support for Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. 

How would you define the realist approaches to legitimacy with, for instance, the current situation in Afghanistan? How would it differ from a moralist approach?

Here is a crude but potentially helpful way of illustrating things. 

I think moralists, most of whom are liberals, would likely view the recently collapsed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as legitimate because it embodied certain important liberal democratic moral norms (albeit imperfectly).  For example, it had a broadly liberal constitution, and it gave citizens the right to vote.  Realists, however, would likely be more inclined to regard it as suffering from a severe legitimation deficit, simply because it never fully succeeded in creating stable political order or obtaining sufficient support from its citizens. 

By contrast, I expect most moralists would regard the recently re-established Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (i.e. the Taliban government) as necessarily illegitimate because it does not, by and large, embody liberal moral values.  Realists, however, would hold that it could conceivably become legitimate, even though it rejects liberal moral values if it were to implement stable political order and provide citizens with a justification for its power that generally makes sense to them.  Admittedly, this “if” appears likely to be counterfactual. 

Are there any other practical examples that would help us to understand a major difference between the two approaches?

The above example may create the impression that realists are more pessimistic than moralists about what is politically possible and are thus willing to settle for less ambitious political goods.  There is a sense in which this might be true.  Stable political order is a necessary condition for people to have access to basic goods, services and protections.  Its existence is clearly very important to citizens’ interests.  Risking political stability in order to pursue liberal reforms may endanger these interests. 

However, there are at least two points to bear in mind which may complicate this impression.  First, stable political order is often a very demanding goal.  Marxists, for example, may claim that capitalism is inherently unstable and that the only route to lasting political stability goes through proletarian revolution.  Second, ostensibly ambitious moral values may have regressive ideological functions.  It is not hard to see how moralist legitimation narratives about freedom, equality, and human rights have provided ideological support for Western interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. 

What are the key contributions your article brings to the field?

My article has more mundane and modest goals than my answer to the previous question would suggest.  It takes a step towards showing how realist theories of legitimacy can be internally consistent – that is, they can be normative without relying on S-morality.  It may also help us better understand what the underlying motivating concern of realist theories of legitimacy is.  Why should we care about political legitimacy?  What needs, interests, or desires are served by having political institutions that are legitimate, rather than illegitimate?  Answers to these questions may further enable us to see what place the concept of political legitimacy might have in political philosophy and the extent to which it is a concept worthy of continuing analysis and application. 

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Article: Cross, Ben (2020), Normativity in Realist Legitimacy, Political Studies Review.

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Ben Cross is a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University. His research interests include political realism, legitimacy, and critical theory.

Questions and production

Dr Eliza Kania, PSR/Brunel University London

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