COHESIVE EUROPE OR CORE-PERIPHERY DIVIDE IN THE EU28: THE REGIONAL CHALLENGE OF DUAL CRISIS IN THE NEW MEMBER STATES Attila AGH ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF CRISES – THEORIES AND MODELS WORTHY FOR OUR CHANGING WORLD Aleksandar DIMITROV ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... ELECTRONIC VOTING IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: STATUS QUO IN ESTONIA AND TRENDS IN CENTRAL EUROPE Markus REINERS ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... PARLIAMENTARY LEADERSHIP – PROBLEMS, DILEMMAS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF LEGISLATIVE LEADERS: THE CASE OF SLOVENIA Drago ZAJC ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... COMMUNAL POLITICAL MOBILIZATION: THE NEED TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MINORITY AND MAJORITY PARTIES Agnes K. KOOS and Kenneth KEULMAN ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... BOOK REVIEW: “FROZEN CONFLICTS” IN EUROPE Jerzy J. WIATR ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... VOLUME 10, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2017 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 2 EDITORIAL TEAM General Editor General Editor Miro Haček Peter Csányi ................................................................. ................................................................ U n i v e r s i t y o f L j u b l j a n a A l e x a n d e r D u b č e k U n i v e r s i t y T r e n č i n F a c u l t y o f s o c i a l s c i e n c e s , CA A P P I D e p a r t m e n t o f P o l i t i c a l S c i e n c e K a r d e l j e v a p l o š č a d 5 Š t u d e n t s k á 2 1 0 0 0 L j u b l j a n a , S l o v e n i a 9 1 1 5 0 T r e n č i n , S l o v a k i a miro.hacek@fdv.uni-lj.si peter.csanyi4@gmail.com General Editor Assistant Editor Jurij Toplak Simona Kukovič .................................................................. .................................................................. A l m a M a t e r E u r o p a e a U n i v e r s i t y o f L j u b l j a n a E u r o p e a n C e n t e r M a r i b o r (A M E U - E C M ) F a c u l t y o f s o c i a l s c i e n c e s , CA A P P I G o s p o s k a u l i c a 1 K a r d e l j e v a p l o š č a d 5 2 0 0 0 M a r i b o r , S l o v e n i a 1 0 0 0 L j u b l j a n a , S l o v e n i a jurij.toplak@almamater.si simona.kukovic@fdv.uni-lj.si ... ... .. ... .. ... .. ... ... .. .. ... ... .. ... .. ... .. ... ... .. .. ... ... .. ... .. ... .. ... . .. .. .. .. Articles appearing in JCP, are abstracted and indexed in following bibliographical databases: EBSCO, International Political Science Abstracts, ProQuest Political Science, International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS), JournalSeek, UlrichsWeb and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals); Universal Impact Factor. EDITORIAL BOARD Davor BOBAN, University of Zagreb, Croatia Marjan BREZOVŠEK, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Đorđe GARDAŠEVIĆ, University of Zagreb, Croatia Victoria GRAHAM, Monash University Johannesburg, South Africa Pavol HRIVIK, Alexander Dubcek University of Trenčin, Slovakia Lars JOHANNSEN, Aarhus University, Denmark Kenneth KA-LOK CHAN, Hong Kong Baptist University, China Rudolf KUCHARČÍK, University of Economics Bratislava, Slovakia Lisa McINTOSH SUNDSTROM, University of British Columbia, Canada Meredith REDLIN, South Dakota State University, USA Andrius ŠUMINAS, Vilnius University, Lithuania Michael TKACIK, Stephen F. Austin State University, USA Taro TSUKIMURA, Doshisha University Kyoto, Japan Nebojša VLADISLAVLJEVIĆ, University of Belgrade, Serbia Reuben WONG, National University of Singapore, Singapore CO-PUBLISHERS Department of Political Science Alexander Dubček University Trenčin Študentská 2, 911 50 Trenčin, Slovakia Centre for analysis of administrative-political processes and institutions (CAAPPI) University of Ljubljana, Faculty of social sciences Kardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Alma Mater Europaea - European Center Maribor (AMEU-ECM) Gosposka ulica 1, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia DESIGN CAAPPI, Ljubljana. Journal of Comparative Politics is published twice a year, in January and July. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 COHESIVE EUROPE OR CORE-PERIPHERY DIVIDE IN THE EU28: THE REGIONAL CHALLENGE OF DUAL CRISIS IN THE NEW MEMBER STATES Attila AGH ............................................................................................................................................................................ 25 POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF CRISES – THEORIES AND MODELS WORTHY FOR OUR CHANGING WORLD Aleksandar DIMITROV ............................................................................................................................................................................ 40 ELECTRONIC VOTING IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: STATUS QUO IN ESTONIA AND TRENDS IN CENTRAL EUROPE Markus REINERS ............................................................................................................................................................................ 57 PARLIAMENTARY LEADERSHIP – PROBLEMS, DILEMMAS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF LEGISLATIVE LEADERS: THE CASE OF SLOVENIA Drago ZAJC ............................................................................................................................................................................ 69 COMMUNAL POLITICAL MOBILIZATION: THE NEED TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MINORITY AND MAJORITY PARTIES Agnes K. KOOS and Kenneth KEULMAN ............................................................................................................................................................................ 88 BOOK REVIEW: “FROZEN CONFLICTS” IN EUROPE Jerzy J. WIATR ............................................................................................................................................................................ PARTICIPATE For further informa tion on submis sions, pl ea se cons ult the guidel ines at h ttp://www.jofcp .org . JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 4 COHESIVE EUROPE OR CORE-PERIPHERY DIVIDE IN THE EU28: THE REGIONAL CHALLENGE OF DUAL CRISIS IN THE NEW MEMBER STATES Attila AGH1 ……………………………………………………………….…………………………………………… After the global crisis, in the 2010s the Cohesive Europe has recently been challenged by the dual crisis: the Ukrainian security crisis and the refugee crisis. This paper tries to outline the impact of this dual crisis on the New Member States (NMS) with special regard to the “securitization” of Europe and the “return of geopolitics”. It concentrates on the regional political challenge of this dual crisis, and it takes into account its socio-economic dimension as well, including the impact of the Eurozone on NMS. The point of departure is that the geopolitical crisis intensified the Core- Periphery Divide in the EU and it produced a new regional form of negative divergence in NMS region with its alienation from the Core Europe. After the global crisis, in the ensuing transformation crisis, the EU has concentrated even more on the main problems of the Core in the Eurozone, which has also involved saving of the Southern Periphery. These efforts have resulted in marginalising the problems of the Eastern Periphery, although it has also been deeply shaken by the global crisis that has created its own specific crisis features in NMS. Therefore, when unexpectedly these two new geopolitical crisis waves have appeared the EU has been taken by surprise, especially in the V4 case. Not only by the particular nature of these crisis waves, but also by the negative reactions of NMS to these challenges because the EU has not been aware of the post- global crisis situation in NMS that has produced these reactions. In the mid-2010s there is a growing danger of an increasing regional divergence from the European mainstream towards the “illiberal states” in general and with an “Unholy Alliance” in the Visegrád Four (V4) in particular. This paper issues a warning that the NMS have not been successful in the catching up process under the 1 Attila AGH is a Full Professor in the Political Science Department at the Budapest Corvinus University. He was a visiting professor at many universities from Aarhus to Vienna, and from New Delhi to Los Angeles. His major research interest is comparative politics with special regard to the EU developments, focusing the Europeanization and Democratization in the New Member States. In the 2000s and 2010s he has prepared several country reports on Hungary for international comparative democracy projects. He has published altogether more than twenty books and more than hundred papers in several languages, mostly in English. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 5 favourable condition of the Old World Order, and nowadays they have to face the challenges of Re-democratization and Re- Europeanization under the less favourable conditions of the New World Order with the “return of geopolitics”. Key words: Core-Periphery Divide; Old World Order; New World Order; desecuritization; redemocratization. 1 INTRODUCTION: THE WAKE-UP CALL FOR THE CREATIVE CRISIS IN THE EU “Crises are opportunities. (…) Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.” (Jean Monnet 1976) - “You are in panic because of the crisis, but out of crisis something better will emerge.” (The remark of Jean Monnet to his colleagues that has been quoted by Jacques Delors 2012). In the last years there have been many references to the original idea of Jean Monnet about the creative crisis as the main driver of the EU towards an integrated Federative Europe. Under the pressure of global crisis, it has become common sense that the EU is in “crisis” or even in some extreme views, in its “final crisis”. Thus, the word “crisis” has been so much inflated that there is now a fashionable saying: “crisis is just a period between two other crises”. In fact, the EU has always been in “crisis”, it comes from its “sui generis” nature of being always “in the making”, therefore the EU needs both the analytical-descriptive and the normative-strategic approaches at the same time. This paper tries to echo the original idea of Jean Monnet, therefore it starts and concludes with his concept that crises are opportunities and the EU basically develops through a series of creative crises. In this spirit, the González Report has sent the message that “The crisis has acted as a wake-up call for Europe to respond to the changing global order” (González Report 2010, 3). This is a clear reference to the relatively “crisis-free” period before the global crisis that has left many contradictions, incomplete institutional structures and uncoordinated policies behind.2 This paper tries to point out that the main problem is not simply the present post-global, geopolitical crisis itself, but the “lost years” before the global crisis, in which the EU did not move ahead with the more integrated Cohesive Europe, but generated a Fragmented Europe. Cohesive Europe means in this approach the optimization of differentiated integration/membership (DI) by the “completed” institutions in harmony with their policy functions. Obviously, before the global crisis there were serious negative divergences in the member states, but above all the basic institutions like the Eurozone and Schengen were not “completed” (Gros 2016). Therefore, the global crisis generated deep socio- political tensions in the EU that have recently been aggravated by the geopolitical dual crisis. This situation has pushed the EU to the on-going transformation crisis to solve the long overdue problems and it has opened the 2 During the global crisis management there have been many references to the statements of Jean Monnet about the creative crisis as the biggest driver of the EU developments, see e.g. Monnet (1976), Delors (2012) and Fischer (2015), as the mottos in this paper emphasize. After the outbreak of the global crisis the favourite idea was in the Anglo-American press that “the European Union is dying” (see the detailed overview of publications in Thies 2012). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 6 window of opportunity to move towards a more integrated Cohesive EU. In general, this paper tries to outline the present transformation crisis in the EU that has been overloaded by the geopolitical crisis as “polycrisis” (Juncker 2016), and discussing Cohesive Europe in this conceptual framework it concentrates on the new negative regional divergence of NMS from the Core.3 Therefore, this paper deals with Cohesive Europe in a much larger approach than the “cohesion policy” with its funds, since already before the global crisis the EU became less and less cohesive in the meaning of the “ever increasing integration”. The paper argues for rediscovering geopolitics with a complex meaning of security and for the introduction of the new drivers into the new type of socio-economic drivers. Altogether, it emphasizes the conceptual tools of “regional membership” and “policy membership” in a new approach to the differentiated integration in order to enable the convergence in Europe by facilitating the catching up process. This paper points out that the NMS on their part have not been able to cope with these challenges so far, since they suffer from both the sustainability deficit in their institutional architecture, and the governance deficit in their EU policy adjustment process to launch a new development strategy. Thus, a new political breakthrough is needed for the success of NMS in the catching up process, in which territorial specificity matters a lot, but the regionally inherited policy universe has also to be changed radically in order to invite a new type of development. Nowadays, it is already clear that after the global crisis there is no return to the pre-crisis situation. The European Governance as the coordination mechanism of the complex EU polity has been based on multilevel governance (MLG) from the institutional side and multidimensional governance (MDG) from the policy side. Along these lines there are two new radical global trends that will be described in this paper as the external-geopolitical institutional paradigm and the internal-developmental policy paradigm. The first covers the complexity of the recent global rearrangements in the new world system with an extended and comprehensive meaning of security and with the “territorialisation” as a regionalization process at various levels. The second embraces all socio- economic changes “beyond the GDP”, including the knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy, well being, human and social capital and the likes. In both cases it is obvious that there is no return to the lukewarm pre-crisis situation of avoiding and delaying the main conflicts in the EU developments. First, no return to the relatively closed “Smaller Europe”, since the dual crisis has drastically opened up the EU-Europe to the Wider Europe and even more, to the chaotic multipolar world. Second, in the age of running globalization there is no return to the traditional GDP based growth model instead of the social progress based, innovation driven development model either, since the rules of the global competitiveness have basically changed. The EU28 has to introduce these political and socio-economic innovations in order to start a new, post- global crisis type of development. Third, following the Kondratieff cycles or “long waves” the world system has entered a new cycle, from the Old World Order (OWO) starting around 1990 to the New World Order (NWO) with the return of geopolitics. The Europeanization and Democratization process in NMS so far has taken place under the conditions of OWO, the main task for the 3 This comprehensive paper relies on my former analyses and deals with the recent problems of Cohesive Europe. I have discussed the substantive change of the EU foreign policy in Ágh, 2014, the globalization cum regionalization in Ágh (2015), the negative NMS divergence in DI in Ágh (2016a), the Wider Europe (EaP) in Ágh (2016b) and the V4 regional challenge in Ágh (2016c). In general, see Magone et al. (2016). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 7 European Studies is to outline the new challenges for the EU28 in general and for the NMS countries in particular. 2 THE FORMER DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR NMS IN THE OLD WORLD ORDER 2.1 Cohesive Europe and the transformation crisis as the historical correction In the last decades the EU has gone through several development stages that have necessitated a permanent redefinition of the EU. There have recently been obviously three markedly different stages as (1) the “immobility crisis” in the 2000s, (2) the global crisis in the late 2000s and early 2010s and (3) the “transformation crisis” as “polycrisis” afterwards. In this respect, the “crises” are the natural ways of development for the EU, especially the present transformation crisis, which demands new solutions for both institutions and policies in the spirit of the new geopolitical and development paradigms. Due to both the external conditions and the domestic developments in the EU, the types of differentiated integration/membership (DI) in these three periods have also been crucially different as moving between convergence and divergence, homogenization and differentiation. The immobility crisis came from the asymmetrical nature of the EU developments, advancing in some fields but not ready to moving further in some other, closely interrelated fields that produced “the decade of disorder”. The “Fair-Weather Europe” or the “Fair-Weather Euro” is a dangerous myth about this period of the “Asymmetrical Europe” with the lack of interconnectedness and coherence among and within the institutions and policies, and resulting in the half-made decisions and too easy compromises, first of all in the Eurozone and Schengen System. This “disorder” has necessitated a historical correction for completing the new institutions in the correspondence with their policies pursuit.4 Before the global crisis, the member states still had “little appetite for policy reform”. The sad truth about this “immobilism” is that „If there is no public pressure on individual member states, and if at the same time the significance of the EU strategy is not understood by the electorate, national governments will not feel compelled to change anything.” (Fritz-Vannahme et al. 2010, 3, 7). Thus, in this period a growing gap emerged between policies and institutions, so Habermas team has emphasized “The euro crisis reflects the failure of a dead end policy. (…) This self-reinforcing destabilization is largely the product of ad hoc crisis management strategies, which have barely begun to address the challenge of consolidating European institutions.” The Habermas team has pointed out that the main problem for the Eurozone is the institutional deficit as “an inadequate institutional underpinning of the common currency”. In general, “looking beyond the current crisis, the promise of a ‘social Europe’ also depends upon this.” They argue for the “communitarization” in order to “correct the structural imbalances within the Eurozone” and to get “the synergetic benefits of European unification” (Bofinger et al. 2012, 5–8). The last years have demonstrated that the basic reason for the “general crisis” of the EU is not the 4 Policy integration continued at a slow pace, only modest progress was made in strengthening Eurozone governance, thus “several key question remain unanswered” (Emmanouilidis 2011, 1). In the Eurozone crisis “(T)he Eurozone was unprepared to respond to a major crisis” due to its “flawed policies” and “missing elements”. Moreover, “The EU’s increasingly volatile politics” and “Increasing Euroscepticism and anti-European feeling is part and parcel of the political volatility.” (Schmidt 2015, 35 and 39-40). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 8 outbreak of global crisis but this “chaotic Europe” in itself with its deep internal tensions, since the global crisis has not created but just discovered the substantial weaknesses of the EU. In the period of immobilism the EU had permanent conflict avoidance, just doing some framing with the new big formal institutions, creating the crust or shell of these macro-institutions without their content or substance, like Eurozone and Schengen System, or European Partnership (EaP). This was indeed an effort of conflict avoidance, since the proper elaboration and comprehensive implementation of these structural reforms towards the More Europe or Federative Europe would have been provoked deep conflicts among the member states. The EU was moving on the surface, only the big and empty formal institutions were established following some kind of abstract legalism or legal fetishism as if they had been enough for the proper regulation. In this patchy institutional system without proper policy coordination the direct economic/trade interests of the (big) member states dominated. In both the EU leadership and public debates many important issues were simply neglected like the geopolitical approach with global security and migration or the complex security issue from the social security to the military security, etc. Similarly, in the European Studies these issues remained under-researched or forgotten, deeming that in the multipolar world of nineties and the early 2000s - after the security-sensitive bipolar world – security issues would disappear for ever. The “End of History” principle was applied at global level as the final victory of democratization-liberalization without the Huntington’s idea of Return Wave. The most meaningful message of Cohesive Europe as the “Convergence Machine” (Indermit and Raiser 2011) was largely missing, or appeared only in rhetoric.5 Both the former territorial-institutional and the developmental-policy paradigm showed serious weaknesses in the EU, so in the relationship of integration- disintegration changed drastically towards the disintegration that was only reinforced by the effects of global crisis. This period of “immobilism” with the “incomplete institutions” of the euro and Schengen (Gros 2016) damaged the Cohesive Europe in the 2000s in both “institutional memberships” in the MLG structures and “policy memberships” in the MDG structures with its internal tensions and negative externalities. The global crisis has pushed the EU to the way of “harmonising” its institutions and policies with each other in the present transformation crisis in the spirit of the two new paradigms discussed above. Again, it has become clear that there has been no return to the pre-crisis situation of “Asymmetrical Europe” with a high level quasi stagnation. The fragile period of the stagnation – or pseudo dynamism – in the 2000s in the “Asymmetrical Europe” had created those serious problems that were drastically discovered by the global crisis. Thus, global crisis was a creative crisis with a drastic wake-up call because it was brutally discovering the basic weaknesses of the EU. The synergy was missing to launch a process of positive feedbacks based on policy coordination, which could have resulted in a virtuous circle. Moreover, even afterwards, the global crisis marginalized all other vital EU problems beyond the saving the euro in order to keep the competitiveness of the EU Core in the turbulent world. 5 The same legal fetishism prevailed in NMS after the accession with the import of the EU institutions, since the full institutional architecture was not established with the proper informal institutions and patterns of political culture (see e.g. Rupnik and Zielonka 2013). Moreover, the mechanism of negative externalities of the EU has been forgotten or marginalized. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 9 There was a clear preference in the Core for the Southern periphery because of their earlier integration and deeper connection with the Core, including the Eurozone membership. Altogether, the global crisis has produced a lost decade with a lost (young) generation, since they have suffered most. It proved that the EU had to pay a high price for the “systemic misfit” in the period of the “immobility crisis” both in the European architecture as a whole, both within and among its member states.6 The growing distance among EU member states in competitiveness was still mainly the result of the missing structural reforms that produced the vicious circle of the poor economic policies and the low governance capacities in both the Southern and Eastern peripheral member states, which came to the surface drastically in the global crisis. As Fabian Zuleeg warned already in 2010, “structural reform is necessary in many countries if we wish to avoid future crises. (…) The EU can also go further: its growth strategy and available EU funding must aim to help these countries to invest into future and to carry out the necessary structural reforms. (…) In the absence of joint action, if certain countries are allowed to deteriorate further, Europe will face low growth and further crisis in future.” (Zuleeg 2010, 15). However, despite these warnings, the structural reforms were delayed and the substantial adjustments to the EU membership were avoided, since the EU itself had only a reacting, ad hoc approach to the emerging conflicts. In the mid-2010s the all-European socio-political landscape can be summarized in the basic statement that the global crisis management is more or less over, and the EU is already in the transformation crisis to build up the New Europe. So far the EU global crisis management has led to the concentration on Competitive Core Europe in order to save the Eurozone, instead of dealing with the Cohesive Europe as a whole. In the last analysis, this global crisis management has been successful in saving the Eurozone, but it has sharpened and deepened the processes of the peripherialization with the widening gap between the Core and – Southern and Eastern - Periphery in the EU28. Of necessity, the concentration of the global crisis management has also led to the marginalization of many vital issues as the political and socio-economic innovations. In the implementation of the new cohesion policy both the new geopolitical paradigm about EU’s role in the Wider Europe with a new concept of security and the full elaboration of the “beyond the GDP”-type of the development paradigm, including its catching up version for NMS, have been pushed into background.7 6 Vivien Schmidt has argued that the focus on the Core has led to the failure of policy coordination: “With proposals for greater deepening of economic integration, some have argued for a ‘core Europe’ in which a compact group of Member States agreeing to fiscal union would be surrounded by a larger circle constituted by a loser group united by the Single Market. But this ignores the reality of what the EU is.” Furthermore, “Creating a hard core around the Eurozone may make other potential community clusters more difficult to pull together, with the other clusters likely to be characterized by an increasingly high degree of differentiation without integration (…) there is no guarantee that even a hard core around the Eurozone will expand to incorporate these other policy areas.” (Schmidt 2015, 55, 56). 7 There have been heated debates on the development crisis in NMS. It is characteristic that Wlodzimierz Aniol (2015), in a relative successful NMS country, has recently noticed that Poland has reached the limits of the present development model and facing new “developmental challenges” of the “pro-innovative modernization strategy”. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 10 2.2 The “Forgotten crisis in the East” and the dysfunctions of “Convergence Machine” The global crisis has generated an increasing Core-Periphery Divide, but this issue has been on the EU agenda only as the North-South “war” that has been mentioned so many times by The Economist (2011) in the 2010s. Although the split between the crisis resilient and crisis prone parts of EU has been clear after the global crisis this has only been specified in the case of the Southern countries, first of all as “Grexit”. Unlike in the case of Southern Periphery, the specific crisis phenomena of the Eastern Periphery have been marginalized in the EU commented by some observers as “The forgotten crisis in the East” (Handelsblatt 2013). Neither the dysfunctions of “Convergence Machine” in general nor the failure of global crisis management in NMS in particular have been seriously discussed in the EU, by politicians or by experts. In the present stage of the ensuing transformation crisis the EU has concentrated on the main problems of the Core that has also involved the crisis management in the Southern Periphery of the Eurozone. These efforts have resulted in “forgetting” the problems of the Eastern Periphery, which has also been deeply shaken by the global crisis and cumulated its own specific crisis features in this cumulative “polycrisis”.8 Actually, the World Bank has described the workings of the Cohesive Europe as a “Convergence Machine”, indicating that the proper management of cohesion policy has been vital for the EU development as ever increasing integration. During the global crisis the World Bank reported about the “broken” Convergence Machine and it demanded its “relaunching” in the early 2010s. The Convergence Machine as a conceptual framework indeed is the best analytical tool to describe the workings of Cohesive Europe, including its dysfunctions against the background of the DI theory both before and after the global crisis. At the same time it is the best way of discovering the specific crisis phenomena of NMS region, since they have partly originated from the dysfunctions of the Convergence Machine. Accordingly, I have tried to characterize the normal workings of Convergence Machine with the term of “integrative balancing” because the cohesion policy of the EU in its largest meaning has aimed at balancing of member states - with their institutions and policies, as well as capacities - at various levels of development through the integration process. In general, the EU development follows the principle of differentiated integration in the polity, politics and policy dimensions. In my view, in the polity it is the positive divergence when the democracy model of the given member state fits to the country’s national traditions and socio-economic specificities. In contrast, it is the negative divergence when the member state violates the basic EU rules and values in its polity. In the politics there can be an active or participatory divergence when the actors from the given country take part intensively in the decision-making processes of the EU multi-level governance (MLG) structures. In contrast, it is a passive, non-participatory divergence when these actors are not able to participate or excluded from the participation in the MLG structures. Finally, in the policy dimension it is progressive divergence when the policy instruments in the given member state are intended to 8 It is very characteristic that in a recent paper written by a Bruegel expert for the Policy Network “the rebuilding of EU integration” appears only in respect of the four country – Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal –, contrasted with seven developed countries, without mentioning the even deeper crisis in NMS, but repeating several times what the “Europeans” in general should do in this crisis management (Merler 2016). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 11 facilitate the catching up process with the EU mainstream in optimal way. In contrast, the regressive divergence entails refusing or avoiding the necessary adaptation to the EU and/or to the changing external conditions. Altogether, the NMS regional divergence from the EU mainstream can be characterized with the terms of negative, passive and regressive divergences caused both by the refusal of the EU adaptation to the structural reforms and by the dysfunctions of the Convergence Machine. As a result, the NMS countries are between the formal and effective membership in these three dimensions as having partly - or just marginally - effective membership in the EU (Ágh 2016a). By mid-2010s in these terms there has been a trend of (1) the declining democracy in NMS as negative divergence caused by the “emptied democracy” due to (2) the non-participative political DI and deepened by (3) the regressive divergence in the policy universe as refusing-avoiding the policy transfer from the EU. In general, the term of negative divergence can be used for the comprehensive characterization of this development, since the distortion of the democratic polity is its most important feature as the NMS divergence from the EU mainstream. All in all, it has been a vicious circle in these three dimensions, and the relative failure of the catching up process after the first Ten Years of Membership has created mass dissatisfaction and resentment in the NMS populations.9 No doubt that basically the NMS countries have marginalized themselves, since they have been mostly driven by their own inaction to the periphery in the Competitive Europe. Upon the accession the NMS countries envisioned their catching up process within the GDP-based development model, and although they had some success in this respect, still the global crisis proved brutally that it was senseless to “catch up with the past of EU15”. The rules of global competitiveness changed totally, and the NMS countries have not been able and ready to switch to the new development paradigm, therefore there has been a “growing innovation divide” (Veugelers 2016) or widening gap between Core and Periphery in R&D investments. In the catching up process even the quantitative growth is possible only in a new way, through the qualitative growth in the terms of EU2020 Strategy, i.e. the knowledge economy and social progress. Yet, as it has been discussed above, they have also been marginalized by the EU through its special global crisis management focusing on Competitive Europe in the Core at the expense of the Cohesive Europe, i.e. not “relaunching the Cohesion Machine” as the World Bank has suggested. The dysfunctions of Cohesion Machine before the global crisis appeared in the conflict avoidance and negligence of the EU in all the three dimensions of DI that aggravated the situation created by the “national resistance” of NMS.10 The reaction of the EU to the NMS divergence has appeared very characteristically in the case of the accession to the Eurozone as one of the most important policy memberships that has been a relatively under-researched topic in its complexity. The main problem has been formulated in the following 9 Vivien Schmidt (2015, 48). Has noticed the alienation of Central Europeans from the EU crisis management: “Most concessions alienated not just the Northern European leaders, who felt that Greece had not followed ‘the rules’, or the Central and Eastern Europeans, who were hostile because they went through harsh austerity too, and are poorer than the Greeks, but even other Southern Europeans, committed to continuing their own efforts to impose structural reforms.” 10 The Bruegel analysis (Veugelers 2016) has pointed out that the NMS countries have lost their competitiveness due to the neglect of the innovation driven development. As the Eurostat report on 30 November 2015 indicates that the EU average percentage of R&D spending from the GDP was 2.03 in 2014 and above three per cent in the developed countries, whereas the “successful” NMS countries – Poland 0.94% and Slovakia 0.89% – spent less than one per cent. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 12 way: “In the 2003 Treaty of Accession, the signatories agreed that all New Member States (NMS) that joined the European Union (EU) in 2004, would adopt the euro, even if no timetable was provided. Why have some NMS not been able to join the euro area even if they made serious attempts at the outset? (…) Yet, macroeconomic analyses cannot explain the change in government policies that may lead to euro adoption. (…) I argue that the role of domestic politics is key to explaining the process of euro adoption in Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland: government policies, elections, electoral cycles as well as constitutional rules, veto points, central banks, public opinion and the media turn out to be crucial in explaining the lagging euro adoption process in these countries.” (Dandashly 2012, iii). In fact, in the case of the accession to the Eurozone two negative factors have reinforced each other. On one side, there was in general a huge systemic misfit or mismatch between/among polities, politics and policies within the EU in the “Sand Castle” of the Eurozone that resulted in the lack of complexity management or in the missing systemic approach. The final outcome was been the toxic effect or “negative externality” of Eurozone on both the “South” and the “East”. On the other side in both regions there has been an ill-designed domestic adjustment process in the countries concerned to their Eurozone membership. The huge competitiveness gap within the Eurozone has also been the result of their counter-productive, premature Eurozone membership but this this negative impact has also been replicated to some extent in the non- euro member states. In a complex approach Béla Galgóczi rightly argues that there was an “unsustainable expansion” of the Eurozone to the South, since – paradoxically - even the non-euro countries of East-Central Europe are much more integrated to the production structures of the Core countries than the Eurozone member states of the South: “The divergent patterns observed in Eastern and Southern Europe in the catching-up process result from a number of underlying structural differences among European countries that have affected their respective paths in economic integration.” Namely, “While surplus countries in the East have enjoyed large-scale foreign direct investment (FDI) in their productive sectors, this has not been the case for Southern European crisis states. (…) Central and Eastern European countries also tend to have a high export share in their GDPs, again, this is not the case for the deficit countries in the South.” (Galgóczi 2016: 134–136).11 This investigation on the non-euro states has to be divided to the two periods of the emergence of Eurozone and the Eurozone crisis, since its effects upon the non-euro member states differ in these periods. First, the emergence of the Eurozone has drastically transformed the European architecture, the EU institutional system as a whole. It impacted upon non-euro member states both directly with its decisions and indirectly with its intergovernmental approach and policy – positive and negative – spill-overs. The workings of the Eurozone was blurring the boundaries of the EU decision-making mechanisms, first of all between the intergovernmental approach of the Eurozone and the community approach of EU28. The same tension applies to the contradictions between the community and member-state approaches, or to the claim for the (limited) participation of non-euro countries in the Eurozone decisions, at least getting 11 Of course, there have been many analyses of the Eurozone accession from the economic side, see Angeloni et al. (2007) and IMF (2004) etc. This paper presents briefly the concepts from the “social” – sovereignty and national identity – side, see Flash Eurobarometer (2013), Kovács (2016), Molnár (2013), Risse (2003) and Szőcs (2013). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 13 some information about the decision-making (raised above all by Poland from NMS).12 Second, the Eurozone crisis has not only embraced the EU as a whole and its future perspectives, but it has become the priority of all priorities, and it has marginalized all other problems, including the special crisis management in the NMS. As the EU has not been resilient to global crisis, the NMS countries have not been either, they have been even much more concerned (given the “asymmetrical external shock” effect). Therefore, they are not yet really in the post-crisis stage because their crisis management has been aggravated by the dual crisis. In such a way, they are mostly in the “wait and see” situation as regards the Eurozone crisis management and the euro-accession (see Kalan and Toporowski 2015). The continental NMS Eurozone member states - Slovenia and Slovakia - are also in big socio-economic trouble (Gál 2013) and the new Eurozone Baltic member states feel threatened by the Ukrainian crisis. Thus, instead of synergetic benefits or centripetal effects there have been some fragmentation processes and centrifugal effects in NMS, which has not been dealt with properly so far in the European Studies. In general, the accession to the Eurozone as an identity and/or security issue leads to the new conflicts of sovereignty and geopolitics in the on-going dual crisis, in the incoming NWO. The euro accession has not only been an economic issue for NMS, since sovereignty and national identity have also been very important factors, although in different ways in Baltic and continental NMS countries. The NMS countries have regained their full national sovereignty after the collapse of the bipolar world from the Soviet Union and for them the actual national sovereignty has been a delicate issue. It is also so in historical perspective because they have conceptualized their national identity as a permanent fight with foreign powers for their national sovereignty. This is a partial explanation for the fact that the three bigger V4 countries have not joined the Eurozone, and they have not made a serious effort for it either. The same issue, the importance of national sovereignty, however, appears from the other side in the Baltic states, which see the euro accession as a confirmation of their national sovereignty, since they believe that any kind of Europeanization protects them against the potential Russian aggression.13 As discussed above, the external-geopolitical institutional paradigm and the internal-developmental policy paradigm have indicated the major changes in the EU developments, as the complexity of the recent global rearrangements in the New World Order. The NMS countries have not followed this change of paradigms and therefore the negative effects of these two changing paradigms 12 Maciej Duszczyk (2016: 257) has put the Polish accession to the Eurozone into the political perspective of Poland moving to the centre of the EU decision-making countries: “it is also clear that Poland rather directly links its accession not only to economic, but also to political issues (…). It is difficult to imagine Poland’s shift from the periphery to the core without the adoption of the euro. It should be noted that many key decisions related to the future of the European Union are made during meetings of the heads of states of the monetary union. In this context, the voices of member states that have not yet adopted the euro are rarely heard. (…) If Poland wants to play the role of a core state within the European Union, it should reaffirm its willingness to accede to the Eurozone.” 13 There has been a large academic literature on the euro accession in the newly independent Baltic States, threatened by the Russian expansionism (see e.g. Risse 2003). I am very grateful to Liutauras Gudzinkas (Vilnius University) for his assistance to prepare this summary of the Baltic approach to the Eurozone membership that I have discussed at more length in Ágh (2016c). For the Baltic countries, euro accession has always been as much about foreign policy considerations as it was about economic objectives. This foreign policy orientation of returning to and integrating with the West as an identity-based perspective has been present in the Baltic countries ever since regaining independence. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 14 have met and reinforced each other. In fact, the Baltic states have followed closer the new developmental paradigm but they are more concerned with the dangers of the geopolitical paradigm, while the continental NMS have diverged much more from the new developmental paradigm and they are less concerned about the dangers of geopolitical paradigm, although these two types need more elaboration. Basically, the double evil in the relationship of NMS to the Eurozone is their resistance to the structural reforms on one side and the negative externalities of the Eurozone on the other. No doubt that the NMS countries have produced a reform fatigue and avoided the profound socio- economic transformations. At the same time, although this national resistance dominates in the NMS individual states’ divergences from the EU mainstream in differentiated integration, still the negative externalities of the Eurozone have also played a big role in the delayed accession to the euro. The former assumption was that the Eurozone membership would activate the modernising effects in all euro member states and it would have a positive spillover to the non-euro member states as well. In fact, it has turned out that these modernising effects have appeared mostly in the Core, while many negative externalities have emerged in the Southern and Eastern periphery, usually splitting these member states into two – developed and underdeveloped - parts. 3 FACING THE NEW CHALLENGES OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER IN NMS 3.1 Cohesive Europe: The “regionalism” in the EU versus the “regionalization” of NMS Globalization has basically generated regionalization at three levels: continental-size mega-regions, “multi-national” macro-regions and sub-national meso-regions have emerged. The latest wave of globalization has also created a conceptual complexity for the analysts to cope with. The theory of the mega- regions has appeared as “new regionalism” that has also indicated a novel tendency in the international relations’ theory (Telo 2007). The EU has been the most prominent mega-region and, while Europe cannot be the model, but it can be the driving force for new “effective multilateralism”, based on the civilian powers of the new regional entities, which can produce together better world governance. New regionalism presupposes a new kind of partnership between/among the newly emerging mega-regional entities, although this concept defines the European Union’s international identity finally in a normative way as a civilian power, the “Scandinavia of the World”. The key issue is that the new regionalism approach has made a basic distinction between regionalization and regionalism. Regionalization has been considered as an institution-building process in the various policy fields of a given geographical unit. Thus, in the new regionalism approach, regions have not been regarded simply as formal organizations, but rather understood as constructed and re-constructed in the process of global transformation. The region is not a static form, but dynamic in its development, and open to change and adaptation. Moreover, regionalism is considered to have a strategic goal of region building by establishing regional coherence and identity. Consequently, regionalism has to be understood as a complex of the parallel intra-regional and inter-regional, or multidimensional and multilevel region-building processes, which have been based on strategic design, as it is the case with the EU. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 15 In such a way, Cohesive Europe has to be approached in this spirit of multi-level regionalism with its strategic design, in which the cohesion of the EU has to be maintained as the balanced cooperation of this mega-region inside and outside. Outside as a relationship with other mega-regions - first of all with the USA and the BRICs – and inside as a coordination between/among the macro-regions with their meso-regions. The NMS macro-region suffers from a specific crisis of regional peripherialization that needs a separate analysis that can be done in the conceptual framework of globalization induced multilevel and multi- structured regionalization. Namely, there is a contrast between the EU strategic “regionalism” and the NMS tentative “regionalization” without the proper institutions for the conscious and effective interest representation, unlike the Nordic macro-region. Concerning the global regionalization in mega-regions, the subsystems of the world system like the global economy or global security have their own specific nature that has been neglected in the European Studies. The most rigid is the security system with its geopolitical networks and power positions on the global map, since at certain points it breaks down quickly and changes suddenly, then it stays rather stable for a longer period. As a contrast, the other subsystems usually change more slowly and continuously, like the global economy with its social – employment and income - structures, and they produce regularly smaller crises for their adjustments. The Kondratieff long cycle of half-century starting around 1990 has reached its internal turning point in 2015. Accordingly, as the bipolar security system collapsed in 1990 and turned to tripolar system of the USA and EU with some vague roles of BRICs. In 2015 the tripolar system turned to more multipolar, in fact quadrupolar, with the aggressive comeback of Russia and the real entry of China as well as with the claims of regional powers like India, Turkey, Iran and Brazil. The meaning of security changes all the time, at present we witness the securitization as a process of complex security arrangements (Lodge 2014). The collapse of bipolar system meant the devaluation of traditional military security and the disappearance of geopolitical dimension from strategic thinking for a while. The emergence of the present system has brought about the new dimensions as the energy and cyber security. Moreover, the character of wars has changed beyond recognition as the war by proxy or hybrid war, and in general with the entry of terrorism at global level. EU has acted both promoting the globalization and it has defended itself against the tsunami, the monster waves of globalization by pushing for its own internal reorganization. In the tough global competition of the early 21st century the crucial issue for the EU is the globalization cum regionalization, namely the regionalization of its own neighbourhood as a special kind of the EU “widening”. Accordingly, the EU has restructured the Political Space in its increasing “Near Abroad”. It has generated external regionalization around the EU by “deepening” its relationships with the old-new partners. Rightly so, since the multilateral regionalized world order has been emerging and the EU as a global actor can only be successful, if it organizes its own regionalized neighbourhood. The new approach to the regionalization of its neighbourhood for the EU can also be called “integrative balancing”, which means empowering the unequal external partners through the application of the partnership principle in the widening process. The neighbour states are to be integrated into the common policy-making process at all levels. Integrative balancing implies the sense of partnership with balancing mechanisms in order to facilitate the development of the relatively weaker partners because it creates synergy by optimally representing common interests. Europe as a civilian power can only play a leading role in the emerging global governance, if it organizes a system of JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 16 integrative balancing with its own neighbours. These processes of the external and internal regionalization have to be carried out at the same time in the EU, parallel with the (re-)structured political and economic space in the multilevel governance. After the Eastern enlargement the EU has reorganized its neighbourhood relations in the regionalism with strategic design as the European Neighbourhood Policy (2004). It has been conceived in the duality of Southern and Eastern neighbouring states, in which the Southern neighbourhood has maintained its traditional priority supported energetically by the Southern member states concerned, first of all by France and Spain. Of necessity, sooner or later the EU had to realize that it had also new neighbours, so due to the insistence of Poland and Sweden the European Partnership (EaP) program was elaborated and launched (2009). The new extended forms of European Governance in the Eastern neighbourhood of the EU try to overcome the basic weaknesses of the ENP that did not differentiate properly between South and East. The EaP has introduced a common general framework for the six East European states concerned, with some practical measures that can be the real driving force behind the Europeanization of the East European (EE) macro-region. However, the differentiation in the Europeanization as a MLG process has not been completed between the EaP and the West Balkan (WB). In principle, all European countries they may have a “European perspective” as EU membership, the EU has still made a tough distinction between enlargement (WB) and widening (EE), and in such a way it has not yet offered a European perspective for the six EaP states. At the same time, nowadays, more coherence can be seen between the processes of “enlargement” and “widening” by the fact that they have a common Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, i.e. the two profiles have been merged. Altogether, in the European Neighbourhood Policy, and especially in EaP, “the regionalism drive” was rather weak that has become clear in the dual crisis. The EaP has only been External Europeanization “light” with rhetoric entrapment in promotion of democratization and deep interests in “deep trade”, without positive visions as to the regional specificity and security dimensions. The applied theories for EaP – reduced sometimes to slogans – have not been real strategic designs of regionalism and they have collapsed when Russia has returned to the regional expansion and the Ukrainian dual crisis has begun (Ágh 2016b).14 As to the internal regional structure of Cohesive Europe, there have been three periods in the developments of the EU spatial dimension as the middle layers between the EU and its member states. The first period was the “Europe of Regions”, with the NUTS2 meso-regions - getting also a transnational dimension through the euro-regions - covering the whole map of the EU as sub-national territorial levels. It has led finally to the formal-legal extension the EU cohesion policy as including – after the economic and social cohesion – also the territorial cohesion into the Lisbon Treaty. This enthusiastic period is over, but the meso- regional layer has stayed and it has become one of the cornerstones of the European institutional architecture. The second period was the organization of the functional macro-regions in the 2000s, starting with the emergence of the two macro-regions, the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region 14 Although the EaP states have largely underperformed since 2009, this external Europeanization has still caused big disappointment there. Ghia Nodia from Georgia has termed the EU reactions to the Ukrainian crisis “confused and inconsistent” (Nodia 2014, 148). But certainly, as his title indicates, it has been “the revenge of geopolitics”. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 17 (EUSBSR) and the Danube Strategy (EUSDR). It has also been a significant progress in the EU widening policy through the “re-branding” of the EaP, and even more through the re-activating of the West Balkan pre-accession process, since the Danube Strategy partly embraces both the West Balkan states and East European states, and it facilitates the intensive cooperation between the EU and the neighbouring - WB and EaP - regions. Although the functional regions have both historical and structural-practical foundations, their innovative period is over, but this regionalization has also developed its own map of Europe for cohesion policy. This regionalization has also included its regional extension to the Wider Europe through intensive contacts of some NUTS2 neighbouring regions to WB and EaP. In these two stages both the regional memberships – mentioned above - and the policy memberships – like the Eurozone and Schengen - have been formed in the EU as the profiles of differentiated integration with many overlapping memberships. The third period is the emergence of the Multi-Floor Europe through “de- structuration” of the Core-Periphery Divide under the aggressive pressure of global crisis followed by the “geopolitical crisis”. In the transformation crisis the EU has concentrated on the rebuilding the Eurozone, but during the Eurozone crisis some states have actually fallen out from the Core, and this regional differentiation has gone further and deeper later under the new pressure of the dual crisis on the Eastern and South-Eastern EU borders. The dual crisis has also shaken the Schengen Area, therefore the EU has (re)discovered geopolitics (Kagan 2015). Along these lines some kind of new regionalization has taken place in the EU producing some kind of geopolitical regions. This is also the case of NMS, although it is still at the half way from functional region to geopolitical regionalization, but it is at a critical juncture in many ways. Against the background of dubious success of the catching up process, and quite recently under the common pressure of Russian interventionism and the refugee crisis, the NMS countries have moved closer to a common stand, which has characteristically diverged, however, from the EU mainstream approach. Thus, in the mid-2010s the geopolitical situation has drastically changed around the EU’s Eastern borders that have produced a serious challenge for the EU28 as a whole, and particularly for the NMS countries concerned. With this “New Cold War” in the wording of the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, the comeback of geopolitics and the securitization of EU governance has taken place, especially in the External Governance of the EaP and the West Balkan macro-regions. It has led not only to the change of the Eastern foreign and neighbourhood policy of the EU, but also to the NMS domestic transformations with its increasing convergence in the individual NMS countries, – despite their remaining idiosyncrasies. The previous divergence among the NMS countries has turned to a tentative convergence under the impact of this new “negative externality”. This new attitude of the NMS – first of all that of V4 – is double faced. On one side it shows the slow and contradictory regionalization of these states, but it also contains the threat of further peripherialization by turning away more and more from the EU mainstream development on the other. This extreme case of negative differentiated integration has developed a serious impact not only on the EU as a whole, but even more on the NMS region with its destabilizing effects that can be termed as a complex social and political “de- securitization”. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 18 3.2 The NMS countries at the critical juncture: the threat of complete “de- securitization” The expression of “Europe at the crossroads” has been an overused and sometimes abused. Now it is topical again, since due to the geopolitical crisis the More Europe or Less Europe alternative has returned with a vengeance. Even more so with the NMS macro-region, which is also at the crossroads or at critical juncture because nowadays the destabilizing effects of global politics have appeared on their borders. It is a vital issue whether these countries can stop and turn back the deepening peripherialization process, or the Core- Periphery Divide will lead to further weakening the NMS geopolitical macro- region in the “East”. The serious democratic decline or derailing the democratic development as negative divergence has been the most obvious sign of the NMS peripherialization because the social and economic crisis can also be detected behind the democracy decline, which is clearly seen from the side of the passive and regressive DI as well. In a word, the “precarious” NMS region is facing a de- securitization process both from outside and inside, by the external pressure of the geopolitical tensions and by the internal pressure of the authoritarian regimes, exhausted societies and non-competitive economies. The social security has been dramatically lost for the majority of the NMS population. This cumulative “social deficit” (Aniol 2015) is the key for understanding their disillusionment and resentment that has produced the Golden Age of Populism or “The rise of Putinism” in NMS (Zakaria 2014). The NMS countries have undergone a dramatic political destabilization with a total loss of public trust in political elites.15 Under the pressure of geopolitical crisis not only has the Cohesive Europe been endangered but the cohesiveness of the NMS region as well. The internal cohesion of the NMS countries has seriously decreased: instead of economic cohesion dual economies have emerged, instead of social cohesion the social polarization has increased and instead of territorial cohesion the NMS countries have been splitting into two – developed and underdeveloped – parts. The negligence of these specific crisis phenomena in the NMS macro-region may be counter-productive for the EU as a whole because its vicious circle disturbs also the EU workings and strengthens the domestic positions of the (semi)- authoritarian leaders. The EU authorities finally have to face this negative divergence in the NMS governments and have to take efficient measures at least against the serious violations of the European rules and values. This acute danger has become quite obvious when Poland has also turned to the populist- authoritarian way. Under the pressure of refugee crisis the Visegrád Four (V4) states have produced an Unholy Alliance in the EU as a new controversial case of NMS regional cooperation. The original expectation was that the Europeanization in the NMS countries would produce more regional convergence with the EU mainstream and common “voice” in their interest representation in the EU transnational decision-making mechanism. But paradoxically, the negative diverging development of NMS under the impact of dual crisis as the New Cold War has turned to more regional cohesion in the opposing the mainstream EU policies. The newly emerging (semi-)authoritarian 15 The 2015 rankings of World Economic Forum (WEF 2015) demonstrate this political destabilization, first of all those in (1) diversion of public funds, (2) public trust in politicians and (3) transparency of government decision-making. See the rankings of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia respectively: (1) 104 – 92 – 84 – 119 - 48 – 97 – 70 – 127; (2) 110 – 107 – 122 – 120 – 100 – 112 – 105 – 113; (3) 120 – 88 – 113 – 119 – 106 – 84 – 71 – 79. Altogether, in this respect the NMS continental countries have sunken to the lowest third of the 148 states ranked by WEF. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 19 regimes or just incompetent governments have murmured the mantra of “sovereignty” when the EU calls them for common actions.16 Against this populist and xenophobic tide, Lubomir Zaorálek, the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs has rightly noticed with a big empathy (2016, 2) that “In today’s jarred climate, no member state is immune to the temptations of inward-looking populism, though it may feed off different sources and manifest itself in different forms. In Central Europe, the legacy of communist rule casts a long shadow – but so do the mistakes of the transition period, with its overreliance on technocratic modes of change, often at the expense of social cohesion, inclusive development and democratic accountability. It has left too many of our citizens on the losing side of economic transformation, alienated from what they perceive as a closed system shot through with corruption. In today’s time of distress and uncertainty, past failures are coming back to haunt us, empowering far-right extremists, polarizing our societies and undermining trust in Europe’s liberal order.” Actually, both the populations and experts in NMS have noticed several times that “the EU will not tolerate” the serious violations of the European rules and values. They have proved to be wrong, since the EU has tolerated so far all violations of these non-democratic and often incompetent NMS governments. In the Barroso Commission there were some efforts to understand the distortion of Europeanization in NMS and for its specific crisis management (the Rule of Law Initiative, see EC, 2014) emphasizing that the NMS governments concerned did make “systemic failures” in violating the European rules and values (Euractiv 2014). But the incoming Juncker Commission has been so much overwhelmed by the crisis management in the Core that these NMS crisis management measures have been delayed new and again (Szczerbiak 2016). The NMS governments have used and abused the resentment of their populations, and they have also been encouraged by the extreme tolerance and conflict avoidance of the EU institutions towards their violations of the European rule and values. Without a clear perception about the “Eastern” crisis situation, the Juncker Commission has realized with a big surprise that the NMS countries in this dual crisis have not behaved as the Commission has expected, thus in many ways instead of being an asset in crisis, they have proved to be a liability. Hence, the surprise has come to the EU leadership not only by the particular nature of these new crisis waves, but also by the negative reactions of NMS to these challenges. The EU has not been aware of the real post-crisis situation in the NMS countries that has produced these ugly reactions. All in all, the NMS populations have felt to be in a vicious circle by falling out of Social Europe and neglected in the EU crisis management, therefore more and more losing their belief in Cohesive Europe. The basic question is in this controversial situation why the populist, anti-EU and (semi-) authoritarian Orbán, Fico and Szydlo governments have a popular support at home, and why this support has increased due to the Ukrainian and refugee crisis. In the geopolitical crisis of EU the NMS populations have developed their own kind of Euroscepticism – although in a big individual diversity country by country -, and finally the “successful” Poland has also joined “the resentment club” (Pienczykowska 2016). No doubt that there has been many family quarrels in NMS that can easily be detected from the official declarations of the V4 governments, but the alienation from the EU mainstream 16 On the Unholy Alliance or Authoritarian Alliance of V4 see e.g. Dostál (2015), Kucharczyk and Meseznikov (2015), Parkes (2014), The Economist (2016) and Visvizi and Stępniewski (2013). See the US approach on the V4 in Ukrainian crisis in CEPA (2015). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 20 has been common and it penetrated to the decisions of the NMS governments. The deep resentment can be seen in the V4 Declaration of the Prague Summit (4 September 2015) and even from the empathy-full statement of the Czech Foreign Minister quoted above, although in a very different way.17 Although there are many dividing line among the NMS countries – first of all in their relationships to Russia – but it is clear that in the near future they have to find a common position by the process of regionalization, maybe turning later to strategically organized regionalism. In this process Poland has to take the lead as the biggest NMS country for the regional interest representation in the EU, but only after the overcoming the populist, anti-democratic turn in the region. The particular case of NMS proves that if the on-going transformation crisis management fails, the idea of Cohesive Europe has to be given up by splitting the EU to Core and Periphery in a deeply structured “Multi-Floor Europe” arrangement with the lowest level for the NMS region.18 4 CONCLUSIONS: CRISES AS OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE COHESIVE EUROPE AS “MORE EUROPE” “Men only act in a state of necessity and usually only recognise necessity in a situation of crisis. (…) People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognise necessity when crisis is upon them.” (Jean Monnet 1976) In the transformation crisis there is a need for the basic changes also in the conceptual framework of the EU in order to redesign both the institutional “polity-paradigm” and the developmental “policy-paradigm” under the new conditions of NWO. Consequently, to redefine the EU membership composed of the institutional-regional and policy memberships within a new EU cohesion policy profile. Obviously, the constant situation of “the EU in the making” demands also both the constructivist and the discursive approach in the European Studies, since the meaning of the EU in these aspects has recently been conceptually re-constructed and discursively re-confirmed. The EU is entering the new stage of NWO with the task of the biggest and deepest transformation of its history by moving from the extremely asymmetrical integration to the more symmetrical and balanced integration, and from Growthmania to Sustania. The first steps to be taken in the transformation crisis is the stabilization and completion of the big institutions, like the Eurozone and the Schengen Area, but it is not enough. The introduction/extension of the economic governance, the Energy Union, the Digital Europe and Security Europe are also needed, since moving to the direction of Cohesive Europe presupposes not only the further institution-building, but also the systematization and securitization of all policy fields with strict policy coordination. Against the global pressure, the 17 “The Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and the Slovak Republic therefore reiterate their full support to Hungary in tackling this challenge. (…) the EU approach should not be reduced to the Mediterranean region only but must adequately reflect the Western Balkans as well as the Eastern migration routes” (V4 Prague Declaration 2015). There was also a Prague European Summit on 6-8 June 2016 at the level of the V4 prime ministers, see http://www.praguesummit.eu/. 18 Strangely enough, even the self-styled and megalomaniac Viktor Orbán has also declared that “If we want a Central European cooperation, this has to be led by Poland” (Orbán 2015). In this paper I do not deal with the Hungarian developments and with Viktor Orbán as a “light dictator”, I refer only to the EPC (2016) analysis about this kind of “troublemakers”. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 21 transformation crisis has recently demanded a progressive redefinition the EU, namely polity-wise as the rebuilding the all-European architecture and policy- wise the extension of the EU policy universe to the “social progress”-type policies. The present decade will be a tough stress test for the EU in intellectual learning and social innovation, since the global crisis raised the alternative between the More Europe (Integration) and the Less Europe (Fragmentation), i.e. re-establishing the integrative balancing within the EU by running ahead and creating a “harmony” between the institutions and policies at higher level, or removing the latest achievements to restore the precarious balance at a much lower level. In the present situation the EU faces the Alternative Scenarios between the Cohesive-Integrated Europe and the Fragmented-Disintegrated Europe. The mainstream view on the “Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On” is that so far there has been no “Transcending the East-West Divide”, since “the continent’s traditionally persistent divisions” have survived in the new forms (Epstein and Jacoby 2014, 1; see also EC 2015). For the analysis of the Core-Periphery gap - or the Cohesive Europe – it is important to note that the recently constructed or re-designed regional-institutional and development-policy paradigms have also given the new criteria to evaluate the positive or negative, progressive and regressive divergences in the NMS in order to overcome the new polarization- fragmentation in the EU28. In this particular moment of history a warning should be issued: At the time of the increasing-deepening Core-Periphery Divide the “Core” has been exclusively in the centre of the discussions on the Europe’s Future, and the “Periphery” has been pushed to the margin in these debates as the statement of “the forgotten crisis in the East” emphasizes, which shows the tough limits of the “EU’s transformative power” (Grabbe 2014). Thus, in the mainstream European Studies all concepts have been developed in the spirit of the “saving the euro”, and not in that of “developing the EU”, i.e. in a particularistic mood instead of a holistic approach. Nobody would deny the primacy of saving the Eurozone and its extreme importance for re-launching the growth trajectory for the EU, but this strategy has to be designed by taking the principles of coherence and solidarity of the EU28 into consideration. There can be no “evolutionary” approach either, first saving the euro for the most developed member states, and afterwards making a strategy for the rest, since the “trickle down” effect will not be working in this case either. Just to the contrary, the “saving the euro” exclusive project in itself will produce new negative externalities, and it will deepen more the gap between the Core and Periphery. Finally, it will create a new crisis and provoke a new chaos with extreme movements and ideas. The EU has paid a big price by neglecting the special problems of the “South”, and it may pay an even bigger price nowadays by neglecting the forgotten crisis of the “East”. The New Pact for Europe as the More Europe should embrace all the 28 member states, since otherwise the Less Europe project will win anyway. The management of transformation crisis has begun with an effort for the “strong economic governance” and it has soon re-generated the idea of Federative Europe and Political Union to overcome the systemic misfit by a “Systematized” Europe. Due to this “creative crisis effect”, the recent transformation crisis has to deal with a long time arrangement for the well- working Future Europe based on the principles of crisis-resilience and sustainability, with the close correspondence between/among policies and institutions, and also within them. 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Zaorálek, Lubomir. 2016. Social Europe, 16 March 2016, available at https://www.socialeurope.eu/2016/03/visegrad-plan-rebuilding-european-cohesio n/. Zuleeg, Fabian. 2010. “European Economic Sustainability Index.” EPC, June 2010, available at http://www.epc.eu/documents/uploads/pub_1127_eesi.pdf. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 25 POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN TIMES OF CRISES – THEORIES AND MODELS WORTHY FOR OUR CHANGING WORLD Aleksandar DIMITROV1 ……………………………………………………………………….…………………………………… The reality of our Europe is changing, as well as the sole nature of the leadership practices and styles. The old models are giving way to new concepts and theories, such as connected leadership, super leadership, spiritual visionary, political apostleship, etc. In the paper is made an attempt for revising some of the established notions of the political leadership in the light of the listed concepts. Along with that the scholars are witnessing a new phenomenon – mass movements without personalized leadership, such as “The Indignant”, “Occupy”, “Anonymous”, well known fact, which must be addressed properly. The analysis is looking for answers that can be used in the forthcoming major challenges in the 21st century. The author offers his own concept, this of the Political Apostleship as a way for leaders to reach values and visions beyond post-modernity. Key words: leadership; visionary; apostleship; change; charisma. 1 INTRODUCTION The main task of the current paper is to introduce and analyse a set of several newly created leadership concepts – the connected leadership, the super leadership, the visionary leadership and the political apostleship. These leadership models are developing in a crisis time, in the beginning of 21st century where the strong political leadership will be critically indispensable. That’s why the research interest of the author in this area is very strong, especially when is well known how scarce are the studies on that matter – only 1% of all researches in leadership Studies, deal with the topic, defined as "top (high) leadership"(Rooke and Torbert 2011) to which all of the leadership concepts mentioned above belong. It’s not a secret that one of the biggest deficits in the early 21st century is the lack of proper political leadership in national and international level. There are few very strong reasons for this situation. The world is changing as well is the 1 Alexandar DIMITROV, PhD, University of National and World Economy – Sofia, Department of Political Science. Contact: a_dimitrov@unwe.bg. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 26 people in the turbulent process of globalization and the forthcoming 4th industrial revolution. The issues concerning the contemporary leaders and its organizations are more complex and more challenging. We are witnessing new processes within the civil society, which correspond with new leadership attitude, culture, behaviour and style. The leadership concepts that are presented in the paper are chosen after comparative analysis between different theories of leadership.2 These popped-up after careful consideration and observation of the changing variables in the global leadership trends, most notable in the business sector. 1.1 The changing values of leadership One of the most important problems in the leadership studies is that the nature of leadership is changing. First of all the leadership is not a single act but a process. It is not merely a position or a separate action. The leadership process affects the overall decision-making and conversions, and ultimately encompasses all elements of the organization. Second, the current understandings for leadership relies more on qualities that lead to a different activity of the leaders in professional relationships; the leader must to build and maintain relationships and equitable communication with employees and followers. In this sense, the collective leadership is seen as more decisive in organizational life, instead of the single act of leading. Trend developed in Asia, and much less in the USA (Martin 2007, 4). The statistical data of the research conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) among different business, political and organizational leaders in 28 countries unequivocally confirms the hypothesis that the concept of leadership of the late 20th century has gradually changed. The “responsible”, “patristic”, “serious”, "inaccessible" leader gradually went down in history (see table 1). Leaders themselves believe that the old model is no longer adequate to the changing international and internal environment and expectations. TABLE 1: CHANGES OF THE GRADUATION OF TRAITS AND QUALITIES WITHIN THE NEXT 10–15 YEARS Source: Martin (2007, 13). Is evident that the old perception of leadership has changed radically, and thus comes to the fore the need for a qualitatively new type of leadership training, skills and perceptions. For a short period of 10 years the main top 5 qualities of a leader (to lead, to be resourceful, to be doubtless, to be decisive, and to maintain professional relationships) are changed in new way and order. “To lead” is still first in line, at a second place comes to “build and maintain professional relationships”, and after these are: “to manage the change, to 2 In the PhD dissertation of the author “The Apostleship in Politics” are compared more than 30 viable leadership theories – all of them created and used in some way during 20th century. The proposed four new concepts are attempt of different authors (including the author) to theorizing in the field of contemporary political leadership in the light of 21st century. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 27 encourage the employee and follower’s participation, and resourcefulness”. In this sense, the leadership would be transformed, which is confirmed by science and practice. Its main features inherited from the twentieth century, are now completely new (Martin 2007, 4–5). This statement is supported by some additional data (see table 2 and table 3). TABLE 2: OPINIONS OF RESPONDENTS ABOUT THE LEADERSHIP CONCEPTIONS Source: Martin (2007, 10). TABLE 3: OPINIONS OF RESPONDENTS ABOUT THE FOCUS OF THE FUTURE LEADERSHIP OF CHANGE Source: Martin (2007, 11). In line with the changes in question, the issue of leadership within the state institutions stands increasingly underdeveloped. In comparison the corporate world already implement the newly developed innovative principles of leadership behaviour, leadership codes and more. In this way the business leaders complementing the institutional spirit of its organizations and are in line with the trends of the 21st century. The accumulation of more and more researches has confirmed the changing nature of leadership. This process stimulated some authors to create new concepts, redefining the understanding of the nature and functions of leaders and leadership. These concepts were already mentioned in the introduction and will be reviewed further down in the paper. 2 LEADERSHIP STYLE IN TRANSITION – THE FAR RIGHT/LEFT PERSPECTIVE The four concept models of 21st century were “summoned” to help the leaders in the dorm of one far more complex world compared to the world in the end of the cold war and afterwards. But in the meantime Europe was overwhelmed by some forgotten leadership styles. In this sense some reference about this phenomenon are needed before the actual reviewing of the new concepts. Furthermore, most of the political faces that will be mentioned are using classic behavioural styles but are in transition of their leadership image and will eventually move forward more contemporary concepts. 2.1 The leaders from the radical right The first old-new leadership model comes from the radical right part of the political spectrum. In the end of 2013 and during the campaigns of EU elections during 2014 emerged well constructed leadership style and behaviour leading to electoral success – good examples are the results of right extremist parties and its presence in the EU parliament, the results of the last presidential elections in Austria, the political process in Hungary, the anti EU campaign in UK, etc. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 28 In one of the author’s previous researches was outlined the image of the euro- nationalist leaders. They are highly educated. They are mainly male (rarely female) above 45 years old (close to 50). More than 90% of them have concluded higher education (bachelor, master or PhD degree) and are with serious political experience. Between the nationalists remained unnoticed the “political nomads” or at least not ones that deserve attention. The euro- nationalists are good looking, in good shape, inspiring confidence and stability. They are family persons with two or more children. Half of them are religious (Christians) and often use anti Islamic and xenophobic rhetoric. The other main topics used in the media by the nationalists were the anti EU talking, against further enlargement and political integration, as well as against the multiculturalism. The nationalist leaders know very well their electoral base and capably speculate with the most controversial topics. Despite the political experience most of the notable leaders were new faces, recently came into chief position in the party organization (Dimitrov 2014b, 46–47). In addition to this summary must to be noted that these new leaders are “de facto” interpreters and at the same time developers of the new nationalist wave in Europe. In such manner their generation acquires special statute and probably marks the beginning of a new stage in the further developing of EU. In this moment there is a large number of nationalistic, patriotic and Eurosceptic parties, representing the European citizens in three different parliament groups of the EU parliament (more than 30 party subjects). Some of these nationalistic leaders are very progressive and useful for the EU as a community. That is why some credits must to be given. The Swedish democrats, Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang) and Lega Nord are for sure not new parties. But these parties are in a process of rebranding their image. Their leaders – Jimmie Akesson, Tom Van Grieken and Matteo Salvini are like a breath of fresh air in the obscure political landscape. What is important here is that these leaders really moved up their parties to a new level, despite the controversial past of the current formations. In the far right I’m finding also the Hungarian party Jobbik, as a “new” and interesting political subject. It looks like reminiscence of the past but in new clothes, image and accessories. It is a totally nationalistic, but also irredentist party. It’s not a party of the 21st century, but more like a party of the post WWI period. On the other hand the leader Gabor Vona is a strong and fair political figure. He is charismatic person, which helps him to attract a lot of young people, dreaming for Magyar glorious past (Dimitrov 2014b, 46–47). 2.2 The nationalistic movements born in crises The recent tendencies show that after 2014 the nationalistic attitudes are raising. The people are willing to create mass movements in support of their “rightful” cause. After the failed attempts to create strong nationalistic front within EU the extremist or right radical parties could no longer exist as the only players in the far right spectrum. During the deepening and continuation of the refugee crises some new organizations had emerged. The first one is operating in UK – it is a citizen’s movement, “patriotic political party” and “street defence organization” (Britain first 2016a, mission) in the same time. Since 2010-2011 the organization acts an anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic and anti-EU subject (Britain first 2016b, principles), but in fact took some credit of fame during the last two years. They are “patriotic resistance”, “frontline”, as Christians they want to “restore Christianity as the bedrock and foundation of the national life” (Britain first 2016a, mission) and so on and so forth. The second most notable movement is in Germany. Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the West JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 29 or PEGIDA as we know it is a clearly not anti-EU movement, but for sure is anti- Muslim and in some way racist. PEGIDA is active since 2014 and is rapidly growing movement especially after the excesses in Germany during 2015. It’s a different type of organization compare to Britain first, instead to be strictly nationalistic PEGIDA develops some kind of pan-European nationalism which can be found in the fundaments of the neo-fascist movements (Hegghammer 2011). The last two examples are clear evidence that even more and more political leaders will refer to such kind of nationalistic political behaviour. They will become nationalists in every detail of his/her personality. These leaders will support various forms of “citizen militia” or “night-watch patrols”. They will challenge in every way the European values instead to looking for decisions that can resolve the current crises. We already are witnessing such behaviour in Austria during the last presidential elections. More of this type of scenarios will follow in the next few years. 2.3 The far left leadership – opposition of the extreme right The far right rising tide of political parties provoke similar answer in the far left part of the political spectrum. A number of different analysts noticed that most of the former euro-communists of the 1970’s and 1980’s actually performed very well during 2014 EU elections. Regretfully there was a scarcity of new political players, but some exceptions popped – up and deserve a proper introduction – Podemos (We can) in Spain and Syriza in Greece and their charismatic leaders Pablo Iglesias and Alexis Tzipras. The desperate need for better positioning drove some of the far left parties to realize that they must to promote young leaders, to attract the younger voters and to accumulate some youth spirit. It’s no secret that the communist parties were a little bit rusty. So they put forward new faces the Left (Die Linke) in Germany have for a leader Katja Kipping (37 ages) in a shared leadership with the much older Bernd Riexinger. Obviously the far left in Germany looking for change early enough to opposite the right extremism, and the in-time measures paid them an excellent tribute during 2014. They got seven seats in the European parliament and are one of the key actors in the group of GUE/NGL (Dimitrov 2014a, 146–149). Another good example for a motion toward change was the way in which the Spanish communists/socialists react during the emerging of Podemos. They put in front of their campaign the 29 years old economist Alberto Garzon (he was at that time acting parliamentary representative). Alberto Garzon has become the actual face of the coalition United Left (Izquierda unida) in Spain. Despite the rejuvenation in the alternative or far left, the provident classical social democratic parties also starting a similar process. New leaders as Matteo Renzi from Italian Democratic Party and Pedro Sanchez from Spanish Socialist Workers Party emerged in order to preserve the party positions claimed by the new rival right and left alternatives and extremes (ibid., 150-151). The above summary of the left/right tendencies in Europe showing that from the deep of the classical political spectrum stepped forward new political subjects. Almost every part of the spectrum successfully promoted new parties and new leaders. Pablo Iglecias, Alexis Tzipras, Gabor Vona, Igor Matovic, Tom Grieken and Jimmie Akesson claim that they are the new face of politics. They opposed to the big, established, well-known and less progressive parties. Regretfully they don’t demonstrate new political styles and don’t put enough efforts to promote the new leadership models in doing politics. The author JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 30 believes that the political leadership must to be reformed or at least enriched in order to face effectively the risks and the problems of 21st century. 3 THE RISKS AND CRISES CHALLENGING EUROPE IN 21ST CENTURY The political leaders mentioned above don’t look trustworthy enough. They have attitude, they have qualities and skills of political players, and even they had a good leadership style. But in the end of the day they must to prove that can lead the people in hard times that they are capable to regain people’s trust and to demonstrate in real that can fight for causes, values and for the wellbeing of the common folk. It’s very doubtful whether the Nowadays-European leaders are such type of leaders (Dimitrov 2015, 87–88). In times of such crises and risks overwhelming Europe the traditional leadership styles are of no use. The author picked some of the most dangerous risks that can grow into unstoppable crises (similar of worst than the financial crises of 2008). These challenges can be faced confidently but the leaders must to act differently and to understand how to collaborate with the people in such hard times. The refugee crisis (2012–2015) is may be one of the biggest challenges for EU with more than a million migrants willing to receive asylum or looking for economic and social opportunities (BBC 2016). It’s a complex event with a lot of aspects. Forward to Europe and more precisely EU are advancing a lot of people from Near East (Syria and Iraq), North and Central Africa (Libya, Somalia, Congo, etc.) and Central Asia (Pakistan, Afghanistan). This people are not only an asylum seekers – a lot of them are economic migrants instead of refugees escaping the war conflicts in the noted regions.3 Aside the refugees and the economic migrants it’s obvious that certain terroristic elements breach the border control and the national security protective measures. The recent outbreak of hostilities in France and Belgium, before that in Sweden, Germany, Hungary and UK only confirmed the mentioned suspicious. The conflict in Ukraine also was a serious challenge and the EU diplomacy failed on it. The prolonging of the civil war between Ukraine and the separatist states of Donbas and Donezk demonstrated the inability of EU to participate as a solid power in the International negotiations. Now EU facing a new “frozen” conflict similar to these in former Yugoslavia, Transistria, Abkhazia, etc. and its role is more like and observer (or in the best as arbiter) instead to be active and respectful part in the resolution of this crises (Racz 2016). The prolonging of economic crisis in EU showed that taken separately neither one of the member states could repair its national economies. The austerity measures couldn’t heal the financial, economic and social systems of the most affected countries. Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are still struggling with the effects of 2008. The larger economies of Germany, France and UK barely escaped further complications. The fate in the EU institutions dropped off to miserable rates of approval. The rating of EU politicians, speakers and leaders suffered considerable decline (Petmesidou and Guillen 2015). The socio-economic stagnation (e.g. weak and fragile integration between the states) is obvious in every level. Relying on the EU index the author assumes 3 The Syrian civil war (2012–present), The war between DAESH and Syria, Iraq and Libya from one side and between DAESH and Anti-terroristic coalition and Russian Federation from other, The concluded Congoan war and postwar boarder conflicts; The war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, etc. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 31 that the European integration is vastly undermined. In the last years there is downfall of the integration process between the member-states, especially between EU 15 and EU 28. The process is exactly the opposite the first five or seven states are far ahead and the others can’t catch up (University of Goetingen and Stiftung Marktwirtschaft 2016). If this process continues like that, the EU will face deep social disintegration and will fall apart into its building blocks – the member-states. The climate change impacts are may be the most long lasting challenge. The nature is changing and the habitats of the population too. We are facing contamination, climate anomalies, resource depletion, direct influence on the social and economic systems, etc. (European Environment Agency 2015). 4 THE LEADERSHIP OF 21ST CENTURY After the brief reviewing of the main risks and crises point the main question remains - How the political leaders can adapt their style, attitude and problem solve manners? We need the styles that can introduce real impact over the political process. The huge mistrust between the people and the nominal political figures and the withdrawing from active political behaviour are disease that can be cured by a lot of efforts and unorthodox actions. 4.1 The Connected Leadership In the recent years I found some interesting and promising attempts in effort to answer the question above. The Connected leadership is one of the first new and interesting concepts that I’ve manage to examine. The theory, created by Emmanuel Gobilyo in 2006-2007, offers the opportunity for more effectively solve problems leaders in the society of 21st century (Gobillot 2007. He believes that the perception of the leader as a situational actor is completely wrong. The concept that if in a particular situation has the right person with the "right" qualities will invariably succeed, Gobilyo thinks as unacceptable. Therefore, the author sees the future leadership in a new "contextual model". Leaders, according to him, will always face new challenges and adapt to them. Along with it should not fall only for the immediate problems, must pay attention to the "big overall picture", the changing era, the emergence of qualitatively new, and unknown in the past changes and societal challenges, etc. In this sense, every leader must create a flexible organization that "is resistant to contextual change." Employees and followers must be linked to a network of relationships in a strong but flexible structure to meet the change. In this case, the leader acts as channelization factor of vitality for the "real" (network) organization (Gobillot 2007, 61–81). In the new context, the leader (connected) must adequately reconstruct the social network of the organization; to establish informal connections that grease the wheels of formal structure; to spread innovative expertise and to create the flexibility by a "new generation." Hence there are some requirements for new qualities of the leader: to inspire confidence and trust (in any possible situation); to unite around common goals within the wide diversity of opinions; to encourage dialogue (to create secure commitments) and ensure voluntary creative expression of each one in the space around the leader (Gobillot 2007, 111–117 and 154-158). Some of the political leaders mentioned above are trying to adjust their current political style to the specifics of the connected leadership. This type of JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 32 leadership was firstly used by the Swedish Pirate Party and its leader Rick Valkvinge gaining popularity, membership stability and political importance. SPP achieve wonderful result during EU elections in 2009 – 5th result and 7% (BBC 2009). This success was a spark that inflamed the creation of multiple pirate parties in Europe but in unsuccessful attempts to repeat this result. Fortunately, the connected leadership in its core principles was adopted by the leaders of Podemos, especially by the party leader Pablo Iglesias and the party coordinator Luis Alegre. Two years later this new political formation is in fact the 3rd political power in Spain and represent formidable power with hundreds of thousands members, agile structure and adaptive political behaviour. 4.2 The super leadership After E. Gobillot success in 2010–2011 Gautam Mukunda creates the super leadership theory (also High-impact leadership) developed in his doctoral dissertation The Paths of Glory: Structure, Selection and Leaders. Mukunda offers two-stage “filtration theory of leadership” In this process initially it’s observed "the first filtration of leaders" while from their ranks remain several people in the current area of life, which are very similar between each other. Then a second filter is needed to choose any of them as the “right” leader. Sometimes leader with unique abilities and efficiency occupies the post. The first filtration process of Mukunda, should select the most appropriate of the currently available leaders. But those who go through the second purification process are the leaders who made major changes and transformations (Mukunda 2010, 17- 21). Later in an interview with Sara Green (on the topic “When to hire an extreme leader”) for Harvard Business Review Blog the same author use the term "an extreme leaders", whether good or bad. The first (normal) filtration process of Mukunda is much better in standard situations, because it would effectively protect us from "bad" leaders. But when the situation is severe or fatal, or we face the big challenges of the era, it is better to risk with the extreme leader. According to him, there are two extreme types of leaders - the majority do well, but only under specific conditions. The other, much smaller part, is so gifted, that if any success is possible at all, they would achieved it at any circumstances (leaders of such class are Abraham Lincoln, Judah Folkman, etc.). The important thing is what makes these leaders so special. Two traits emerging as crucial set: absolute (extreme) determination (advocating at all costs), combined with humility and modesty - because they are able to listen to others, to share thoughts, etc. The author recognizes such a behaviour (or parts of it) in the current leader of Syriza and prime minister of Greece – Alexis Tzipras as well as in his former financial minister Yanis Varoufakis. The both were determent in order to resolve the deep crises gripped Greece. Also the came into power as a visionaries with mission which is close to the prerequisites necessary for the next leadership concept – the spiritual visionary. 4.3 The Spiritual Visionary Among the “new-old” concepts of the 21st century is the understanding of leadership as a "spiritual visionary." Its first proponents present it as a collection of new skills of leaders "to discern, detect and provide yet unseen" but future problems and to offer solutions. Visionary leadership theory is developed in a comprehensive doctrine in 1987, when an attempt is made for "implanting" it as a style of thinking among the high command of the U.S. Army. Among the prominent supporters of the doctrine in question is Rebecca JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 33 Halstead, which assesses the experiment from the perspective and needs of the military, but also for citizens. The author proves that those who adopt the style of thought and action characteristic of visionary leadership are much more effective and motivating. Key features of this type of leadership are: comprehensive view of the situation, evaluation of the potential to achieve objectives (even if not obvious to others); Domination above followers (employees) to prosecute these "invisible to them" purposes; giving freedom of action of the single individuals among groups and teams; gives more faith in their ability to reach their ultimate goals. In a military sense the birth of the vision should be happening at the moment when the situation unfolds and the leader (in infallible manner) may establish alternative and new approaches to correct the current action. In this sense, it is a vital concept, applicable in addressing changes in 21st century. This type of leadership provides more security for the organization and builds trust in people, cohesion, commitment and will to be met any challenge, because it is clear that the "new" may "be seen" by a reasonable forward analysis (Halsted 1993, 5–15). Coreen Maklauglin complements the idea of spiritual visionary outside the military interpretations. According to her, these are the leaders of the new age, working primarily with the help of their rich imagination, inner sense of right action and rational courage. They deliberately educate people around them. Looking toward the horizon, these leaders are social innovators and major agents of change, because they are able to see the big picture, thinking primarily strategic. The visionary leader builds a few personal points that determined it as a "first choice" of the people for a better future: he/she is devoted to the basic spiritual values not in general but of its time; has a clear and inspiring vision - acting under the conditions of new challenges; maintains the integrity and strengthening relationships; implements innovative and daring actions - thinking "outside the box" (McLaughlin 2001). The influence of this theory is undeniable, though different authors differ in some of their views about its details. It cannot be denied, however, that in practice this theory is widely used. Besides the U.S. military, it is used by many of today's Christian churches - Catholic and Protestant especially (and some aggressive "new religions" such as the Mormons, the New Christians, Scientologists, etc.). 4.4 The Political Apostleship The forth conception is called the Political apostleship and more or less is my creation in my own PhD thesis The Apostleship in Politics. In the core of the concept is the understanding that the European civilization as a development has several ups and downs. Every peak in this development is followed by depletion of its potential and a collapse. These peaks and collapses form several consecutive cycles (in form of a wave) representing the evolution of our civilization (Parashkevova 2010, 62–68). Between two cycles there is a rift zone, which is a separate phase and link between the cycles. These “dark” zones are relatively long periods and represent precisely the conditions where the active apostolic work is ripe. When the structural integrity of the old civilization breaks down, its place needs to be occupied by new civilization norms. This is a time when the existing leaders "are no longer capable" and those of the emerging period "are still not able to" effectively control society – this is exactly when the political apostles appear. The next important issue is methodological and concerns the approach of analysis in order to review correctly the global historical and political role of political apostleship. The author chooses that of "civilization-wave cycle JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 34 analysis"(Sorokin 2000; Halal 2004). The key benefits of the chosen baseline style of thinking are few. The approach helps in avoiding the fragmenting of the political core in the course of evolution, understood as European civilization over the last 2600 years; the world of politics can be presented in a civilizational context where clearly can be observed different civilization cycles (with accompanying political realities); determines the evolution of policy and its products. The Civilization-wave cycle analysis clearly demarcates the fault zones (of the historical process), and separates them from the historical continuum (in fact the fault zones are the main platforms for the political apostles). The main fault zones in the civilizational cycles express the fundamental apostolic generations in the European political tradition – 7th to 6th century B.C. (Greek archaic period); 1st to 4th century (in Roman times) and 7th to 16th century (from pre-renaissance to renaissance Europe). Investigating these periods the researchers can find solutions about nowadays leadership problems concerning the fact that our civilizational model is in depletion and we are lurking for a way to step forward in a new era. The model of political apostleship is based on the analysis of the generational characteristics of the individuals who realized the social and political activities of an apostolic type in the various fault zones - the seven sages of antiquity (Thales, Solon, Chilon, Periander, Pitak, Kleobul and Biant); the Holy apostles (Peter, Paul, Thomas, Simon, Andrew, James, etc.); from the pre-Renaissance era heresiarchs (notably John Wycliffe) and Renaissance neo-apostles (Martin Luther, John Calvin, etc.). The analysis also has in mind some notable leadership examples from Bulgarian history (as a local and regional variation of the European civilization). Bright examples of apostolic work can be found in the deeds of the brothers Cyril and Methodius and their disciples Clement and Naum (8th to 9th century); 18th century – the beginning of the Bulgarian National Revival, with the writing of "Istoriya Slavyanobalgarska" (Slavonic-Bulgarian History) by Paisiy Hilendarski (St. Paisiius of Hilendar); 19th century, during the struggle for freedom of the Bulgarian people – mostly the work of Vasil Levski and the Committee of the apostles, contributed to the creation of the Third Bulgarian State, etc. The model of political apostleship is based on more than fifty separate political and religious figures and its closest followers and adepts. The array of analysed information helped the author to draw and summarize several recurring characteristics/traits from the different periods of the Apostles. The first is charisma and the grace that is born from the work of the apostles, captivating the ordinary follower through the invisible power over people's minds. The second important feature is the unique combination of knowledge and skill to use it; the result of this combination is the unconventional intelligence of the apostles. The third common characteristic lies in the existence of a unifying visionary power expressed in the opportunity "to perceive the true unknown future" and this creates the unique will of change, through which all the apostles, with words and deeds fought for revolutionary or civilizational systemic change. The fourth feature of the apostolic mission (as a kind of civilizational leadership) associated with the transition (faults) zones of humanity is the conscious desire to reproduce and multiply the positive impact of the apostolic endeavour. It is generally realized in the creation and upbringing of successors, schools and followers who will continue with completing the new thinking and new social systems. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 35 However, what should be understood under the term charisma is not the poetic fiction image known before as Max Weber's idea, an image that he vehemently opposes. Charisma is rather a complex phenomenon composed of a number of elements, but all need to be available for the functional (and credible) charisma. The set includes: sanctity of the individual (or heroism), empathy (Merriam Webster Dictionary 2016), suggestion (Sidis 1898, 5–16), personal sacrifice and credibility (Kouzes and Posner 2011, XI). These traits build the essence of apostolic charisma, while their absence does not imply the existence of charisma in the respective leader. The author believes that the rational approach can be applied in understanding of charisma and to assessing it in a realistic and truthful manner. There is no need that charisma is conceived as something monolithic and one-dimensional, because its definition becomes almost impossible. Another key issue is the unique intelligence of the apostles. The transition during cataclysmic times would not be possible if the apostles cannot rationalize it or explain it. The work developed by Robert Sternberg (2003) helps with understanding the features of "intelligence". Sternberg recommends to the readers to leave the traditional concepts and meanings of intelligence. He believes that we should focus more on the content of successful intelligence, namely "the ability to adapt, to change and to choose our surroundings in order to achieve one's goals (own or foreign) and the objectives of the society and culture (ours or foreign)". In this sense Sternberg (ibid.) distinguishes three types of intelligence, corresponding to the above aspects, based on the capabilities needed to reach a decision and its realization: analytical thinking and abilities, creative thinking and abilities, and practical thinking skills or a combination thereof. Often the three categories are related and their development depends on the solution of the problem. The studies show that the apostles have all three abilities in a high degree. This combination helps them understand, define and proclaim the meaning, logic and technology of the change. In fact, the successful and productive intelligence is the catalyst that brings an individual to apostleship. It provides the personal resources for non- traditional solutions to the problems through the use of efforts beyond the potential of the "ordinary" man of the era. In such way the apostles can create a whole new type of analysis, where the links between the processes concerning the future are reviewed in network. This is a process that provides predictions, proper implementation and future utility. The Apostle is a visionary, giving birth to the will for change. This will is the initial impetus, after which the Apostle begins his actual realization as a moral agent of the coming new Novus Ordo Mundi (Completely New System) as opposition of Status Quo (the old, unchanged situation). The subsequent actions are focused on finding solutions; creating alternatives; considering options and the implementation of unique strategies with the potential for their realization. The apostolic “vision” is not magic, neither divination. It’s a specific leadership trait that shows the unique ability of the apostles to follow patterns, to recognize changing conditions, to capture the new needs of the people, even before they are fully comprehended and clearly defined, even before there is a critical mass of concrete facts, obvious to any citizen or conventional (traditional type) political leader. The reproduction and the struggle to preserve what the apostles already created is the next unique and extremely important apostolic characteristic. It is complemented by the need to create a conscious follower of the apostle, to take and provide adequate social basis for the struggle for survival of the idea and a mission. The desire to reproduce themselves is based on the demand or JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 36 creation of heirs, which must accept, voluntary and entirely, the views of the apostle, to enrich and develop them. This process is assured trough preservation the main centre (place, city, community) of apostolic, “visionary insights” (thoughts, massages, etc.). This is mostly a personal responsibility of the apostle. The ways and methods are different in the different apostolic generations, but the goal is the same. Based on the reviewed individual cases it is possible to derive a separate leadership model of apostleship. The personality specific to the apostles can be defined as follows: unique, unusual, great historical figures, who first realized the needs of the new civilization during the rift periods. In the name of their achievement the apostles gave up their quiet life or promising political career, and dedicated themselves entirely to their new cause. They created the necessary conditions for future development; personally developed their devoted followers; as a rule, the apostles didn’t consume glory and power through their positions, posts and awards and often they fall dead, “burned” in the fire of struggle that was waged. The proposed concept is not entangled only to the long go past. In unpublished parts of author’s research, the apostolic model it’s applied on some political figures with huge impact in world scale. Undoubtedly there is some figures that fit to that model in every of its parts – Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa. But the model is applicable not only to the famous and popular world figures. It was tested with some political leaders of regional or very specific importance Charles Eastman (the reformer of the American Indians), Santiago Ramon y Cajal (the “father” of the neuroscience), Susan Anthony (one of the first ever known fighters for women’s rights), Helen Keller (one of the most notable fighter for political freedoms and the first highly educated blind and deaf person). So, the apostolic sense for leadership can be observed nowadays too. The freshest example is Pope Francis I; his holiness poses certain apostolic traits (or the sense for them) – the saint aura as a charismatic charm, is successfully intelligent, demonstrate strong will to change the church, he is eager to create followers and is ready to fulfil his “divine mission even if he must confront certain influential church circles (orders, cardinal collegiums, etc.). 5 LEADERSHIP OR LEADERLESS – THAT IS THE QUESTION The proposed four concepts are more or less a product of their time – the beginning of 21st century and all new challenges that must to be expected. It’s obvious that the lack of proper leadership and the mistrust in the classical political leaders drew away the citizens and they started to form a group phenomenon called group leadership or leaderless movements. “The indignant“ were the first integrated mass leaderless movement. Hundreds of thousands stood together behind the motto of Stephen Hessel – “For one peaceful uprising” (Hessel 2011). This later became key characteristic of all leaderless protests – denial of physical confrontation. The nonviolent appeal was enough to inflame the spark and to unite the energy of different protests and initiatives. In first place this was a reaction against the raging financial and economic crises in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Island, United Kingdom, Austria, etc. (the most impressive movement gatherings were in Spain). The uprisings in Spain were huge and with high impact upon the everyday life of the ordinary Spaniards. By data provided of RTVE in the protests were JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 37 involved between 6.5 and 8 million people. The most remarkable event during the uprisings was the march of the indignant (20-25 June of 2011) – the marching protesters formed 8 columns passing through all of Spain with one goal – Madrid, Puerta del Sol plaza. In fact exactly this event activated later the Occupy movement in United States and gave birth to the motto “Too little bread for too much salami (e.g. thieves)”. The Occupy movement started just after the Spanish uprisings. In the beginning it was a mass movement against the social and economic inequality. In its majority this was a revolt of the social thinking and sensible citizens of United States, supported by a large number of left radicals. The main goal of this social riot was against the large corporations and the world financial system, which in its fundaments benefits mainly one globalized minority (1-10 % of all planetary population) and undermines the democratic idea for statehood. Events under brand Occupy are held in most than 1000 cities in 82 countries including the most radicalized protests as the Euromaidan in Kiev, Tahrir plaza in Kairo and Taksim plaza in Istanbul. Despite the energy and the multitude of the protests their power strongly decreased after 2013. Nowadays these mass movements dispersed into minor organizations, on-line portals and platforms for civil activities. Now Occupy movement regains its strengths as a giant protest channel concentrating as much viewpoints as possible. At this point trough these channels are conducted different campaigns for social, economic and ecologic justice. This Occupy channel is in fact an open creative platform, but far from that to be organized or effective. Even now the Occupy channel doesn’t have any formal structures for self-governance (boards, councils or speakers) – lays entirely on the principle of voluntary and independent participation. As mass leaderless movements the Indignant and Occupy reach some success. In ones of the biggest countries like USA, Brazil, Canada, Iran, India, UK, Venezuela and Spain the governments revised its politics in some fields and arranged reforms or stabilizing measures. But without leaders channelizing the energy of the people all efforts flew away and remained the memory of the “madness of the masses”. 6 CONCLUSION The question about the presence of a leader supporting the people’s cause is not meaningless. The paragraph above shows that in some point even a successful leaderless movement must to born and bred its heroes or leaders. For that reason the proposed four leadership concepts are important because are suitable for the societies of 21st century. These leadership concepts correspond with the observed tendencies reviewed in the beginning and in the end of the paper. The good effects of such leadership styles, behaviour and actions are visible in some digital organizations as Wiki-leaks community where Julian Assange uses most of the aspects provided by Gobillot, McLaughlin and even some apostolic characteristics. The shadow leaders of the Anonymous also are relaying on the same aspects. In fact both organizations are some kind of anarchic-communities constructing global digital brain or neuron-net, but with different roles – the digital Robin Hood and the digital trickster. It’s obvious that there is a lot of empty space in the theorizing about the higher leadership ant its implication, cultivation and exploration. Unfortunately the JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 38 political leadership remains in the embrace of the past and the conception of the 20th century while the world is moving ahead. Most of the political leaders remain blind for the opportunities and the risks that lurking just around the corner of the global march of history. Nevertheless some of the most influential young political leaders understand that the people looking for new type of leadership and trying to change or adapt its own style. 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Social and Culture Dynamics. Sankt Petersburg: Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy Press. Sternberg, Robert. 2003. Contemporary theories of Intelligence. In Handbook of Psychology, eds. Weiner, Irving M., Reynolds, William M. and Gloria E. Milner, 29–30. San Francisco: Wiley. University of Gottingen and Stiftung Marktwirtschaft. 2016. EU Index: Measuring the European Economic Integration. Available at http://www.eu-index.uni- goettingen.de/?page_id=195. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 40 ELECTRONIC VOTING IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: STATUS QUO IN ESTONIA AND TRENDS IN CENTRAL EUROPE Markus REINERS1 …………………………………………………………………....……….................................……… Estonia has been electing its political representatives online since 2005, and is therefore on the forefront of a digital revolution. The interesting question arises how other European countries have developed. More specifically, whether the way has been paved properly elsewhere, and whether their efforts hold promise for the future. The country selection for this study was done mainly on the basis of where data is available, which is to some degree analysable. Therefore, the study should primarily be seen as exploratory. In Europe, Switzerland seems to be the closest pursuer of Estonia on this field. Here one can expect to see the nationwide implementation of online elections in the near future. In Germany and Austria the efforts are also ambitious, but the concepts still less developed, and at this stage not implementable, for a number of reasons. In these countries the challenge is not to fall further behind, and to accelerate the respective efforts. Key words: E-voting; electronic democracy; e-government; IT governance; digitization. 1 RESEARCH CONTEXT OF „E-VOTING IN ESTONIA“, COUNTRY SELECTION AND INTEREST OF RESULTS Estonians have been electing their public representatives online since 2005. In addition, voting by internet-connected mobile devices was made possible in 2011. The method is revolutionary, and to date it is the only country where it is available nationwide. To vote, a citizen needs an identity card, a card-reader 1 Dr. Markus REINERS is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the Leibniz University of Hanover, Institute of Political Science. Current research activities focuses mainly on various aspects to the question of modernizing states and public organizations or – more generally – on sustainability of states; in this context, author is focused on the areas of public policy, multi- level and polycentric governance, digitization, e-democracy/e-voting, political learning, building on policy analysis and comparative studies. Contact: markus.reiners@t-online.de, m.reiners@ipw.uni-hannover.de. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 41 device and a personal identification number (Drechsler 2003; Drechsler 2006; Madise and Tarvi 2006; Drechsler and Madise 2004; Reiners 2011, 554–555). The introduction of online elections was motivated by an expectation that voter participation will rise, and with it the legitimacy of the system. Online elections reduce the barriers to participation, make voting more convenient, and seem to be the reasonable step to take given the increase in mobility. The empirical evidence shows, however, that a significant rise in voter participation can hardly be expected. It seems, those who already vote, are more likely to avail themselves of the opportunity to vote online (Kersting 2004, 23). Only rudimentary investigations into how much voter participation has risen in Estonia have been conducted to date. On the basis of surveys Trechsel et al. identified, inter alia, a slight improvement in the parliamentary election of 2007 (2007, 33). This finding has since been confirmed by more recent investigations. In the 2007 election the voter participation rate was about 62 percent. In 2003, before the introduction of online elections, the rate was still 58.2 percent. In the 2011 election the participation rate was 63.5 percent and in 2015 it was about 64 percent (Deutsche Wirtschaftsnachrichten 2015). It can also be noted, that the number of e-voters has since grown in Estonia. It is clear that online voting is most popular among young Estonians, the e-vote percentage rises gradually as these supporters grow older, and that political parties catering to young voters are the main benefactors of the implementation of e-voting, although parties focused on the financially strong and better- educated classes also benefit. Therefore, introducing such a system is a power game (see Reiners 2011, 559–570). While only 1.9 percent voted online in the first run at the local elections in 2005, 5.5 percent voted online in the 2005 parliamentary elections, which grew to 14.7 percent in the elections for the European Parliament in 2009, and still further to 24.3 percent in the 2011 parliamentary elections.2 In the parliamentary elections of 2015, this percentage rose to an astounding 30.5 percent. Of the 578,104 votes cast, 176,491 were electronic in nature – a new record (Deutsche Wirtschaftsnachrichten 2015). Obviously, e-voting has achieved a certain degree of acceptance. The interesting question appears to be why such a revolutionary project was successful in Estonia of all countries. The size of the country alone could not have been decisive, since many other smaller, developed countries are far behind Estonia in this regard. It is clear that various structural and legislative factors, and various constellations of actors supported the process. A combi- nation of factors, therefore, catapulted the Estonian state into the leading position in this field (Reiners 2011, 556). Firstly, structural factors are responsible (Ibid., 556–558). Broadly viewed, Estonia is a small country with about 1.32 million inhabitants, and a limited number of players to veto the process. Another characteristic is the low population density of only about 28 people per square kilometre (UN Statistics Division 2008). Few EU member states have lower densities. When state functions are offered online, the opportunity to save costs arises in theory, since all services do not have to be offered countrywide. In turn, cost savings promote e-voting (Kersting 2004, 22). The argument is also valid for the high number of Estonians living outside the country (about 15 percent of the population), who do not have to travel to the nearest offices of diplomatic representatives to vote. 2 Estonian National Electoral Committee (2007). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 42 A second factor is the internet-connectivity and relatively high internet-affinity of Estonians (Reiners 2011, 556–557). Using the Internet has turned into part of everyday life since the 1990s–more so than in many other countries. Already in 2006, about 52 percent of the population were connected to the internet (Ray 2007). This level of penetration is moderate when compared to industrial countries in the West, but significant when compared to other Eastern European countries. Another feature is the way the Internet is used for e- commerce and e-government as a matter of course. For example, already in 2007 about 79 percent of Internet users did their banking online (Estonian National Electoral Committee 2007). Furthermore, the proportion of mobile Internet users who did their banking online stood at about 93 percent in 2015 (Statista 2016a). In addition, about 86 percent of all income tax returns were submitted online already in 2007 (Reiners 2011, 557). The willingness to transfer sensitive data over the Internet is testimony to a strong confidence in new technologies. Thus, Estonian banks are seen as driving forces behind e- voting (Charles 2005). This trust gradually passed on to the public sector. A third argument has to do with the political structures (Reiners 2011, 559– 562). Estonia is a small country and a young democracy. It is known that the Estonians implemented reforms in the 1990s towards a market economy and a modern administration which can be described as downright daring, and that the communist legacy was not perceived as a burden, but as a motivation and opportunity (State Chancellery 2004, 12–13). The key point is, that in a young democracy the structures are less intertwined. Looked at systemically, a system redesign is easier to pull off than the re-organization of an existing system. Specific democratic processes still have no sacrosanct character, and can be changed easier. A measure of willingness to experiment with new forms of democratic participation must also be present, when it comes to redesigning a system (Newsweek 2002). One can, therefore, diagnose that the flexible, political structures and the rather low level of institutionalization of democratic processes impacted positively on online elections. Two legislative factors also played a role, namely legislative reforms introduced in 1999 and 2000 (Reiners 2011, 558–559). Firstly, the counting and processing of votes was converted into an internet-based system already early on. The new procedure accelerated the process. At the same time, voters were given the choice to vote at other polling stations than the stations in their registered places of residence (Drechsler and Madise 2004; OSCE 2007). The second reform was the introduction of electronic identity cards already in 2002. The foundations were laid with the Identity Documents Act of 1999 and the Digital Signatures Act of 2001. The card has two functions. On the one hand, it serves as an identity document. On the other hand, it contains a digital signature for use on the Internet. The multi-functionality and the ever-growing variety of card applications on the Internet resulted in its rapid distribution in and, in the meantime, complete acceptance by the population. More than 100 online services can now be used (see Drechsler and Madise 2004; Reiners 2011, 556– 559). Its implementation impacted the introduction of online elections in three ways. Firstly, the card made e-voting possible technically with its signature and encryption technology. Secondly, its widespread acceptance enabled a large majority to vote online, and thirdly, the large number of possible uses built confidence in the new technology. Looking at the process and the actors, it can be said almost all the conflict structures were moderate, since the coalition government and sections of the opposition pursued a common goal, namely to secure the legitimacy of democracy. So, the interest groups were in consensus on a wide front in a JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 43 process that was constructed relatively quickly and was relatively radical. After all, the veto structure with only one legislative chamber at the federal level is rather more conducive than it is a hindrance. Looking even closer at the actors and processes, it can be said that formally the prime minister’s position is a prominent one, but it is turned into a moderating position by multiparty coalition cabinets, which are usually in power in Estonia. At the time the project was initiated in 2001, the coalition consisted of the parties Isamaaliit, Reformierakond and Mõõdukad, under leadership of Premier Laar (Isamaaliit). All three parties supported the project, partly also for different reasons, as reflected in the differences between their voter support groups (see Drechsler 2003; Drechsler 2006; Reiners 2011, 559–564). To be noted, however, is that the government changed several times before implementation of the project in 2005. It is therefore remarkable that the project was pursued further and realized, even though parties critical to the change, or opposed to it, co- governed at times. However, always in coalition with a senior partner which was in favour of the project. The co-ruling parties were, therefore, bound by coalition agreements to support the continued implementation of the project (Drechsler and Madise 2004, 103). From 2005, a Premier of the reform-friendly Reformierakond governed again (Reiners 2011, 562–564). Overall, the experience in Estonia is extremely positive. Also interesting to note, is that technical, and security-political concerns played almost no role. The process offers countries interested in introducing such a system suggestions and insights. It is, therefore, keenly observed to what extent the system is transferable to other countries. It is interesting that, until now in Europe, on- line-voting projects have only been piloted in several countries, for example in Norway, Switzerland, Austria, the U.K., France, Spain and the Netherlands. Furthermore, only rudimentary data is available on the topic in many of these countries. A systematic comparison of units, or countries is, therefore, almost impossible. At this stage, investigating other European countries encompass little more than describing the status in each country. And then only countries with easily accessible and adequate data, meaning material, which can be analysed adequately. With the result that, from the Baltic state Estonia as starting point, the focus falls exploratively on the German speaking countries – Germany, and its neighbours Switzerland and Austria. This research is structured as follows: After describing the complex elections and internet, and the associated benefits and challenges presented to e-voting systems, the situations in the abovementioned countries are explored – in fact, merely presented, since only rudimentary data is available. This is less a detailed comparison of the mentioned Estonian factors – taking the com- parative requirements as a basis where possible, to determine whether the model is transferable to other countries – than it is a mere first assessment of whether they are on the right track and whether the foundations laid by the different countries show promise for the future. 2 TERMINOLOGY With e-voting, the moment of democratic decision- and opinion-building with regard to an election as such, plays a significant role. E-voting includes all forms of electronic voting. This includes the use of computers in the polling station, and also voting with your own computer. Buchstein defined the concept even clearer (2004). Due to the various forms of e-voting, he points out that Internet elections can be differentiated on the basis of context, form and status. While JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 44 context differentiates between private (e.g. associations/companies) and public elections, form differentiates between private and public election instruments, as well as between stationary and mobile devices. Public devices would, for instance, be the voting machines employed in some countries, whereas private devices would typically be the home computer, and its mobile variant. Status refers to the situation with the alternatives. Are alternative methods, or channels for voting, offered and are the voting options optimal?3 In Estonia, there is an alternative offer: citizens can choose to vote in the traditional way. According to this differentiation, we have to do with a public election in the Estonian example, in which citizens have the additional option of voting with their private devices. Since voting machines are dispensed with, one also refers to „i-voting“ in the Estonian case (Deutsche Welle 2007). This study seconds this description. 3 ELECTIONS, BENEFITS AND DEMOCRATIC-THEORETICAL AS WELL AS SECURITY-TECHNICAL DEMANDS OF AN E-VOTING SYSTEM According to liberal-western thinking, there is no democracy without elections. In Germany, for instance, the meaning and function of the election is defined in Article 20 (2), phrase 1 of the Federal Constitution. Thus, the sovereignty of the people is a fundamental principle. With a reign limited in time, freedom of choice also plays a role. The Constitution rules that citizens entitled to vote should be able to vote without interference. When a term in office expires, it is decided anew who should rule. The right to vote encompasses, furthermore, that all eligible voters are able to exercise their right to vote in the same way, and that every vote carries the same weight. The secret ballot ensures non- traceability. For whom is voted, is invisible to the third party. Furthermore, it should be impossible to link the voter and his vote (see Reiners and Hitschold 2013, 185). Apart from its institutional requirements, democracy also presents itself as a continuous communication process. Therefore, the focus of all affected by a decision, is on the decision-making process (see Ewert, Faslic and Kollbeck 2003, 299). Furthermore, in advanced countries a media infrastructure is a prerequisite for the functioning of a democracy. The widespread use of the Internet offers opportunities to use the infrastructure to inform, communicate and participate in new ways. The growth of Internet technology and user potential alone, increase the application opportunities of the Internet. Since the economy has converted to electronic media, the public sector also offers its services online to a large extent. In this context, e-voting is a higher, deducted form (Statista 2016b). In general, an e-voting system is associated with a rationalization of the electoral process in terms of cost (printing of ballot papers, delivery of election documents, setting up of polling stations, appointment of election committee members, observers and helpers etc.) and its duration (Birkenmaier 2004, 50; Kubicek and Wind 2002). Despite the cost to implement the system, it is possible to amortize expenses and create added value (Will 2002, 19). It must also be mentioned in passing, that the traditional way of counting votes is costly, which can be reduced by e-voting. Furthermore, declining voter participation, discussions over the disenchantment with politics, and the need to improve the legitimacy of the system, are reasons for seeing an e-voting 3 For the basic conditions of online elections, look at Kersting (2004, 17–18). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 45 system as key. Young voters could be motivated effectively to participate. Those who have felt until now, the effort to vote is bigger than the actual benefit, this way of participating may make voting attractive. Relief is also at hand for eligible voters who cannot vote, because they are influenced in some way or another. Last but not least, the need for a functional and sustainable electoral system speaks for a technological offensive (Philippsen 2002, 140). But, which democratic-theoretic demands might stand in the way of such benefits? For example, a basic principle of universal suffrage is that the unjust exclusion of citizens from exercising their right to vote is not allowed. It prohibits the exclusion of certain population groups for political, economic or social reasons (Federal Constitutional Court 2012). Therefore, the legislator is obliged to prevent discrimination, and prevent the misdirection and changing of votes by outside intervention (Will 2002, 76). Discriminating against specific population groups is linked closely to voting on the Internet, irrespective of whether e- voting is offered as substitute, or additional channel (Birkenmaier 2004, 113). In Estonia, the digital age enables the preservation of the existing participation possibility, while creating additional participation channels. Some concerns point, quite justifiably, in the direction of a „digital divide“, and the potential to manipulate the voting process and vote counting (Will 2002, 51; Philippsen 2002, 141). The concerns centre on the gap between people with and without Internet access, and media skills. The Estonian Senate came to the conclusion the constitutional principle of electoral equality means that everyone should be able to influence the election outcome to the same extent. This principle is complied with, in view of the Senate, since only the final vote of a voter counts (principle of superiority of the ordinary vote). The advantage of the online voter, namely that he could change his vote several times, is neutralized by the fact that, de jure, all voters could avail themselves of the opportunity to vote online. Factual inequality, as brought about by individual life circumstances, falls within the boundaries set by the obligations to eliminate illegal interferences, it is said in Estonia (Reiners 2011). In part, it was also argued the secrecy of the ballot was not guaranteed. The advocates of e-voting countered that the secrecy of the ballot as a constitutional prescription, was to be interpreted as a teleological prescription. The constitution prescribes a secret ballot process, so that the choice can be made free of any influence. In Estonia, this dictate was adhered to by making it possible to vote online more than once, and still vote in the classical way on election day – with the last vote as the valid one. Should a voter decide to do it this way, the last vote cast online becomes invalid. In this way, every voter could rid himself of interference, and the purchase of votes would become unattractive, since the last time a vote was cast would not be verifiable (Drechsler 2003). Comparisons show that around the world different problems with online elections are always accentuated. These include insufficient access to the internet (digital divide), but also – as just mentioned – technical problems (denied server attacks), a lack of trust in technologies and the resulting problem of legitimacy, irrational votes (junk votes), a loss of democratic identity and the political sense of community (community building), as a result of the disappearance of the symbolic act of voting at the polling station, as well as issues of confidentiality (Kersting 2004, 22). Several arguments are focused on technical problems, also since only limited experience is available from other countries, which is vital for successful JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 46 implementation. In the case of e-voting, security means the technical guarantee that the fundamental, election principles are complied with, and that the system is available. Furthermore, the security of the system does not only refer to the security of computers, but predominantly of the networks, because the connection to networks poses dangers. The Internet is an aggregation of networks. It is organized in a decentralized way, which means there is no central administration to control the Internet. Accordingly, it is difficult to control the adherence to legal requirements and compliance with uniform guidelines (Birkenmaier 2004, 41). In this context, unencrypted data transfer is to be regarded as a safety-related design fault, since unencrypted data can be read, or changed at network nodes, which is why election results can be manipulated. This means, that votes can be intercepted, modified, copied or destroyed by so-called „hackers“, or malicious software programs (Fuhrberg 2000, 49). These potential outcomes lead to a loss of confidentiality, authenticity and data integrity. 4 DEVELOPMENTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES Germany Subject to the aforementioned provisos, the system in Estonia enables us to now look at other European countries, which have set off on the road to e- voting, and where it is research economically possible to draw first conclusions. The spotlight falls on the German-speaking region, and, as a first step, on Germany, where three goals were connected to an e-voting system. On the one hand, a mobility gain for voters; on the other hand, a reduction in the number of invalid votes, in the cases of vote aggregation and the splitting of votes, and thirdly, the stabilization of the declining voter participation rate, or increasing it. It is, as mentioned, doubtful whether e-voting can stop, and even turn around, Germany’s declining voter participation rate – a trend that may also have something to do with absentee voting (see Dopatka 2005). Not only the German democracy is dependent on participation in political processes. This includes the sharing of information, the exchange of views, participation in decision-making and in decisions. In addition, the Internet offers opportunities and ways to boost the participation of the population and so increase transparency and acceptance. Therefore, e-voting is the subject of extensive, scientific and political discourse in Germany, and the questions whether online elections are desirable and legally permissible, are debated with increased intensity (German Federal Ministry of the Interior 2016). E- government projects, such as BundOnline 2005, brought fresh backing (Federal government 2005). However, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court expressed its opposition to the voting method (2009). In a judgment dated 3 March 2009, it said: The fundamental principle of the public nature of elections, as described in Article 38, read in conjunction with paragraph 1 and 2 of Article 20 of the Constitution, dictates that all essential steps of the election process must be publicly verifiable, as long as an exception is not justified by other constitutional-legal interests. In addition, when electronic devices are used, citizens must be able to verify the essential steps of the election process, and the election result, reliably and without special expertise. The use of voting computers in the 2005 election of the lower house of the German parliament, which was later declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, is one reason why e-voting hasn’t been implemented. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 47 Voting machines have also been ruled out in the Netherlands, because of the danger of manipulation (Sietmann 2007). Despite a „hack“ and controversial discussions, NEDAP voting computers were also used in the state elections in Hesse in 2008. The procedure was criticized for non-compliance with the fundamental principle that the vote must be secret. Many computers were shut off after delivery to polling stations and stood in the stations unsupervised on election day. In addition, election observers reported many voters were overwhelmed and that election assistants had to help them (CCC 2008). Furthermore, the structural preconditions could be more demanding in Germany than in Estonia, since Germany has about 82 million inhabitants, sacrosanct structures, a well-developed culture of public debate, pronounced veto potentials, a population density of about 230 people per square kilometre, a bicameral legislative system with a lower and upper house in parliament and 16 federal states (Reiners 2011, 569). In general, the German population is not sceptical of electronic voting. According to a study by BITKOM in 2009, nearly half of all respondents said they would vote online (E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH 2016). Nevertheless, it is an inappropriate moment now, and the concern that cyber-attacks could torpedo votes, is justified. The topic was examined early already in 2001 in the lower house of the German parliament (2001). For this, the Ministry of the Interior set up a study group, which analysed the demands of an institutionalization of e-voting systems. In contrast to the Estonian debate, technical questions were the focus of this general discourse (Reiners 2011, 562–564). Nevertheless, elections have dimensions beyond technical issues and legal provisions, and pose socio- political questions regarding the organization of elections, legal traditions and familiar symbols. Furthermore, Germany has a well-developed postal voting tradition, and a rather high voter participation rate, which is why the discussion of an e-voting system must certainly be discussed in a more nuanced manner, than in countries without postal voting and lower voter turnouts (Dopatka 2005, 26). First experiences with a political online election were gained in the year 2000. At this time, the student parliament of the University of Osnabrück was elected partially by way of e-voting. It was part of a project initiated by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology in the spring of 1999. Subsequently, more election projects were launched, for example, the election of youth councils, senior citizens councils and university bodies. In evaluation, the projects turned out to be in need of legal and organizational development, but especially technical development. In 2002, two more staff council elections of the W.I.E.N. research project were conducted online successfully. However, technical and legal issues have a slightly different context in parliamentary elections, since the potential hazards and the infrastructure requirements are different. Employee representative committee elections can rely on more secure networks, and existing signature infrastructure. Therefore, the demands of such elections are lower than the hurdle of democratic legitimacy of elections in the political-public space (Article 20 of Federal Constitution). In contrast, the fundamental principles of elections, laid down in Article 38 of the Federal Constitution, must be guaranteed at all times, no matter what the election process. Furthermore, the state is not obliged to complement existing election processes with new techniques. As far as postal voting is concerned, the Federal Constitutional Court has made it clear that it there is no obligation on the state to offer postal voting (Schefbeck 2000). The same should apply in the case of e- voting. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 48 Overall, the topic attracts a lot of attention in Germany. However, in Germany the discussion seems to be contaminated more by concerns over technical security, and the trustworthiness of the Internet, than in Estonia. The abovementioned goals stand opposed to a lot of technical, legal, and organizational effort, and not least, high financial cost. On the other hand, the Federal Ministry of the Interior wants a modern administration, and has introduced important steps. Meanwhile, an electronic identity card is also available in Germany. Currently, well over half of all Internet users have such a card. The identity card is meant to become the master key of the digital age. The country is holding back, however, from giving the card online functionality. More than three-quarters of Germans ignore the e-functionality. So, Germany seems to be missing out on the revolution (Fründt 2015). How internet-orientated are the Germans, after all? Currently, almost a quarter of the population doesn’t have access to the Internet and would be excluded from an online voting process, assuming all other voters have basic media skills. In the event of an exclusive online vote, especially the older part of the population would need support, which would affect the secrecy of votes, to say the least. Looking back, one also sees that the proportion of Internet users in Germany grew massively from 37 percent in 2001 to 77.6 percent in 2015 (Will 2002, 77; Statista 2016b and 2016c.). Analysing further, we see that in 2014 approximately 54 percent of the internet-connected population conducted banking online, which was far less than the approximately 79 percent of Estonia in 2007 (Statista 2016d). Furthermore, the proportion of mobile Internet users who conducted banking online was approximately 65 percent in 2015, which is also well below the approximately 93 percent of Estonia (Statista 2016a; see Tippelt and Kupferschmitt 2015). Switzerland Switzerland is very near to the ideal picture of federalism. The country has about 8.3 million inhabitants, a population density of about 200 people per square kilometre and a bicameral system at the federal level, with 26 cantons, which have extensive powers and independence. Here the idea of e-voting was first discussed as far back as 1998. The Swiss Federal Assembly proposed the project as strategy for an information society, which then became a project in the area e-government with divisions „electronic desk“ and „e-voting“. The aim of „electronic desk“ was to move administrative procedures online, such as tax matters, whereas „e-voting“ was concerned with secure methods of online voting on political decisions (see Gerlach and Gasser 2009, 3). Proponents of electronic voting argued that a country such as Switzerland, a textbook example of direct democracy, should give its citizens a variety of alternatives. Furthermore, it was argued that e-voting is especially helpful to physically disabled voters and Swiss citizens living abroad. It was also suggested the voter participation rate should increase, even though a number of pilot projects in the run-up produced no scientific evidence in support of this claim (see Braun et al. 2003, 11). To get certainty about the future of e-voting, several pilot projects were initiated already in 2004 in the Swiss cantons of Geneva, Zurich and Neuenburg. This completely new electoral alternative had to be aligned with the Federal Act on Political Rights (BPR) and the Regulation on Political Rights (VPR) for the poll on the pilot projects. The amendments, which took effect at the start of 2003, have since permitted the initiation of pilot projects and offer important legal foundations for the official introduction (see Braun 2003, 109). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 49 To be able to assess the viability of e-voting, several test runs were conducted in the aforementioned cantons. The test model of Geneva quickly developed into a success. In the cantonal elections of four communities in September 2004, almost 22 percent of the voters used the electronic voting alternative. In a referendum held in November 2004 with eight communities, also about 22 percent opted for e-voting. In the canton of Zurich, electronic voting was initially only offered as an option in university elections. After a test run, e- voting was also offered in a referendum in Zurich in October 2005 (see Gerlach and Gasser 2009, 6). In the canton of Neuenburg electronic voting was allowed in a national referendum in June 2005 (see Braun 2004, 46). Every voter who considered using the electronic ballot alternative was sent information to access the online platform. The information consisted of a personal identification number and a secret code. In the canton of Zurich, e-voters were also offered the opportunity to vote via their mobile telephones (see Gerlach and Gasser 2009, 7). After completion of the pilot projects, there was intense discussion about whether to expand e-voting, and also about launching the option officially for Swiss voters abroad (Ibid., 6). The Federal Chancellery announced on its website that another 12 cantons introduced pilot projects in 2010. Furthermore, one can read there, that by 2012 already about 50 percent of Swiss citizens living abroad had used the electronic voting alternative. In addition, a new ordinance for the gradual expansion of electronic voting came into force on January 1, 2014 (Swiss Federal Chancellery 2016a). Besides that, how interested are the Swiss in the Internet? In 2014 about 91 percent of Swiss households had access to the Internet. This access rate is, therefore, comparable with other countries (Federal Statistical Office 2015).4 In contrast, the rates drop way below the Estonian rate, when it comes to online banking. In Switzerland, the percentage doing banking online was around 51 percent in 2015 (Statista 2016e, 2016f and 2016d).5 Moreover, it must be noted that the Swiss identity card still doesn’t have a chip. To date, it is issued without electronically stored data. On December 16, 2011 the Federal Council decided to renew the Swiss passport and identity card. How this will be done, is still unclear, since the concept for a state-approved, electronic identity hasn’t been finalized yet. The Federal Council will, however, guarantee freedom of choice between an identity card with electronically stored biometric data, and one without such data (Swiss Confederation 2015). The new alternative for exercising political rights has been constructed since 2000 in a relatively, incremental process. The implementation faces technical, procedural and legal challenges. National government and cantons prescribe to the policy of „safety before speed“, and back a step-by-step introduction. So far, Swiss citizens living abroad have been the priority. This system benefits them, since it still happens that mailed election forms arrive at polling stations too late. This group of people can agree to vote electronically, and vote electronically, if they are registered in a canton that offers the electronic channel. People living in Switzerland who are entitled to vote, can also vote online. But, currently only those living in the cantons of Geneva and Neuenburg. Other cantons, which offer electronic voting, still focus on vote-entitled Swiss 4 For example, in 2013 Germany’s access rate was about 88 percent and Austria’s around 81 percent (Federal Statistical Office 2015). 5 In comparison, it was about 54 percent in Germany in 2014, about 51 percent in Austria in 2015 and 79 percent in Estonia already in 2007 (Statista 2016e, 2016f and 2016d). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 50 abroad. Due to these developments, two different e-voting systems are currently used in Switzerland–the system of Neuenburg, and the one of Geneva. When other cantons perform experiments, they use one of these options (Federal Chancellery 2016b). Austria Austria, with a population of about 8.7 million people, a relatively sparse population density of 104 people per square kilometre, and a federal system with two legislative chambers, makes for another interesting e-voting comparison. Not least, because of its proximity to Switzerland and Germany. The interesting point about Austria is, that the initiative to introduce electronic voting did not emanate from government, as usual, but from the higher education sector. It emanated from the Institute for Information Systems and Operations at the Vienna University of Economics and Business under the leadership of Professor Prosser, who developed the e-voting system (see Buchsbaum 2004, 36). The restraint of the government towards electronic voting can be linked to the Austrian Constitutional Court, which ruled absentee, or postal voting unconstitutional already in 1985. In its motivation, the Court referred to the Federal Constitution, which states that a voter must be physically present to vote in an election, thereby following the principle of personality (see Buchsbaum 2003, 140). That pushed the discussion about e-voting to the sidelines for a long time, because it was feared such efforts will also be declared unconstitutional. However, already the first test run in an election at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in 2003, was met with success. The e- voting alternative was used by 36.5 percent of the eligible voters, and the standard method with ballot papers by 25.9 percent (see Buchsbaum 2004, 36). In the further course of events, the E-Government Act (E-GovG) came into force in 2004, with statutory guidelines for electronic elections for the first time (Ibid., 37). About a year later, a second test run took place at the Vienna University of Economics and Business parallel with the federal presidential election in 2004. Students were given the opportunity to apply for an electronic ballot paper as a precondition for voting online. Access was obtained through the default login of the university’s computer centre, and the ballot paper could be stored on a storage medium. When compared to the election of the previous year, there were marginal differences in the results (see Prosser et al. 2004, 13; Maaten 2004). In the run-up to the first test at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in 2003, and on recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Federal Ministry of the Interior set up special working groups, to consider more closely the future sustainability of electronic voting (Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior 2004, 3). The concluding report states unambiguously that it would be possible and appropriate to amend the Constitution to enable electronic voting, and to redefine the principle of the secret and individual voting right, as far as the legislative authority of the Constitution deem it expedient. The report concludes further, that specific security precautions could also be safeguarded for elections on the Internet, and that electronic voting causes no technical deficiencies (Ibid., 14). In the spring of 2009, electronic voting should for the first time have been officially offered as an alternative in university elections. The project was, JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 51 however, torpedoed by a wave of criticism from experts, almost entirely centred on security issues (see Ondrisek 2009, 373). Since then, the website of the Federal Ministry of the Interior has stated that no Constitution-conforming provisions have to date been introduced for the implementation of e-voting (Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior 2016). Thereafter, the Constitutional Court annulled the regulation on e-voting in university elections as illegal. The court found, among others, that it is not regulated precisely enough, how and with which means, and based on which criteria, the Election Commission can monitor whether the system works flawlessly. The president of the Constitutional Court also said the ruling was of trendsetting importance to other elections, and that e-voting can be implemented only with great difficulty with the current state of technology. He conceded that mistakes can be made in every election, but said they might be more difficult to detect when votes were cast online. Furthermore, the Electoral Code should safeguard that the election process is transparent to everyone, and that it is verifiable by the electoral authority (Die Presse 2011). Turning to the question how interested Austrians are in the Internet, the answer is, by and large as interested as the Germans and Swiss. Austrians are, however, less internet-orientated than the Estonians in many respects. For example, in Austria the proportion of mobile Internet users participating in online banking stood at about 68 percent in 2015, and in Germany at about 65 percent. In Estonia, however, it stood at about 93 percent (Statista 2016a). Furthermore, in Austria legally binding electronic signatures have been around for about 15 years. The Citizen Card arrived on the market already in 2003. However, the population was not particularly inspired by it. The first mobile signature for online government channels was introduced in 2004, only to be withdrawn again late in 2007. The mobile signature valid today, which is the equivalent of the Citizen Card, was finally introduced in 2010 (Sokolov 2015). 5 CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK Reference point was the question whether the surveyed countries are on the right track and whether the efforts in these countries show promise for the future, when compared with the pioneering country Estonia. This was less a systematic comparison of countries, than it was a fall back attempt to research countries in Europe, with data which is to some extent analysable. This was the case in the German-speaking countries Germany, Switzerland and Austria only. Developments in Germany were examined, before the focus fell on the two neighbouring countries Switzerland and Austria, which are much smaller, and therefore more comparable with Estonia. With regard to the introduction of electronic identity cards with digital signatures, all the basic, technical conditions would also have been in place in Germany. However, German users are reticent, when it comes to this online capability. Certain facts also speak against the rapid implementation of e-voting. On the one hand, the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court; on the other hand, the culture of critical discussion, and extremely intertwined (conflict) structures, which make stonewalling a likelihood. Furthermore, in Estonia there are less than 1 million voters. Given Germany’s size, population density and the sacrosanct, federal (bicameral) structure, a transfer of the Estonian model cannot be taken for granted – apart from the fact that the Estonian population is very internet-orientated, relatively more open to new technologies, and last but JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 52 not least, recognizes the communist legacy as an opportunity. In Estonia, these technologies are used on a daily basis, thanks largely to the banking sector. Therefore, the German systems, and also a number of other systems in Western Europe, need more time. Germany is years behind Estonia in this respect–even though a start was made quite early on. The aim must be to reduce this gap. E- voting can, however, only be implemented once the technical problems have been solved in a credible and trustworthy way – and that is what Germany is narrowly focused on achieving. Under no circumstances may the expectation of higher voter participation lead to the reliance on systems, which ensure compliance with the fundamental principles of electoral law only in the „best case scenario“. Furthermore, the option of the postal vote should be dropped when voting is offered online exclusively. There is, however, no constitutional right to such an election, and it would side line all voters who cannot vote at polling stations and have no Internet access. Therefore, an election in which voters can only vote online is hard to imagine in Germany – as elsewhere – and it can only complement traditional methods. The two Alpine republics Switzerland and Austria seem to interest themselves in the internet more or less as much as Germany. As in Estonia, the topic of electronic voting appeared on the agenda in Switzerland already relatively early. Furthermore, the legal foundation required for it, was created already early in Switzerland. Interestingly though, the process was completed in just a few years in Estonia, while Switzerland invested a lot of time in pilot projects, and the country only approved a law in 2014 for the step-by-step extension of electronic elections. A similarly short process was unthinkable in Switzerland, since a number of pilot projects were lined up, and the country has a strong federal character. The structures of the country are sacrosanct, but it is also a smaller country, with pronounced regional, or cantonal interests, which enable cantons to learn from each other, but which also harbour a lot of veto potential. Thus, the premises might be better than in Germany, but still less favourable than in Estonia. Efforts are strongly influenced by security issues, but are well advanced, even though the Swiss identity card still hasn’t got a chip. The development seems to be most advanced in Central Europe. In fact, Switzerland seems to have emerged as the closest pursuer of Estonia. Estonia is a young democracy open to rapid implementation of such subjects, while Switzerland sets about the task in an incremental way, which would – viewed procedurally – not have been possible in any other way. This approach flows from the federal structure of Switzerland. To summarize, Switzerland presses ahead with the nationwide introduction of e-voting in slow and cautious steps, after a number of pilot projects have shown that electronic elections hold future promise. The country is on a good path. The nationwide implementation of e-voting is expected in the near future. Neighbouring Austria is a federal state of manageable geographic size, with a lower population density than Switzerland, and a similarly developed Internet culture. The country seems to have significant conflict structures, with roots that reach as far back as the 1980s in the Austrian Constitutional Court. In Austria, the project design also had a number of special features. The project initiated by the Vienna University of Economics and Business served as foundation for the discussion. Moreover, the so-called e-government legislation was enacted already in 2004 as a legal foundation. In addition, Austria has been working with legally binding electronic signatures for some time. But, the population is not overly enthusiastic. The hurdle to amend the constitution with regard to the personality principle in elections left the project to fail until today. Even in its discussion phase, the project seemed inferior to the Estonian project. Alone the fact that the project was not initiated by government, points to a low JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 53 priority. It can be assumed the project failed mainly due to constitutional and security-political concerns, which play important roles in all countries – far more important than in Estonia. In summary it can be stated that Estonia remains the leading light on the topic of e-voting to this day. 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Though the parliamentary leadership is bounded by strict rules determined in the constitutions the real power of parliamentary leaders may me different from the formal. Speakers political and managerial skills are neccessary when parliament is exposed to increased government interventions or becomes the scene of unprincipled fights among the politicians. The study of the characteristics of parliamentary leadership in one of the new democratic parliaments in Central Europe, the Slovene National Assembly brings evidence of the importance of outside factors like the process of integration of Slovenia into the EU and the economic crisis, including the recent migrant crisis, demanding quick adaptations to new situations and building broad consensus for the swift passing of new legislation. Key words: parliament; leadership; speakers; competences and power; outside factors. 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CONCEPT OF POLITICAL AND PARLIAMENTARY LEADERSHIP Leadership is not clearly defined and is at the same time a highly contested concept. It resembles other social science concepts related to power, influence, authority and control (Elgie 1995, 2), while it is less associated with cooperation and example. In political science it can be connected with positions of authority that individuals have on different levels of the state structure which may have influence on or even determine the outcome of any decision making process. The study of political leadership in all of its forms deserves special attention since it gives us the answers why political institutions operate in certain way. 1 Dr. Drago ZAJC, associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 58 Among a number of competing definitions of political leadership the most acceptable for an empirical research is the definition of leadership as a process in which leaders exercise control over the decision making process (Edinger 1975, 257). This definition is based on the broad concept of political process, involving the selection of public issues, putting them on the political agenda, processing them in the parliament, taking binding decisions in the form of laws, and controlling the effects of legislative output. We may therefore discern different kinds of leadership exercised in different arenas – head of state leadership, cabinet leadership, legislative leadership, judicial leadership, and leadership of political parties. There are also distinctions among the various types of leadership, such as individual and collective or transactional and transforming leadership, which may be characteristic of particular arenas. While the executive leadership deals mainly with different public policy issues which are being formulated in legislative proposals, the legislative leadership concentrates on the procedural aspects of the decision making process in the parliament in which decisions on policies are made or altered. Legislative leaders, i.e. presiding officers or speakers whose prerogatives are based on specific delineation of powers between the executive and the parliament are ensuring that parliamentary business runs smoothly. Exercising their control, they have to respond to their unique leadership environment consisting of fixed institutional structures, long-term historical conditions like political culture, and even short term political demands (Elgie 1995, 8). The studies of political leadership have been usually limited to executive leadership, i.e. leadership of heads of states and prime ministers, and have dealt with the role of presiding officers or parliamentary speakers only occasionally. Our study is a small contribution to this rather neglected research area. One of the reasons for such investigation is also the current crisis of political (especially parliamentary) leadership in contemporary states. 2 MODELS OF PARLIAMENTARY LEADERSHIP Leading the parliament as the central and most sensitive institution of a political system is one of most important leadership positions in any democratic political system and is of extreme importance for the quality of democratic life and political stability of any state. Nevertheless, parliamentary leadership remains one of the less understood aspects of legislative process (Squire in Ham 2005, 100). There is no definite model of parliamentary leadership since it varies from country to country and is changing with time. It does however have its own characteristics and purposes, such as the promotion of institutional autonomy, the development of internal organization or the interpretation and enforcement of parliamentary rules in the legislative process (Sinclair 1995, 21). Its particular goals are also the development of fairness and good faith among all members of parliament, contributing to the spirit of cooperation and the respect of minority (Grad 2013, 15). Unlike all other leaders, the parliamentary leaders are granted power by the majority of freely elected deputies formed by their co-partisans or coalition allies. Parliamentary leaders operate within the confines of a system where freedom of action is bounded by strict rules determined in the constitutions and in the parliamentary standing orders (Laundy 1989). Formal power of the speaker reflects the democratic character of the political system and can be measured JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 59 by various indicators, which may be combined. The speaker’s power index may combine (a) procedural competences or prerogatives (planning parliamentary work and placing matters on the parliamentary agenda, determining the type of procedure, appointing the relevant standing committees which are going to deal with the bills in the first or second reading, fixing the time schedule of readings, etc.), (b) competences connected with presiding the sessions of parliament (determining the manner and the length of discussion, stimulating democratic discourse and maintaining order), (c) the protection of its autonomy against the executive and (d) the representation of the parliament on the outside (Clucas 2001, 327; Grad 2013, 199). While the weak or undefined powers may complicate decision making process and postpone decisions the strong formal powers may have serious consequences for the democratic nature of legislative process, allowing for the curtailment of democratic practices, including shortening of parliamentary debates and acceleration of legislative procedures (Cox 2006, 144). Powerful speakers may direct parliamentary business and win legislative battles more easily, although this is done frequently at the expense of the minority rights. Speaker’s individual role in the leadership may be affected by particular collegiate bodies (Bergougnous 1997, 92), composed of the leaders of political party groups and other members with mostly consultative functions. Researchers are pointing to the fact that the real power of parliamentary leadership may be quite different from the formal: informal power may be greater or smaller, depending on the speaker’s personality, his professional background, previous political experiences or the length of time s/he has had this function. The speaker’s real power depends primarily on his/her particular political skills to accommodate different interests or make compromises in order to prevent or overcome the blockades of decision-making. At the same time the position requires a lot of organizational abilities and experience. In order to achieve their particular aims, the speakers may use different methods – (a) changing situation, (b) postponing the problems to a later time, (c) providing side benefits to some groups of deputies in order that they ignore the problem, and (d) hiding the problems with rhetoric, personal charm or intimidation. Speaker’s political and managerial skills are particularly necessary when the parliament becomes the scene of ideological struggles among the parties or unprincipled fights among politicians without personal or political culture. The role of the speaker is therefore far from routine: s/he may be innovative in agenda setting by giving priority to urgent matters, by solving procedural hurdles or by finding the minimum possible understanding among the fiercely competing sides in order to avoid the complete defeat of one of the sides. S/he may also use innovative approaches when a member violates regulations and require the member to conform to the rule (Sturgis 1993, 88). By innovative interpretation of the rules s/he may also be contributing to the procedural standards (Laundy 1989, 53). According to parliamentary scholars and members of parliaments parliamentary leadership is always influenced by the environment in which the leaders operate (Richman 2010, 213). There are a number of contextual and other factors like (a) fixed institutional structures and rules determining the power of the parliament vis-a-vis the executive. A new parliament like the Slovene National Assembly may have a stronger role exercising substantial influence in the process of government formation where every candidate for ministerial position has to present her/his views in the relevant standing committee before the government is formally invested. A parliament can also dispose of strong means for the control of the government like interpellations of individual ministers or of the whole government, which may or may not be JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 60 supported by the speaker in practice. Though neither constitutional nor procedural rules determined in the standing orders could be an accurate guide to political practice. Another important factor is (b) political culture giving different emphasis to the role of individual. In countries with more individualistic political culture similar levels of powers of the speakers with less formal regulation of behaviour were developed, while others conveyed greater and strict prerogatives to speakers (ibid., 222). The third important factor is (c) the level of professionalization of parliamentary members (Squire 2007, 213). The lack of personal experience has contributed to the conflict behaviour and lower consensus building capacity (Olson 1994, 117). Higher professionalization is diminishing the need for frequent interventions of the speakers into legislative procedures and makes the parliamentary business more expedient. Parliaments with higher professionalization of deputies also tend to have more bills introduced and greater passage rates. Professionalization of the deputies also contributes to the (d) constructive relationship between opposition parties and coalition. Where the constructive relationship has been developed the share of unanimously approved legislation at final readings has increased. In the new democratic countries this relationship frequently became conflictual, preventing realistic and pragmatic approaches to the solving of urgent problems. Opposition parties have been frequently using all ways for delegitimation of coalition governments trying also to block the legislative process by other means, including the demands for extraordinary sessions and calls for referendums (Zajc 2016, 21). The most decisive factor in the parliamentary environment influencing the behaviour of the speakers has been in the recent time (e) the increase of government intervention. Such intervention, representing continuous pressure on parliaments and their leaders, may greatly increase in the case of economic or other crisis. The outbreak of economic crisis in 2008 has changed the previous agendas of parliaments and demanded more acts to be passed in a shorter time even by extraordinary procedures. The time for discussion of most important matters and acts has become shorter, a number of dilemmas remaining unresolved and questions unanswered. Such circumstances demanded particular abilities and continuous efforts from parliamentary leaders in order to guarantee the swift passage of urgent bills while ensuring the legitimacy of the legislative procedures. They have had to take special care to build consensus among the deputy groups of coalition and opposition. Every attempt to study the leadership of contemporary parliaments has to take into account the different stages of legislative process. One of the particularly important stages is the first stage of planning parliament’s work and agenda setting. The viable legislative programs may be made primarily on the basis of the governments’ legislative programs (based on coalition agreements) and timetables, demanding a good cooperation between the speaker and the government and prompt realization of the desired policy changes (Pogorelec 2016, 21). There may also be initiatives for legislative regulation from other proposers, which may be included on the schedule, depending on the time available for additional items. In the second stage the speaker’s task is to ensure democratic debate on all issues related to the introduced bills and to streamline the legislative processes in order to maximize the likelihood of passing the bills, taking care about the amount of the workload and the determined time limits. The leadership is finally important also in the third stage when final decisions are taken since it depends on the speaker how particular matters will be put to the vote - by direct voting or by ballot vote (Sturgis 1993, 144) and when the voting takes place with regard to other important matters and even how the voting will be recorded. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 61 Scholars of parliamentarism at the same time agree that it is difficult to measure the power of leadership. Various researchers including the institutionally determined rules, the level of legislative professionalization and policy-making challenges or government interventionism, have tested a number of variables. Some additional variables were used like the number of parliamentarians, the size of the population or even the number of non-governmental organizations and lobbyists. Even though these tests were not sufficiently elaborated, some indexes combined various variables, which have not been adequate and applicable in different situations and in different legislatures. They also differed regarding the level of legislating institutions (national or sub-national) and their results have been often contradictory (Clucas 2001, 212). Only partial indications were found in the sense that higher legislative professionalism leads to a weaker leadership or that intensive government interventionism in the periods of economic crisis may be associated to stronger leadership power. A stronger indication found was that a great number of policy making challenges may block the policy making process and the smooth passage of bills by overwhelming the legislative workload. A consequence may be that the speaker resorts to extraordinary procedures and the shortening of the debates. Some of these variables may be tentatively tested also on the example of the leadership of individual parliaments like the Slovene National Assembly. 3 PARLIAMENTARY LEADERSHIP IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF SLOVENIA In our attempt to study the characteristics of parliamentary leadership in one of the new democratic parliaments in Central Europe we will take into consideration the whole context of parliamentarization and concentrate on several most important variables which have been influencing the behaviour of speakers which were exposed in previous analyses of the Slovene National Assembly. They also correspond to the variables used by the authors of some representative studies of parliamentary leadership (Olson, Cox, Sturgis, etc.). We will later try to analyse whether the behaviour of the speakers has contributed to the efficiency of the legislative process and to the stability of the Slovene parliament. The institutional variable The National Assembly of Slovenia is among structurally diversified working parliaments2 – besides the speaker, who is elected by majority of votes of all deputies by ballot vote, there are at least two structures taking over a part of the tasks connected with leadership, the working bodies and the deputies’ groups. On the top level is the speaker as an individual leader (according to Art. 84 of the Slovene Constitution) bearing complex responsibilities and prerogatives determined in the renewed standing orders of 2002. His main prerogatives correspond to the prerogatives, which constitute the basis of the speaker’s Institutional Powers, therefore may be measured in formal way. The prerogatives of the speaker of the National Assembly determined in the 2 The National Assembly (Državni zbor) is the main chamber of the Slovene parliament established by the Slovene Constitution of 1991 (Art. 80), composed of 90 representatives of the citizens elected according to the principle of proportional representation with four-percent treshold. The National Assembly adopts laws and other decisions and ratifies treaties. Laws may be proposed by government, or by any deputy or at least 5.000 citizens (Art. 88). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 62 standing orders are to represent the National Assembly and to convene and chair its sessions. S/he also has to maintain the relationship with the government of RS and the State Council,3 the president of Slovenia and other state bodies, and to take care of the cooperation with the parliaments of other states and international parliamentary institutions. S/he also delivers the matters to be dealt in the relevant standing committees (Art. 19). S/he is responsible for chairing the sessions impartially – determining the order of the discussants taking care that deputies of all deputy groups are represented (Art. 67), allowing speech time for the deputies wanting to speak about the implementation of the Standing Orders (Art. 69) and to deputies who want to replicate previous discussants (Art. 79). He can adjourn the session and determine when it is going to continue (Art. 73). Taking care for the order on the session he may warn the deputies who speak about unrelated matters or insult others, close their discussion or order the removal of an undisciplined deputy from the session (Art. 76). A number of speaker’s prerogatives are being implemented in cooperation with speaker’s advisory body – the collegium, which has the power of taking decisions of procedural and organizational character (Kaučič and Grad 2003, 199). The collegium, composed of the speaker, the deputy speakers, the leaders of deputy groups and the representative(s) of national minorities may decide on the number of seats of particular deputy groups in standing committees, on the proposals to pass a bill by urgent procedure or shortened procedure, and on the duration of the sessions of the National Assembly, including the time for debate on individual items on the agenda (Art. 21). The collegium also accepts the working program of the National Assembly for one year and the short-term program for two months, determining the days for the meetings of standing committees and sessions of the National Assembly. When determining these programs, the collegium considers the program of the Government of RS for the current year and proposals of the deputies, deputy groups and standing committees (Art. 23). The time for discussions of the deputies and other participants cannot be shorter than five minutes while the time for debates of deputy groups cannot be shorter than ten minutes unless the collegium does not decide otherwise (Art. 67 of standing orders). These provisions in standing orders referring to the powers of the Speaker may in general be compared to the provisions determining the power of speakers in other parliaments like German Bundestag, Italian Camera dei deputati, or Czech Poslanecka snemovna, which have similar collegiate organs with advisory functions (Igličar 2011, 235). When making decisions, the number of seats of the deputy groups in favour or against is considered. Although the individual prerogatives seem to be formal or some even shared with the collegium, they give the speaker power to expedite parliamentary business with sufficient efficiency, i.e. to ensure the expediency of the legislative process in due time (the time the government or other proposer considers necessary). Even if they are sometimes unclear or insufficient, his prerogatives are also allowing him to perform his task with determination, and even to choose whether he will behave impartially as ‘primus inter pares’ or as a representative of own political option (Mozetič 1999, 95). While the speaker of the National Assembly, together with the collegium, is 3 State Council (Državni svet) is the second chamber established by the Constitution (Art. 96) composed of 40 representatives of economic, professional and local interests. Its powers are to propose to the National Assembly the passing of laws, to convey to the National Assembly its opinions on all matters within the competences of National Assembly, to require the National Assembly to decide again on a given law before the proclamation and to require inquiries on all matters of public importance. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 63 exercising most important part of the leadership function, there are also some other bodies taking over particular leadership tasks. The standing committees composed proportionally with regard to the power relation between the coalition and opposition (Grad 2013, 206) carrying important responsibilities in the legislative process, serving as arenas of practical negotiations among party groups and making amendments to the bills and preparing reports for the plenary. Their leaders act as important decision makers on this level - determining the agendas, the allocation of the time for the discussion and the order of discussants, directing and closing discussion, etc. The standing committees are taking substantial control power over the legislative process in the first part of the second reading, when they prepare the text of the amended bill for the discussion on the plenary (which has been limited to the articles which have been changed). They also prepare the final version of the bills in the third reading of regular procedure when the voting takes place. Regardless of the fact that the leaders are chosen among more experienced members, the efficiency of the committees may be questioned since the average deputy is a member at least three committees. Another important body in the structure of the National Assembly are the deputy groups with the power of directing the work of the National Assembly. The leaders of party groups have taken particular responsibilities to prepare political positions of the groups regarding the matters on the agenda and the strategy of attaining the short time and long time goals of the group (Patzelt 1999, 51). Active participation of the members of deputy groups in the relevant committees when discussing policy matters is of utmost importance for the efficiency of legislative process having a direct impact on the quality of leadership of the whole parliament. The speaker and leaders of committees and deputy groups have particular competences in the legislative procedure, which may vary. The regular procedure consists of three readings, but the first may be skipped (Art. 121), while the second and the third reading may be joined if in the second reading less than 10% of the articles of the proposed law were amended (Art. 138). A much shorter urgent procedure may be used in the interests of state security and defence, in the case of natural disasters, or to prevent hardly reparable consequences for the functioning of the state (Art. 143). A shortened procedure is applied only when minor changes to the laws or simple adjustment of the laws to other legal norms are required (Art. 142). In the practice of the National Assembly, the speakers have almost regularly accepted the demands of the government to use urgent procedure in order to pass the proposed laws (almost half of the laws were passed by urgent procedure in the previous mandates). However, these formal competences and prerogatives of the speaker are creating an impression of greater power of the speaker in legislative process as s/he has in reality. In a very divided parliament, where each coalition has had only a small majority and where the relation between coalition and opposition is far from cooperative, the real power of the speakers has been depending to a great extent on their personal characteristics, political skills and longer experience. In fact, a number of speakers from 1990 were elected to this position without previous experiences (with the exception of the first) and with different professional profiles (most of the speakers had a degree in social sciences, two were doctors of medicine two had a degree in law and one in chemistry). Some had even not served as deputies before and speakership was also not the last job in their career.4 However they were quick learners and have 4 The speakers of Slovene assemblies from 1990 on were dr. France Bučar, mag. Herman Rigelnik, Jožef Školč, dr. Marjan Podobnik, Feri Horvat, Borut Pahor, dr. France Cukjati, dr. Pavel Gantar, JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 64 adapted to their position where they tried to act as ‘primus inter pares’ being at the same time perceived as agents of their political parties’ groups. We can find substantial differences among the speakers in their practical behaviour. Some speakers were stronger and others weaker regarding the planning of the work of the assembly, agenda setting, or organizing the legislative process, depending mainly on their legal knowledge. They were also using different means to cope with the problems, like supporting the parliamentary debates on critical issues or ignoring or postponing the problems, depending on their political experience obtained as members and leaders of former or new political parties. Some have been more skilful in chairing the sessions or maintaining order on the plenary sittings. There was also a difference among them regarding the use of different styles of leadership among the speakers belonging to the centre-left and centre- right coalition parties. While the speakers belonging to the centre-left used more often transaction style favouring the consensual decision making, the speakers of the centre-right were inclined to transformative style striving to achieve changes (Brezovšek 1999, 31). The influence of the outside factors There have been a number of outside factors having an impact on the functioning of the National Assembly and influencing the activity and behaviour of the speakers. One such factor was certainly the process of democratization of Slovenia, which was connected, with the process of separation from former Yugoslavia. The speaker of the transitional National Assembly, established after the first democratic elections in 1990, was taking enormous responsibilities for the correct and swift procedures and assuring parliamentary debate where all arguments could be heard. The assembly unanimously proclaimed the independence of Slovenia in June 1991 and in December of the same year passed the first Constitution of Slovenia, based on liberal values demanding modernization of the whole national legislation on specific legislative (policy) areas, including the replacement of huge number of previous socialist legislation. The speaker succeeded also to build consensus for the modernization of the ‘old’ standing orders and for the adoption of the new law on the elections to National Assembly (Zajc 2009, 34). The second factor was the process of integration of Slovenia into the EU. The accession was the greatest challenge for the National Assembly after the independence of Slovenia, demanding adaptation in various ways – from institutional, organizational and procedural to the harmonization of the huge parts of legislation with the EU law. The speakers of the National Assembly have assured the debates on all-important documents related to the accession, including the proposals for negotiating positions – a fact which contributed greatly to the smoother harmonization of legislation. In the period from 1997 to 2004, almost 319 EU laws’ changing regulations on almost all legislative or policy areas were passed in the National Assembly, usually by urgent procedure. This practice, demanding great efforts of the speakers, proved to be successful since all MPs became much better informed about the EU legal framework and also of the role and practices of the National Assembly after the final entry of the country to the EU. The National Assembly has in 2003 also changed constitution (Art. 3a) by great majority, allowing for the transition of the execution of part of the sovereignty to the institutions of the EU. In 2002, the same National Assembly passed new standing orders, stressing the Ljubo Germič, dr. Gregor Virant and Janko Veber. The actual speaker dr. Milan Brglez, elected in National Assembly in 2014, is professor of International Law. Most of them belonged to the largest parliamentary group. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 65 principles of rationality and economy of the legislative process and giving more power to the leadership (Zajc 2004, 182). The most important external factor influencing the behaviour of the speakers was the economic crisis, which started in 2008. It demanded quick adaptation to the new situation by passing a number of bills dealing with national economy and financial system, unemployment, social situation of large groups of citizens etc., intended to alleviate its effects. The crisis demanded great efforts of the speakers to build consensus among party groups and to assure swift passage of the bills. The first bills intended to cope with the economic problems were passed in 2010 and 2011, but rejected on referendums in 2011. After the first early elections in 2011, the new National Assembly passed in 2012 the new law on the reform of pension system and the law on the reform of the labour market both without vote against. After the change of the prime minister by constructive no-confidence vote on 27th of February 2013, the National Assembly (under the leadership of the new speaker) continued with the implementation of financial austerity measures. Complying with the demands of the EU, the deputies changed the constitution (Art. 148) on 24th May 2013, determining that the revenues and expenditures of state budgets have to be balanced medium-term without indebtedness. On the same day, the deputies made another change in the constitution (Art. 90, 97 and 99) in order to diminish the possibilities of calling a referendum on any matter - the right to initiate the referendum has also been limited to citizens. Both changes were passed with more than two-third majority. On the basis of this change, it finally passed the law on fiscal regulation with strict financial rules in 2015 (Zajc 2009, 163). The economic crisis has created additional problems for efficient leadership, since a number of new surprise parties winning a substantial share of the votes on the first early elections in 2011 and also on the second in 2014 entered the National Assembly. A great number of new deputies (only 40% of the deputies were re-elected in 2011 and 35% in 2014) who had no previous experiences with parliamentary work have drastically diminished the efficiency of decision- making and the quality of legislative output. The lack of experiences among the new deputies and deputy groups has been demonstrated by conflictual behaviour, weak argumentation and low capacity to negotiate. In situations where a great deal of new deputies have not had clear ideas of the complexity of their duties and rights, the speakers have had to make additional efforts to streamline the legislative process, to stress the parliamentary norms of behaviour and adjust the dynamics of legislative process to the capacities of the deputies. An additional external factor was the migrant crisis in 2015, demanding swift assessment of the unexpected wave of migrants directed through the Balkans and Slovenia to Germany and choosing appropriate measures to assure national security like changing the law on defence (allowing the police forces to join the military on the borders in particular situations for a limited time) by urgent procedure and passing a new law on asylum (the passing of the law, which also allowed the migrants coming from ‘safe’ countries to ask for asylum was fiercely obstructed by right-wing parties in opposition). In some of these cases the speaker could reach basic consensus of opposition parties, while in some other cases the opposition was bitterly attacking the coalition for accepting harmful solutions. The processes of democratization and entering the EU, altogether with the economic and migrant crisis including the economic and migrant crisis were JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 66 characterised by huge government interventionism. The speakers could not resist the interventionism of coalition governments which insisted on quick passing of the introduced bills, a great number of them even by fast track procedure, which has, once an exception, become almost a rule. Being under constant pressure from the coalition governments, the speakers have almost constantly had great difficulties with planning legislative work, making viable working programs and agenda setting, while they could not avoid overloading the deputies with legislative work. TABLE 1: LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY – TYPE OF THE BILLS AND PROCEDURES BY MANDATES Source: Reports on the work of the National Assembly in particular mandates. * The fifth and sixth mandate were shortened because of early elections. ** The first part of the seventh mandate (until December 2015). 4 CONCLUSION Considering that the Slovene National Assembly has done an impressive work as a new parliament (a successor to the transitional Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia) in the last 25 years by passing a huge amount of new modern legislation, it would be difficult not to link it to the legislative leadership. The assembly and its speakers were faced by great policy making challenges in all periods - in the first period of intensive replacement of the former ‘socialist’ legislation and in the second period marked by the adaptation of the legislation to EU laws, as well as in the third period of economic crisis demanding quick adaptations to changing outside circumstances. While their powers as they were designed in Standing Orders were sufficiently strong to allow for efficient work in all stages of legislative process, the leadership has been also depending on the political skills, personal abilities, working styles and methods of the speakers. Lacking experience, the speakers were fast learners, obtaining knowledge from practice. Though they could hardly plan the work of the National Assembly and assure the legitimacy of legislative process and quality of the legislative output in the constantly changing situations. In our quick review of the factors influencing the behaviour of the speakers we find similar variables, which were detected in previous studies and on the first place the constant government interventionism. Due to the great pressures from the government to pass great number of proposed bills in a short time, the speakers complied allowing for fast track procedures, contributing to the greater passage rate at the expense of the fully argumentative debate. The second variable having an impact on the leadership in the period of assembly’s first 25 years was the diminishing level of professionalization among the deputies due to the emergence of new surprise parties entering the National Assembly in 2011 and 2014 with a great number of inexperienced deputies. Lower professionalization of the deputies has contributed to the slow adaptation to the parliamentary environment demonstrated by poor argumentation, and increase of the conflict behaviour, demanding frequent interventions of the speakers in the course of legislative process. Both variables JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 67 could be connected with the existing distance between the National Assembly and the citizens. The public opinion polls do not confirm the expectation that the support to the National Assembly among the citizens would improve.5 Our observations have to be certainly tested by more thorough investigation. Although the parliamentary leaders like any other political leaders can be considered as a reflection of the time and economic or social circumstances in particular countries, or even in the wider European or global context, we could hardly claim that there is no similarity between the parliamentary leaders in the ECE countries or between them and the speakers of parliaments in the countries with longer parliamentary democracy. Needless to say, this is also a challenge for further investigation and research in the future. REFERENCES 2007. Standing Orders of the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia. Ljubljana: Official Gazzette of the Republic of Slovenia, 92/07. Brezovšek, Marjan. 1999. Splošna organizacijska in upravljalska načela parlamentarnega vodenja (General Organizational Principles of Parliamentary Leadership). In Parlamentarno vodenje (Parliamentary Leadership), ed. Zajc, Drago, 28–37. Ljubljana: Državni zbor RS. Bergougnous, Georges. 1997. Presiding Officers of Parliamentary Assemblies. Geneva: Interparliamentary Union. Cox, Gary. 2006. The Organization of Democratic Legislatures. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, eds. Weingast, Barry R. and Donald A. Wittman. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Clucas, A. Richard. 2001. “Principal-Agent Theory and the Power of State House Speakers”. Legislative Studies Quarterly 26 (2): 319–338. Edinger, Lewis. 1975. The Comparative Analysis of Political Leadership. Comparative Politics 7(2): 253–269. Elgie, Robert. 1995. Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Grad, Franc. 2013. Parlamentarno pravo (Parliamentary Law). Ljubljana: Založba GV. Igličar, Albin. 2011. Zakonodajna dejavnost (Legislative activity). Ljubljana: Faculty of Law. Kaučič, Igor and Franc Grad. 2003. Ustavna ureditev Slovenije (Constitutional System of Slovenia). Ljubljana: Založba GV. Laundy , Philip. 1989. Parliaments in the Modern World. Aldeshot: Gover. Mozetič, Miroslav. 1999. Funkcije predsednika Državnega zbora (Functions of the Speaker of National Assembly). In Parlamentarno vodenje (Parliamentary Leadership), ed. Zajc, Drago. Ljubljana: Državni zbor RS. Olson, David. 1994. Democratic Legislative Institutions. A Comparative View. New York: M. E. Sharp Inc. Patzelt, Werner. 1999. Parlamentarno vodstvo v Nemčiji (Parliamentary Leadership in Germany). In Parlamentarno vodenje (Parliamentary Leadership), ed. Zajc, Drago. Ljubljana: Državni zbor RS. Pogorelec, Janez. 2016. Vloga strokovnih služb vlade in parlamenta v zakonodajni dejavnosti (The Role of the Government Services in Legislative Activity). In Odprta vprašanja zakonodajne dejavnosti (Open Questions of Legislative Activity), eds. Štajnpihler, Tilen, Igličar, Albin, Pavčnik, Marijan, Grad, Franc and Drago Zajc. Ljubljana: SAZU. Richman, Jesse. 2010. “The Logic of Legislative Leadership: Preferences, Challenges, and the Speaker's Powers”. Legislative Studies Quarterly 35(2): 211–233. Sinclair, Barbara. 1995. Legislative Leaders and Lawmaking. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. 5 International research in the Autumn 2015 showed that only 12% of the interviewed citizens supported the National Assembly, while the average level of support to national parliaments in the EU member states was 27% (Source: Public Opinion in the EU, Standard barometer). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 68 Squire, Peverill and Keith Hamm. 2005. Chambers: Congress, State Legislatures and the Future of Legislative Studies. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press. Squire, Peverill. 2007. “Measuring State Legislative Professionalism: The Squire Index Revisited.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 7(2): 211–227. Sturgis, Alice. 1993. The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure. New York: McGraw- Hill. Zajc, Drago. 2004. Razvoj parlamentarizma – funkcije sodobnih parlamentov (Development of Parlamentarism – Functions of Contemporary Parliaments). Ljubljana: FSS Publishing House. Zajc, Drago. 2009. Sodobni parlamentarizem in process zakonodajnega odločanja (Contemporary Parliamentarism and the Process of Legislative Decision Making). Ljubljana: FSS Publishing House. Zajc, Drago. 2016. “Role of Opposition in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies – The Case of Slovenia.” Journal of Comparative Politics 9(1): 19–35. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 69 COMMUNAL POLITICAL MOBILIZATION: THE NEED TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MINORITY AND MAJORITY PARTIES Agnes K. KOOS and Kenneth KEULMAN1 …………………………………………………………………….……………………………………… There is an on-going scholarly dispute about the consequences of communal political mobilization, yet not all-communal mobilization is created equal. Parties of national majorities and parties of national minorities significantly differ with regard to issue positions; axiological framing of the issues; and rhetoric. As for issues, majority-nationalist parties tend to situate on the right of the political spectrum, while minority parties are leftist or centrist. Minority parties are also more internationalist, less militaristic, and more supportive of European integration. As for axiology, majority nationalism relies on the conservative values of tradition and national interest, while minority activism invokes a human rights framework. The rhetoric of majority nationalist parties often targets other communal groups, as such, while minority parties avoid stereotyping communal groups. Empirically, the study draws on the MARPOR project and on content analysis of a sample of six majority and six minority party programs from the UK.2 Key words: nationalist parties; ethnic parties; minority; majority; plurality. 1 INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Most of the political science literature has not been supportive of communal mobilization of any type; such as religious, ethnic, racial, tribal, or regional mobilization. For a long time, it has not shown interest in communal issues, either. The influent Modernist thinking relegated the nation-building phase to a pre-political stage of state evolution, and Lipset and Rokkan’s (1967) main cleavages only contain a centre-periphery tension as reminiscent of the state’s assimilation efforts. Also, Modernism did not concern itself with distinguishing 1 Agnes K. KOOS is director of institutional research and planning at Feather River College, USA. Kenneth KEULMAN is Provost Distinguished Professor at Loyola University, USA. 2 Empirical supporting material for this article can be downloaded from http://www.agneskkoos.net/articles-and-chapters. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 70 between (voluntary) integration and (forced) assimilation; it took ethnic homogeneity as the optimal precondition for the formation of a working democracy, this latter having been primarily typified by the Left-Right schism.3 Yet as communal, and mainly ethnic political mobilizing was very active in the second half of the 20th century, even in developed democracies, but more emphatically in the developing world, the scholarly interest in them has amplified. More accurately, it was the interest in averting communal violence that amplified, and some scholars posited that communal political mobilization, thus the existence of communal parties, leads to or exacerbates inter-group hostility. These arguments were developed by Rabushka and Sheppsle (1972), and later literature has been rich in attempts to address this claim, sometimes concurring, yet other times failing to find evidence for it (Posner 2004; Chandra 2004; Ishiyama 2009). The other side of the debate claims that violence is triggered by the impossibility of non-violent political mobilization, that is, political marginalization triggers the revolt of the underdog group (Gurr and Harff 1994; Gurr 2000; Cederman et al. 2010, 2011). Both theories are associated with congenial policy recommendations concerning the ethnically heterogeneous societies. Those who fear communal parties, align behind Horowitz’s (1985, 1991) integrationist package, which aims at silencing communal differences, and which has led, for instance, to banning communal parties in most of Africa (Moroff 2010), while the opposition supports Lijphart’s (1977) power-sharing and consensus-democracy constitutional designs, currently most popular in Europe. Exacerbating ethnic animosities is not the only accusation against communal parties. A further seriously studied issue has been whether they contribute to the party system fragmentation, which is considered a liability for a working democracy. Recent scholarship has found evidence that in certain circumstances the presence of communal parties reduces, rather than increases, party fragmentation.4 There is, then, well-justified interest in communal political mobilization, yet we cannot be contented with the tools we have to study the related phenomena. There is, on the one hand, a scarcity of quantitative mapping of the communal groups worldwide, and there is, on the other hand, a widespread tendency to deal with all types of communal mobilization as a unitary conceptual category. The common outcome of the two constellations is that in several developing countries with unmapped and changing communal structure, it is very hard to tell which group is the majority and which is a minority, and whether the deepest division among groups are ethnic, or religious, or of some other nature. 3 Internal diversity, that is, the communal heterogeneity of the population was considered a disadvantage from the point of view of state survival by international relations realists, and flagged as cause of economic disadvantage by economists starting with Easterly and Levine (1997). Though scholars tried to control for confounding factors since the beginning, this work has not been concluded, and publications as fresh as 2014 still tend to explore new channels through which diversity impacts the economy, either negatively or positively. Communal heterogeneity itself has been dissected into fractionalization (Alesina et al. 2003) and polarization (Montalvo and Reynal-Querol 2005), with further features, such as distance among language groups, also factored in (Fearon 2003). As of 2015, the evidence is still shared, two significant publications in 2014 point towards different directions (Goren 2014; Levine et al. 2014). Some arguments echo the conditions found to avert inter-group violence, such as Birnir and Waguespack’s (2011) finding that the ‘deleterious policy effects resulting in diminished economic growth are caused by exclusion of mobilized ethnic groups from the policy process and not just ethnic social diversity per se.’ 4 Madrid (2005) studied party system fragmentation in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Peru, and found the interesting pattern that this fragmentation increases when the indigenous population cannot find a party of their choice JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 71 This paper aims at highlighting the difference between two types of ethnic parties, which are rarely distinguished, mainly in quantitative work relying on datasets that neglect their difference.5 The intention is to show that parties of the majority and parties of the minorities systematically differ from each other on most measures by which we may compare parties; such as their issue positions and worldview, and further, even their rhetoric. Making this distinction has some implications for the normative theory. The bulk of the scholarly dispute about whether or not political parties exacerbate communal hostilities has involved empirical evidence and eschewed axiological claims. In the field of practice, supporters of communal party ban also rely on what they claim to be a judgment of fact (that the existence of communal parties leads to violence) and spare further normative speculations. In contrast, concerns with identifying the communal groups behind the parties are likely to raise legitimacy issues. On what grounds could we tell a group to stop supporting a party that identifies itself as their representative and vote for champions of issues that they feel more marginal to their existence? As a matter of fact, promoters of the communal party ban anchor their arguments in worldviews that negate one or more of (a) the factual existence of sub-national communal groups; (b) the legitimacy of the existence of sub- national communal groups; (c) the objectivity of sub-national collective interests; and (d) the possibility of protecting and promoting those collective interests through collective action. The well-known theorists of the latest feature are Olson (1965) and the Hardins (1968, 1982), and the denial of objective collective interests is also easily traced back to individualist social ontologies originated by 17th century John Locke and endorsed by neoliberal economists and politicians such as Margaret Thatcher6 and Ronald Reagan. The first and second claims are more specific to the literature on heterogeneous societies and to the rational choice-inspired study of communal conflicts. Most typically, Collier and Hoeffler (2004) and Fearon and Laitin (2003) forwarded theories in which the communal groups involved in violent conflicts are not pulled together by their shared culture and/or shared life conditions within the given society, but are ad-hoc creations of clever political entrepreneurs in pursuit of power and wealth. Possibly most consequentially, it is Horowitz’s plan to silence ethnic protests through creating cross-cutting cleavages that transpires a belief which downplays the potency and persistence of ethnicity and other communal features. This study does not claim that ethnic features are perennially stamped on people, and is anchored in a constructivist, rather than primordialist, perspective. It contends, however, that ethnicity may become a strong and persistent mobilizing force and it always becomes such when there are inequalities of any nature (cultural, social, economic, or political) among communal groups. By the logic of facts, those on the two sides of an unequal relation will experience and interpret the world in quite different ways. This is what this study would like to highlight. Majorities and minorities in a country are separated by a political power gap, and this leads to salient and omnipresent differences in worldview and political program. 5 The par excellence example is the Database of Political Institutions (DPI), see Beck et al. (2001), Cruz et al. (2016). 6 We may remember Prime Minister Thatcher saying that ‘there is no such thing as society’ as a premise to her policies turning away people in need of government help. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 72 The work will proceed through three empirical sections providing evidence for the differences of political issue positions, worldview, and rhetoric. The last section will summarize and discuss the findings. The methods to highlight the difference between types of parties are content analysis based. The first empirical section relies on the work of successive groups of coders serving the Manifesto Project Database.7 This highly regarded scholarly achievement has made every effort to address the main shortcoming of text analytic work, the intercoder reliability. Yet there are issues with their case selection and subsequently with the geographical and temporal coverage of the parties, as it will be detailed in the respective chapter. The second and third empirical sections rely on coding carried out by the authors, and they address the intercoder reliability issue through sticking with replicable word counts as opposed to interpretations of the text segments. However, we also have not achieved extensive geographical coverage. The sample texts for these analyses all originate from the UK. There were several impediments to involving larger samples, such as language barriers, and the scarcity of both minority and majority party manifestos of comparable length from the same country and same election. These challenges could have been addressed only by moving away from the original plan of analysing party manifestos. We opted for these documents – as compared with alternatives such as speeches of party leaders, which are a more abundant source of texts – in order to assure continuity with the empirical work based on MARPOR data, and also to limit the influence of individual style on comparisons, which would have set its own limits on the generalizability of the results. The last section of the paper will address the generalizability of the features and trends we found in the twelve election manifestos we analysed. Briefly, the limits to generalization are inherent in a specific communal structure of the country. Our analyses speak only to countries where there are well-outlined majority groups of at least 51% of the population, and politically visible and active minorities, which normally also takes a certain size and proportion of the minority groups. The method also assumes the existence of a political system with contested elections. 2 DIFFERENCES OF POLITICAL ISSUE POSITIONS In countries where there are substantial majorities – as in most of Europe, America, and East Asia – the difference between majority and minority parties is relatively obvious. However, in most of the developing world the ethnic landscape is both unmapped and fluid, which seems to have induced a scholarly tradition of bypassing concerns with classification into majority- and minority- supported political organizations. Widely used datasets, such as the Database of Political Institutions (DPI), for instance, entirely collapse minority and majority communal-issue focused parties. The Manifesto Project Database is one of the exceptions: it has the code 70 for the family of ‘nationalist parties’ and 90 for ‘ethnic and regional’ parties. This comes close to our focus on the difference between nationalist parties promoting the interests of a country’s ethnic plurality and parties defending the interests of ethnic minority groups. Analysis shows that the two classification schemes are quite congruent and they lead to the same differences in issue positions. Yet before introducing the findings on 7 The project is hosted at the Social Science Research Centre in Berlin and went through a number of evolution stages, as Manifesto Research Group, then Comparative Manifestos Project, and lastly Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR). For the sake of simplicity, we will refer to the results as MARPOR data (see https://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/.) The authors of the last round asked for quoting them as Volkens et al. (2015). JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 73 issue positions, we have to warn the reader about the geographical and temporal limits of MARPOR’s coverage of parties. The project’s coders focused on working democracies, and primarily on Europe; and electoral success has been a reason for dealing with a party as well as a written program (typically electoral manifesto) has been a condition of the work. A total of 56 countries and 3924 programs are covered by the MPDS2015a version, yet only 514 programs from 47 countries belong to the party families with communal focus. Of the 514, 225 are labelled ‘nationalist’ and 289 are ‘ethnic-regional.’ In order to test our hypotheses, we identified the groups served by these parties and added a new variable to the dataset, which has two basic values and allows for a number of transitional categories. Table 1 shows our categories cross- tabulated with the original MPDS2015a coding. TABLE 1: MARPOR CODING CROSS-TABULATED WITH OUR CODING Obviously, the two coding schemes are essentially congruent, yet numeric values of their congruence may only be obtained by transforming the string category labels into numeric values. After coding majority parties as 0, minority parties as 1, and the transitional forms8 as 0.5, the Gamma is 0.96, and the Pearson correlation is 0.76 between the two classifications. The temporal and geographical distributions of the programs are summarized in Figure 1 and Figure 2. 8 The intermediate cases refer to five extraordinary situations. 1. ‘Mixed’: party electoral coalitions including both majority and minority parties. 2. ‘Plurality’: the Zulus’ party in South Africa. 3. ‘Regional majority’: the best-known examples are the Lombards (of Northern League) in Italy and the Moravians in the Czech Republic; both belong to the ethnic majority in their country and pursue regional goals. 4. ‘Integrationist majority:’ parties working on promoting their country’s accession to a regional integration, in these cases, to the EU; 5. ‘Religious majority’: this is the DUP in Northern Ireland, ethnic minority yet a religious majority. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 74 FIGURE 1: UNIVERSE OF THE MAJORITY AND MINORITY PARTIES CODED BY MARPOR, BY COUNTRY 7 1 1 21 3 28 9 4 12 4 6 5 7 8 2 7 3 1 6 15 5 1 1 5 4 3 10 9 9 14 6 0 1 14 15 2 1 5 16 16 8 7 9 2 19 3 3 4 1 3 22 4 1 10 8 7 12 10 54 2 0 0 3 2 2 3 7 4 3 0 1 0 4 1 1 Albania Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Belgium Bosnia-Herzegovina Bulgaria Canada Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Great Britain Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Israel Italy Latvia Lithuania Macedonia Moldova Montenegro Netherlands New Zealand Northern Ireland Poland Portugal Romania Russia Serbia Slovakia Slovenia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United States Majority party Minority party In-between party Universe of the Majority and Minority Parties Coded by MARPOR, by Country JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 75 FIGURE 2: UNIVERSE OF THE MAJORITY AND MINORITY PARTIES CODED BY MARPOR, BY YEAR We compared the averages of some party issue positions based on the 514 programs included in the abridged dataset. Data show that there is a convincing difference between two groups of communal parties defined either according to the group they represent or the party family they belong to. -4 1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 1921 1925 1929 1938 1945 1948 1949 1951 1953 1954 1956 1957 1958 1959 1961 1962 1963 1965 1966 1968 1969 1970 1971 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Universe of the Majority and Minority Parties Coded by MARPOR, by Year Majority party (251) In-between party (37) Minority party (226) JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 76 Table 2 uses green highlight in the “Sig.” columns9 to evidence statistically significant differences between the groups. Of the main issue domains defined by MARPOR, they definitely differ on the Left-Right and welfare positions; in addition, there are signs of some economic policy disagreement, as well, with regard to welfare issues. Surprisingly, the ‘International peace index’ does not seem to distinguish them significantly. Yet this MARPOR index was constructed from two components focused on accidental bilateral country relations, not on more general attitudes towards peace and war. Taken one-by-one, a number of important issue position indicators pertinent to these dimension evidence significant differences between the parties representing the two communal groups. Majority parties are more supportive of the military and care less about peace, than minority parties. TABLE 2: GROUP MEAN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAJORITY AND MINORITY PARTIES, AS WELL AS BETWEEN NATIONALIST AND ETHNIC PARTIES, ON LEFT/RIGHT AND INTERNATIONAL ISSUES 9 These columns display the p-values, as computed by the SPSS software, for the group mean values displayed in the “Mean” columns. The MARPOR coders worked by singling out positive and negative references to certain issues, then adding the number of positive and negative references in separate indicators named, for instance, “Europe +” and “Europe –“. A party can be told to be more positive towards an issue if it has higher number of positive remarks and/or lower number of negative remarks. The “Mean” values are party-group averages of the numbers of positive and negative remarks, respectively. Yet the MARPOR coders have also created six indexes, by adding some positive and negative issue-position values. These indexes are displayed in the upper part of Table 2, while its lower part, as well as Table 3, display the primary, positive or negative, individual issue position indicators. MARPOR variable Group served Mean Sig. Party family Mean Sig. Party of majority 9.454 Nationalist party 9.542 Mixed and special cases 5.726 .000 .000 Party of minority 4.125 Ethnic /regional party 4.915 Party of majority 11.675 Nationalist party 11.575 Mixed and special cases 4.027 .000 .000 Party of minority -5.588 Ethnic /regional party -2.676 Party of majority 7.555 Nationalist party 8.102 Mixed and special cases 9.683 .000 .026 Party of minority 10.247 Ethnic /regional party 9.498 Party of majority 2.852 Nationalist party 3.045 Mixed and special cases 2.529 .352 .013 Party of minority 2.428 Ethnic /regional party 2.329 Party of majority 3.301 Nationalist party 3.288 Mixed and special cases 3.248 .096 .099 Party of minority 2.651 Ethnic /regional party 2.798 Party of majority 1.107 Nationalist party 1.161 Mixed and special cases 0.692 .088 .371 Party of minority 1.611 Ethnic /regional party 1.403 Party of majority 2.026 Nationalist party 2.134 Mixed and special cases 0.493 .000 .000 Party of minority 0.440 Ethnic /regional party 0.507 Party of majority 0.387 Nationalist party 0.360 Mixed and special cases 0.322 .034 .025 Party of minority 0.744 Ethnic /regional party 0.677 Party of majority 0.326 Nationalist party 0.304 Mixed and special cases 0.357 .015 .010 Party of minority 0.741 Ethnic /regional party 0.670 Party of majority 1.670 Nationalist party 1.703 Mixed and special cases 1.790 .953 .889 Party of minority 1.691 Ethnic /regional party 1.676 Party of majority 0.983 Nationalist party 0.904 Mixed and special cases 2.082 .000 .000 Party of minority 1.905 Ethnic /regional party 1.906 Party of majority 1.058 Nationalist party 1.164 Mixed and special cases 0.316 .035 .002 Party of minority 0.464 Ethnic /regional party 0.416 Party of majority 0.835 Nationalist party 0.898 Mixed and special cases 0.177 .000 .000 Party of minority 0.199 Ethnic /regional party 0.205 internationalism - (average 0.7) europe - (average 0.5) percent of vote (average 6.9%) right-left ideological index (average 3.6) planned economic index (average 2.6) GENERAL INDICATORS AND INDEXES market economic index (average 3.0) party policy positioning on welfare (average 8.9) international peace index (average 1.3) military + (average 1.2) military - (average 0.5) peace (average 0.5) internationalism + (average 1.7) europe + (average 1.5) MAIN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE POSITIONS JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 77 Table 3 itemizes the issue positions pertinent to the economic policies, and it seems that there are no fundamental disagreements among the two groups with regard to opinions about the market, economic planning, and corporatism. Yet at the bottom of the table, the cultural items highlight serious disagreements between the party groups. Minorities are not as enthusiastic about the national way of life as majorities are, yet they are very positive towards multiculturalism, which has less positive resonance among majorities. Minorities are also promoters of decentralization while majority nationalist parties rarely support it. TABLE 3: GROUP MEAN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAJORITY AND MINORITY PARTIES, AND BETWEEN NATIONALIST AND ETHNIC PARTIES, ON ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL ISSUES 3 DIFFERENCES OF IDEOLOGICAL FRAMING Rational thinkers may reach different conclusions when they start from different premises, thus when we are faced with different issue positions, we may suspect differences of the underlying worldview and ideologies. Sadly, it is not easy to collapse the huge variety of ideologies endorsed by parties into a few general traits, even if there are important differences between the worldviews of two groups of parties. Nationalism, as an ideology, has an extensive literature,10 yet focused mainly on majority-nationalism. One widely held belief about nationalists is that they may ally themselves with any non- 10 Let us reference only some later works that offer comprehensive summaries of the previous literature – Greenfeld and Eastwood (2009), Moore (2001). MARPOR variable Group served Mean Sig. Party family Mean Sig. Party of majority 1.805 Nationalist party 1.7787 Mixed and special cases 1.535 .571 .477 Party of minority 1.606 Ethnic /regional party 1.6353 Party of majority 1.546 Nationalist party 1.676 Mixed and special cases 1.912 .319 .095 Party of minority 1.370 Ethnic /regional party 1.355 Party of majority 0.575 Nationalist party 0.611 Mixed and special cases 0.501 .504 .741 Party of minority 0.731 Ethnic /regional party 0.659 Party of majority 0.111 Nationalist party 0.118 Mixed and special cases 0.381 .001 .401 Party of minority 0.121 Ethnic /regional party 0.148 Party of majority 0.221 Nationalist party .2425 Mixed and special cases 0.120 .138 .014 Party of minority 0.104 Ethnic /regional party .0996 Party of majority 6.573 Nationalist party 6.8764 Mixed and special cases 2.846 .000 .000 Party of minority 1.882 Ethnic /regional party 2.1990 Party of majority 0.297 Nationalist party .0425 Mixed and special cases 0.223 .001 .000 Party of minority 1.021 Ethnic /regional party 1.0502 Party of majority 0.870 Nationalist party .6071 Mixed and special cases 1.108 .000 .000 Party of minority 5.278 Ethnic /regional party 4.5375 Party of majority 1.245 Nationalist party 1.2629 Mixed and special cases 0.224 .000 .000 Party of minority 0.231 Ethnic /regional party .3094 Party of majority 2.250 Nationalist party 1.4098 Mixed and special cases 8.358 .000 .000 Party of minority 7.902 Ethnic /regional party 8.1034 multiculturalism - (average 0.7) decentralisation (average 5.2) keynesian demand management (average 0.2) CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES national way of life + (average 4.3) national way of life - (average 0.6) multiculturalism + (average 2.8) ECONOMIC POLICY ISSUES free market economy (average 1.7) market regulation (average 1.5) economic planning (average 0.6) corporatism/mixed economy (average 0.13) JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 78 communally focused ideology, such as conservatism, liberalism, and socialism, in function of the historical circumstances in their country.11 On the other hand, we failed to come across of well-established literature of minority ideologies.12 As we were searching for traits that distinguish between minority and majority worldviews, against a backdrop of non-communally-focused ideologies that may be endorsed by both minority and majority members, we hypothesized that the dividing line should be traced along the main values informing majority nationalists, on the one hand, and minority movements, on the other hand. The big difference is the value attributed to the actual state in its current boundaries; whether values like ‘national interests’ override values like ‘human rights.’ For nation-state supporters, the actual state comes as the pinnacle of previous evolution. They like to invoke and seek legitimation in history and are anxious about maintaining the status quo or ‘law and order’ even with armed forces such as police and military. Minority activism is almost by definition transformative of the status quo. Its requests for change are generally anchored in the classic modern ideals of freedom, equality, and solidarity, which in the 21st century are often couched in terms of democracy, welfare, and communitarianism. Also, in the 21st century, the framework for demanding freedom, equality, and solidarity is increasingly that of human rights. We resorted to the method of content analysis for checking on these differences and collected a sample of party manifestos relevant for the two party groups. Because of language and availability issues, the sample consisted of 12 manifestos from the United Kingdom, covering two rounds of elections; 2010 and 2015. For both election campaigns, we obtained the manifestos of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), British National Party13 (BNP), and English Democrats (ED) as nationalist parties, and those of the Plaid Cymru (PC), Scottish National Party (SNP) and Sinn Fein (SF) as minority parties. For the sake of analysis, the colourful and image loaded brochures of many parties were converted in plain text format with the help of a Nitro Pro 10 software.14 Following this conversion, the count of total words was carried out in MS Word, yet when searching for the frequency of certain keywords, we returned to the original pdf formats and had Acrobat Reader to count them. The raw word numbers were then transformed into percentages of the overall text. Table 4 summarizes the results for 40 keywords, which were selected to be typical to either the majority or the minority party group. The bottom line shows a clear difference between the word usage of the two party groups, once on behalf of the minorities, and once on behalf of the majority parties. 11 Modernist-constructivist scholars of nationalism, such as Hobsbawn (1990), emphasize that nationalism’s “basic loyalty [is] not to 'the country’, but only to its particular version of that country”, as constructed within the molds of some ideology, be it either conservative or liberal. 12 Closest to what we believe such a theory would look like, there are theories explaining the causes of ethnic mobilization, such as Fearon and Laitin (2003), Posner (2004), and also the more complex, but still mobilization-focused approach of Guibernau (1999). 13 For the British Nationalist Party, only a short version of their 2010 election manifesto was available, and in order to work with texts of comparable length, we included their 2005 manifesto in analyses. 14 Many thanks to the right holders, we worked with a free trial copy of the application. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 79 TABLE 4: KEYWORD FREQUENCIES IN THE MAJORITY AND MINORITY PARTIES’ DISCOURSE As a first impression, all percentages in the table may look like small values, yet these percentages were calculated from the overall word count, which contained all the connective and circumstantial elements, not only from the low-frequency idiosyncratic terms. The difference between the word usages of the two groups is evident despite some exceptions in both sides of the table. One salient exception is the frequent use of the word-group referring to weapons by the minority group. Yet at a closer inspection it turns out that minority parties do consistently speak about disarming, and controlling the mass destruction weapons while majority nationalist parties typically aim at increasing the military budget. Word count- based content analysis has its known risks rooted in the fact that strong opposition to an idea boosts the usage of the pertinent words. As further examples of this effect, nationalist parties in the UK have spoken a lot about human rights and global warming, categorically repudiating them. UKIP, BNP, and ED want the UK to withdraw from the Human Rights Charter and the regulatory act they wish to substitute to it is a bill of rights, protecting the individual against the state power, yet not stipulating any of the economic, social and cultural rights included in the human rights documents. In a peculiar turn typical to the UK, Sinn Fein had the request for enforceable human rights legislation included in the Good Friday Agreement and has not stopped militating for it, yet the name of this legislation in the Northern Ireland context is ‘Bill of Rights’ (and yes, this is what inflated the occurrence of ‘bill of rights’ term in the minority party group). Apart of the negative-sense word use, the quantitative content analytic methods may show evidence or highlight very important features of the speakers’ worldview. Table 5 shows how the six parties construct the UK’s ethnic landscape. Actually, the United Kingdom, as such, is not the focus of any party, including the UKIP, whose name contains reference to the UK. Not surprisingly, each party mentions their own ethnic group the most often; yet it may be really MAJORITY MINORITY MAJORITY MINORITY human right* 0.169 0.194 bill of rights 0.043 0.054 *equal* 0.329 1.927 monarch*, queen 0.054 0.011 unjust, injustice 0.024 0.051 citizen* 0.917 0.409 disadvantage* 0.019 0.119 tradition* 0.532 0.075 poverty 0.041 0.538 histor* 0.260 0.116 austerity, austere 0.007 0.581 *herit* 0.222 0.097 people 2.094 3.097 legacy, legacies 0.011 0.051 communit* 0.463 1.866 *migra* 1.937 0.163 co(-)operat*, collaborat* 0.148 0.164 Islam*, Muslim* 0.359 0.000 agreement*, treaty, treaties 0.301 0.720 Christian* 0.052 0.000 peace* 0.120 0.282 law and order 0.057 0.000 worker* 0.464 0.267 crime,criminal 1.023 0.364 wage*,salar* 0.336 0.501 deter, deters, deterrent 0.144 0.057 solidarity 0.004 0.016 security 0.335 0.153 wellbeing, happiness, happy 0.052 0.102 police*, policing 0.601 0.462 climate change 0.048 0.129 military, armed forces, army, navy 0.454 0.160 global warming 0.093 0.011 veteran* 0.074 0.142 green economy 0.000 0.051 weapon*, arms 0.019 0.191 renewab* 0.127 0.323 intelligence 0.021 0.005 sustainab* 0.087 0.489 defence 0.288 0.191 Total 2010 and 2015 4.926 11.428 Total 2010 and 2015 7.404 2.704 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 80 surprising that Britain does not exist in the language universe of the SNP and Plaid Cymru,15 while the UK does not exist for Sinn Fein. TABLE 5: DEMONYM USE BY THE SIX UK PARTIES IN 2010 AND 2015 4 DIFFERENCES OF RHETORIC There are sophisticated ways to analyse the apparent and hidden messages of a text, yet political messages tend to mainly rely on repeating a number of simple ideas again and again until the audience internalizes them. Accordingly, we set out to capture the repetitions in the six manifestos. We used the QDA Miner’s automatic clustering feature. The searched units were sentences, and we asked for selecting the expressions that show up at least three times (in three different sentences, including titles) in the overall manifesto. The number of words in the repetitive expressions was not regulated, and QDA Miner returned a large number of one and two-word expressions, besides the longer ones, yet we have seriously been engaged only with expressions consisting of at least three words. QDA miner offers three solutions; a short list of words that form tight clusters, longer lists with medium-tight clusters and long lists with loose clusters. The scores of the twelve manifestos are summarized in Table 6. The share of repetitions in the overall texts varies widely, from a low of 2% to a high of 55%. It may also vary between two manifestos of the same party. Yet in average, minority parties have more clusters, which means they try to convey more ideas deemed important than the majority parties do.16 This impression may be substantiated with more detailed analysis, as well. We restricted our interest to iterated expressions composed of at least three words. The underlying assumption has been that a persuasive self-explanatory statement generally needs at least this number of words. In specific contexts, shorter idioms may also be persuasive and mobilizing,17 but ‘take-home’ 15 The 2015 manifesto of the Plaid Cymru contains Brit* nine times (0.048%), of which five are entity names (British Isles, British-Irish Council), and in three cases it is used to construct the idiom ‘British state,’ with obvious critical overtones. 16 The cluster numbers returned by QDA Miner refer to the whole text of the manifestos, including headers and footers. Subsequently, irrelevant ‘technical’ repetitions also occur among the clusters, such as the party’s web address, or even the ‘page’ word. Yet these features affected the counts of all parties equally. 17 For instance, SNP 2015 used the two-word ‘Tories out’ as a slogan (lock the Tories out from government), while ED took an issue with ‘political correctness’ in both of their manifestos (‘Political correctness is incompatible with a free and democratic society’, ‘Put an end to multiculturalism and political correctness’). United Kingdom Independence Party British Nationalist Party English Democrats Plaid Cymru Scottish Nationalist Party Sinn Fein 2010 UK, United Kingdom 0.561 0.066 0.233 0.184 0.285 0.000 British, Britain, Briton 1.101 0.876 0.034 0.000 0.000 0.119 English, England 0.101 0.102 2.035 0.042 0.034 0.005 Wales, Welsh 0.022 0.043 0.103 1.895 0.034 0.011 Scot, Scottish, Scotland 0.022 0.039 0.379 0.014 2.694 0.016 Irish, Ireland 0.011 0.047 0.026 0.000 0.023 1.199 2015 UK, United Kingdom 0.318 0.037 0.247 0.264 0.625 0.000 British, Britain, Briton 0.664 2.465 0.056 0.048 0.000 0.547 English, England 0.082 0.000 1.922 0.102 0.083 0.000 Wales, Welsh 0.032 0.000 0.000 3.188 0.026 0.000 Scot, Scottish, Scotland 0.032 0.000 0.359 0.065 1.913 0.000 Irish, Ireland 0.011 0.000 0.024 0.027 0.016 1.048 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 81 political messages have to be a little more explicit. Formulations such as ‘believe in Britain’, ‘regain control of our borders’, ‘elect a local champion’, ‘working for jobs’, and ‘a more progressive politics’ seem to strike the golden middle between brevity and lucidity. TABLE 6: ITERATED EXPRESSION CLUSTERS FOUND BY QDA MINER IN THE 12 MANIFESTOS TABLE 7: NUMBER OF ITERATED MEDIUM-TIGHT EXPRESSION CLUSTERS WITH THREE OR MORE WORDS Unfortunately, even some more-than-three-word iterated expressions held little relevance to the parties’ political messages. For instance, they promoted the parties by referring the reader to their website (‘policies section of www.ukip.org‘), or expressed interest in a topic without appending a salient standpoint with the appellation (‘energy and natural resources,’ ‘children and young people’). Table 7 shows the number of all medium-tight clusters, the clusters with three or more words, and finally, the relevant clusters. Visibly, minority parties have, on average, more >=3-word clusters and more relevant >=3-word clusters than the majority parties. The differences persist and deepen if we factor in the issue domains to which these iterated more than three-word expressions belong. The calculations in Table 8 were made by collapsing the clusters occurring in the 2010 and 2015 manifestos of the same party. In its turn, Table 9 collapses the percentages of the three parties belonging to the same party group. # items # clusters % vocabulary # items # clusters % vocabulary # items # clusters % vocabulary BNP 2005 111 3 10% 135 11 12% 251 42 22% BNP 2015 35 4 11% 45 7 14% 106 25 34% ED 2010 78 18 10% 150 36 19% 315 69 40% ED 2015 10 3 2% 40 12 6% 153 41 24% UKIP 2010 74 10 11% 125 24 19% 221 46 34% UKIP 2015 249 38 13% 423 82 21% 893 179 45% 93 13 10% 153 29 15% 323 67 33% PC 2010 15 2 3% 40 8 8% 107 26 22% PC 2015 269 32 18% 467 80 31% 836 149 55% SF 2010 118 37 12% 207 61 21% 449 107 45% SF 2015 33 8 11% 58 14 19% 114 25 37% SNP 2010 69 8 13% 94 15 18% 192 38 36% SNP 2015 105 21 9% 234 53 21% 535 126 47% 102 18 11% 183 39 20% 372 79 40% AVERAGE MAJ. AVERAGE MIN. Tight Medium Loose Clustering Statistics All clusters >= 3- word clusters Relevant clusters All clusters >+ 3- word clusters Relevant clusters BNP 2005 11 1 1 PC 2010 8 4 4 BNP 2015 7 3 2 PC 2015 80 25 17 ED 2010 36 10 7 SF 2010 61 39 30 ED 2015 12 3 2 SF 2015 14 10 10 UKIP 2010 24 13 9 SNP 2010 15 8 8 UKIP 2015 81 29 22 SNP 2015 53 29 26 29 10 7 39 19 16AVERAGE MIN. Majority party medium clusters Minority party medium clusters AVERAGE MAJ. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 82 TABLE 8: ISSUE DOMAINS OF THE MOST OFTEN ITERATED EXPRESSIONS, FREQUENCIES AND PERCENTAGES BY PARTY18 TABLE 9: ISSUE DOMAINS OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY ITERATED EXPRESSIONS, PERCENTAGES BY PARTY GROUP In the case of four parties out of six, the heaviest-weighing category is the one labelled ‘Self-promotion/ Articulation of the party’s reason for being.’ Since the parties in this sample are all ethnically/regionally defined, we grouped in this category their self-definition as serving a certain ethnic/regional group and their articulation of what that group needs and why.19 PC, SNP, and ED militate for regional autonomy because of economic and cultural reasons, while Sinn Fein plans for independence from Britain and unification with Ireland because of cultural reasons and also to heal the wounds of the past. UKIP and BNP want the UK to leave the European Union, and the main reason they give for secession is to be able to stop immigration.20 BNP does not really articulate any goal beyond getting rid of unwanted immigrants, defined as those who cannot be fully assimilated by the British. UKIP is more sophisticated, on the one hand, gives more reasons to leave the EU (such as not paying into the EU budget anymore), and on the other hand, elaborates on some economic and social 18 The Barnett Formula is a scheme used to allocate UK central government money to the devolved governments (Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). English critics keep claiming that it is unjustly biased towards the regions, that is, gives them unjustified advantages. 19 There are clear statements of how the parties see their reason of being (‘PLAID CYMRU has WORKED for WALES’; ‘WINNING a BETTER DEAL for SCOTLAND’), as well as justifications of those goals: ‘WALES should have the same POWERS as SCOTLAND’, ‘The people of England should be able to celebrate ST GEORGE's DAY as a National Holiday’ (the uppercase words were printed out this way by QDA Miner, these are the word-combinations that it found iterated at least three times). 20 In hindsight, this reason remained their main mobilizing force during the entire Brexit campaign. The economic reasons they tried to promote were categorically refuted by experts and there is no evidence that the majority of the Exit side of the referendum would have been moved by those. # % # % # % # % # % # % Self-promotion/Articulation of the party's reason for being 4 12.9 1 33.3 5 55.6 11 52.4 12 35.3 17 42.50 EU positive 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 2 9.5 0 0.0 3 7.50 Immigration negative 4 12.9 2 66.7 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.00 Barnett Formula negative 1 3.2 0 0.0 1 11.1 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.00 Strengthening military 4 12.9 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.00 Criminal justice 1 3.2 0 0.0 1 11.1 0 0.0 1 2.9 0 0.00 Government's budget (tax and expenses) 5 16.1 0 0.0 1 11.1 0 0.0 10 29.4 7 17.50 Individuals' income (jobs, pensions, welfare) 6 19.4 0 0.0 1 11.1 4 19.0 8 23.5 7 17.50 Economic and social issues of concern 6 19.4 0 0.0 0 0.0 4 19.0 3 8.8 6 15.00 TOTAL 31 100.0 3 100.0 9 100.0 21 100.0 34 100.0 40 100.00 SNP SFUKIP BNP ED PC Self-promotion/Articulation of the party's reason for being 33.9 43.4 EU positive 0.0 5.7 Immigration negative 26.5 0.0 Barnett Formula negative 4.8 0.0 Strengthening military 4.3 0.0 Criminal justice ("law and order") 4.8 1.0 Government's budget (tax and expenses) 9.1 15.6 Individuals' income (jobs, pensions, welfare) 10.2 20.0 Economic and social issues of concern 6.5 14.3 Majority parties average Minority parties average JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 83 issues from a fiscally conservative and populist perspective, that is, by reducing taxes on businesses and combatting regulations such as the ban on smoking in pubs. Of the three majority parties, only UKIP matches the level of interest that minority parties show towards the two main domestic policy categories (‘Government's budget - tax and expenses’ and ‘Individuals' income - jobs, pensions, welfare’). In the group of minority parties, about 50% of the more- than-three word iterations fall in the last three categories. Another 49% of the minority parties’ iterated campaign slogans fall in the first and second category. We separated an ‘EU positive’ category from the ‘Self-promotion,’ in which it could have been incorporated, in order to highlight a salient issue of discord between minorities and English nationalists: minorities prefer to stay in the Union. Majority parties score much lower in the first two and last three issue domains, yet the four middle issue categories are dominated by them. Two of these latter express hostility towards immigrants and minorities, and the other two also express a tendency to solve problems with force and weapons. In average, 40.4 percent of the majority parties’ campaign thematization falls in these categories, against a mere 1% of the minority parties. This latter accounts for the SNP’s boasting that ‘we invested in 1,000 EXTRA POLICE’ (and managed to reduce crime, indeed). Beyond the numbers, there is the style of formulations, sometimes effectively mobilizing, and occasionally quite aggressive. Of the three majority parties, BNP uses the most inflammatory formulations (‘Ban the hijab and burka’, ‘British jobs to British workers’). UKIP makes efforts to offer more sophisticated and more palatable formulations of anti-immigrationism: ‘immigration is not about race; it is about space’, yet the idea itself is the same as the one offered in the BNP’s 2005 manifesto: ‘Britain is full up and the government of Britain has as its first responsibility the welfare, security and long-term preservation of the native people of Britain.’ The English Democrats have not coined salient three- word slogans against immigrants, yet both of their manifestos contains the same basic standpoint, indeed, with identical wording: ‘A points system should be used to bring an end to mass immigration and only allow that immigration which is in the national interest.’ 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The three analyses in the previous section highlight important and essential differences between parties of majorities as compared to the parties of minorities. The case of the English Democrats shows that the difference between majority and minority ideology and program persists even when majorities pursue autonomy demands very similar to those of the minorities. To summarize, differences of issue position have been evidenced with regard to the right-left positioning, welfare, militarism, peace, European Union, the national way of life, and multiculturalism. Minority parties are significantly more leftist, more dovish, more supportive of the welfare state, of the EU, and of multiculturalism. In the domain of worldview and ideology, the two party groups differ significantly in their relating to core values. Minorities enshrine human rights and social justice while majorities are passionate about national history and national interests. Also, minorities are deeply concerned about environmental decay, while majorities worry about rising crime and the country’s declining military power. Minorities often refer to wellbeing and JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 84 happiness, while the majority discourse often refers to religions (and their differences). The United Kingdom’s parties also differ in the ways they see the country’s ethnic landscape. Programs show the minority parties as trying to convey more ideas towards their electorate than the majority parties. All parties invest heavily in defining their role and value for the constituents, and also in constructing their constituents as a well-outlined communal group with collective interests. With the exception of the BNP, they also specify their standing on a number of policy issues, yet minority parties elaborate much more on basic economic and social issues, while majority parties insist on combatting immigration, crime, and threats to the national security. We may wonder whether anti-immigrationism and sword rattling are rhetorical features indeed, or should be classified as issue positions. They are policy choices, for sure, yet they have not been targeted for analysis by the MARPOR project. The content analytic method confirmed their high relevance for the discourse of the majority parties. High enough to claim that the parties rely on the iteration of these policy goals in order to capture votes. There is no necessary proportionality between the rank order of the policy goals of a party and the frequency of ‘talking points’ iterated in their public discourse, thus, the results obtained with frequency analysis in the third empirical section are safer to be categorized as differences of the rhetoric, rather than of the policy programs. The differences we found between minority and majority parties are convincing yet the samples we used are not supportive of overarching generalizations. We think that sample texts from two election cycles from all parties of interest validly cover the variation of ideologies and rhetoric in the country where the sample comes from, that is, the UK. The generalizability of the findings onto other countries involves the belief that rational thinkers reach similar conclusions when they start from similar premises. The United Kingdom’s minority and majority parties display the same differences of issue positions as other minority and majority parties in the MARPOR sample. Our research design can be conceptualized as first studying an emergent feature (the parties’ issue positions) and then taking a sample of the sample and placing it under a text analytic microscope to study what causes those emergent features. Thus the ultimate limits to generalizing the findings lie with the MARPOR sample. This includes continents beyond Europe, as well, but the bulk of the countries are from the old continent and even more restrictively, from relatively developed democracies. A specific limit of the findings is that they assume the existence of well distinguishable majorities and minorities, a constellation that does not occur in all countries. In the MARPOR sample, the average vote share of the nationalist parties is slightly above 9%, while the average vote share of the minority parties is a little more than 4%. This highlights the presence of large majorities and small minorities in the sample countries. This paper, as a first cut into this little studied issue, primarily aimed at highlighting the difference between majority and minority parties and warning the scholarship about the importance of distinguishing them, mainly in the creation of datasets on which further scholarly work relies. However, after immersion in these differences between the party groups, we cannot help believing that where there are historically well-contoured majorities and minorities and some strange whim of history did not establish a minority to dominate over the majority, majorities in power are conditioned to preserve the JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 85 status quo and powerless minorities are conditioned to fight for political emancipation through power-sharing arrangements. The differences of issue positions and worldview between majorities and minorities are congruent with these finalities imposed by their life conditions. Again, we admit to relying on a social ontology that does not exclude the emergence of communal group-based interests. Inconveniently, once someone admits the existence of objective collective interests, she or he ought to address some moral issues entailed by them. When the political inequality between majorities and minorities is large, the objective interest of the minorities is to mobilize against the status quo and demand a fairer share of political power. On consequentialist grounds, integrationist scholars and policy makers advise that this mobilization should be prevented because it is due to hurt against the status-quo defending impulse of the majority and subsequently lead to violent conflict. The UK parties’ example suggests that in fortunate cases, majority nationalists are not against the regional self-governing power of the minorities; on the contrary, the ED wishes to follow their example of devolving central power. The anti-minority sentiment of the UK majority parties is more limited in scope; they think that Scotland and Wales get too much from the common budget, and there is also some small territorial issue between England and Wales. The real target of the UK majority parties are the non-citizen or new-citizen immigrants. Further, also in fortunate cases, the voters of the majority parties are a smaller fraction of the whole majority electorate (in the MARPOR sample, 9% in average), and their anti-minority agenda is often opposed by a definite majority of the majority ethnic group. From our social ontology standpoint, this is possible because majorities do not have real, objective interest in oppressing their long coexisting, citizen minorities. Europe’s current big nationalist problem is immigration, and there are, indeed, political entrepreneurs who work on exacerbating the population’s unenthusiastic sentiments towards the new immigrants. The limits on generalizing our findings consist in the communal structure more typical to the developed world than to the developing world: heterogeneity typified by large majorities and small minorities. In countries where there are no majorities but only pluralities, this specific configuration of conservative status-quo-preserving rightist nationalists versus reformer leftist ethnic groups may not come about. Yet the large-majority/small-minorities communal structure is deeply encoded in our notion of nation-state, which has been established as a model for developing countries so that they achieve it by nation-building processes. And liberal political theories, such as democratization theories, tend to deal with developing countries as if they were nation states. Our normatively rooted argument is that, if in countries with real minorities we allow for these latter’s moral right to political mobilizing, the same right should not be denied to any communal group fighting for economic, political or cultural emancipation. 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APPENDIX LIST OF THE PARTY MANIFESTOS ANALYSED IN THIS STUDY  British National Party 2005: ‘Rebuilding British Democracy’  British National Party 2010: ‘Putting Local People First’ (BNP ‘Summary Manifesto’)  British National Party 2015: ‘Securing our British Future’  English Democrats 2010: ‘Putting England First’  English Democrats 2015: ‘Putting England First’  Plaid Cymru 2010: ‘Think Different. Think Plaid’  Plaid Cymru 2015: ‘Working for Wales’  Scottish National Party 2010: ‘Elect a Local Champion’  Scottish National Party 2015: ‘Stronger for Scotland’  Sinn Fein 2010: ‘Peace, Equality, Jobs, Unity’  Sinn Fein 2015: ‘Equality not Austerity’  United Kingdom Independence Party 2010: ‘Empowering the People’  United Kingdom Independence Party 2015: ‘Believe in Britain’ JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 88 BOOK REVIEW: “FROZEN CONFLICTS” IN EUROPE Jerzy J. WIATR1 …………………………………………………………………….……………………………………… “Frozen conflicts” in Europe. Anton Bebler (ed.). Opladen-Berlin-Toronto: Barbara Budrich Publishers, 2015. 215 pp. Conflicts between states and conflicts resulting from secessions not always end with either a victory of one side or a mutually accepted compromise. In several cases, particularly after the Second World War, they resulted in a “freeze”. Such “frozen conflicts reflect the situation in which neither side is able to win militarily and both are unable (and often unwilling) to reach a compromise. There is a long list of such conflicts: from the India-Pakistan confrontation over Kashmir (since 1947) and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (since 1948) to the most recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine over Crimea and Eastern Ukraine (since 2014). Anton Bebler, Professor Emeritus of the University of Ljubljana, former ambassador to the UN and internationally recognized specialist in defense analysis, undertook a study of frozen conflicts in Europe in a comparative 1 Jerzy J. WIATR, has retired from the University of Warsaw in 2001 where he held the chair of political sociology. He was the rector of the European School of Law and Administration in Warsaw (2007–2013) and is now the honorary rector of this school. He was the president of the Polish Association of Political Sciences (1964–67 and 1976–79), vice-president of the International Political Science Association (1979–82) and president of Central European Political Science Association (2000–2003). He received honorary titles from Russian, Slovenian and Ukrainian universities, as well as several Polish state decorations. He served in Polish Parliament (1991–2001) and was Poland’s minister of education (1996–1997). He was the director of the Polish part of the international studies on local leadership (1965–2002). His other scholarly interests include political parties, voting behavior, defense analysis and nationalism. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 89 perspective.2 Under his direction a group of authors analyses seven such conflicts: Turkish-Greek conflict over Northern Cyprus, Moldovian conflict over Transnistria, conflicts between Russia and Georgia over the status of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia, conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorny Karabakh, conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, and the Ukrainian-Russian conflict over Crimea. With the exception of the Cyprus conflict, they have been caused by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and of Yugoslavia. None of these conflicts have been solved yet, even if in all of them the antagonists have reached a stalemate, in which neither a mutually accepted compromise nor a full scale war seem likely. The book is based on an international project initiated at the conference at Lake Bled in August 2012, organized by the Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia, of which professor Bebler is the president. The study was supported by a grant from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany. The designed format of the book was based on the editor’s attempt to find for each conflict a neutral expert and commentators from both sides. In case of the last chapter (on Crimea) Bebler wrote the chapter himself and – most likely because of time constrains – published it without advising commentators.3 The original design has not been fully accomplished. In some cases the commentators failed to address the essential aspects of the conflict, concentrating instead on factual details. In some the editor was unable to find a competent and willing contributor. Nonetheless, the book constitutes a major intellectual achievement and enriches the international conflicts literature. One of the valuable aspects of the book is its practical orientation. In the introduction, Bebler lists thirteen recommendations proposed at the Bled conference and at least partially applied to the conflicts under study. He also mentions some of the previous conflicts, frozen for a long time but eventually solved by negotiated compromises (Polish-German reconciliation and the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland). Frozen conflicts under discussion have involved outside partners either supporting one side or the other, or trying to facilitate a compromise solution. In the case of Northern Cyprus the most important outside player has been the European Union, particularly since 2004, when Cyprus became its member. The European Union has also played an important role during the short war between Russia and Georgia in 2008, the result of which was the definite secession of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia, recognized only by the Russian Federation and by a very small number of other states. The conflicts over Nagorny Karabakh and over Transnistria involved the Russian Federation as the main outside power guarantying the ceasefires. The United States and other NATO powers have been the crucial foreign factor in the Serbia-Kosovo conflict and, by using massive air attacks, forced the Serbian government of Slobodan Milośević to give up its control of the province. In the last conflict under study (Crimea) the USA and the European Union have imposed economic sanctions on Russia, but have not been able (and /or willing) to provide Ukraine with more 2 Anton Bebler, ed. “Frozen conflicts” in Europe, Opladen-Berlin-Toronto: Barbara Budrich Publishers 2015, pp. 215. 3 Bebler has also presented his analysis at the 15th International Likhachov Scientific Conference, organized by the St-Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences in May 2015 and his paper (“On political and cultural aspects of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict”) was published in the proceedings of this conference. As a participant in the Likhachov conference, I had the opportunity to appreciate his competent and impartial approach of such highly controversial subject. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 90 effective assistance. Like the frozen conflicts outside Europe (Kashmir, Palestine), the conflicts under discussion have been at least partially conditioned by the international balance of force which gave the Western Alliance an upper hand in most of the regions but not in the “near neighborhood” of the Russian Federation. The international aspect of the Cyprus conflict is complicated by the fact that both Greece and Turkey are members of NATO, which makes it virtually impossible for the USA and its allies to take sides in an unambiguous way. Frozen conflicts involve complicated legal issues, mostly resulting from the idea of national self-determination. The concept, elevated after the two world wars to the level of most important principles of international law, is ambiguous and often comes in conflict with the principle of the sanctity of internationally recognized borders. “Frozen conflicts” discussed in Bebler’s study show the ambiguity of the present concept of national self-determination. Who is entitled to secede and under what conditions? What is the proper procedure of self- determination and who has the right to decide on the validity of such procedure? The lack of clear and internationally accepted rules leads to the solutions based not on law but on force. States involved tend to apply double standards. Some of the conflicts illustrate this quite clearly. Russia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo but recognizes that of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The USA and most of the EU members act in the same way but in the reverse order. The case of Northern Cyprus is interesting also for another reason. The constitutional arrangements agreed to by the signatories of the London Treaty of 1960 (Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom) reflected what later has been called “consociational democracy”4 The break-down of the consociational arrangements,, destroyed by the coup undertaken by Greek Cypriots in 1974, caused a prolonged conflict of the following more than forty years.. Can one be optimistic about the prospects of the frozen conflicts? In some cases, probably yes. Serbia may be persuaded to come to terms with the independence of Kosovo, if such move would open for her the road to the European Union. Cyprus may eventually be reunited, if the Greek-Cypriots side comes to conclusion that a compromise is in its interest, something that the Turkish side has demonstrated during the UN-supported referendum (April 2004). The conflicts in the post-Soviet sphere at present look frozen for decades, but a lot depends here on the future relations between Russia and the West. The current state of these relations is the worst since the end of the cold war and it would be naïve to believe that Russia would abandon her clients under pressure. Probably only a comprehensive solution of outstanding conflicts between the Russian Federation and the Western powers could make a compromise solution of these conflicts possible. Comparative analysis of frozen conflicts has more than purely academic value. It can help policy-makers to find solutions to the existing conflicts or at least to prevent the emergence of new ones. Anton Bebler should be complemented for the way in which he and his collaborators undertook such analysis. 4 Lijphart Arendt. 1977. Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven- London: Yale University Press. See also: Lijphart, Arend. 1990. Democratic Political Systems. In Contemporary Political Systems: Classifications and Typologies, eds. Bebler, Anton and Jim Seroka, 71–87. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 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