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The regression of democratic quality and the emergence of competitive authoritarian regimes have been among the main political phenomena across the globe of the past 20 years (Levitksy & Way, 2002, 2020; Levitksy & Ziblatt, 2018). There is, however, a large variance in the severity of de-democratization between regions and countries as international indices of democratic quality both from watchdogs and academic research centers attest (e.g., Coppedge et al., 2020; Repucci, 2020). As Bermeo (2016) emphasizes, democratic backsliding in the 21st century so far does not necessarily lead to full dictatorships. Most regimes, even the more repressive ones, retain basic institutions of electoral democracies. This is certainly the case in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states of the European Union (EU) subject to backsliding. Even Hungary and Poland, the two member states of the EU under the Article 7(1) procedure of the Treaty on the European Union for “the existence of a clear risk of a serious breach of the values on which the Union is founded” are not characterized by such open oppression as Russia or Turkey. The nature of the power grab is more subtle. Scheppele (2018) called the strategy of these governments of constant constitutional and legal tinkering to achieve authoritarian ends—and attacking and capturing institutions supposedly checking the executive—autocratic legalism.

Much scholarly attention has been devoted to the nature and development of democratic backsliding and the hybrid regimes in CEE (e.g. Bánkuti et al., 2012; Buzogany, 2017; Enyedi, 2020; Hanley & Vachudova, 2018; Kelemen, 2017; Magyar, 2016; Sata & Karolewski, 2020; Scheiring, 2020; Scheppele, 2018). However, we do not know much about how backsliding affects organized interests. This is all the more surprising as backsliding clearly affects the deliberative component of democracy crucial for interest articulation, representation and intermediation. As the deliberative component of the democracy index of the Varieties of Democracy Indices (Coppedge et al., 2020) shows, the deliberative component of democracy has declined since EU access – on average by 0.11 points on a scale from 0 (low) to 1 (high) in 11 CEE member states. Only Latvia and Estonia did not experience regression in this regard.

There are a few recent studies that addressed some aspects of the effect of backsliding on civil society in CEE. Greskovits (2020) and Ekiert (2019) explored the grassroot support of illiberal incumbents, the emergence of “illiberal civil society organizations” and networks aligned with authoritarian and nationalist objectives. A recent book published by an independent network of Hungarian academics describes in detail how Viktor Orbán’s governments systematically realigned state funds supporting civil society and cultural institutions towards openly right-wing, nationalist, and loyal religious organizations during the past decade (Hungarian Network of Academics, 2020). Labanino and Dobbins (2020) analyzed how the dismantling of academic freedom affected the strategies of Hungarian higher education organizations in their conflicts with the government over institutional autonomy and higher education finance. Yet, to date there are no theory-driven accounts on how backsliding affects the key themes of interest organization research: the formation and mortality rates of interest groups, their lobby strategies, their access to policy-makers, or their influence on policy processes.

We propose a thematic issue that systematically addresses these themes. We aim to include theory-driven empirical accounts that embed their analysis in the current interest group literature and bring theoretical innovation by carefully operationalizing and measuring the effect of backsliding on various aspects of interest organization research based on rigorous empirical analysis. We invite contributions that analyze backsliding in the context of three broad areas in interest group research: the access, influence, and advocacy strategies of interest groups, with an emphasis on their contacts to political parties; the effects of backsliding on interest group populations, their vital rates, density, and diversity; and the consequences of illiberal, Eurosceptic incumbents on EU-level networking and lobbying of interest groups. We are open to both qualitative and quantitative studies. We would like to encourage the collaboration of Western and CEE scholars tackling the problem of the chronic underrepresentation of scholars from the region in high-quality journals, even in research on their own countries.

References

Bánkuti, M., Halmai, G., & Scheppele, K. L. (2012). Hungary’s Illiberal Turn: Disabling the Constitution. Journal of Democracy, 23(3), 138-146. https://doi.org/doi:10.1353/jod.2012.0054

Bermeo, N. (2016). On Democratic Backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2016.0012

Buzogany, A. (2017). Illiberal democracy in Hungary: authoritarian diffusion or domestic causation? [Article]. Democratization, 24(7), 1307-1325. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2017.1328676

Coppedge, M., Gerring, J., Knutsen, C. H., Lindberg, S. I., Teorell, J., Altman, D., Bernhard, M., Fish, M. S., Glynn, A., Hicken, A., Luhrmann, A., Marquardt, K. L., McMann, K., Paxton, P., Pemstein, D., Seim, B., Sigman, R., Skaaning, S.-E., Staton, J., Wilson, S., Cornell, A., Alizada, N., Gastaldi, L., Gjerløw, H., Hindle, G., Ilchenko, N., Maxwell, L., Mechkova, V., Medzihorsky, J., von Römer, J., Sundström, A., Tzelgov, E., Wang, Y.-t., & Ziblatt, D. (2020). V-Dem [Country–Year/Country–Date] Dataset v10. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.23696/vdemds20

Ekiert, G. (2019). The Dark Side of Civil Society. In J. Zakowski (Ed.), Concilium Civitas Almanach 2019/2020 (pp. 39-59). Concilium Civitas. http://conciliumcivitas.pl/the-dark-side-of-civil-society/

Enyedi, Z. (2020, 2020/07/02). Right-wing authoritarian innovations in Central and Eastern Europe. East European Politics, 36(3), 363-377. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2020.1787162

Greskovits, B. (2020). Rebuilding the Hungarian right through conquering civil society: the Civic Circles Movement. East European Politics, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2020.1718657

Hanley, S., & Vachudova, M. A. (2018, 2018/07/03). Understanding the illiberal turn: democratic backsliding in the Czech Republic. East European Politics, 34(3), 276-296. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2018.1493457

Hungarian Network of Academics. (2020). Hungary Turns Its Back on Europe. Dismantling Culture, Education, Science and the Media in Hungary 2010-2019. Hungarian Network of Academics. http://oktatoihalozat.hu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/angol.pdf

Kelemen, R. D. (2017). Europe’s Other Democratic Deficit: National Authoritarianism in Europe’s Democratic Union. Government and Opposition, 52(2), 211-238. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2016.41

Labanino, R., & Dobbins, M. (2020). ‘The goal is not necessarily to sit at the table’—Resisting autocratic legalism in Hungarian academia. Higher Education Quarterly, n/a(n/a). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12290

Levitksy, S., & Way, L. A. (2002). Elections Without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 13(2), 51-65. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2002.0026

Levitksy, S., & Way, L. A. (2020). The New Competitive Authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 31(1), 51-65. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2020.0004

Levitksy, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How Democracies Die. Crown.

Magyar, B. (2016). Post-Communist Mafia State. The Case of Hungary. Central European University Press.

Repucci, S. (2020). Freedom in the World 2020. A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy (Freedom in the World, Issue. F. House. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/FIW_2020_REPORT_BOOKLET_Final.pdf

Sata, R., & Karolewski, I. P. (2020, 2020/04/02). Caesarean politics in Hungary and Poland. East European Politics, 36(2), 206-225. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2019.1703694

Scheiring, G. (2020). The Retreat of Liberal Democracy: Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48752-2

Scheppele, K. L. (2018). Autocratic Legalism. The University of Chicago Law Review, 85(2), 545-584. www.jstor.org/stable/26455917

That compromise, however, has come under pressure. Recent research has shown that trade and investment liberalization have led to deeper, and more geographically concentrated, economic and social harm than many had anticipated. The WTO dispute settlement body has been often criticized for interpreting WTO agreements in ways that privilege free trade principles over domestic policy space. Populist politicians have helped mobilize opposition to trade. Consumers increasingly seek assurance that the goods they buy are made in socially acceptable labor conditions, and governments have passed transparency legislation to assist them in doing so. Citizens, long more wary of trade than have been policy makers and academics, have questioned whether their identities as consumers should trump their identities as producers and community members. Finally, crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic have generated new and important questions about the costs of benefits of global supply chains and economic interdependence.

Building on the broad concepts of embedded liberalism, this special issue will examine how the global trade regime can and should be re-embedded in society at a time of great change and upheaval. The editors’ aim is not to center on Ruggie’s seminal paper, per se, but rather to broadly engage with some of the following themes: embedding the global economic order with social purpose in light of populist backlash; (re)building the legitimacy of global economic institutions and arrangements; and reconciling international economic relations in a Post-Trump, but perhaps not Post-Trumpist, world. Among the questions that authors might address are: Can multilateralism be transformed to achieve a new global economic compromise? How can the WTO and its dispute settlement body re-embed its decisions and agreements in domestic or global society? What principles, rules, and mechanisms could be developed to address the new populism? These and other questions can be examined conceptually and/or through case studies.

Senior offices in the executive branch have been famously described as “arguably the most masculine” positions in different types of political regime (Jalalzai, 2008, p. 209). Prompted by such assessments, recent research on women in politics has strongly focused on women presidents and prime ministers, and female cabinet ministers (see, e.g., Annesley, Beckwith, & Franceschet, 2019; Jalalzai, 2013; Krook & O’Brian, 2012; Martin & Borelli, 2016; Müller-Rommel & Vercesi, 2017). Also, apparently driven by the increasing politicization of this issue, in many countries the share of female government ministers and political chief executives has significantly risen in recent years.

Yet, what about women as leaders of the opposition? There is some isolated work on women opposition leaders (see e.g., Beckwith, 2015; Clemens, 2006), but its scarcity only reminds us of the conspicuous absence of anything coming close to a subfield of research on women and political opposition. Indeed, to some extent, the fact that this occasional work has tended to focus on individual opposition leaders as Margaret Thatcher or Angela Merkel, who eventually became powerful long-term prime ministers or chancellors, underscores the particular spell that executive power has had on the community of gender scholars. Thus, it is about time to launch a novel research agenda on a topic that can reasonably claim to be of major political, social and scholarly importance alike.

Challenges of comparative research in this field start right at the level of conceptualizing ‘opposition leaders.’ Obviously, the home of the term and concept is Westminster with its strictly parliament-centred tradition of politics and governance (and its more particular tradition of an opposition with a capital ‘O’). However, in countries from beyond the family of Westminster democracies, the term of opposition leader cannot reasonably be confined to parliamentary party group leaders; even if the focus is on party-based forms of political opposition, it is to be acknowledged that there tend to be parties not enjoying parliamentary representation in most democratic regimes of the world. Further, in many presidential democracies, and some parliamentary democracies as well, challengers for the presidency or premiership are not necessarily party leaders at all but can have other backgrounds (see Helms, 2020). More important still, in the more recent literature the concept of political opposition is no longer being used for studying democratic regimes only; there can be genuine manifestations of political opposition even in the absence of the principle of legitimate opposition (see e.g., Helms, in press). In fact, some of the most prominent political figures widely referred to as ‘women opposition leaders’ in current media reporting relate to non-parliamentary political actors operating in autocratic regimes, such as Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Veronika Tsepkalo and Maria Kolesnikova in Belarus.

This thematic issue advocates a broad conceptualization of opposition leaders, and women opposition leaders for that matter, that is able to capture the many diverse real-world manifestations of this phenomenon in different types of political regime. This obviously does not preclude us from distinguishing more particular types or categories of opposition leaders, as suggested above, which will be sketched out and discussed in the editorial introduction to this thematic issue. We aim for a collection of papers representing various regions of the world that will inspire future comparative and context-sensitive work. Further, we seek to relate empirical research on key issues to important theoretical and methodological debates in the wider fields of Comparative Politics and Gender Studies.

The list below, which does not intend to be exhaustive, highlights some issues that we would like to see covered:

• Women opposition leaders as parliamentary party leaders (Westminster and beyond)
• Women opposition leaders as non-incumbent challenger candidates (in presidential democracies and beyond)
• Women opposition leaders in hybrid and autocratic regimes
• Gendered career pathways and patterns of oppositions leaders
• The political and policy performance of women opposition leaders (i.e. electoral performance, intra-party reform etc.)
• The political personality of women opposition leaders
• The political rhetoric of women opposition leaders
• Women parties and political opposition

References

Annesley, C., Beckwith, K., & Franceschet, S. (2019). Cabinets, ministers, and gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Beckwith, K. (2015). Before prime minister: Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, and gendered party leadership contests. Politics & Gender, 11(4), 718–745.

Clemens, C. (2006). From the outside in: Angela Merkel as opposition leader, 2000–2005. German Politics & Society, 24(3), 41–81.

Helms, L. (2020). Spitzenkandidaten beyond Westminster: Comparing German and Austrian chancellor candidates. Parliamentary Affairs, 73(4), 808–830.

Helms, L. (Ed.). (in press). Political oppositions beyond liberal democracy: Symposium. European Political Science.

Jalalzai, F. (2008). Women rule: Shattering the executive glass ceiling. Politics and Gender, 4(2), 205–231.

Jalalzai, F. (2013). Shattered, cracked or firmly intact? Women and the executive glass ceiling worldwide. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

Krook, M. L., & O’Brien, D. Z. (2012). ‘All the president’s men?’ The appointment of female cabinet ministers worldwide. Journal of Politics, 74(3), 840–855.

Martin, J. M., & Borelli, M. (Eds.). (2016). The gendered executive. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Müller-Rommel, F., & Vercesi, M. (2017). Prime ministerial careers in the European Union: Does gender make a difference? European Politics and Society, 18(2), 245–262.

This thematic issue addresses the relationship between local self-governance and the state. Self-regulation is not understood as political organisation at the municipal level, but rather as the rules that emerge in the social context. Local self-regulations of individual local groups or communities and their arrangements with other groups at the local level are to be considered. On this basis, the interactions and relations with state authorities will be analysed.

In the various contributions based on a specific social science approach or preferring an interdisciplinary approach, we expect the analysis of different contexts and world regions. However, we assume that despite looking at the different constellations, common patterns emerge. This assumption underlies the thematic issue. Ultimately, an answer to the question of convincing liaison could lie in specifying its conditions.

All contributions should be based upon empirical research. They should explain the kind of methods and theories which are used; the definition of concepts like state, weak statehood, local self-governance, civil society or social capital or other concepts which contribute to an in-depth understanding of self-regulation. We suggest three key questions:

1) Which areas of community life are covered by collective rules that are given or upheld by this community? Which social norms, values or moralities do the regulations contain? What patterns of local self-governance can be identified?

2) What mechanisms of local community building can be observed? How are groups organized, and how does the internal decision-making work? What can we say about the collective identity and the legitimization of the groups?

3) What are the relations to the state? Are they mutually supportive and complementary, or are they in conflict? What form and styles of governance can be identified? How does the relationship between self-regulated groups and the state change the perception of weak statehood?

Discursive violence has often played a determining role in the formation of nations and is explained by history in terms of its causal relationships, as a function in instrumental terms, so that the term “violence” is assumed in the collective as a practical tool—even more so with the rise of neo-populisms—used by social actors in opposition to relations of domination.

As one of the tools of societal violence, hate speech refers in general to all forms of discourse that deteriorate the image of a person or a group of individuals because of their inherent or acquired status. This includes explicit hate messages, as well as more subtle narratives by which the image of groups is disparaged to demonize them, exercising social control and creating political polarization, establishing a “symbolic struggle” between the notion of “us” vs. “otherness.”

As the capacity for social and political negotiation between the State and the various sectors of society has diminished, the regimes have paradoxically imposed, on their initiative, measures of coercion, violence, and formal and informal social control to maintain “democratic order” and justify the legitimacy of a government and its institutions. Thus, violence appears in contrast with political organizations of weak institutionalism, in the face of threats of the irruption of recognition of authority and, consequently, delegitimization of orders and disobedience.

In this thematic issue, we seek to explore, from empirical approaches, hate speech, the demonization of otherness, political polarization, and the social responsibility of political institutions, especially in the context of the rise of populism and the effect of social networks. We invite original articles that systematically explore the above questions. We encourage the submission of studies that survey the field, studies employing qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and research that seeks to make a constructive contribution to understanding present challenges and future opportunities.

The international governance of many issue areas no longer takes place in single fora (international organizations, treaty frameworks, ‘clubs’) but rather across a multitude of partly-overlapping fora handling (aspects of) the same issue area. The entirety of these fora is referred to as an international regime complex. Such complexes have become a ubiquitous part of the multilateral landscape and pose significant challenges and opportunities for international actors such as the European Union.

The aim of this thematic issue is to advance our understanding of the European Union as an actor in international regime complexes. While there is a rich literature on the EU’s role in single international fora, our insights as to how the EU acts in the entirety of a given regime complex are still limited. And while the literature on international regime complexes usually takes the regime complex as unit of analysis, it has paid less attention to actor behaviour within the complex.

A wide range of questions is on the table, both regarding the EU’s role in specific regime complexes and regarding international regime complexity more generally: Is the EU an active shaper of regime complexes? To what extent does the EU take into account an entire regime complex in its external action or is the EU focused on single fora? What is the effect of the multitude of international fora dealing with (aspects of) the same issue area on the performance of the EU and the effectiveness of its external action? The thematic issue will bring together scholars of both the EU as an actor in international institutions and international regime complexes in order to offer a better perspective on the EU’s role in international regime complexes in various issue areas (including, but not limited to, environment, energy, development, health, human rights, trade, security).

The proposed thematic issue on The Causes and Modes of European Disintegration seeks to answer two main questions: First, what are the drivers of potential European disintegration across countries? Second, what are the actual and potential modes of European disintegration beyond a full-blown exit from the EU?

The contributions on the causes of EU disintegration aim to go beyond the immediate causes of Brexit. They could for instance address the impact of ignoring referendums on EU Treaty changes, the impact of Covid-19 on political attitudes, and how domestic political reactions mediate the relationship between Euroscepticism and support for disintegration. It is clear that the extensively studied proximate causes of Brexit may be different from more long-term drivers in both the UK as well as other member states. Are other countries likely to want to reverse certain aspects of European integration?

The second question on the modes of disintegration asks a question that has been largely overlooked in the extant literature. The envisioned contributions on the modes of disintegration go beyond the growing literature on Brexit, differentiated integration, and noncompliance. Indeed, they can discuss issues such as exit by non-state actors, (temporary) opt-outs from the Eurozone or Schengen, and proposed changes to Article 50. We seek contributions that study how to exit partially or fully from aspects of European integration.

The thematic issue innovates not only by the questions, but also by deploying a multi-disciplinary social science perspective. Proposed contributions will be sought from quantitative, qualitative, and theoretical scholars from a wide array of disciplines in social sciences covering political science, economics, law, and sociology.

Taken together, the proposed articles will advance scholarly understanding of European (dis)integration, and produce timely and policy-relevant insights that should appeal to Politics and Governance’s traditional readership and beyond.

Since the 1990s, the study of the European Union has been increasingly informed by tools and approaches borrowed from comparative political science. This “comparative turn" in EU studies has taken place at conceptual, theoretical, and empirical levels. Both the analysis of the current state of the political system and institutional structures in the EU, as well as debates on historical polity-building processes and possible ways ahead, gain from comparative analyses of the institutional and constitutional setup of the Union and its functioning. Against the background of the current political and policy challenges the EU faces, it is high time to utilize the merit of analytical comparison—and the political system of Canada offers a splendid opportunity to do so.

The aim of this issue is twofold: First, it assembles comparative studies focusing on (parts of) the political systems of the EU and Canada to provide new insights into how the Union works. Second, the contributions of this issue will discuss how comparative analyses can improve our understanding of the EU and what the lessons, merits and limits of the comparative method are in EU studies.

We invite innovative empirical comparative analyses of the EU’s political system. Empirically, these studies can cover a broad array of foci as long as they explicitly compare the EU to Canada. The issue will focus on two general topics:

1. Constitution and institutions: This section discusses questions related to the constitutional development of the EU and Canada, their polity and institutional architecture and the functioning of democracy in a multi-level system.
2. Policy fields and decision-making processes: This section analyses how decisions are taken and implemented in different policy areas in the EU and Canada, including policy responses to crises, and how the involved actors and institutions interact.

Covering this broad range of aspects allows us to explore the potential of a comparative turn in EU politics on a conceptual and methodological level while at the same time giving insights into the current state of the art in using comparative approaches to study the EU.

International studies have come a long way to perceive the global level as composed of more than states and their interactions. There are now vibrant debates about the rise and role of non-state actors in global governance and the emergence of a global civil society. This thematic issue contributes to these debates by analysing the publics that shape global politics.

Rather than debating whether or not there is one global public, as is often done, the thematic issue stresses the plurality of publics and proposes to unpack this plurality by inquiring into the notions of publicness that underpin the various publics. Conceptualising publics as social spaces in which actors compete for attention and support for their political agendas and where they debate inter- and transnational issues, the thematic issue differentiates three notions of publicness: First, just as politics within states, global politics is marked by legitimating references to public interests—understood as general rather than particular interests—which are usually the subject of fierce deliberation and controversy. Second, public is an attribute ascribed to actors and issues, usually through distinctions between public and private actors and issues. These distinctions are likewise subject to contestation. Third, publicness in the sense of transparency is a matter of the availability—or withholding—of information about the issues that are debated in global politics.

One of the most visible developments that affects how publics shape global politics is the transformation of communication and information technologies. It is profoundly changing how publics are constituted and how they matter. Against the background of this transformation, the contributions in the thematic issue study publics in a range of policy fields, guided by the following questions: What is the role of publics in global politics? How do various actors shape the prevalent understandings of what is—or should be—public? How have the relations between publics and global politics changed?

This thematic issue aims to provide a theoretical and empirical assessment of the impact of the “polycrisis” (Zeitlin et al., 2019) on the EU, focusing particularly on the most recent crises that the Union has been confronted with. In so doing, the thematic issue engages and contributes to a rich literature that has both theorized and assessed how the EU coped with the string of crises that have hit it, starting with the economic and financial crisis of the early 2010s.

By keeping its empirical focus on events that occurred from 2020 onwards, and on institutional changes—broadly defined: rules of behaviour, organizations, beliefs, and norms—the thematic issue provides new empirical data to understand the ongoing institutional adaptation/transformation of the EU and the contestation around it. At the same time, building both on theories of institutional change and theories of EU integration, it makes an up-to-date and rigorous assessment of the capacity (or lack thereof) of the EU to manage new challenges.

After the introduction of the editors, the thematic collection will include several substantive articles focusing on the impact of the pandemic, the implications of the war in Ukraine, and the responses to climate change. Together, the articles included in this collection will address questions like: To what extent, and in what ways have crises triggered the Europeanisation of public policy in the member states? How have they changed the powers of the EU institutions and inter-institutional relations? Has the legitimacy of the EU been strengthened or weakened because of such changes? Have institutional changes been (de)politicised by political parties and parliaments?

The thematic issue will deal with topical issues of high relevance both to scholars of comparative and EU politics and policies, and will also be of strong interest to civil servants and policy-makers.

Trade and investment policies are usually not high on the political agenda, but both policy areas have become a lot more controversial in recent years. It is argued that one important reason why Trump won the 2016 election was his appeal to groups in the American society who felt they had lost jobs and income due to increased competition from international trade. In Europe, too, a number of major trade agreements have been met with large protests, such as the EU's agreement with Canada, and not least the attempt to reach an agreement with the United States. Simultaneously, we have seen a strengthening of regimes designed to control investments flows.

Recent studies have shown that radical-right parties increasingly take issue-ownership of anti-globalisation and that this might be a breeding ground for protectionism not just in voters but among more mainstream parties as well. At the same time, in the WTO’s annual report, Director-General Roberto Azevêdo maintained: “Historically high levels of trade-restrictive measures are hurting growth, job creation and purchasing power around the world”. There are clear signs that trade and investments policies are increasingly assessed in a geopolitical context, with the rise of the Chinese economy as one important trigger.

These twinned conditions of increasing economic nationalism and an anti-globalization backlash provides the point of departure for this thematic issue. We want to investigate how these forces impact the management of current trade and investment policies, thereby redrawing economic borders. More specifically, this thematic issue aims to address how the management of economic globalisation is being shaped by internal and external pressure. We invite papers that address the following overarching questions:

• How do domestic and international (geo)political dynamics affect trade and investment policy?
• How do the responses of economic and political actors potentially shape the redrawing of economic borders and the future management of globalisation?

This thematic issue focuses on the evolution of EU fiscal governance under the pressure of three major crises. When the euro crisis erupted, the EU reacted by strengthening fiscal regulation. The rules of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) became stricter and new measures constraining the spending of member states were adopted. On the contrary, with the output of the Covid-19 pandemic, these rules were temporarily suspended. Due to an unprecedented, if provisional, recovery programme—Next Generation EU (NGEU)—the EU could mobilise large amounts of resources and distribute them to the member states. An enlarged European borrowing power seemed to be the centre stage in the reaction to the pandemic. However, the EU’s fiscal rules have only been suspended, not abolished, and the NGEU is temporary, has no agreed repayment scheme, only half of its size comes in the form of grants, and it entails forms of conditionality which link to the pre-existing fiscal regulation. Most recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may lead to a new NGEU-type fund in response to the economic fallout of the war and possibly also to support common military spending. In this thematic issue, we aim to draw from the history of federations with different forms of fiscal federalism, including federal taxation, fiscal rules, and common debt. What can the EU learn from those federal experiences? Is calling those changes in the EU fiscal regime a "Hamiltonian moment" justified? How can we interpret EU fiscal developments if analyzed in a comparative fiscal federalism perspective? Has less fiscal regulation and more fiscal capacity changed the nature of EU fiscal integration and made the EU more similar to a consolidated federal polity? This thematic issue welcomes empirical and conceptual/theoretical papers with a comparative angle which will try to explore some of these questions.

Since its emergence at the end of the Cold War, Arctic regional governance has witnessed multiple changes involving various actors—nation-states, indigenous peoples, local and subnational authorities, non-governmental organizations, a plurality of regional and international organizations (IOs), and multilateral development banks. The studies on regional governance brought to our attention the importance of this variety of actors and their implications for development of the field of area-studies (e.g., Haas, 2016; Selin, 2012). The most known examples of these actors are the European Union (e.g., Andonova, 2003; Selin & VanDeveer, 2015), the United Nations (e.g., Conca et al., 2017; Dalmer, 2021), the Arctic Council, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, global forums and the World Bank (Buntaine & Parks, 2013; Kuyper & Bäckstrand, 2016; Lavelle, 2021; Obydenkova et al., 2022; Tosun & Mišić, 2021).

However, there are also younger and less known actors, yet significant ones, such as the Eurasian Economic Union, the Eurasian Bank of Development, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as well as other multilateral and national banks (see, e.g., Ambrosio et al., 2022; Djalilov & Hartwell, 2022; Gutner, 2002; Hall et al., 2022; Hartwell, 2021). The role of different types of regional IOs, that is, democracy-composed versus autocracy-led ones (Libman & Obydenkova, 2018a, 2018b; Obydenkova & Libman, 2019), became the focal point in some of the most recent studies on regional governance and comparative regionalism. Only recently scholars started paying more attention to the different implications of these under-studied actors for sustainable development and climate governance, for socio-political and economic transformations, as well as for security governance (Ambrosio et al., 2021; Hall et al., 2022; Obydenkova, 2022a, 2022b). Yet, the variety of these actors and their implications has not yet been applied to studies on Arctic regional governance. This thematic issue aims to fill in this gap.

To this day, the Arctic remains a fragile diplomatic zone where some EU member states and the US border Russia, whose commitment to sustainable development is a highly contested issue, in addition to the confrontation triggered by the war in Ukraine in February 2022 (Hartwell, 2022; Kochtcheeva, 2021; Obydenkova, 2022c). Moreover, China is becoming an important actor in the Arctic governance and Eurasia through its involvement in various regional IOs (see Agostinis & Urdinez, 2021; Fravel et al., 2021; Hall et al., 2021; Lavelle, 2021). The combination of democratic and autocratic actors within Arctic regional governance may have multiple implications for both collaboration and confrontation. The latter is in line with another set of literature on the importance of political regimes and historical legacies in regional governance (see, e.g., Andonova, 2003; Bättig & Bernauer, 2009; Nazarov & Obydenkova, 2021). Thus, the Arctic region is a unique case study: It encompasses all types of regional governance, environmental as well as climate-related, socio-economic, political, and even security governance, as well as a variety of actors.

This thematic issue aims to advance our understanding of Arctic regional governance by including into our analysis different types of actors, such as regional and non-regional international organizations, Indigenous peoples, social and environmental movements and organizations, nation-states and their political regimes. The goal is to shed more light on ongoing transformations, challenges, and perils in the Arctic region, and advance our knowledge of this highly fragile part of the world. The findings presented in this collection of articles aspire to be highly useful not only for scholars but also for policy-makers as well.

References

Agostinis, G., & Urdinez, F. (2021). The Nexus between authoritarian and environmental regionalism: An analysis of China’s driving role in the Shanghai cooperation organization. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5). https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1974887

Ambrosio, T., Hall, A., & Obydenkova, A. (2022). Sustainable development agendas of regional international organizations: The EBRD and the EDB. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5), 304–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1979412

Andonova, L. B. (2003). Transnational politics of the environment: The European Union and environmental policy in Central and Eastern Europe. MIT Press.

Bättig, M., & Bernauer, T. (2009). National institutions and global public goods: Are democracies more cooperative in climate change policy? International Organization, 63(2), 281–308. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818309090092

Buntaine, M. T., & Parks, C. B. (2013). When do environmentally focused assistance projects achieve their objectives? Evidence from the World Bank post-project evaluations. Global Environmental Politics, 13(2), 65–88. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00167

Conca, K., Thwaites, J., & Lee, G. (2017). Climate change and the UN Security Council: Bully pulpit or bull in a China shop? Global Environmental Politics, 17(2), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00398

Dalmer, N. (2021). Building environmental peace: The UN Environment programme and knowledge creation for environmental peacebuilding. Global Environmental Politics, 21(3), 147–168. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00617

Djalilov, H., & Hartwell, C. (2022). Do social and environmental capabilities improve bank stability? Evidence from transition countries. Post-Communist Economies, 34(5), 624–646. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2021.1965359

Fravel, M. T., Lavelle, K. C., & Odgaard, L. (2021). China engages the Arctic:  A great power in a regime complex. Asian Security. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2021.1986008

Gutner, T. (2002). Banking on the environment: Multilateral development banks and their environmental performance in Central and Eastern Europe. MIT Press.

Haas, P. (2016). Regional environmental governance. In T. Börzel & T. Risse (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of comparative regionalism (pp. 430–456). Oxford University Press.

Hall, S. G. F., Lenz, T., & Obydenkova, A. (2022). Environmental commitments and rhetoric over the pandemic crisis: Social media and legitimation of the AIIB, the EAEU, and the EU. Post-Communist Economies, 34(5), 577–602. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2021.1954824

Hartwell, C. A. (2021). Part of the problem? The Eurasian Economic Union and environmental challenges in the former Soviet Union. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5). https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1960173

Hartwell, C. A. (2022). The world has changed: Moving to an officially post-post-transition region. Eastern European Economics, 60(3), 189–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/00128775.2022.2066939

Kochtcheeva, L. V. (2021). Foreign policy, national interests, and environmental positioning: Russia’s post Paris climate change actions, discourse, and engagement. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5). https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1968912

Kuyper, J. W., & Bäckstrand, K. (2016). Accountability and representation: Nonstate actors in UN climate diplomacy. Global Environmental Politics, 16(2), 61–81. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00350

Lavelle, K. C. (2021). Regime, climate, and region in transition: Russian participation in the Arctic Council. Problems of Post-Communism. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1994422

Libman, A., & Obydenkova, A. (2018a). Understanding authoritarian regionalism, Journal of Democracy, 29(4), 151–165. https://journalofdemocracy.org/articles/understanding-authoritarian-regionalism

Libman, A., & Obydenkova, A. (2018b). Regional international organizations as a strategy of autocracy: The Eurasian Economic Union and Russian foreign policy. International Affairs, 94(5), 1037–1058. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiy147

Nazarov, Z., & Obydenkova, A. (2022). Environmental challenges and political regime transition: The role of historical legacies and the European Union in Eurasia. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5), 396–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1995437

Obydenkova, A. (2022a). Environmental regionalism and international organizations: Implications for post-Communism. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5),  293–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2022.2044353

Obydenkova, A. (2022b). Global environmental politics and international organizations: The Eurasian and European experience. Post-Communist Economies, 34(5), 565–576. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2022.2028477

Obydenkova, A. (2022c). Sustainable development and actors of regional environmental governance: Eurasia at the crossroads. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5), 436–443. https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2022.2109116

Obydenkova, A., & Libman, A. (2019). Authoritarian regionalism in the world of international organizations: Global perspective and Eurasian enigma. Oxford University Press.

Obydenkova, A., Rodrigues Vieira, V. G., & Tosun, J. (2022). The impact of new actors in global environmental politics: The European Bank for reconstruction and development meets China. Post-Communist Economies, 34(5), 603–623. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631377.2021.1954825

Selin, H. (2012). Global environmental governance and regional centers. Global Environmental Politics, 12(3), 18–37. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP_a_00121

Selin, H., & VanDeveer, S. D. (2015). Broader, deeper and greener: European Union environmental politics, policies, and outcomes. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 40(1), 309–335.

Tosun, J., & Mišić, M. (2021). Post-Communist countries’ participation in global forums on climate action. Problems of Post-Communism, 69(4/5). https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1994423

Within less than a year, two dramatic international events have thrown the liberal international order into a severe crisis. After three decades of using military force for complex peace-, state-, and nation-building missions, the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 is a tipping point of liberal interventionism. Less than a year later, the Russian invasion in Ukraine marks the return of inter-state war and nuclear threats to Europe. These events challenge two core features of the liberal international order: (a) the prohibition on the use of armed force against the territorial integrity of a sovereign state and (b) the collective governance of international security and conflict resolution via the Security Council of the United Nations. Contributions to this thematic issue will examine this dual challenge and its consequences on the two interrelated levels of the international normative order and the level of the states that have thus far maintained the liberal international order.

With a view to the international system, contributions to this thematic issue treat the root causes of the West’s failure in Afghanistan and elsewhere to bring peace, democracy, and human rights. Furthermore, contributions will discuss the consequences of the West’s retreat for peacekeeping and conflict management as viewed from the Global North and from the Global South.

With a view to the liberal democracies that have maintained the liberal international order, our authors examine how the dramatic events in Afghanistan and Ukraine impact national security and defense policy and force posture. While finding a general trend to withdraw from liberal interventions and to re-invest in homeland security, the contributions also point to country-specific path-dependencies and the influence of political culture and institutions. The articles draw on a wide range of methods, including single and comparative case studies, survey experiments, and quantitative analyses.

Migration, representation, and participation are three major processes that characterize contemporary politics. This thematic issue aims at connecting these processes and analyzing their dynamics. Around the world, an increasing number of migrants engages in the political life of their home and/or host country, and previous research shows the diversity of forms and consequences of this involvement, illustrating how migrants are politically represented or what are the obstacles for representation. The political representation and participation of migrants remains highly salient in the context of new waves of migration, of de-democratizing trends in several countries, and of processes of strong anti-minority rhetoric promoted by right-wing populists in many democratic countries.

This thematic issue addresses these topics from two different perspectives: the supply side of political parties and politicians who claim to represent and include migrants, and the demand side of migrants who participate and strive to be represented. It brings together articles addressing the following research questions: Why do migrants participate? How do they perceive the idea of political participation? Who represents migrants? What are the main outcomes of participation and/or representation? What are the contemporary challenges for migrants’ participation? How do political parties pursue the representation of migrants?

The thematic issue has a broad geographic coverage, including many countries in Europe and beyond, and advances the research agenda in migration studies and party politics in three ways. First, it proposes important analytical frameworks that can be used in further research. Second, some of the articles propose new measures that are used to gauge the extent of participation and representation, which can be replicated by future studies. Third, the contributions bring relevant empirical evidence indicating how migration is linked to politics in contemporary societies.

2024 will mark the 20th anniversary of the European Union’s “Big Bang” enlargement. EU’s conditionality not only amplified the ongoing “triple transition” in EU member states but was also instrumental in facilitating countries’ embeddedness into the West. However, assumptions of the EU’s transformative power on new members after accession are rather ambiguous, ensuing both from EU’s inability to enforce the rules once a candidate country becomes a member and from the fact that countries were preparing to join an entirely different Union—one that was, at the time, unmarked by economic and migration crisis, security threats, or centrifugal forces resulting in disintegration. As a response to external and internal shocks, Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have also participated in redesigning dysfunctional EU policies: This thematic issue challenges us to consider how.

We invite up-to-date research that revolves around the following questions:

• How have CEE new member states, as passive actors, changed the EU? What were their degree of institutional quality and policy capacity to adapt to the EU? In turn, what was the level of absorptive capacity of EU institutions and their most prominent challenges (e.g., the creation of efficient decision-making mechanisms, democratic backsliding) in incorporating these new member states?
• How have CEE new member states, as active players, changed the EU? How have they used EU institutions to advance their own interests?
• Should global crises and EU dysfunctionalities be understood as intervening variables in the positive adaptation of new member states? How is global change a challenge to the EU?
• To what extent, if any, are new member states responsible for institutional inertia/institutional vibrancy in EU’s approach to endogenous and exogenous shocks (e.g., (de)democratization, resurgence of identity politics, ontological security, security threats, spread of extremism, etc.).

We encourage scholars and researchers to address why and under what circumstances are countries willing to proceed with the integration of “core state powers” and what are the repercussions of these dynamics for EU’s institutional set-up, as characterized by differentiation.

Active labour market policies (ALMPs) play a pivotal role in facilitating school-to-work transition (Cefalo et al., 2020). Comparative research on the design and implementation of youth-oriented ALMPs has assessed the performance of different types of school-to-work regimes (e.g., Pastore, 2015) as well as the performance of different countries and the pertinent policies and institutions in place in them (e.g., Brzinsky-Fay, 2014). A gap in the literature concerns how peripheral regions in Europe have attempted to facilitate school-to-work transition and stimulate youth employment (Simões et al., 2022). Such regions (rural, coastal, mountainous, inland, or outermost regions) are faced with specific challenges that resonate with several concepts in political science, such as urban–rural cleavages or responsive policymaking.

This thematic issue offers a forum dedicated to discussing the design, implementation, and impact of youth-oriented ALMPs in European peripheries. The need to address territorialised, youth-oriented ALMPs is pressing for several reasons. For one, the whole socioeconomic paradigm is undergoing fundamental changes due to the dual transition (digital and green) that is expected to have an impact on the rural/urban divide. In certain regions, the level of youth unemployment tends to be higher than suggested by existing studies, which have mostly focused on the national level. This implies that closer inspection of the subnational level in general and the peripheral regions in particular will reveal more marked cross-national differences (Cefalo et al., 2020). Furthermore, the youth population in rural areas across several European countries (Denmark, France, Italy, and Germany) has been increasing quickly over the past ten years. These trends must be systematically explored so that researchers can draw well-grounded and meaningful implications for the territorialisation of youth-oriented ALMPs to the attention of stakeholders at regional, national, and European levels (Simões et al., 2022).

This thematic issue will inform readers about the challenges facing the development of youth-oriented ALMPs in European peripheries. These include the limited capacity of governmental actors to reach out to vulnerable young people, such as those not in education, employment, or training; existing mismatches between local economic opportunities, young people’s needs, and services and programs delivered at the regional level; and insufficient collaboration between the education/training sector and employment services. We also expect our readership to learn about on-the-ground best practices and to become better informed about the possibilities available to young people thanks to the digitalisation of public employment services.

This thematic issue is prepared in the context of an ongoing project supported by the EEA and Norway Grants—the Track-IN project (https://www.track-in.eu/web). The editors will organise a Summer School in June 2023 and corresponding authors of abstracts accepted for this thematic issue are invited to participate. Their papers will be discussed and authors will receive feedback from all the different teams involved. Expenses with participation (travel, accommodation, and daily allowance) in the Summer School will be covered by the project.

References

Cefalo, R., Scandurra, R., & Kazepov, Y. (2020). Youth labour market integration in European regions. Sustainability, 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12093813

Brzinsky-Fay, C. (2014). The measurement of school to work transitions as processes. European Societies, 16(3), 213–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2013.821620

Pastore, F. (2015). The youth experience gap. Explaining national differences in the school-to-work transition. Springer.

Simões, F., Erdogan, E, Muratovic, M., & Sik, D. (2022). Scrutinising the exceptionalism of young rural NEETs: A bibliometric review. Youth & Society, 54(2S), 9–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X211040534

Inter-generational matters are relevant in many societal issues, many of which require consideration from an equity or justice perspective. For instance, climate change requires current generations to invest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, lessening the financial burden on future generations, and minimizing adverse impacts of climate change that are likely to affect the latter. The financial debt of countries today to cover governmental expenditures also affects the financial conditions of future generations. Nevertheless, democratic governance as seen in many countries today suffers from political “short-termism” as a structural problem of electoral democracy, because voters tend to vote for those who contribute to maximizing the well-being of the “generation of today,” ignoring that also the “decisions of today” will greatly impact the future.

Efforts are being made in some countries and regions to reflect certain considerations for future generations in current decision-making and academic literature on this topic is growing. There are, however, relatively few assessments that determine which current attempts to secure inter-generational equity and justice are successful, or that even attempt to explain their actual success. Ethical issues at the individual level, the capacity to anticipate and prevent, the question of representatives for future generations, deliberation processes, the roles of experts, cultural differences, modes of governance—all these aspects play certain and important roles, but how and to what extent they do so is yet unclear.

It is also unclear if an institution focused on dealing with climate change would also be able to address governmental debt crises at the same time. Therefore, this issue proposes to monitor progress and explore the efforts done in the world today to incorporate considerations for future generations in current decision-making, as well as to examine how academic circles in political science and economics are adapting their theories toward this end. Articles on matters of sustainability and climate change are especially appreciated, but submissions dealing with equally important issues for the inter-generational cause are also welcome.

Democracy is not a hallmark of Muslim countries. Yet Indonesia is a democracy, but who is paying attention? This thematic issue will revolve around the central theme of agents of change and integration that have shaped Indonesia’s identity, culture, government, governance, law, security, and democracy in terms of geopolitics and internal stability.

A unique feature of this thematic issue will be the novelty of the approach to the proposed topics: Some articles will focus on individuals who have passed away or disappeared but who continue to influence Indonesian society—such as Indonesia’s fourth president, Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), jihadi activist and Muhammadiyah member Dr Fauzi AR, and even Indonesia’s dissident people’s poet Wiji Thukul, who remains an icon for social justice although his contribution to the 1998 Reformation Movement is still highly under-researched.

The thematic issue will also look at Indonesia’s Indo-Pacific agenda and regional security issues with an insider’s analysis of Indonesia as a global maritime fulcrum managing the vested interests of Southeast Asia, China, and the US. Some articles will concern Indonesian law, focusing on the downgrading of the powers of the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission, laws protecting traditional knowledge and cultural expressions, and Indonesia’s state ideology—the Pancasila—reviewing its application in society: Together, these contributions aim to capture the sentiment for or against the current Jokowi government on important national issues.

Finally, research on women terrorists and deradicalization of Indonesian terrorists will complement the discussion of “heroes, traitors, and villains” to provide a well-rounded analysis of these last categories and what it means—officially and unofficially—to be a “hero” in times of turmoil.

Our aim is to fill in the gap in scholarly understanding of Indonesia from the perspective of local, national, and international themes. Thus this thematic issue will provide robust investigation, assessment, and debate about central agents and events relevant to all aspects of modern Indonesian society, politics, the state, and democracy, from experts in a range of complementary disciplines.

Since the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 (or later), economic and political liberalism has been in retreat globally. The rise of populist alternatives to mainstream parties, promising radical change and pointing fingers at corrupt elites, has infected not only emerging markets but also developed economies. The seeming lack of response to economic decline, with “solutions” rooted in old-fashioned Keynesian policies and the promise of cheap money, has widened economic inequality and generated socio-political unrest.

On top of all of this came the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging from an authoritarian nation (who has been reticent to let investigators access to data regarding the first days of the pandemic); most importantly, massive prohibitions on economic activity (colloquially called “lockdowns”) and on freedom of movement and speech were embraced by governments in order to fight the disease. This thematic issue examines the decline in political and economic freedom since the global financial crisis and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring how authoritarian governance and economics have apparently come back into vogue. Authors are encouraged to submit papers dealing, inter alia, with the following themes:

• The failure of political elites to deal with crisis
• Populism and its left-wing policy prescriptions
• Political and economic resilience/institutions as complex systems
• Specific COVID-19 responses and how they have enabled authoritarianism
• Comparative studies of earlier waves of authoritarianism
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine as a consequence of perceived or real “Western weakness”
• The role of China in the pandemic and its response
• Economic policies in the post-global financial crisis world
• The revival of industrial policies and their danger for global growth
• Trade protectionism and killing the goose that laid the golden egg
• Electoral reforms in democracies and their effects on freedom
• Specific political actors and their agendas
• Institutional changes and deterioration in developed economies
• Rollback of property rights globally
• Financialization as a consequence of government policy
• Authoritarian regionalism and associations
• Mis- and disinformation and the weaponization of censorship/media freedom in general
• Preferred government narratives and their opposition to reality
• Business and government partnerships against society
• Privacy, surveillance, and mandates