A strong link between citizen preferences and public policy is one of the key goals and criteria of democratic governance. Yet, our knowledge about the extent to which public policies on specific issues are in line with citizen preferences in Europe is limited. This article reports on the first study of the link between public opinion and public policy that covers a large and diverse sample of concrete public policy issues in 31 European democracies. The findings demonstrate a strong positive relationship and a substantial degree of congruence between public opinion and the state of public policy. Also examined is whether political institutions, including electoral systems and the horizontal and vertical division of powers, influence the opinion‐policy link. The evidence for such effects is very limited, which suggests that the same institutions might affect policy representation in countervailing ways through different mechanisms.

This article explores how and to what extent revenue diversification and concentration strategies affect financial performance, particularly financial capacity and vulnerability, in nonprofit organizations. Using a sample collected from a systematic literature search of all major databases, we first conducted a bibliometric analysis of 86 existing studies to visualize the clusters of major topics in this area and to explore the connections between existing studies. We then employed a meta-analysis to quantitatively synthesize 258 effect sizes from 23 existing empirical studies. We found that diversification had little effect on financial vulnerability, but it had a slightly negative effect on financial capacity. The article finally uses a meta-regression to discuss some of the theoretical and practical reasons why there is inconsistency in the results across existing studies and calls for more discussion of the assumptions and effectiveness of revenue diversification among nonprofit scholars and practitioners.

Many previous analyses of aggregate‐level policy‐oriented economic voting hypotheses have been based on expert judgements of incumbents' ideology. These judgements first of all concentrate on long term characteristics of ideological stands and, more importantly, do not reflect parties' positions on economic issues per se. Using parties' arguments on economic issues in their election manifestoes, this article develops a left‐right ideology dimension that reflects parties' relative positions on economic issues for 163 elections in 16 countries in the post‐World War II period. The analysis suggests that over time there are very stable differences in parties' ideological positions on economic issues. Despite increasing clarity of ideological cleavages on economic issues, and persistent evidence of diverging economic policy outcomes in the literature, no distinct reward and punishment by the electorate is observed, associated with the ideological stands of the incumbents. Accordingly, the policy‐oriented economic voting hypothesis is rejected and possible reasons for this phenomenon is discussed.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11 2001, it is worth considering the impact of the events for our understanding of politics and international relations theory. The attacks have sparked a slew of analyses from a bewildering range of perspectives across the humanities and social sciences that call for a broad range of policy responses. A complete discussion of all the implications and perspectives would clearly be impossible, so this article will focus primarily on the ramifications for international politics.

NGOs have, of late, found some of their traditional domains, such as provision of micro-credit and participatory development, coinciding with or being taken away by the state. How do they position themselves and retain relevance vis-a-vis the state in the changed scenario? Tracing the trajectory of interventions of a local NGO in Kerala, India, this article shows that NGOs exhibit ‘multiple identities’—selective collaboration, gap-filling and posing alternatives—in the process of engagement with the state. The ‘strategizing’ of such identities may hold the key to their relevance vis-a-vis the state.

The article deals with the question if the cleavage concept of Lipset and Rokkan can be applied to the rise of National Socialism at the polls and as a mass-integration party. Voter fluctuations within and between political camps are analysed by means of ecological regression analysis as well as the social composition of the NSDAP electorate. Furthermore the social fabric of NSDAP party members between 1925 and 1933 is decribed in terms of the cleavage concept.

The French and Italian extreme right parties - Front National (FN) and Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) - seem to belong to two different traditions of contemporary right radicalism. The analysis of survey data from both parties' middle level elites, dealing with the level of political experience, the degree of integration/alienation vis-à-vis the political system and the value system confirms that the FN and the MSI do indeed belong to two different types of the extreme right class.

The initial speeches of MPs entering the British House of Commons from 1966 to 1970 were analyzed to ascertain the extent to which they complied with the prevailing myth of behaviour appropriate for maiden speeches. Rituals of style - hesitancy, brevity, and humility - were challenged more sharply than were those of substance - references to one's predecessor and one's constituency and being non-contentious. Despite widespread violation of the various norms, few new MPs defied the folkways across the board. Although a new breed of MP - young, well-educated, and professionally oriented - was entering the Commons at this time, such MPs did not prove to be the principal source of challenges to the folkways. Iconoclastic MPs tended to have less durable careers than did those MPs more acceptant of tradition. But neither Labour nor Conservatives penalized deviants by denying them positions in the Government. In the absence of sanctions, new Members complied with the myth only when the code of acceptable behaviour appeared to help the Commons function effectively and when new Members were not being singled out for discriminatory treatment.

Social housing in Western welfare states has undergone change over recent decades, characterised by greater reliance on private actors, market mechanisms and commercial capital. Within housing research, this shift has been described as a linear ‘migration from the public sector towards the private market’, and conceptualised as ‘modernisation’. While empirical change calls for conceptual renewal, the labels we apply to processes of change may limit or enhance potential to understand them. This paper explores the problem of conceptualising change in social housing, focusing on a key facilitator of market-based reforms: the mobilisation of private not-for-profit housing associations as social enterprises in the housing market. It explores their changing roles in English and Dutch housing provision, tracking state policy shifts and debate over their organisational legitimacy for insights into their emergence and trajectories. Contrary to linear ‘modernisation’, findings suggest cyclical movement. Over time, aspects of the work and identity of housing associations shift between public and private domains.

In this study we explain extreme right‐wing voting behaviour in the countries of the European Union and Norway from a micro and macro perspective. Using a multidisciplinary multilevel approach, we take into account individual‐level social background characteristics and public opinion alongside country characteristics and characteristics of extreme right‐wing parties themselves. By making use of large‐scale survey data (N = 49,801) together with country‐level statistics and expert survey data, we are able to explain extreme right‐wing voting behaviour from this multilevel perspective. Our results show that cross‐national differences in support of extreme right‐wing parties are particularly due to differences in public opinion on immigration and democracy, the number of non‐Western residents in a country and, above all, to party characteristics of the extreme right‐wing parties themselves.

Scholars and policy makers have traditionally assumed that nations face a tradeoff between income equality and economic efficiency. Greater equality is believed to reduce investment and dampen work incentives. A heterodox view suggests that a more egalitarian distribution of income may have beneficial efficiency effects by augmenting consumer demand and/or encouraging workers to cooperate in upgrading competitiveness. This paper offers an empirical assessment of the relationship between equality and efficiency, based on cross‐sectional data from 17 advanced industrialized economies over the period 1974–90. The comparative evidence indicates no adverse impact of greater equality on investment or work effort, nor on growth of productivity or output, trade balances, inflation, or unemployment. On the contrary, higher levels of equality are associated with stronger productivity growth and trade performance, and possibly with higher investment and lower inflation.

This article presents the findings of a research project on the internal and external governance of associations of immigrants in Andalucía, Spain. It is divided into three descriptive, interpretative parts. The first lists and analyzes the sociocultural motives behind initiatives for the formation of associations of immigrants, including initiatives related with the transnational context, initiatives stemming from a sense of solidarity and altruism, and initiatives arising from the need to coexist with and become integrated into the host society. The second part of the article focuses on the types of activities such associations organize, their resources and their strategic management practices. The third part looks at the ways in which associations are connected with the third sector in Andalucía, with particular reference to two dimensions of the issue, inter-association relationships and community participation. The findings throw some light on the accountability, institutional support, and networking needs of associations of immigrants. A series of suggestions is also presented concerning points generally linked with the concept of associative governance, such as good management practices and the concept of participatory governance as mechanisms for including civil society in policy and program design.

A characteristic of recent decades of scholarly work in the social sciences has been the increased amounts of empirical research. Access and availability of data are prerequisites for further research, replication work, and scientific development. As international peer-reviewed journals have gradually become the central forum for research debate, moves towards data sharing are dependent upon the policies of journals regarding data availability. This article examines contemporary data availability policies in political science and investigates the extent to which journals adopt such policies and their content. It also identifies a few factors associated with the existence of such policies.

In this symposium, we invite political science instructors to consider reflection as a useful pedagogic resource for achieving complex long-term educational goals. The authors of this collection have found reflection to be a suitable response to different teaching challenges, such as helping students achieve a nuanced understanding of social processes and decision-making, transfer knowledge between courses and gain self-awareness as active participants in learning. The three papers composing this symposium focus on different formats of reflection: a learning diary; reflection accompanying board games used as a teaching exercise; and short reflective assignments about connections between courses in a study programme. We present and discuss the design and implementation of reflective activities in the undergraduate political science curriculum, expose the strengths and weaknesses of using reflection and provide advice to instructors interested in using this teaching tool.

According to the mainstream literature on political participation, declining rates of voting and party and interest group membership reflect a crisis of democracy in Western democracies. In this article, we challenge this view by highlighting the rise of alternative forms of political participation that operate outside formal arenas. We suggest that the mainstream approach ignores such forms of political participation for two reasons: First, it operates with a narrow arena definition of politics; second, it is based on the assumption that non-participation in arena politics results from political apathy. We suggest that there is not a crisis of political participation, but there is a growing crisis in engagement resulting from an uncoupling between citizens and the state. Halting this form of democratic decline through a recoupling process will require changes on the part of governments and citizens.