The article theorizes the sovereign in recent digital democratic experiments. It demonstrates how the prevailing perspective is based on a liberal-technocratic understanding that overlooks important questions of organized collective power and identity. To address these limitations, the article contrasts the liberal-technocratic framework with a radical democratic approach. This alternative allows for reimagining the digital sovereign in two ways. First, it shifts the focus from the sovereign as a mere aggregation of networked individuals with fixed identities to one that opens up opportunities for ongoing identity construction and transformation. Second, a radical democratic approach emphasizes that the digital sovereign emerges from the individual and collective capacity to organize power.

This study examines how performing diaspora philanthropy in the country of origin (Morocco) and the experience of integration and inclusion in the country of residence (Netherlands) influences the sense of belonging amongst cross-border diasporic philanthropists. The examination combines theories on migration, cross-border diasporic philanthropy and the sense of belonging. Based on a qualitative exploration of the perspectives and motives of individual cross-border diasporic philanthropists (N = 30), the analysis reveals a profile of cross-border diasporic philanthropists for whom country of residence serves as a positive reference, due to the constant experience of inclusion. They use their country of residence as a reference for social change in their country of origin. This generates a sense of belonging amongst diasporic philanthropists. The findings of this study contribute to the existing literature on the sense of belonging within diasporic communities and cross-border diasporic philanthropists, thereby enhancing understanding of motivations for diasporic philanthropy.

The concept of internationalisation, when referring to the work of social scientists within academic institutions, takes on different meanings and involves different activities. This contribution aims to shed light on the international activities of political scientists across Europe and to investigate the various meanings and practices of internationalisation. The analysis relies on the PROSEPS survey, involving some 1,800 political scientists across 37 European countries. We identify three distinct profiles of international scholars: the networked researcher, the editorial manager, and the traveller. These profiles differ according to 1) the building of international research networks, 2) the involvement in the activities of the international publishing industry, 3) the research and teaching exchanges with foreign academic institutions. Determinants, such as gender, family status, career stage, availability of institutional and financial support, and geographical location, are considered as potential drivers or inhibitors of internationalisation. Our analysis shows that the internationalisation of academic practices follows contrasting paths according to the type of international profile.

In this study we provide a comprehensive phonological and morphological overview of the complex tense-aspect-mood (TAM) system of Babanki, a Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon. Our emphasis is on the competing inflectional tonal melodies that are assigned to the verb stem. These melodies are determined not only by the multiple past and future tenses, perfective vs. progressive aspect, and indicative vs. imperative, subjunctive, and conditional moods, but also affirmative vs. negative and “conjoint” (CJ) vs. “disjoint” (DJ) verbal marking, which we show to be more thoroughgoing than the better known cases in Eastern and Southern Bantu. The paper concludes with a ranking of the six assigned tonal melodies and fourteen appendices providing all of the relevant tonal paradigms.

With their “Beyond Nonprofits: Re-conceptualizing the Third Sector”, Salamon and Sokolowski have made an important contribution to the ongoing debate on how to define the third sector. This Voluntas symposium brings together the comments of five leading scholars both supportive and critical of the new definition. The comments are based on a debate held at the conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research, in Stockholm in 2016.

Most countries struggle to implement CO2 reducing policies. Implementation is politically difficult since it typically forces politicians to trade‐off different concerns. The literature on how parties and members of parliament (MPs) handle these trade‐offs is sparse. We use structural topic models to study how MPs in an oil dependent environment responded to a shock in the oil price that created spatially concentrated costs of climate policies. We leverage the rapid oil price drop between parliamentary sessions and MPs’ constituency adherence in a difference‐in‐differences framework to identify if MPs respond differently to variation in the salience of trade‐offs. We find that MPs facing high political costs of climate policies tried to avoid environmental topics, while less affected MPs talked more about investments in green energy when the oil price declined. Our results suggest that the oil price bust created a ‘window of opportunity’ for advocates of the ‘ green shift’.

While the stability of legislation is one of the fundamental issues in political theory, comparative and quantitative analyses on the subject are in short supply in the political science literature. In this article, we propose a novel measurement scheme for legislative stability, and we also introduce a Legislative Stability Index (LSI) developed to this end. In terms of empirical evidence, our index relies on the number of legislative amendments adopted within the span of an electoral cycle, as well as the breadth of issues the amendments touch on. It is based on the frequency with which laws are amended after their adoption. Our approach uses a new law-amendment edge-type network for a new Hungarian legislative database. Amendment-type connections are discovered by an automated dictionary-based text mining method. We tested the applicability of our index in various regression models. Results show that the legislative term, the length of the law and the way it was adopted were the most significant variables in explaining variation in the stability of legislation.

We argue for consideration of deliberative democratic pathways to governing infrastructure systems to enable a planned reduction in economic activity. Given the dominant perspective is “infrastructure facilitates growth”, we first consider contemporary criticisms of growth. We critique the large-scale, complex infrastructures implied, and the forms of democratic governance envisaged. Such infrastructures drive forms of economic activity that advocates of degrowth demonstrate are incompatible with attempts to reduce resources consumed by contemporary economies and their emissions. We argue any deliberation on infrastructures must acknowledge they are not simply physical objects but rather bundles of relationships. With dominant economic relationships challenged by the view that infrastructures ought to be managed as commons we argue that the relational perspective sets the stage for deliberation over physical, social, and environmental infrastructure that escapes what are incorrectly assumed to be insurmountable path dependencies.

I present a critical review of one of the most influential trends in scholarship analysing the conceptual relationship between Freud and Kant in moral psychology. I discuss three Kantian sophisticated naturalistic approaches (KSNAs), which explore the possibility of accommodating Kantian moral imperatives within the Freudian psycho-developmentalist account, based primarily on the idea of the superego. Specifically, I examine three of their arguments about moral development that revolve around: (1) the relevance of guilt for moral orientation. The KNSAs propose that guilt is a moral feeling, the manifestation of a superego or moral conscience. I argue instead that guilt is not a moral feeling per se, although it can sometimes serve as a moral orientation. (2) The nature of our sources of moral motivation. For the KSNAs, it is irrelevant to think about the sources of our moral motivation because it is impossible to know them. I argue, however, for the relevance of the intelligibility of our moral commands, which should somehow match or resemble their moral source. (3) The concept of ideality. For the KNSAs, the superego’s commands are moral because they are ideal. I will argue that the ideality of the superego’s commands is, on the contrary, self-deceptive.

The Covid-19 epidemic came at a sensitive time for Russia’s leadership, which was attempting a political reset and structural reforms, including the removal of President Putin’s presidential term limits. This article examines how issues related to the pandemic provided new opportunities for the systemic opposition, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who emerged as the main beneficiaries after capitalising on opportunities created by the epidemic. The underappreciated role of systemic opposition parties in electoral authoritarian systems, which balance “voice” and “loyalty” to benefit both themselves and the regime, is examined in the context of the Covid-19 crisis.

News reporting typically has a dual function: it mirrors what is going on in real life, but it also shapes how actors behave. Previous studies suggest that media presence, by way of shaping public and policy perceptions, influence how well nonprofits are able to raise funds and mobilize human resources. Yet, we are lacking insights into how the third sector is actually framed in the media, in particular with regard to innovation, which increasingly complements the more traditional functions of advocacy and service provision. To find out, we performed a longitudinal content analysis and an in-depth framing analysis on national and regional newspapers from nine European countries. The analyses demonstrate that third sector activities, especially those related to social innovation, are largely ignored. We find no systematic evidence that crises increase news attention to nonprofit activities. The third sector is becoming more newsworthy when it co-engages with government and business actors, but can benefit only little from this “positive glow”. We suggest how research on these matters can be taken forward, with a specific focus on the agenda-setting theory of mass media, the strategic management of nonprofit organizations, and collaboration in the context of social innovation.

This paper presents rhythmic syncope in Mojeño Trinitario, an Arawak language spoken in lowland Bolivia. In this language, every vowel that is in a weak prosodic position can syncopate. The syncope pattern of Mojeño Trinitario is remarkable for several reasons. First, it involves a regular, categorical and complete deletion rather than a statistical reduction of vowels. Second, it applies similarly to words with either of two stress patterns: iambic words, which make up the great majority of words, and trochaic ones, much less numerous. Third, a great variety of consonant sequences are the result of syncope, and syllabification applies again after syncope. Fourth, rhythmic syncope actually underapplies: almost half of the vowels that are in a position to syncopate are maintained, and vowel quality plays a statistical role in immunity to syncope. Fifth, due to a rich morphology and a set of complex phonotactic rules applying sequentially, syncope leads to extreme opacity. The data presented in tins paper in a theory-neutral way contribute to the typology of rhythmic syncope. It will also be of interest to phonologists considering constraint-based vs. derivational models of phonology.

The deconstruction of the Constitution is an expression of extra-systemic dissensus directed against the current political order and strongly antagonising political actors within the state and in relations with the EU. In the article, we argue that the political changes in Poland do not herald a new type of constitutionalism, but rather constitute its deconstruction. The main actor subject to deconstruction is the Constitutional Tribunal (CT). Consequently, the deconstructed CT became an important instrument for further deconstruction of the Constitution, notably evident in the dispute over the primacy of the Constitution over European law. The deconstruction of the Constitution has its roots in the lack of sociological legitimacy of the Polish Constitution and its portrayal by certain right-wing political parties as failing to establish a level playing field in the political game.

Political participation is frequently defined as either being conventional or unconventional. This distinction is based on dualistic thinking. Participation is likened to other dualisms, such as legal–illegal, collective–individual, and unity–plurality. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's system theory, I argue that understanding political participation in terms of dualisms is reductive, as it overlooks those acts of participation that do not fit the conventional–unconventional distinction. To address this issue, the article introduces the notion of alternative political participation. This category is established by conceiving the existing dualism between conventional and unconventional political participation as a continuum of options existing between polar opposites.

Despite increasing access to high quality television (TV) series in the golden age of television, political scientists (and especially scholars of comparative politics) have not systematically considered the possibilities that television series might offer for instruction. This article aims to fill this gap by illustrating the opportunities for teaching political science using TV series and outlining ways of integrating television series into the classroom using selected clips, screening full episodes, or using an entire series as a text. We then illustrate these methods by discussing ways that television series might be used in a typical introductory course on European politics.

Competitive authoritarianism, a specific type of hybrid regime, is gaining ground globally. Corruption is particularly prevalent in these contexts as regimes utilise it to consolidate their power. However, some competitive authoritarian regimes also take significant measures to curb certain types of corruption. The present article posits that competitive authoritarian regimes, acting as rational utility-maximising actors, curb or enhance corruption types based on the net costs and benefits—that is, net gains—they yield for the regime. To elucidate the factors influencing net gains, an explanatory framework is presented. Its three constituent elements are accountability costs, transaction costs, and political benefits. The applicability of the framework is demonstrated with case studies of two corruption types in Hungary, namely, informal payments in healthcare and clientelism in awarding tobacco retail concessions.

This paper offers a novel analysis of the complex patterns of exponence exhibited by the Somali subject marker (MRK). Somali subject marking presents a typologically rare case of subtractive grammatical tone, and one in which an otherwise predictable process of High tone loss is sometimes impeded by factors related to word structure. In the simplest instances, MRK is realized only tonally by the loss of High tone from the last word in a DP. Under some conditions, however, it is realized only segmentally, with no High tone loss. Still other times, both exponents appear, and even in a few instances, neither is realized. These outcomes are predictable, but analyzing them presents several challenges. One of these is motivating the outcomes from a single underlying form given the apparent independence of the tonal and segmental exponents. Others concern defining the trigger of subtraction and the domain or valuation window in which subtraction occurs. We propose a formal account of these outcomes within Cophonologies by Phase (Sande & Jenks 2018; Sande, Jenks & Inkelas 2020), whose division of vocabulary items into three types of phonological content is uniquely suited to addressing these analytical hurdles.

Women and girls’ organisations (WGOs) are a fundamental part of the voluntary and community sector (VCS) and wider society. They have a unique history and development as a sub-set of the wider VCS and have been pivotal in meeting important needs for women and girls, yet existing analysis of the VCS using data from the Charity Commission for England and Wales (CCEW) has not previously focused on WGOs. The purpose of this paper is to present a feminist approach to identifying and classifying WGOs utilising data from the CCEW register. The paper provides a detailed exploration of the methodological approach and argues that such an approach to compiling and analysing datasets is both necessary and advantageous in exposing areas of power and contestation. The paper provides an original overview of the scope of WGOs in England and Wales between 2008 and 2018 and also demonstrates benefits that can be applied in other classification work within the field.

This research note presents the RepResent Belgian Panel (RBP). The RBP is a voter panel survey consisting of four waves fielded to a sample of voters in Belgium around the May 2019 federal, regional, and European elections in Belgium. It provides unique data on about 250 variables for a quota sample of the same respondents, pre-2019 elections (N = 7351), post-2019 elections (N = 3909), one year after the elections (N = 1996), and 2 years after the elections (N = 1119). The RBP panel dataset was designed to analyse voters’ political attitudes and behaviours, notably on different dimensions of democratic representation, and with a specific focus on democratic resentment (e.g. citizens’ attitudes towards democracy such as distrust and alienation, but also behaviours such as abstention, protest, or voting for anti-establishment parties). Its longitudinal structure allows to explore the political dynamics at play in Belgium throughout the lengthy government formation process. Finally, the last two waves of the RBP were fielded during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing to explore public opinion before and during this global crisis. The RBP should be of interest to scholars of public opinion and electoral studies.