Yvette Peters

Peters: Pris og ny artikkel

Samstundes som Yvette Peters og Sander Ensink vart tildelt Gordon Smith og Vincent Wright sin minnepris for fjorårets artikkel i West European Politics, vart Peters sin nyaste artikkel om partimedlemskap publisert i European Journal of Political Research.

Peters awarded prize for article published in West European Politics

Hovedinnhold

Av Kurt-Rune BergsetPublisert: 12.01.2016

Den prisvinnande artikkelen vart publisert i den tredje 2015-utgåva av West European Politics, under tittelen “Differential Responsiveness in Europe: The Effects of Preference Difference and Electoral Participation” (følg lenkja for direkte tilgang til artikkelen gjennom Taylor & Francis Online). Artikkelen har også vorte fanga opp av media, som t.d. i denne artikkelen om ulikskap i den amerikanske utgåva av Al Jazeera.

Pristildelinga er venta å bli publisert i den fjerde utgåva av West European Politics i år, og ei melding er venta på nettsidene til tidsskriftet snart.

Ny artikkel i 2016

Peters har starta det nye året med publisering av artikkelen “(Re-)join the party! The effects of direct democracy on party membership in Europe” i førsteutgåva av European Journal of Political Research (følg lenkja for direkte tilgang gjennom Wiley Online Library).

Engelsk samandrag av artikkelen om partimedlemskap: “It has been argued that political parties are in decline. While they used to be responsible for connecting citizens to the state by translating their preferences into policies, they have increasingly become part of the state, acting as governors instead. While this perspective emphasises parties’ representative function, it is less clear what their role is in a more direct democratic context. Parties may gain support due to such context, but they may also be seen increasingly redundant in a situation where citizens can co-decide directly. Focusing on party membership, this study tests these rival expectations on a panel of 16 West European democracies over the period 1980–2008 and finds that parties tend to have higher levels of party membership in a direct democratic context. The usage of referendums, however, does not contribute to this effect.”

Om Gordon Smith og Vincent Wright sin minnepris

Minneprisen til ære for Vincent Wright vart delt ut første gongen i 2000 til minne om den eine av dei to stiftarane av West European Politics, Vincent Wright. Etter at den andre av medstiftarane, Gordon Smith gjekk bort i 2009, vart prisen gjeven nytt namn. Prisen er på £250, og alle fulle artiklar i inneverande årgang er kvalifiserte, og juryen jobbar på grunnlag av tilrådingar frå medlemmer av tidsskriftet sitt redaksjonsråd og tidlegare prismottakarar. Juryen i 2015 bestod av Klaus H. Goetz, Anand Menon and Wolfgang C. Müller.

Samandrag av den prisvinnande artikkelen

As a core principle of contemporary democracy, political representation has been the subject of numerous studies. In particular, responsiveness has been thoroughly examined and research suggests that policies tend to reflect citizens’ preferences. However, it has also been argued that, in some instances, responsiveness systematically reflects the preferences of the rich better than those of the poor, hence violating a second democratic principle, that of political equality. While much research has focused on the United States, this study tests whether differential responsiveness also occurs in European democracies and enquires about the structural factors that may cause such inequality. The article examines to what extent the preference gap between the rich and the poor as well as the level of electoral participation can account for variation in differential responsiveness. To do this, a dataset including information on 25 European countries from 2002 to 2010 is constructed and analysed using time-series cross-sectional methods. The findings suggest that European democracies experience differential responsiveness and that the preference gap and level of turnout partly account for this.

Yvette Peters

New Publication by Peters: Differential Responsiveness in Europe: The Effects of Preference Difference and Electoral Participation

Postdoctor Yvette Peters finds in a new publication that more affluent citizens influence public policy more than poorer ones, and that differences in turnout partially explains it. The article is published in West European Politics and is co-authored by Sander J. Ensink.