We investigate whether corruption amplifies the political effects of economic crises. Using Spanish municipal-level data and a difference-in-difference strategy, we find that local unemployment ...shocks experienced during the Great Recession (2008–2015) increased political fragmentation. This effect was four times larger in municipalities exposed to malfeasance than in municipalities without a history of political corruption. We bolster this evidence by showing that, conditional on province and population strata fixed effects, there is no evidence of differential pre-trends. We also find that the interaction of unemployment and corruption harms the two traditional main parties and benefits especially the new party on the left (Podemos).
Taking advantage of a novel data set on maintenance in Norwegian local governments, a comparison was made between norms for good maintenance and actual maintenance spending. Although a sizeable ...minority complies with the norm, the average maintenance spending is well below the norm. A theoretical model is developed to guide the empirical analysis of the determinants of maintenance. It emphasizes the roles of fiscal capacity, fiscal distress, and political fragmentation. The empirical analysis reveals that high fiscal capacity (measured by local government revenue) and little fiscal distress (measured by rainy-day funds) are associated with a high priority of maintenance spending. However, political fragmentation that reflects myopic behaviour is associated with low maintenance priorities. The results are robust and become stronger when outliers and small local governments are omitted.
Coastal areas host nearly 30 % of the world population and are among the most diverse and disturbed environments on Earth. In consequence, spatial policies have been implemented to manage this ...socio-ecological complexity from different perspectives. Protected Areas (PA) and Land Planning (LP) have been co-implemented worldwide, but they have divergent objectives: the former seeks ecosystem preservation, while the latter seeks land use development. Despite the importance PA and LP have in coastal management worldwide, we found little information on how they interact and what effects does this policyscape have on the coastal landscape. To bridge this information gap, this paper proposes a novel method to assess the interaction of overlapping PA and LP, by employing land cover and population density proxy indicators in order to determine if they are complementary or inhibitory. Using the terrestrial coast of Mexico as a case study, we found that all coastal regions exhibited overlaps between PA and LP: from the 101 instruments analyzed, 60.4 % showed overlap but they only corresponded to 5.9 % of the total Mexican terrestrial coast. The similarities between the natural cover type in PA and its overlap with LP (both ≈89 %) suggest that a complementary interaction between both instruments exists in the terrestrial coast of Mexico. Nevertheless, our results found that overlapped PA had 11 % of anthropic cover and a slightlu y higher population density (62 people/km2) than PA alone (11.5 people/km2), which suggests that LP can have deleterious effects through spillover effects due to poorly integrated buffer zones and LPs’ planning hierarchy. Therefore, evidence from our results and international research suggests that a lack of integration between both spatial policies should be further addressed, especially at local case studies within regional scopes. We discuss on how the fragmentation between these spatial policies can be further assessed using allocation and attribution frameworks, concluding on integrated recommendations to Mexican coastal authorities. Our results and conclusions can be useful to other countries with similar coastal characteristics.
•The interaction between protected areas (PA) and land planning (LP) on the policyscape of costal zones has not been addressed.•Land cover and population density are proxies to evaluate if the interaction between PA and LP is complementary or inhibitory.•In the Mexican coastal zone, PA and LP have complementary interactions, promoting the preservation of natural cover.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. To reduce the UK’s own democratic deficit, support is growing for some kind of proportional representation. We propose that existing versions of PR can be ...greatly simplified and improved on by giving each representative voting power in the assembly proportional to the number of votes they have been given by the electorate: “Votes-Weighted Representation”. Under VWR a country/region is divided into multi-member constituencies. Each voter has a single vote. Ballot papers list the candidates (each party can field several), whom voters then rank. The candidate with the fewest votes (top preferences) is eliminated, and their votes are transferred to next preferences, repeating until the number of candidates remaining equals the number to elect. Optionally, given sufficiently secure and accessible voting software, every voter can also have a 'dynamic' second vote, which they can arbitrarily split and delegate to any representatives from any constituencies, for however long and on whichever issues they wish; delegated votes are added to representatives’ vote weights. Any voter can override the delegation of their second vote on any issue, and remotely vote on it in the assembly themselves, directly. Compared with existing systems, these proposals will allow more accountable, more responsive and finer-grained coverage of the inherently multi-dimensional political space, including between elections. Fewer votes will be wasted, and better proportionality of voting power in the assembly should be achievable than under comparable Single Transferable Vote (STV) and highest averages or highest remainders methods for apportioning representatives. Also, fewer votes will be wasted compared with using electoral thresholds without vote transfers from eliminated candidates. Political fragmentation should be largely avoidable by using 6- or 7-member constituencies, without unduly compromising proportionality for bigger parties, or the diversity of elected representatives. Our proposals should help democratise democracy, improve its functioning, and reverse its global retreat.
Democratic politics builds on both clear differences and shared common ground. While the rise of digital media may have enabled more differences to be articulated, common ground is often seen as ...threatened by fragmentation of political debate, which some see as driven by news media. The relative importance of political actors (parties and politicians) in driving fragmentation has received less attention. In this paper, we compare how news media and political actors contribute to the fragmentation of online political debate on the basis of analysis of almost half a million election-related tweets collected during the 2017 French, German, and U.K. national elections. We employ a structural topic model to reduce online political debate to networks of topic overlap. Across the three countries with different political and media systems, we find news media are by far the most important actors in terms of creating and maintaining a common space of online political debate on Twitter. Our results also show that political actors, with some variation from country to country, contribute more to fragmentation as they focus on different topics while articulating clear differences. These findings underline the importance of complementing structural analysis of the rise of digital and social media with analysis of how important elite actors like news media and political parties/candidates use these media in different ways. Overall, we show how at least on Twitter, across three different countries with different media systems and political systems, news media create connection that contributes to commonality while political actors lay out clear differences that drive fragmentation.
The civil conflict literature often relies on state capacity having significant impacts on the risk of, and duration of, civil war and other civil conflicts. Many characteristics of civil conflict ...are often similar to terrorism, especially domestic terrorism, and are also considered when discussing the predictors of terror. However, what is not considered in either area of the literature is alternative characteristics of state capacity, namely, the degree of fragmentation in the policymaking branches, and its ability to enforce and carry out the laws that are implemented. This paper examines these effects, expanding the interpretation of state capacity to include these aforementioned concepts, and testing them simultaneously with the extant interpretation of capacity. Results show that when including these additional characteristics of capacity, previously accepted predictors are no longer relevant in predicting terrorism.
Contemporary public debates are often characterized by structural and substantial dissonances. This paper is concerned with normative and empirical evaluations of these dissonances and makes ...contributions on both levels. We argue that agonistic pluralism provides an insightful, yet often dismissed, theoretical perspective on the matter of political fragmentation. On the empirical level, we exemplify these considerations against the backdrop of the 2016 Austrian presidential elections and propose a corresponding measurement approach for political fragmentation. A combined network analysis and automated content analysis of comments on Facebook pages affiliated with political parties results in the following main findings: First, when looking at comments between different parties, fragmentation is at a low level at the beginning of the election campaign but increases over time. Second, degrees of fragmentation vary to a great extent between different parties. Third, offensive speech is one purpose for communication between political groups but not the main one.
This paper analyses different modes of provision for household waste collection and changes in that by Dutch municipalities in the period between 1998 and 2018. Based on a transition matrix, the ...shifts in the mode of waste collection are made transparent. In more than half of the municipalities, shifts took place, 56% towards outside production and 44% towards inside production and in later periods, inside production has become important. Furthermore, in the most recent time, reverse privatisation is preferred. We find that ideological factors have an influence on choices of provision modes and that municipalities with a more political fragmented board are less likely to corporatize or privatise waste collection. Finally, there is evidence that municipalities with a relatively negative financial position are more likely to go outside and that in pre-election years there is some hesitation to corporatize.
The study examines the determinants of the adoption of bond banks. It draws on the intergovernmental and collaboration scholarship and uses panel data from 26 states over 40-time periods and ...conditional fixed effects regression. The study findings suggest that opportunities for collaboration, the strength of existing collaboration, the motivation to reduce transaction costs, and financial and economic conditions influence bond banks' adoption. The study findings contribute to the scholarship that promotes government efficiency through joint venture activities that characterize bond banks.
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