Competition lies at the heart of democratic elections. Normative conceptions posit democratic electoral competition as being centred on rival substantive policy platforms, on which parties and/or candidates campaign, and from which voters choose depending on their positions on different issues. But what happens if parties downplay or even silence the issues that should be relevant […]
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Although elections to the European Parliament are widely known as second-order national elections, recent developments indicate that these elections start to become more European contests. The EP has become more powerful with the Maastricht Treaty and subsequent treaty changes, and with the introduction of the Spitzenkandidaten (‘lead candidate’) system in 2014, elections to the EP […]
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Citizens dialogues on the future of Europe are taking place across Europe since 2018. These calibres of mini public were organised with the intent of fulfilling elite commitments made in the Rome declaration in March 2017. The Rome declaration commits to incorporating EU citizens into the conversation on Europe and to provide them with opportunities […]
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Do voters use information on parties’ legislative work at EU level when voting in European Parliament (EP) elections? Exactly like in the workplace – where employers monitor the concrete performance of employees – it is crucial that voters keep tabs on the performance of political parties and use that information come election time (retrospective voting). […]
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The European Parliament (EP) has evolved into one of the most important parliamentary bodies on the planet. Directly elected since 1979, it represents almost half a billion people and exercises great power over the lives of Europeans. The growing influence of the European Parliament has renewed interest in EP elections – a unique large-scale democratic […]
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The European Parliament (EP) election in 2019 has surprised many observers and analysts. For the first time since 1979, overall voter turnout increased compared to the previous EP election, yielding the highest participation rate (50.66%) in the past 25 years. However, despite the stark increase in turnout, the participation level in European elections is still […]
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This article charts Israel’s cooption of environmentalism to discreetly colonize Palestine, focusing on the complicity of protected areas. I identify this manipulative strategy as Israeli green colonialism, tracing it back to the emergence of Western environmentalism and Zionism, in the 18th and 19th centuries respectively. After all, national parks, nature reserves, and other protected areas […]
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The category of the Global South has emerged as a widely accepted part of our political vocabularies and the study of international politics. As the collective product of the era of national liberation struggles, tricontinental anti-colonial militancy, dependency and World-Systems Theory, it outlined both an emancipatory political project and global web of exploitative social relations […]
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In 2017, the Czech Pirate Party got nearly 11% of votes during the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, thus becoming the third strongest party in the country. As a result of these elections, the Czech Pirate Party became one of the most successful pirate parties in Europe. Now, a few months before the next […]
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The UK government’s plans to restrict nomadic lifestyles via The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill has highlighted the difficulties facing Traveller and Roma communities in this country and has resulted in campaigns for the right to Roma/Traveller cultural heritage and lifestyle. The ‘othering’ of Roma is so acceptable that one MP’s remark that if […]
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