For the very first time in EU history, the EP elections provided citizens with the opportunity to influence the nomination of the Commission President by casting a vote for the main Europarties "lead candidates". By subjecting the position of the Commission President to an open political contest, many experts have formulated the expectation that heightened political competition would strengthen the weak electoral connection between EU citizens and EU legislators, which some consider a root cause for the EU's lack of public support. In particular, this contest was on display in the so-called "Eurovision Debate", a televised debate between the main contenders for the Commission President broadcasted live across Europe. Drawing on a quasi-experimental study conducted in 24 EU countries, we find that debate exposure led to increased cognitive and political involvement and EU support among young citizens. Unfortunately, the debate has only reached a very small audience.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34611805
Elderly people in the developed world are generally the strongest growing age group and their political clout has increased significantly due to these demographic trends. As both young people and the elderly are important beneficiaries of key public policies (e.g. education, care), the competition for already insufficient resources is fierce and may result in either fabricated or true intergenerational conflicts. The purpose of this paper is to explore ways contemporary representative democracies suffer from legitimacy issues related to political participation and the representation of underrepresented groups, primarily young people, as well as to discuss approaches allowing alienated groups to become fully involved in the political process. The article initially explains the evidence behind claims of the emerging new social and consequently political conflict between young people and the elderly, primarily signalling the reversed flow of intergenerational transfers in high-income countries with lower fertility rates. After detailed scrutiny of the problems of legitimacy and representation as related to generational inequity, the article concludes with a discussion about approaches to improving agency and revising the political structure so as to allow for inclusive governance processes and a more democratic polity.
COBISS.SI-ID: 35966813
For much of its modern history, the notion of talent has been associated with the idea of "careers open to talent". Its emancipatory promise of upward social mobility has radically transformed the distribution of advantaged social positions and has had a lasting influence on the very idea of social status itself. Nevertheless, unlike concepts traditionally associated with distributive justice, e.g. fairness, (in)equality, desert, equality of opportunity as well as justice itself, the notion of talent has received only limited examination. This article discusses some of the most pressing problems and challenges arising out of a reductionist understanding of talents' anatomy and a distorted characterization of their overall distributive value. In particular, it aims to address those issues revolving around talents' anatomy existing conceptions of distributive justice leave either neglected or outrightly ignored. The introductory part outlines the basic egalitarian conception of equal opportunities and then proceed with the examination of fairness embedded in it. The central part of the paper identifies the key elements of talents' anatomy. We then discuss some of the implications egalitarianism either leaves out of the discussion or neglects. In particular, we challenge the idea of moral arbitrariness as the key mechanism to discard talents as a form of unfair advantage in the process of competition for advantaged social positions.
COBISS.SI-ID: 27277827
Social media are usually accused of being one of the major forces for personalization of political communication and consequently for depolitization of recent politics. However, personalization seems to stimulate certain users to pay more attention to political issues and to act more responsively to such highly personalized political profiles. This article presents the results of a longitudinal analysis of online presence of Barack Obama to assess his political communication through Facebook. It also answers if presence of emotional appeals and private life cues in the posts have any effect on users% responses in terms of numbers of their likes, comments and shares. Based on a quantitative analysis of 2804 Facebook posts, published in the period from 2008 to 2016, the results of content analysis revealed that Obama used his Facebook fan page almost exclusively to communicate about political issues instead of his personal life. The analysis also confirmed that a smaller number of posts, which contained emotional appeals or cues from private life had significantly higher numbers of users responses than posts that were not emotionalized or privatized. While personalization of Obama's political figure is part of a wider debate, this study confirms that the presence of private cues and emotional appeals stimulates greater responsiveness from Facebook users.
COBISS.SI-ID: 54779907
This book assesses the quality of democracy through the study of organized interests in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since the collapse of communism in 1989 up to 2017. It offers a much-needed comprehensive look into formal interest representation in CEE countries and compares this with the model in Western democracies. Drawing on democratic theory and comparative analysis, the authors explore the effects of a legal framework, political as well as social contexts. The volume contributes to debates on the performance of young democracies in CEE, where scholars argue that there is a ‘democratic crisis’ and democratic fatigue while the interest group system is often labelled as weak and, in some cases, underdeveloped. Although great efforts have been made to deepen our understanding of interest organization and lobbying tools, the current literature fails to provide a comprehensive answer on the influence of unsupportive environments on population ecology. The case of CEE countries shows significant effects of political and social contexts on interest representation, stimulating a debate about the quality of democratic institutions following the collapse of communism.
COBISS.SI-ID: 40035075