This article formulates the concept of democracy as a configuration to overcome the rigid universalist, liberal-proceduralist dominated conceptions of democracy that define invariant core elements and combine them with culturally individualistic features. Instead, the approach presented here focuses on the basic principles behind democracy. Lincoln's often-criticized broad definition of democracy as “government by, of, and for the people” provides the opportunity for an open, transglobal approach that focuses on the premise of political self-efficacy for all citizens and portrays democracy not as a mechanism but as a way of life. Political self-efficacy can be institutionalized in different ways, so this contribution refers to specific models of democracy (e.g., liberal, republican, or communitarian).

The article claims that the dominant interpretations of the current crisis of democracy have many implicit normative assumptions as background and basis, previously established according to particular theories of democracy. Unraveling such assumptions may allow us to understand the theoretical limitations of such approaches as well as point out the politically self-destructive alternatives they project of either returning to the institutional model before the crisis or succumbing to authoritarianism. Examining the case of the functioning of Brazil's political system in recent decades, that initial approach should allow us to understand the specificity of the crisis of democracy in this country. As in the case of dominant explanations of the current crisis of democracy more broadly, the development on Brazil will also show the part that dominant explanations in political science play in it, and how it obscures the understanding of ongoing changes and the fight against the current authoritarian threat.

This article investigates the impact of populist messages on issue agreement and readiness for action in 15 countries (N = 7,286). Specifically, populist communicators rely on persuasive strategies by which social group cues become more salient and affect people's judgment of and political engagement with political issues. This strategy is called ‘populist identity framing’ because the ordinary people as the in‐group is portrayed as being threatened by various out‐groups. By blaming political elites for societal or economic problems harming ordinary people, populist communicators engage in anti‐elitist identity framing. Another strategy is to blame immigrants for social problems – that is, exclusionist identity framing. Finally, right‐wing political actors combine both cues and depict an even more threatening situation of the ordinary people as the in‐group. Based on social identity theory, an experimental study in 15 European countries shows that most notably the anti‐elitist identity frame has the potential to persuade voters. Additionally, relative deprivation makes recipients more susceptible to the mobilising impact of the populist identity frames.

This article presents an examination of the utilization of a conceptual metaphor that maps the art of poetry onto the craft of lapidary in the works of Niẓāmī Ganjavī (1141–1209), a prominent Persian poet known for his innovative use of poetic imageries and literary devices. This conceptual metaphor, as defined in cognitive linguistics, originates from the Persian cultural context and serves as a tangible way for Niẓāmī to express his abstract ideas regarding poetry’s beauty, elegance, and worth. This study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the efficacy of this prevalent metaphorical framework in explicating the art of poetry and its related subjects through close reading and textual analysis of excerpts from Niẓāmī’s works, in which this metaphor operates as an underlying element. Additionally, this examination illuminates some aspects of Niẓāmī’s distinctive literary style. More broadly, relying on Niẓāmī’s poetry, this article delivers a perspective on the literary conventions of medieval Iranian courts, particularly with regard to the perception of poetry and the societal status of those who engaged in poetic production.

In this study, we aim to investigate the much shrouded and problematic role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in conflict settings. We argue that to go beyond the “NGOization” of CSOs, there is a need to have a macro perspective of the interaction mechanisms between the shifting dynamics that CSOs play in development efforts. This lack of perspective impedes the ability of CSOs to navigate challenges in conflict settings because examining CSO dynamics independently will not be sufficient to develop effective solutions. Therefore, we investigated the interplay between dynamics in the case of Palestinian CSOs through our interactive framework, where we identified three main barriers faced by CSOs and eight interaction mechanisms between each of the dynamics and the barriers. Our framework appeals to policymakers and practitioners alike by offering practical implications emphasizing the role of locally led initiatives that mobilize communities to innovate and govern, with guidance from CSOs.

Latecomer political science communities have faced multiple challenges in the past decades, including the very establishment of their professional identities. Based on the case study of Hungary, this article argues that publication performance is a substantial component of the identity of the political science profession. Hungary is a notable example among Central and East European (CEE) political science academia in the sense that both the initial take-off of the profession and then its increasing challenges are typical to the CEE region. In an inclusive approach, which encompasses all authors published in the field between 1990 and 2018, as well as their publication record, the analysis demonstrates that political science has undergone major expansion, quality growth and internationalisation but these performance qualities are unevenly spread. These reflect important aspects of the profession’s identity. This agency and performance-based approach to identity formation might well be used to build up identity features elsewhere and also in a comparative manner.

This article explores the alleged emancipatory potential of global civil society as regards transnational activism to promote fair trade. It examines the case of transnational activism on European Free Trade Agreements, with illustrations from the Stop EPAs campaign and activism relating to the negotiation of an Association Agreement between the EU and Central America. It looks at how ideas of fair trade are expressed and at the process of managing diversity and searching for common messages. Activists working in North–South open and ideological diverse coalitions managed the tensions between reform and resistance for the perceived benefits of increased voice. Though transnational activism created more space for debate and action thereby promoting inclusion of different voices, some views remain marginal in the search for compromises. The analysis suggests that global civil society cannot be understood as a single entity. Rather, the emancipatory contents and meanings of global civil society are being forged through these conflicts and interactions among different groups.

Academics are often accused of being secluded in their “ivory towers”, focused on research and teaching but uninterested in, or unable to engage with, the public debate. If this is actually the case, under what conditions and at what particular moment is this likely to change? Following on three relevant dimensions—the visibility of political scientists, their partisanship and their impact in the public sphere—and combining press analysis with original survey data, this article has two main aims: first, to assess Italian political scientists’ (IPSs) social relevance in a period of huge political and institutional conflict such as the constitutional referendum held in December 2016; second, to explore the potential factors leading IPSs to be more or less present in the public debate. For the former, we focus on the public visibility of IPSs during the referendum campaign, as well as on the content of their public interventions, both concerning their neutral/partisan stance and their attitudes towards the constitutional reform. For the latter, we empirically test a few personal and institutional factors that are likely to influence individuals’ participation in the referendum debate.

While all government portfolios used to be the purview of men exclusively, more and more women are selected to sit around the cabinet table. But under which circumstances do women get appointed to different ministerial portfolios? This article, proposes a theoretical framework to consider how party leaders’ attitudes and motivations influence the allocation of portfolios to male and female ministers. These propositions are tested empirically by bringing together data on 7,005 cabinet appointments across 29 European countries from the late 1980s until 2014. Considering the key partisan dynamics of the ministerial selection process, it is found that women are significantly less likely to be appointed to the ‘core’ offices of state, and ‘masculine’ and ‘neutral’ policy areas. However, these gender differences are moderated by the ideology of the party that allocates them. Women are more likely to be appointed to ‘masculine’ portfolios when a party's voters have more progressive gender attitudes. This theoretical framework and analysis enhances our understanding of women's access to the government, which has important implications for how ministers are selected, as well as how women are represented in the most powerful policy‐making positions in Europe.

This study explores the dynamics of cooperatives, with a focus on the internal challenges associated with sustaining democratic governance and promoting active member participation. The emphasis is on individual-level participation within the workplace, an often-neglected aspect in cooperative literature. An empirical model examines how member loyalty influences constructive and destructive voice behaviours. Leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship and integrative mechanisms are the proposed mediators in this context. Analysing data from 301 members of 19 worker cooperatives in Italy revealed different mediating effects through LMX, integrative mechanisms and a combined sequence. These findings enrich the cooperative literature by highlighting the importance of loyalty and voice behaviours in regenerating cooperative principles and member participation. The study also underscores the role of interpersonal relationships in affecting operational processes and explaining members’ loyalty and participation dynamics, proposing suggestions for cooperative management upholding democratic governance rooted in trust-based relationships, organic organisational models and mutual values.

In contribution to current debates on the changing roles and responsibilities of civil society in welfare state arrangements, I examined the participation of various types of civil society organizations in national welfare policymaking in Sweden between 1958 and 2012. Drawing upon an extensive dataset of over 1400 civil society, state, and for-profit organizations, I tested three claims related to the role and responsibility of civil society in the governance of welfare: the changing balance between corporatist and welfare organizations, the shift from voice to service, and another shift from nonprofit organizations to FPOs. My results revealed weak but emerging trends aligned with changing patterns of corporatism and the marketization of Sweden’s welfare system. However, support for any shift from voice to service remains uncertain.

This paper explores how ethnographic approaches to third sector and nonprofit studies allow for context-based understandings of the links between volunteering and development. Drawing from our ethnographies of volunteering in Sierra Leone, Burundi and the Philippines, we argue that ethnographic methods could tease out local ideologies and practices of volunteer work that can challenge knowledge monopolies over how volunteering is understood and, later, transcribed into development policy and practice at various levels. The contribution of ethnography as a methodology to third sector research lies not only in the in-depth data it generates but also in the kind of ethos and disposition it requires of scholars—providing attention to issues of power and voice and leaning into the unpredictability of the research process.

The digital age is bringing transformative changes to political science data practices and ecosystems, driven by advances in technology and a growing emphasis on FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles. This paper uses a theory of “innovation cascades” to show how building bridges to distant knowledge domains in computer and information sciences, as well as legal and ethical studies, can foster rapid and widespread adoption of more efficient and productive data practices in the discipline. Through a percolation model, I illustrate how innovation emerges and reaches tipping points when discovery and cross-disciplinary collaboration reach critical thresholds. This framework implies that the disciplinary community can proactively shape its data-future and anticipate disruptive changes that lie beyond the current imagination. The findings suggest that by enhancing connectivity across domains, political science can foster a resilient, collaborative scientific infrastructure capable of advancing both research and public engagement.

To encourage methodological pluralism in the field, this paper examines an illustrative sample of articles that apply critical approaches to third-sector studies focused on gender. Specifically, the paper analyzes three articles that were previously identified as among the most critical work on gender in the field between 1970 and 2009 to illustrate how critical research is produced and the value it brings to third-sector studies. We find this work: uncovers hidden assumptions and/or uncomfortable erasures that mask gender-based inequities and injustices; resists hegemonic scientific norms in doing and writing research; and rejects ‘woman’ as a uniform object of theorizing. We discuss against what methodological standards such work should be evaluated and suggest a wider understanding of these ‘alternative’ standards, which might derive significant benefits for the field through increased critical scholarship and the unique features it brings.

Research on the underrepresentation of youth in parliaments has rarely focused on political parties. This is surprising as parties are central in the selection of candidates and therefore should play an important role in determining the demographic composition of elected politicians. We created a data set of party parliamentary groups between 2017 and 2020 and conducted a linear regression as well as a fuzzy set QCA. Building upon previous literature, we expected the share of young Members of Parliament (MPs) to be higher under the following conditions: a low/high GDP per capita, a proportional representation electoral system, decentralized nomination processes, strong party youth organizations, an inclusive party ideology and young party structures. Our research support previous findings that electoral systems matter. Furthermore, our results indicate that whilst ideology might be a significant factor by itself, it becomes influential especially in combination with PR systems. The role of strong youth organizations, decentralized selectorates and party age seem to be highly context-dependent and more ambivalent. In summary, there is no singular condition under which we observe adequate youth representation, but rather different configurations of conditions. By applying the newest guidelines on good practices in QCA research, we present one of the first applications of these techniques in party and representation research.

This conversation with Nancy Fraser explores her work on the crises of capitalism, democracy, and participation. Fraser has argued that much scholarship in political science and democratic theory on these issues is hampered by “politicism”—an inclination to view the political in separation from other social spheres, which fails to appreciate the structural nature of contemporary crises. Fraser argues that the political arena is important because it is here that collective regulatory powers are exercised, however it needs to be situated within a broader understanding of the social totality to understand how it is affected by crisis dynamics in other spheres and how it might contribute to attenuating, or resolving, these. Our conversation begins by exploring these arguments in relation to Fraser's recent work on the critique of capitalism, and then traces how this relates to her work on the public sphere, participatory parity, and utopian thought.

The literature on what we call AB constructions (freezes, irreversible binomials), such as odds and ends and copy paste, attributes the fixed word order to both phonological and nonphonological, mostly semantic constraints. However, some researchers attribute a prominent role to phonology, while others view semantics as the major contributor to word order of AB constructions. In this paper we evaluate the role of phonology in Hebrew AB constructions with reference to a harmonic grammar with weighted constraints, where constraint weight is calculated on the basis of its effect in our corpus. The grammar reveals that semantic constraints weigh more than phonological constraints in both the cumulative weight and the average weight. Nevertheless, phonology affects a great number of data items, in particular those where semantic constraints are mute. We thus conclude that although syntax and semantics are responsible for word order, phonology determines word order when the other modules do not have a say.

Academic associations are a vital part of the academic community, facilitating the interaction of researchers and production of knowledge, yet the impact of Open Access on their future has been too often regarded as marginal to the main discussion. Open Access presents an evident threat to those associations, which have become dependent upon a sizeable proportion of their income coming from owned journals published in conjunction with publishers. Yet, Open Access also presents opportunities, and academic associations should be bold in using a combination of their expertise, prestige and experience in publishing to ensure their futures in a newly emerging market.

To assist with living independently, older adults are often faced with the decision to accept passive in-home monitoring technologies to ensure safety and security. Their use, however, is frequently accompanied by concerns about privacy, an area that remains poorly understood in the context of ageing. This scoping review identifies current research on older adults’ privacy perceptions regarding in-home passive monitoring technologies, assesses the conceptual frameworks and methods used to examine privacy concerns and attitudes, and explores contextual factors that may influence privacy considerations. A total of 34 studies were reviewed. Findings revealed that privacy, while an important consideration for older adults when using passive monitoring technologies, is often not incorporated into technology acceptance frameworks. Moreover, privacy concerns are often generalized by researchers, failing to distinguish between privacy concerns that are horizontally oriented and those that are vertically oriented, and consequently do not highlight whether they involve monitoring technology, data collection infrastructure or individuals monitoring the subject. Finally, the reliance on privacy conceptualizations that regard individuals as independent and autonomous may limit understanding of an older adult’s privacy experiences. Findings from this study can serve as guidance when exploring the use of passive monitoring technologies to enable ageing in place and will be useful for designing interventions that enable older individuals to remain in their homes longer independently.

Resource acquisition is important for social enterprises’ resilience. Prior studies have explored social enterprises’ hybridity and resource acquisition outcomes, but have ignored funders’ heterogeneity. This paper examines how the identities of both social enterprises and financial resource providers are associated with financial resource acquisition. We specifically study how social enterprises’ social and financial identities are related to the acquisition of financial resources. Using an international entrepreneurship database (2014–2019), we find that social enterprises receive financial support from equity investors in a similar way as pure for-profits, while social enterprises receive less support from philanthropic donors, compared to pure nonprofits. We discuss the implications for social entrepreneurship research and practice.