Welfare preferences and democracy in Portugal

On the 6th December Dr Mónica Brito-Vieira (Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics) spoke to the Portuguese Parliament about the effects of the crisis on the welfare preferences of the precariat and the dilemmas it poses to the Portuguese democracy.

The Portuguese Parliament is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Portuguese Constitution with a cycle of conferences about the 1976 Constitution and its legacy. The Portuguese Constitution of 1976 marked the country's transition to democracy after 48 years of dictatorship. It  includes one of the most extensive lists of social rights in the world and presents the architecture of a new universal welfare state intent on securing them. Since 1976, however, much has changed in the world and in the country. In particular, the Portuguese labour market has undergone major transformations, becoming increasingly dualized, with the labour force being now strongly divided between so-called "labour-maket insiders" and "labour-market outsiders". These correspond to "incumbent" employees, whose positions are protected by various employment-preserving devices, and workers lacking similar protection, who are either unemployed or get work only temporarily or have jobs in the "informal sector". The paper presented by Dr Brito-Vieira in Parliament, to both academics and MPs, discusses changes in the attitudes of "insiders" and "outsiders" in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. As the budget squeezed, and various cuts were announced, it was likely that the social policy negotiation came to be perceived as a zero-sum game, with the preferences of insiders and outsiders becoming more distinctive and polarized. What we witness, however, is that this did not happen. In effect outsiders became more supportive of contributory policies, primarily beneficial to insiders. What explains this seemingly paradoxical result? This was the question driving discussion in Parliament.

Call for papers - Enacting the People: Political Representation and Democratic Legitimacy

After several decades of widespread neglect, the concept of political representation is making a comeback in various academic disciplines.

 

The conference

Political representation lies at the core of modern politics, yet we remain deeply ambivalent about its worth and significance. Addressing this ambiguity requires a serious exploration into the genealogy of the concept of representation as well as cutting-edge work of conceptual clarification and conceptual innovation confronting the question of what political representation is and/or what it can do, and how. Given the prominence of the idea of representation in democratic theory and democratic practice, none of this would be complete without an attempt to revisit fundamental and vexed problems concerning the relation of representation to democracy.

The York Graduate Conference “Enacting the People: Political Representation and Democratic Legitimacy” is an opportunity for current graduate students and early career researchers to present their research on these and related questions to other graduate students, early career researchers, and senior members of the University of York. Papers will be selected from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, drawn from the humanities and social sciences, with an emphasis on political theory, both historical and normative. The conference will take place on Tuesday 29 September 2015.

Guest speaker

We are very pleased to announce that Professor Andrew Rehfeld (Washington University in St Louis) has kindly agreed to give a talk entitled “On Representing” that will open the academic year at the department and close the conference.

There is no conference fee, but participants are responsible for their own accommodation and travels. A light meal will be offered.

Call for papers

We invite proposals from a diversity of fields that deal with the question of political representation from a historical and/or normative perspective, namely political theory, the history of political thought, philosophy, literary studies, gender studies, classics, sociology, anthropology, and other related fields.

To submit a paper, please complete the online submission form. In addition to it, please email a brief (one page) CV and a proposal of 250 to 500 words (max.) for presentations of approximately 20 minutes. Submissions are preferred in .doc, .rtf or .pdf format. Please email them to representation-2015@york.ac.uk. The submission deadline is Friday 31 July 2015. We will notify authors of the decision regarding their papers by Saturday 15 August 2015.

We expect to pre-circulate the papers to panel members and the discussant for the panel. The submission deadline for the full paper is Friday 11 September 2015.

The conference is sponsored by:

• the British Academy
• the Department of Politics at the University of York
• the Graduate Students' Association at the University of York

For all enquiries, please email: representation-2015@york.ac.uk

The case for proportional representation in the UK just became clearer

Professor Martin Smith has written a blog for The Conversation: 'The case for proportional representation in the UK just became clearer'. Read it here: https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-proportional-representation-in-the-uk-just-became-clearer-41544

If Cameron wants a property owning democracy, he has to support the mansion tax

Dr Martin O'Neill has written a blog for The Conversation: 'If Cameron wants a property owning democracy, he has to support the mansion tax'. Read it here: http://theconversation.com/if-cameron-wants-a-property-owning-democracy-he-has-to-support-the-mansion-tax-40203

Far-right party jeopardises Ukraine's path to democracy

Dr Sofia Vasilopoulou has published an article in The Conversation

"Following days of protest and the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s new interim government was announced on 26 February 2014. This is not an ordinary government. Politicians linked to the extreme right-wing Svoboda party have taken up important posts, including deputy prime minister, the heads of the agriculture and environmental ministries, and a chief law officer."

The full article can be read at - The Conversation

Thatcher, the rejection of consensus and democracy

Re-blogged from the LSE British Politics and Policy blog 

Professor Martin Smith reflects on the claim that Margaret Thatcher was a politician who rejected consensus, taking issue with the underlying assumption that this was a virtue of the former Prime Minister. He argues that this hostility towards consensus has important implications for democracy and policy which have tended to be overlooked.  

Of the many obituaries and reflections on Margaret Thatcher's premiership, the notion that seems to have been met with most approval is the idea that she rejected consensus and stood up for her beliefs. As she said in a speech: 

“The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”

Her rejection of consensus is seen as a reflection of her leadership and her ability to stand by principles, unlike the modern day political leaders driven by opinion polls and focus groups. Indeed, for Tony Benn her saying and doing what she believed was an indication of her authenticity as a leader. Yet, in all this approval of her forthright beliefs little or no thought has been given to the democratic and, indeed, policy implications of this approach. What her approach illustrates is the problematic relationship of the British political system to democracy. 

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