Marianne Kneuer

Gravity centres of authoritarian rule: a conceptual approach

The resilience of autocratic regimes in various world regions and the emerging model of illiberal capitalist autocracies (China, Russia) have led scholars to shift their attention to the durability of such regimes. Autocracies not only resist the global spread of democracy, but are developing their own domestic efforts in the promotion of autocracy. This study argues that processes at the regional level aim at the dissemination and diffusion of autocratic norms, structures, processes, policy approaches or practices. Likewise, we propose that authoritarian gravity centres can be attributed with both the active promotion of autocracy as well as the inducement of diffusion effects. Our research tries to shed some light on their strategies and modes of influence on countries in their geopolitical proximity (target states).

Who is greener? Climate action and political regimes: trade-offs for national and international actors

Climate change constitutes a major concern for all political regimes. The question, however, is whether different regime types show different degrees of disposition to reduce carbon emissions. Studies comparing the performance between democracies and autocracies provide us with some fundamental findings but most do not take into consideration the variety of regimes that are neither full democracies nor full autocracies. The perspective of this inquiry is one of a scholar in democracy studies aiming mainly to better understand possible trade-offs of different regime types in the context of climate change. The analysis addresses, first, the national level and discusses possible trade-offs and the difficult choices faced by democracies, autocracies, young democracies and democratizing countries in dealing with climate change. Secondly, the implications for the international level are considered, especially for democracy promoters and their policy options concerning emerging democracies and countries in transition that perform poorly in respect to climate action.

Diffusion of e‐government and e‐participation in Democracies and Autocracies

Internet based technology constitutes one of the most important policy innovations in the last decades. Its diffusion has been rapid, widespread and sustained. The increase has raised questions about its drivers. The article focuses on an aspect of this dynamic that has been neglected so far: the variance between and among democracies and autocracies and their respective subtypes. Moreover, the majority of studies tackles the diffusion of e-government techniques, excluding the important array of e-participation. Our analysis thus offers a broader and more differentiated account of the adoption of online tools by governments. The findings indicate that the adoption of e-government and e-participation techniques varies substantially between and among democratic and autocratic regime types as well as over time and in kind.

Measuring the quality of democracy: Introduction

This introductory article discusses current challenges in quality of democracy research, explains the objectives of this Special Issue, and provides a brief overview of controversies in existing indices that are considered by the contributors to this Special Issue.

E-democracy: A new challenge for measuring democracy

Digital media is ascribed significant potential for democratizing political communication and processes. There is still, however, a lack of empirical evidence and adequate understanding concerning the question of whether digital media can contribute to an improvement in democratic quality. In response to this question, the present article proposes a concept of e-democracy and an analytical framework for measuring it. The added value of such an e-democracy index is, firstly, that it provides a basis for assessing online-enhanced democratic processes (something which has previously been lacking) and, secondly, that it enables a finer-grained perspective on digital processes in democracies, something which is essential for scholars and practitioners.

The tandem of populism and Euroscepticism: a comparative perspective in the light of the European crises

ABSTRACT Although populism does not constitute a new phenomenon per se, the recent success of older and the proliferation of new populist parties bring them a renewed attention. It is an obvious assumption that the multiple crises that Europe experienced in the last decade had a major impact on the development of populist and Eurosceptic parties. This article explicitly focuses the mélange of populist and Eurosceptic parties in the context of the European debt and refugee crisis, and aims to unravel which impact each of the crises had on the demand side, namely the voters’ support to populist-Eurosceptic parties. The analysis presents a differentiated perspective on the effects of each of the European crisis. Thus, only few of the older populists benefitted from the debt crisis whereas they could mobilize voters’ votes during the refugee crisis. New populist parties however mostly emerged during the debt crisis. Beyond these diverging effects of the European crises, one unifying feature of all successful populist parties is their increases Eurosceptic and even nationalist stance. This result supports the assumption of the formation of a new transnational cleavage. Moreover, it supports that this cleavage running along inclusive versus exclusive and European/cosmopolite versus nationalist orientation cross-cuts the ideological axis.

Playing the regional card: why and how authoritarian gravity centres exploit regional organisations

Abstract The evidence of regional authoritarian clustering across different world regions goes together with the finding that after the end of the bipolar world regional patterns of interaction became more important. Especially in the 2000s a process of revitalisation of regional organisations and even the creation of new regional organisations took place. Interestingly, these newly founded organisations consist predominantly of authoritarian regimes. Due to the emergence and resilience of authoritarianism in the world, the question arises: To what extent do regional organisations (ROs) play a role in this phenomenon? We argue that authoritarian protagonists which we call authoritarian gravity centres (AGCs) constitute a force of attraction for countries in geopolitical proximity – and use ROs as a transmission belt and a learning room for disseminating autocratic elements. In a cross-regional comparison, based on extensive field work, we provide empirical analysis on two AGCs (Saudi Arabia and Venezuela) within their respective ROs Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) and tackle the questions of why and how autocracies decide to move forward multilaterally within the RO.

Empörungsbewegungen: Der Einfluss von sozialen Medien auf die Protestbewegungen seit 2011

Auch wenn Proteste kein neues politisches Phanomen sind, so verkorpern die Bewegungen von 2011 (und auch die der folgenden Jahre) einige Spezifika, die in der Wahrnehmung von Politik und Offentlichkeit als etwas „Neues“ verbucht wurden. Dabei ruckte vor allem die Nutzung sozialer Medien – zuvorderst Facebook und Twitter – in den Blickpunkt. Der Beitrag macht zunachst ein Definitionsangebot fur das Phanomen Emporungsbewegung. Untersucht wird dann, inwieweit die digitalen Kommunikationstechnologien als distinktives Merkmal der Emporungsbewegungen von 2011 zu verstehen sind. Ein zentraler Aspekt dabei ist die Frage nach der Transnationalitat der Online-Kommunikation.

Parteien und Parteiensysteme in der Vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft

Parteien und Parteiensystemen sind zentrale Bestandteile des demokratischen Prozesses. Der Beitrag stellt zentrale Definitionen und verschiedene Typologien vor, mit denen einerseits Parteien und andererseits Parteiensysteme, die hier getrennt behandelt werden, erfasst werden konnen. Einbezogen werden zudem Faktoren der Entstehung von Parteien und der Dynamik des Parteiensystems. Der Blick richtet sich dabei nicht nur auf die ‚klassischen‘ Falle der Parteien- und Parteiensystemforschung, namlich West- und Nordeuropa sowie USA. Vielmehr werden Forschungsfragen hinsichtlich anderer Regionen einbezogen, so dass spezifische Problemlagen von Parteien und Parteiensystemen in divergenten Kontexten zur Sprache kommen. Nicht behandelt werden Parteien in Autokratien.

Mehr demokratische Qualität durch das Internet

Unbestreitbar bietet das Internet erhebliche Moglichkeiten der Information, des interaktiven Austausches und der Organisation von politischer Teilhabe und Einflussnahme fur interessierte Burger und Politiker. Dieser Beitrag argumentiert, dass das Potenzial, ein Mehr an Transparenz, Partizipation und Responsivitat uber internetbasierte Wege zu erlangen, davon abhangt, ob und wie Regierungen und politische Akteure online verfugbare Angebote machen und ob und wie Burger diese nutzen. Eine Erhohung demokratischer Qualitat schliest ein, dass die netzbasierten demokratischen Prozesse von beiden Seiten aktiv gestaltet werden. Die Vorstellung jedoch, allein die Existenz neuer technischer Wege sei dazu in der Lage, Defizite in der reprasentativen Demokratie zu beheben, muss als naiv bewertet werden.