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9 - Going Public in the European Union
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- By Hanspeter Kriesi, University of Zurich, Department for Political Science (Switzerland), Anke Tresch, University of Geneva, Department of Political Science (Switzerland), Margit Jochum, Hôpital fribourgeois, direction médicale, Fribourg (Switzerland), formerly, University of Zurich, Department of Political Science
- Edited by Ruud Koopmans, Paul Statham, University of Bristol
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- Book:
- The Making of a European Public Sphere
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 29 July 2010, pp 223-244
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Summary
Introduction
It is our contention that, today, all relevant political actors – state actors, political parties, interest associations, and social movement organizations – face a double strategic challenge as a result of two crucial transformations of their political opportunity structure – the Europeanization of politics and the increasing public orientation of politics. Both of these processes have already been discussed (see Chapters 1 and 2). For this chapter, it is crucially important to understand that the process of European integration has led to the creation of a polity of an unprecedented kind – a system of multilevel governance that encompasses a variety of authoritative institutions at supranational, national, and subnational levels of decision making. Following the work of some influential political scientists (Green Cowles, Caporaso, and Risse 2001; Hooghe and Marks 2001; Jachtenfuchs and Kohler-Koch 2003), we view the EU as a distinct structure of governance with characteristics of its own. The development of this EU polity has gone hand-in-hand with the widening scope of decision making and its public politicization at the supranational level. The precise nature of the very complex political structuring of the decision-making processes within this new polity is rather unclear and leaves much room for interpretation. We do not want to enter the debate on the architecture of this structuring, but we would like to consider its implications for the strategic orientation of collective political actors' action repertoires. For these actors, the emergence of the new supranational layer of decision making at the EU level implies a transformation of their political opportunity structure, which represents a new resource or constraint and complicates their matrix of strategic choices (see also Chapter 4).
10 - Political Party Contestation
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- By Paul Statham, University of Bristol, Department of Sociology (Great Britain), Ruud Koopmans, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Department of Migration, Integration, Transnationalization, Berlin (Germany), Anke Tresch, University of Geneva, Department of Political Science (Switzerland), Julie Firmstone, University of Leeds, Institute of Communications Studies (Great Britain)
- Edited by Ruud Koopmans, Paul Statham, University of Bristol
-
- Book:
- The Making of a European Public Sphere
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 29 July 2010, pp 245-274
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- Chapter
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Summary
Introduction
It is well known that party contestation over European integration and the European Union produces strange bedfellows, bringing together those who, as one activist candidly put it, “would not want to be seen dead in the same coffin” (Forster 2002, p. 60). Criticisms of Europe often come from the left and right poles, whereas center parties suspend normal hostilities advocating a generally pro-European line. At face value, this suggests that party behavior over Europe is exceptional and atypical. Over the past decade, however, the form and meaning of this relationship between party alignments over Europe and traditional ones, especially the left–right cleavage, and its consequences for party politics have become disputed. Questions arise over whether Europe is business as usual or transformative for party politics. For some, party contestation over Europe remains largely issue specific, with few “spillover” effects and limited impacts for national party politics (see, especially, Mair 2000b). For others, it constitutes part of an emerging cleavage, in the Rokkanian sense, that is transforming the political space in Western Europe (see, especially, Kriesi 2005, 2007; Kriesi et al. 2006b, 2008). Still others have made influential contributions standing between these poles. This controversy has brought a renewed interest in questions about political parties' stances over Europe, and especially their critical ones: Is party contestation over Europe increasing? Is Euroscepticism on the rise? Does criticism of Europe come from the core or periphery, or from the left or right?
Changing Religiosity, Changing Politics? The Influence of “Belonging” and “Believing” on Political Attitudes in Switzerland
- Sarah Nicolet, Anke Tresch
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- Journal:
- Politics and Religion / Volume 2 / Issue 1 / April 2009
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 16 March 2009, pp. 76-99
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Starting from theories of secularization and of religious individualization, we propose a two-dimensional typology of religiosity and test its impact on political attitudes. Unlike classic conceptions of religiosity used in political studies, our typology simultaneously accounts for an individual's sense of belonging to the church (institutional dimension) and his/her personal religious beliefs (spiritual dimension). Our analysis, based on data from the World Values Survey in Switzerland (1989–2007), shows two main results. First, next to evidence of religious decline, we also find evidence of religious change with an increase in the number of people who “believe without belonging.” Second, non-religious individuals and individuals who believe without belonging are significantly more permissive on issues of cultural liberalism than followers of institutionalized forms of religiosity.