Regional cleavages in African politics: Persistent electoral blocs and territorial oppositions

Do socio-economic cleavages shape electoral dynamics in African countries? Previous individual-level and party systems research on African politics has de-emphasized socio-economic factors, contributing to the common view that ethnic cleavages and short-term ethnic alliances define politics both locally and nationally. Focusing on Kenya, Zambia, and Malawi, we draw on methods in electoral geography to offer a spatial analysis of geographic patterns in constituency-level electoral returns over three decades that reveals the existence of persistent regional voting blocs that, in their temporal stability and multiethnic character, are not well explained by prevailing theory. The anomalies open the door to a reinterpretation national electoral structure and dynamics in the three countries that takes the geographic clustering of the persistent voting blocs as a clue to their etiology. We propose an interpretation that focuses on core-periphery cleavages in national electorates, following Lipset and Rokkan's (1967) classic model of territorial oppositions in countries undergoing political and economic integration and modernization. DHS data and proxies for regional economic activity support this interpretation. Socio-economic cleavages of the type explored in comparative political economy literatures on spatial inequality and territorial politics may be more salient in African electoral politics than previously thought.     

The battle for the family: Family policy in Australian electoral politics in the 1980s

This paper is a preliminary look at the recent emergence of the family as a major theme of Australian electoral politics. It shows that while both the Liberal and Labor Parties are attempting to make political capital out of the family, there are significant differences in their approach. While the Labor Party has been more inclined to accept diversity in the form of the family and the need to support primary carers, the Coalition has given priority to ‘strengthening the traditional family’ and its role as an alternative to welfare state provision. The paper deconstructs campaign material from recent federal and State elections in terms of message and intended audience. It notes the dangers of political discourse based on manipulation of highly charged symbols such as the family, the flag and the nation.

The second half of the paper analyses some of the implications of using the family as a focus for social policy. It examines the contradictions between social policy based on the treatment of the family as an undifferentiated unit and policy which recognises the importance of interfamily and intrafamily inequalities. It looks at issues raised by family policy as a focus for redistribution and provision of services on the one hand, and as a means of reducing public expenditure and reinforcing dependence on male family heads on the other. The stress on the importance of the family is rarely accompanied by a comparable dedication to assessing the role of unpaid caring work in the economy or to achieving equal opportunity for workers with family responsibilities.     

Children's projected political preference: transcending local politics

Traditionally, research on political preference has primarily focused on adults within their local political context. This research attempts to show that the perceived political preference of children is part of their national identity, and encompasses not only local politics but also the global and regional discourse. The present study surveyed 1187 Palestinian adolescents attending school, grades 5–7, in the West Bank to examine whether children's future political party preference is grounded in local/global discourse. The findings revealed a discrepancy between participants' perceptions of the local dominant political party and their projected political party preferences. This research argues that political party preference is facilitated through the transcendence of national identity embedded in children's geopolitical agency. The significance of the findings emphasizes that territorial boundaries are artificial; therefore, children's geopolitical agency is impacted by extraterritorial discourse and is able to transcend the local and regional context into a global politics.     

The Road Not Taken. Effects of residential mobility on local electoral turnout

Although the effects of population stability on electoral turnout rates are relatively well-known, the role of the characteristics of hosting cities in this relationship are largely unexplored. This paper analyzes the moderating effect of city size on the relationship between residential mobility and electoral turnout. Residential mobility is known to depress civic engagement and political participation at the local level. We argue that this relationship is moderated by the characteristics of hosting cities, approached through city size. The main argument is that smaller cities offer better chances to newcomers to reconnect to the political process. Working with census data from more than 5500 different municipalities, we find that city size has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between residential mobility and turnout. On the one hand, residential mobility and city size do have separate negative effects on turnout, but on the other, the expected negative effects of mobility on turnout are actually stronger in larger than in smaller municipalities. Results indicate, therefore, that smaller communities not only provide more favorable conditions for political participation to their life-long residents, but they also seem to offer newcomers better chances to reconnect to the political process than larger cities.     

The transformation of local politics: manufacturing plant closures and governing coalition fragmentation

A theoretical problem remains in the urban regime literature in that the connection between fiscal strain and regime fragmentation and thus the potential for coalition breakdown is not fully elaborated. Whelan et al. (1994) demonstrate that a shifting electoral coalition, in particular the emergence of a black majority electorate, can also lead to regime instability and fragmentation and the subsequent political struggles for dominance in an emerging governing coalition. In this paper a second mechanism for regime change is suggested; that is, that under conditions of economic restructuring and the subsequent fiscal strain, non-local actors, in this case national political actors operating primarily through party connections, can manipulate local political dependencies to forge governing coalition fragmentation and a regime change in a particular direction. This first finding is important because it highlights the often neglected role of party politics in the governing coalition/urban regime and the local state literature. Secondly, the complexity of state relations uncovered here does not bode well for a theoretically coherent concept of the local state but does display how the historical development of local social relations interacts with the state apparatus at the state and national level to create a particular ‘local’ politics. Finally, this transformation requires a shift in the location of political consensus building from the local democratic political electoral arena to a non-democratic quasi-public arena: a corporate-led governing coalition.     

The spatial diffusion of party entrepreneurs in Swedish local politics

Theoretical expectations predict instances of party formation to be unusual. It is therefore puzzling that new ‘non-national’ parties became increasingly common in Swedish local councils between 1973 and 2002. This article sets out to answer why party formation became an increasingly popular strategy throughout these years. I show that previous research has not provided satisfactory answers, and argue that existing theories are of limited use explaining this development. It is suggested that a diffusion mechanism may explain why new parties became increasingly common in Swedish local councils. Theoretically, it is argued that an entrepreneur who creates a new party inspires potential entrepreneurs in neighboring municipalities to repeat this at later points in time. A geographical clustering of municipalities where these parties exist is therefore expected. Support is found for this assertion. The result is important since it outperforms the alternative ‘local contextual’, socioeconomic hypotheses previously tested in this empirical setting.     

Images of homelessness in Ottawa: implications for local politics

The empirical foci of this paper are a content and discourse analysis of four years (1994 to 1997) of media reporting on ‘homelessness’ in The Ottawa Citizen, the premier, English language daily newspaper in the region. Examining these reports in juxtaposition with governmental and community‐based reports from the same period has provided useful insights into how public opinion might be influenced to regard antihomeless laws as more or less legitimate. This paper's approach was influenced by certain regulation theorists who argue that an examination of key discourses has the potential to enhance understanding about how economic, political and social restructuring is taking place, as well to shed light on how to intervene effectively at a variety of geographic scales in shaping its key elements. The results of the media analysis suggest that very particular messages are emphasized vis‐à‐vis “the homeless”: the ‘stubborn’ unchanging nature of the problem, and the difficulties that housed citizens have in helping these passive, isolated, overwhelmingly white, male, substance abusers and contained (in the downtown) ‘others’. They generally neglect or dismiss stories that might expose the demographic and geographic diversity of those who currently are homeless, and their complex and difficult past histories. When hints of such complexities are mentioned, they come with subtle messages about the deserving individuals who might be redeemed, in contrast to the hapless majority. Cette recherche présente une analyse du contenu des articles sur les personnes sans‐abri, publiés entre 1994 et 1997 dans le quotidien anglais le plus important dans la région d'Ottawa le “Ottawa Citizen”. L‘étude de ces articles ainsi que les rapports gouvernementaux et communautaires durant la même période soulèvent des idées intéressantes autour de l'impact que le discours public peut avoir sur l'acceptation de lois discriminatoires contre les personnes qui sont sans‐abri. Le présent travail est influencé par certains théoriciens de la régulation qui proclament que l'analyse des discours clés dans la société peut potentiellement améliorer notre compréhension de la restructuration économique, politique et sociale et clarifier la manière d'intervenir efficacement pour l'influencer. Les résultats de l'analyse des articles médiatiques suggèrent que des messages particuliers sont communiqués au sujet des personnes qui sont sansabri: c.‐à‐d. la nature invariable du problème et les difficultés vécues par les citoyens logés, à savoir comment aider cette population qui est présentée comme passive, isolée, à prédominance blanche, qui souffre de toxicomanie et qui réside dans le centre‐ville. Généralement, les médias négligent l'information qui expose la grande diversité démographique et géographique des gens qui sont sans‐abri ainsi que leurs histoires de vie personnelles difficiles et complexes. Quand ils mentionnent ces complexités, elles sont accompagnées de messages subtiles suggérant que seulement une minorité de l'ensemble des personnes sans abri méritent notre aide.     

The place of politics and the politics of place: Housing,the Labour Party and the local state in England

This paper argues that geographical research needs to pay greater attention to political parties and their relationship to local governing. In returning to, and updating the concept of the local state, analysis of local socio-spatial and political relations reveals the quieter registers of political power in local governing, and in turn what this means for the condition of local democracy. The long-term housing regeneration of a neighbourhood in Gateshead, North East England is used here as an optic to do just that. Through moments of housing activism, the social and political relations between and within a local Labour Party and local state are considered. A local manifestation of a growing trend that questions the representation of mature structures of power that the Labour Party holds in deindustrialised areas of the UK is considered through struggles over decision-making, belonging, representation and legitimacy. Such accounts of the local scale are critical in relation to global political trends; where apathy, cynicism, lack of expectation and representation and insurgent populist parties are increasingly framed as potential political crises of mature western democracies.     

Mayors and urban governance: discursive power,identity and local politics

This article combines political and economic geographies with social and cultural theory by reviewing structural and actor-centred approaches to urban governance alongside work on identity, community, masculinity and ‘rights to the city’. The article seeks to bring these literatures into dialogue via an analysis of mayoral politics, presenting empirical research from a UK city in order to highlight the influence of class, sexuality and racism on urban politics. It shows how theoretical and empirical engagement with unequal social relations and their discursive construction through cultural forms and practices offers fruitful avenues for geographical understanding of territorial and relational urban governance.     

Changing scale as changing class relations: variety and contradiction in the politics of scale

This paper argues that changes of scale in political-economic processes are often associated with changes in class relations, articulated by particular class projects, and developed through class struggle. Such ‘jumping of scale’ may be not only an expression of class power but a constitutive element of it. But there is no simple one-to-one relation between scale change and class relations: a particular change in scale at a particular time may have multiple potential class implications. This argument is developed by considering two ‘stylised histories’ within Western Europe during the present long wave of stagnation: shifts of economic governance from the national to the local level, and shifts from the national to the EU level. I argue that in both cases changes in the scale of regulation have been associated with shifts in class relations. But both upward and downward rescaling have been associated with (at least) two class projects, the neoliberal and the social-democratic. Thus not only have the scale changes been contested but the lines of conflict have been complex. The two histories are used to reflect at a more abstract level on the interconnections of scale, class relations and contradictions in accumulation. Developing an argument of Neil Smith, I argue that shifts in scale have been underpinned by a number of fundamental contradictions of capitalist reproduction and the state which open up diverse political possibilities. Class agents intervened into these contradictions, with varied political projects, partly through shifting their scales.     

From global forests to local politics: unwrapping the boundaries within forest certification

Following decades of concern about unsustainable forest management practices, forest certification was developed in the 1990s to become an influential global forest governance approach. 25 years since its inception, forest certification is under attack, with questions raised regarding its legitimacy and efficacy in driving sustainable forest management. Recognising forest certification as a complex and dynamic boundary-spanning regime, understanding the impact of diverse boundaries on forest certification is essential to address escalating conflict and enable the improved design of forest certification systems. This paper empirically explores the implementation of a forest certification regime using a Forest Stewardship Certification pesticide derogation process. The case shows how competing boundaries place considerable pressure on the effectiveness and sustainability of the global certification regime. Embedded local interests and contested institutional claims hardened the boundaries between interests across the policy regime, weakening connections and hence weakening opportunities to find common solutions.     

Continuous campaigning and electoral outcomes: The Liberal Democrats in Bath

From the 1950s onwards, David Butler and a number of co-authors of the Nuffield studies of British General Elections stressed the perceived futility of local campaigns, dismissing them as ritual, irrelevant exercises. During the 1990s, a new orthodoxy emerged. Using their own surrogate measure of campaigning, three groups of scholars found that the more intense a party's campaign in a constituency, relative to its opponents', the better its performance there. The significance of campaigning appears to vary across the country's three main political parties; however, it seems to be particularly important to the success of the Liberal Democrats. These findings are entirely consistent with arguments regarding the role and efficacy of local campaigning, but there remains a need for more direct evidence. If the traditionalists are correct, then local campaigning will have no impact on either turnout or the electoral performance of the party involved. If the ‘revisionists’ are correct, then where a party campaigns intensively it should be better able to identify and mobilise its core supporters, ensure that they turn out to vote, and thus improve its performance relative to its opponents. To evaluate these two arguments require data on where and how a party campaigns intensively, at local scales which can then be linked to electoral turnout data for those small areas. Such an evaluation is reported in this paper, using a case study of one ward in the City of Bath at the 1999 local government elections there.     

Pillars and electoral behavior in Belgium: The neighborhood effect revisited

This paper explores the processes behind the neighborhood effect in electoral geography. Studies on neighborhood effect have largely ignored the local institutions and cultural milieu within which people are socialized. By taking into account the spatially differentiated social embedding of individuals, we are able to highlight the impact of local institutions on electoral behavior and restore the temporal dimension that has shaped the political specificities of places. In the case of Belgium, we show that social embedding (which took the very accomplished form of pillars) affects voting behavior through two different channels: a direct effect, coming from the family transmission of pillar values, and a contextual effect captured by a measure of the local embeddedness of the pillar.