Studying dimensions of representation: introducing the Belgian RepResent panel (2019–2021)

This research note presents the RepResent Belgian Panel (RBP). The RBP is a voter panel survey consisting of four waves fielded to a sample of voters in Belgium around the May 2019 federal, regional, and European elections in Belgium. It provides unique data on about 250 variables for a quota sample of the same respondents, pre-2019 elections (N = 7351), post-2019 elections (N = 3909), one year after the elections (N = 1996), and 2 years after the elections (N = 1119). The RBP panel dataset was designed to analyse voters' political attitudes and behaviours, notably on different dimensions of democratic representation, and with a specific focus on democratic resentment (e.g. citizens' attitudes towards democracy such as distrust and alienation, but also behaviours such as abstention, protest, or voting for anti-establishment parties). Its longitudinal structure allows to explore the political dynamics at play in Belgium throughout the lengthy government formation process. Finally, the last two waves of the RBP were fielded during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing to explore public opinion before and during this global crisis. The RBP should be of interest to scholars of public opinion and electoral studies. © 2023, The Author(s).

How to Deal with a Bully: Debility, Non-Production, and Radical Care

This article examines how resistance toward capitalism's temporal bullying is performed in contemporary art and activism. It addresses the relationship between creativity, institutions, and empowerment. Building on the conceptual work of Croatian artist Mladen Stilinović (1947–2016), the article explores several aesthetic presentations of resistive temporalities we identify as non-production. The case studies of non-production herein marshaled affirm a performance of resistance that centers discussion of radicality in self-consciously interdependent care networks, ostensibly available to all disabled and nondisabled individuals. This care ethic claps back at the idea of self-optimization and fiduciary endurance amidst economic regimes of exploitation as virtuous. In the place of 'wellness,' this article affirms new directions in care and mutual aid, as premised on queer, crip, and feminist portrayals of disability praxis and pedagogy.

Politics of COVID-19 vaccination in Japan: how governing incumbents' representation affected regional rollout variation.

BACKGROUND: Despite initial delay, Japan's COVID-19 vaccination accelerated remarkably from May to September 2021 under the leadership of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. His "campaign" for vaccination, however, did not yield uniform results nationwide. METHODS: To highlight political determinants for the regional variation, we employ ordinary least squares regression analyses to investigate how the share/presence of incumbent politicians belonging to the governing parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komei Party, influenced the varying progress of rollouts across prefectures as well as across cities/towns/villages. The data on the vaccination rate for all 47 prefectures was obtained from Government Chief Information Officer (CIO)'s Portal, Japan (GCPJ) approximately one month prior to the anticipated general election, the national election for the more important House of Representatives of Japan's bicameral parliament (Diet). The data for lower administrative units, though its availability was limited to only three prefectures, was obtained from the respective governments of Kagawa and Ehime and from a local newspaper in Gifu. RESULTS: The findings reveal that at both prefectural and sub-prefectural administrative levels, the share/presence of the governing parties' representation in the national parliament had a positive and statistically significant effect on the region's vaccination progress, after controlling for the local proliferation of COVID-19 and demographic characteristics. CONCLUSION: Our findings contribute insights into the understudied area of the contemporary COVID-19 health environment, namely how the political dynamics of democracy affect the pattern of vaccine dissemination in Japan. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not applicable.

The Unequal Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Political Interest Representation.

The COVID-19 pandemic is viewed by many as the biggest global crisis since WWII and had profound effects on the daily lives of people and decision-making worldwide. Using the pandemic as a system-wide agenda shock, we employ a difference-in-differences design to estimate its causal effects on inequalities in political access, and social media prominence among business interests and NGOs. Our argument is twofold. First, the urgency and uncertainty of crises incentivized decision-makers to privilege providing access to business groups over securing inclusivity in the types of interests consulted. Second, NGOs compensated by increasing prominence in public communications. Our analysis of data from over 10,000 interest groups from over 100 countries registered in the European Union supports these hypotheses. Business interests successfully capitalized on the crisis in insider access, while NGOs increased prominence on social media. The results have wider implications for understanding how large-scale crises affect inequalities in representation. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09842-x.

Human Rights, the Challenges of the Last Decade and New Regulations

When we consider the future of human rights and whether they will be considered more or less important in the years to come, many potential challenges come to mind: climate change, nationalism, inequality, growing authoritarianism and, last but not least, crises. Finally, many of these different threats are interlinked in complex ways - for example, inequality has stimulated nationalism, and climate change can increase inequality.

Electing the Mayors in Romania's Big Cities in 2020: Voter Turnout, Legislative Changes, and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Local elections have been theorized by many scholars as lower rank or second-order national elections: they are less important, less relevant, and just not as interesting as national elections. In Romania, turnout in local elections was, until the mid-2000s, quite high, even if lower than in parliamentary elections. Since 2008, however, turnout in local elections has been consistently higher than in parliamentary elections. The electoral reform that started in 2011 had, over time, a negative influence on the electoral process in the local elections. In this paper, we argue that the transition from the election of mayors using a majority electoral system in two rounds to a single round has contributed to the decline of citizens' interest in local elections, exerting a detrimental influence on the quality of political representation in general. Despite the arguments used by many of the supporters of this electoral reform, that electing the mayors in just one round will generate an increase in turnout because the competition will be fiercer, the effect was the opposite. The year 2020 marked a historic low in terms of turnout in local elections in Romania. Analyzing the official electoral data at county level and for each county capital, we will show that the health crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic had a minor influence on voting turnout. Instead, the specifics of the electoral law meant that, in the vast majority of county capitals, the turnout was significantly lower that the county average and the mayor was elected without reaching 50% of the votes (in many cases, the winning candidate failed to obtain more than 30% of the valid votes cast), which poses a major problem regarding the representativeness of elected mayors, as well as the stability and political balance within local political institutions.

Parliamentary Representation in Modern Britain: Past, Present, and Future

A series of recent books all attest to a revival of interest in the theory and practice of parliamentary representation in the modern era as a scholarly discipline. This review surveys eight different aspects of that history since the early nineteenth century: the spatial dimension of the Palace of Westminster;the comparative framework offered by the history of parliaments in Europe;ideas of parliamentary representation;the history of parliamentary procedure;women in parliament;the House of Lords;the history of corruption;and the Brexit crisis. Insights and perspectives are drawn from recent historical research as well as from political science and intellectual history. The review concludes by observing that the history of parliamentary representation in the modern era is in good shape. Some older interpretive paradigms still lurk, especially an obsession with ‘democratization’. However, more is now known about individual MPs and constituencies than ever before. The digitization of the records of parliament is expediting the kind of longitudinal analysis which was impossible back in the 1960s and 1970s. And the intellectual history and public policy literature around the idea of representation is enjoying a renaissance.

Women, Do We Support One Another? Voting Behavior of Indonesian Female College Students for a Female Candidate amidst Covid-19 Pandemic

This study seeks to analyze and describe the voting behavior of female college students for a female candidate in Indonesia at Banjarmasin Mayoral Election in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, political campaigns were mainly switched to communication and information technology with a lack of mass gatherings and direct political campaigns due to Covid-19 health protocols. In a predominantly Muslim and highly patriarchal society, this is also the second time this province to have a female candidate for this position and the first time for this city. Amidst the negative stereotypes of a female candidate and the attacks from the opponents, this female candidate managed to gain second place. Disputes emerged, and the court decided to hold re-election in three sub-districts. The disputes and the campaign dynamics show how this society at large perceives a female candidate. This study elaborates on the possible affecting factors in voting behavior, i.e., religious interpretation, ethnicity, gender, the role of media, perceptions of voters related to candidate's age and programs, political party affiliation, the role of family, and peers. This research method combines quantitative and qualitative methods with the focus on the qualitative method which is based on interviews and literature analysis. This study collected the data based on online surveys and interviews of Lambung Mangkurat University students, Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, Indonesia, where the election was held. The selection for college student respondents aims to focus on young, educated voters and control the variables of education, age, and socioeconomic factors of voters or the effects of social class, which are also often, considered affecting variables in voting behavior. Therefore the factors of education, age, and socioeconomic variables are not the focus of analysis. Hence, this study may be transferable to analyze the voting behavior of young, educated, and no-income group which makes up a significant percentage of Indonesian voters.

NEHA Government Affairs Activities

The focus this year was on Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) appropriations, highlighting the importance of federal funding for food safety and other environmental health objectives to the state and local environmental health profession. Environmental Health Workforce Act It appears that the Environmental Health Workforce Act, a longstanding NEHA objective, will possibly be passed this year, with Representative Brenda Lawrence (D-Michigan) including language within the House of Representatives appropriations bill requesting a study on the environmental health workforce to be performed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Representative Wittman has shown a keen interest in ensuring that the nation's retail food safety system remains safe, well stocked, and provides a wide variety of foods to consumers in the U.S. NEHA looks forward to working with Representative Wittman on future public health and food safety efforts.

50 YEARS OF ENGENDERING WOMEN IN BANGLADESH'S POLITICS: PROGRESS OR PARADOX?

The paper seeks to evaluate women's political participation at the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh which emerged in 1971 as an independent country. The country has recorded notable development indicators in these years. Among such indicators, the example of two women holding the topmost positions in politics has often resulted in a misconstrued notion, implying that all women have a fair and just role in the country's politics. This study argues that stark societal contradictions seriously threaten women's political roles, participation and empowerment at all stage, as members of political parties, as elected representatives of the people and more significantly as voters. The research attempts to address the following questions: What are the roadblocks hindering women's political engagement at all the above-mentioned stages? What measures has the government adopted for increasing women's low representation in politics? What forward-looking strategies have been employed for enhancing women's participation in public life? The findings show that a lot has yet to be achieved because women's subordinated position in politics may be a result of low political institutionalisation and patriarchy, both in public and private spheres.

Parliaments Facing the Virtual Challenge: A Conceptual Approach for New Models of Representation

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated digital transformations in all spheres of public and private life, providing a strong incentive also for parliaments to adopt digital and remote working methods. The entry of the virtual paradigm into parliamentary work is part of a scenario already marked by a crisis of the traditional political representation model, also as a consequence of the disintermediation phenomena induced by the digital revolution. This article aims at investigating some conceptual links between the crisis of parliamentary representation and the digital transition and at analysing pros and cons of virtual/hybrid parliamentary proceedings and investigating with a non-empirical approach some potential systemic effects that could derive from maintaining them even after the current pandemic is over. Finally, the article suggests that the virtual challenge could encourage the evolution of parliaments towards new hybrid and network-based representation models which might help in providing a new centrality to legislatures in 21st century democratic systems.