The aim of the research is to determine the possibilities and limitations of applying indices for assessing regional youth policy in the Russian Federation. The article contains a detailed analysis ...of domestic and foreign scientific literature on current methods for evaluating state youth policy and possibilities of applying indices in this sphere. The comparative analysis of the use of indices for assessing youth policy in the CIS countries was conducted. The authors propose an index of complex evaluation of regional state programs based on the correlation between the data on the budgeting of the youth policy sphere in the subjects and the migration indicators of this age group. As a result of empirical research, the authors have identified groups of regions of the Russian Federation with different levels of funding of the investigated sphere and the degree of sufficiency of budgetary provision to maintain a neutral balance of youth migration.
In recent years, increasing attention has been devoted to electoral turmoil associated with the emergence of new political actors or the crisis of established parties at national level. However, in ...multi-level systems, transformations have also affected sub-national politics. This article seeks to understand some hitherto unexplored aspects of political change in regional party systems. Change is linked to the concept of instability and operationalized in terms of electoral volatility. To account for the fact that instability may be driven by distinct regional and national pressures coexisting in regional elections, a new measure of volatility has been developed. It is disaggregated into two territorial components: ‘Region-specific volatility’ (RSV) and ‘Region-transcending volatility’ (RTV). RSV refers to changes in electoral support for political parties competing exclusively in one region, while RTV is calculated for parties that ‘transcend’ regional boundaries – i.e. they are electorally active in several/all regions of a country or are part of institutionalized inter-regional networks. By applying this new measure to 385 elections in 58 European regions, this article shows that levels and types of instability have varied significantly over time, across regions and across countries. This may also account for different developments in territorial politics observed in Western Europe.
Abstract Competitiveness in electoral authoritarian regimes is compromised by management of the electoral arena through various kinds of manipulation. This study links two dimensions of ...competitiveness, namely fairness and contestation. We analyze the regional heterogeneity of both dimensions for Russian gubernatorial elections held between 2012 and 2019. To assess competitiveness, we use crowd-sourced electoral observation reports and data from the Central Election Commission. Our analysis reveals significant regional variation in both dimensions. Nevertheless, opposition victories are rare and only occur in exceptional cases. Low levels of electoral malpractices seem to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for close election results. Windows of opportunity for the opposition arise only if the regime misperceives the closeness of the race and if the opposition nominates prominent candidates. Overall, these findings shed light on the complex factors influencing the competitiveness of elections in electoral authoritarian regimes like Russia.
Due to the successful centralization efforts of the beginning of the 2000s, Russian governors almost lost their domestic as well as international agency. However, there is still a considerable ...variation in their international activity levels that remains unexplained. Employing an original dataset on the international activity of Russian governors from 2005 to 2015, the article investigates what effect regional political regime, ethnicity and other factors have on the level of gubernatorial participation in paradiplomacy. The level of regional democracy, the absence of ties between governors and regional elites, and the ethnic distinctiveness of a region are all positively associated with the engagement in international activity. The article demonstrates that regional authorities turn to paradiplomacy when faced with pressures for resource attraction and ethnic identity construction, even under the conditions of a relatively centralized authoritarian state.
Saxony remains a hot spot for far-right mobilization making it a prominent case for studying Neonazi-networks as well as broader issues of challenges for democracy. Local and regional mobilization ...has intensified during the political contestation of migration 2013ff. with Dresden’s PEGIDA becoming a benchmark for regional regressive movements. During the pandemic, we observed yet another uptick in far-right mobilization, again deeply rooted in local networks that existed before the crisis and leading to a specific dynamic distinct from other regions in Germany. To explain this phenomenon, it is important to consider regional and local characteristics of identity formation, perceptions of ‘winner-and-loser’ dichotomies, and the broader challenges of global and European inequalities. As this contribution argues, here lie yet idle potentials for the comparative study of Euroscepticism and place.
Given its distinctive structure and norms, is ASEAN's recent institutionalisation an instance of diffusion from the EU to ASEAN? Or do we observe adaptation to changes in the external and domestic ...environments of ASEAN states that are unrelated to, or independent of, the EU? Or is there some combination of both at work here - diffusion and adaptation to changes that do not relate to the EU? This article argues that ASEAN members have started to adopt EU-style institutions, in particular, the EU's Committee of Permanent Representatives and economic integration processes. This adoption process can be conceived as both lesson-drawing and normative emulation from the EU. This has not led to a comprehensive and systematic copying of EU institutions by ASEAN. Rather, member states have acted selectively in line with their 'cognitive priors' about state sovereignty. We observe institutional change only, but not a change in behavioural practices.
Malaysia's fifteenth general election (GE15) was a milestone in the country's democratization process, with three major coalitions contesting for national power after years of political instability. ...In this article, we investigate how Malaysia's cleavage structure - a central feature of Malaysia's prior authoritarian regime - shapes electoral competition in a newly competitive political environment. We find that the ethnic structure remains central to explaining party strategy and coalition behaviour in GE15, but that more democratic competition has increased the salience of regional differences - both between peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, and within peninsular Malaysia itself. Our analysis reveals the structural foundations of political competition in democratizing countries and contribute to the emerging literature on authoritarian legacies in such contexts.
Powerful assemblages? Allen, John
Area (London 1969),
06/2011, Letnik:
43, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In thinking through how different registers of power, that are neither centred nor radically dispersed in pattern, come into play with different outcomes in different times and places, the notion of ...assemblage has its appeal. Two qualities come to mind. First off, it allows for non-coherence as a way of thinking about how institutional arrangements of power more or less hold together, despite being made up of a co-existence of often diverse logics and practices. Second, spatio-temporal assemblages offer a way of understanding the various power plays that shape, say, the politics of regions and nation states, by invoking a topological sensibility around proximity and distance that appears more productive than the familiar topographies of scale and networks. Weighed against such attractions, however, the notion of assemblage lends itself to a number of pitfalls: endless description is one, weak conceptualisation another.
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