The main event in 1994 was the election to the European Parliament in June, which was seen as a test for the general elections due in 1995 (see below) and the run-up to which was characterized by an increasing polarization between the Socialist Party and the ruling PPD/PSD. It was also characterized by tensions between President MBrio Soares and the government, and it was interesting to note that Soares’s country-wide ‘campaign’ under the motto of environmental awareness also involved Environmental Minister Teresa Gouveia, thus giving the impression that any ‘institutional guerrilla warfare’ between the government and the president could be avoided this time.

The article examines the meaning of migrants’ (dis)enfranchisement within democratic polities, focusing on ideas of political authority and agency derived from democratic theory. Building on the notion that democratic voting represents a mutual and second-personal exercise of authority, the article argues that the disenfranchisement of migrants signifies their exclusion from agential authoritative relationships in politics, and ultimately, from a quintessential democratic mode of political agency. We recall some of the principles for expanding voting rights and acknowledge that there may be reasons in favor of exclusion. However, we highlight how any such exclusion (re)shapes the political relationships instantiated in the practice of voting. While we rebut the challenge of “voting fetishism,” we conclude by discussing how alternative forms of political participation for migrants, though important, cannot compensate for the unique impoverishment of political authority and agency that disenfranchisement specifically incurs.

In general, research demonstrates that deprivation, education, health, and well-being are determinants of volunteering, and that volunteering can play an important role in building stronger communities and provides many benefits for individual health and well-being. This study concentrates on the effects of physical and mental health and well-being as predictors when the aspect of socio-economic impact has been minimised. It utilises a unique data set from a UK Housing Association community with generally high levels of deprivation. Data were analysed using bivariate probit regression. In contrast to previous findings, physical health and mental health were not significantly related to volunteering. The key finding was that mental well-being was significantly related to informal volunteering.

This paper examines legitimacy and political space for civil society in violent and divided contexts. It draws on qualitative fieldwork with civil society groups in Burundi, where government restrictions and political violence have increased in recent years. However, not all civil society groups experienced these pressures in the same way, and some were more vulnerable to restrictions than others. This paper asks why and considers whether civil society legitimacy can help to explain some of these differences. In doing so, it develops a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between legitimacy and political space, and processes of legitimation and delegitimation in violent and divided contexts. The paper finds that the experiences of civil society groups in Burundi prior to the 2015 elections not only related to their organisational legitimacy, but also the extent to which they were perceived to challenge the political legitimacy of government elites.

This article examines selected system-level variables. Its premise is that a better understanding of how and why scholars may, or may not, choose an international orientation in their career requires taking into account factors beyond personal preferences or constraints. We suggest that characteristics of national systems shape prospects and strategies of internationalisation and look at two broadly defined variables: resource availability and career incentives. With respect to the first, we study the absolute level of national resources and their relative importance vies-a-vis those provided by the EU. With respect to the second, we consider the rules and norms governing the progress of academic careers, especially the extent to which international collaboration is significant and necessary for initially attaining a stable academic position and career advancement. We explore these questions through targeted comparison of four national cases, selected to ensure crosscutting variation across the selected variables. A comparison of two relatively low-resource cases (Bulgaria and the Czech Republic) with two relatively high-resource ones (France and Finland) is followed by a comparison with respect to career incentives. This allows to conclude that both factors should be considered as necessary conditions for internationalisation, and to suggest how this hypothesis might be further tested in subsequent research.

This paper attempts to apply and test some of the major propositions advanced by the ‘consociational school’ of democratic theory to the case of a Third World country, Kenya. These propositions concern both the specific, highly fragmented ‘plural’ social bases of politics and particular institutional arrangements (such as a ‘grand coalition’, proportional representation, etc.), Kenya is shown to be an interesting, though somewhat ‘deviant’, case in this regard. The analysis is based on available published sources, official documents and data from a general population survey conducted by the author. The concluding section discusses some of the inherent constraints in the Kenyan case and indicates some of the more general limitations of the concept of consociational democracy.

Governments led by technocrats remain a nebulous category in political science literature, with little clarity about how they differ from party governments, how many have existed and how we can differentiate between them. This article aims to provide that conceptual and empirical clarity. Having proposed an ideal type definition of ‘technocratic government’, it sets out three conditions for an operational definition of a ‘technocrat’ and, on that basis, lists the 24 technocrat‐led governments that have existed in 27 European Union (EU) democracies from the end of the Second World War until June 2013. It then classifies these according to their partisan/technocrat composition and remit. This allows for the presentation of a typology of four different types of technocrat‐led governments and the definition of ‘full technocratic governments’ as those which contain a majority of technocrats and – unlike caretaker governments – have the capacity to change the status quo. The article concludes that full technocratic governments remain extremely rare in EU democracies since there have been only six cases – of which three have occurred in the last decade.

Often overlooked by political scientists, Foucault's later work on ‘governmentality’ has much to offer political analysis. This paper does three things. First, it highlights three different meanings that Foucault and others give to this term. Second, it reviews some of the key debates – such as the nature of liberal governance – surrounding studies of governmentality. Finally, it illustrates the analytical promise of a governmentality perspective through a short discussion of recent developments in European governance.

In his famous volume on The Future of Political Science, Harold Lasswell argued that the sustained study of government, politics and law was undoubtedly a feature of the first urban civilizations that arose in the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus valleys (1964: 10). It is of course true that the study of political life has been pursued, in one form or another, almost for as long as there has been political life. To demonstrate that political science has a long historical tradition in the Nordic countries does not, however, require the claim that analytical approaches to politics were used in Nordic societies during times long past. This same goal can be achieved by less artificial means, namely by referring to the existence of political science as an independent university discipline. In Sweden, the first chair in the subject was established at the University of Uppsala as early as 1622, and in Finland, at that time a part of Sweden, the first chair was established at Abo Academy some two decades later, in 1640. As an academic discipline political science has a history of more than 350 years in the Nordic countries.

Academic freedom is intrinsically linked to the rule of law and fundamental rights, most notably, the freedom of sciences and free speech in general. Academic freedom has been constitutionally embedded in Hungary since the democratic transition. After a series of laws and policies eliminating government criticism and effective checks on those in power for many years, on 4 April 2017 the Hungarian Parliament finally targeted academic freedom as well, and in this vein, adopted a modification to the Act on National Higher Education. The thinly veiled objective behind the legislation is to force Budapest-based and US-accredited Central European University (CEU) out of the country. CEU was founded by Mr George Soros, public enemy number one in the eyes of the rulers of today’s Hungary. The election campaign before the 2018 parliamentary elections is framed around a government initiative entitled “Stop Soros”, harassing organizations receiving Soros money. CEU and Soros-funded NGOs represent everything the government fights against or is suspicious of, such as the rule of law, fundamental rights, multiculturalism, tolerance, accountable government, transparency, justice, equality, liberal democracy, and open society. The modification of the Act on National Higher Education fits into a broader picture of a state in constitutional capture, where fundamental rights in general are in jeopardy. This article explains the broader problem of rule of law backsliding; it assesses the controversial law curbing academic freedom, highlights its bias nature targeting CEU and CEU only, and draws up future scenarios in light of possible national and international responses.

The role of politics is particularly difficult to discern in the domain of international financial markets, where the state's capacity to control or direct capital flows, without incurring considerable opportunity (and political) costs, appears so limited. In addressing this question, this paper argues that the process of internationalisation is first and foremost the consequence of political decision-making (to create open markets) and that many domestic interests linked to the international market have promoted internationalisation both through their policy preferences and economic activity. The paper will then go on to argue that the threat of financial instability and crisis, a consequence of the increased volatility of relatively unregulated capital flows, has prompted political demands for more concerted inter-state co-operation to maintain stability. Much of this takes place through transnational agreements among state agencies, such as the central banks, and much through ‘reregulation’ in the guise of ‘harmonisation’ of regulatory and prudential supervisory policies.

Some of this process has received considerable publicity, such as the harmonisation of EEC regulations to facilitate freer trade in banking and financial services as part of the preparation for the Single European Market in 1992. Likewise, the current Uruguay Round of GATT trade talks has the liberalisation of trade in financial services on its agenda. Other aspects of the process have been carried on quietly, far from public view, in such forums as the Bank for International Settlements. Such is the case of a recent agreement to harmonise minimum capital adequacy requirements for banks operating in international markets. The paper uses these three cases to support the argument about the role of politics and the state in international finance.

There is an ongoing debate among practitioners and scholars about the security consequences of transnational migration. Yet, existing work has not, so far, fully taken into account the policy instruments states have at their disposal to mitigate these risks, and reliable evidence is lacking for the effectiveness of such measures. This article addresses both shortcomings as whether and to what extent national migration policies affect the diffusion of terrorism via population movements are analysed. Spatial analyses report robust support for a moderating influence of states’ policies: while terrorism can travel from one country to another via larger migration populations, this only applies to target countries with extremely lax regulations and control mechanisms. This research sheds new light on the security implications of population movements, and it crucially adds to our understanding of governments’ instruments for addressing migration challenges as well as their effectiveness.

Conducting a study on a sample of 303 participants from the Novi Sad Voluntary Service we set out to validate the Volunteer Satisfaction Index (VSI) in the cultural context of the two European titles—Youth 2019 and Culture 2021. A battery of instruments was used for research purposes, Voluntary Satisfaction Inventory, Voluntary Function Inventory and Helping Attitude Scale. Our study is currently the only one in Serbia that evaluated volunteer satisfaction. The results support a volunteer model based on altruistic values, recognized and accepted, identifying volunteer benefits of personal gain and relationship with the organization. Since the Serbian version of the VSI scale was confirmed on the example of the Novi Sad Voluntary Service sample and has shown satisfactory psychometric properties, it can be used for the purpose of further monitoring and evaluating volunteer satisfaction, examining other factors on which volunteer satisfaction is based.