Contrary to the view that linguistic homogeneity is required to create a viable demos, this article argues that linguistic diversity can be a permanent feature of any democratic community, so long as there is a unified and robust voting space that provides a common intentional object, around which distinct public spheres can aesthetically organize their political discourse. An attempt to explain how such a voting space operates in Switzerland, the finest existing exemplar of a multilingual demos, is given. Following the Swiss example, the author proposes, would go a long way to constituting the European Union as a democratically legitimate trans-national demos, despite its formidable linguistic diversity.

Segnalazione bibliografica. British Journal of Political Science (2011), 41: 229-257 Autori: Samuel Abrams, Torben Iversen, David Soskice Abstract Classical rational choice explanations of voting participation are widely thought to have failed. This article argues that the currently dominant Group Mobilization and Ethical Agency approaches have serious shortcomings in explaining individually rational turnout. It develops an informal social network (ISN) model in which people rationally vote if their informal networks of family and friends attach enough importance to voting, because voting leads to social approval and vice versa. Using results from the social psychology literature, research on social groups in sociology and their...

Segnalazione bibliografica. British Journal of Political Science (2011), 41: 363-387 Autore: Philipp Rehm Abstract Why has the American political landscape grown more partisan since the 1970s? This article provides a novel account of the determinants of partisanship. The author argues that partisanship is not only shaped by the traditionally suggested socio-economic factors, but also by the uncertainty of future income (risk exposure): rich individuals facing a high degree of risk exposure (or poor people facing low risk exposure) are ‘cross-pressured’; while their income suggests that they should identify with the Republicans, their income prospects make them sympathize with the Democrats. These two traits have overlapped increasingly since the 1970s. Those...

Segnalazione bibliografica. American Journal of Political Science, Volume 55, Number 4, 1 October 2011 , pp. 753-766(14) Autori: John Barry Ryan Abstract This article reports on a small group experiment studying how the preferences of an individual's social network affect her ability to vote for the candidate who will provide her with the greater benefit on both valence issues and position issues. The research diverges from traditional formal models and experimental studies of social communication by expanding the communication network beyond the dyad. The results suggest that social...