Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty by Aihwa Ong

The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom

Retrospective Voting in American National Elections.

Knjiga Isabell Lorey: State of Insecurity. Government of the Precarious prvi je put objavljena na njemačkom jeziku 2012. godine. Do danas je knjiga doživjela već drugo izdanje na njemačkom jeziku, 2015. godine prevedena je na engleski, a 2016. na španjolski, nizozemski i turski. Sastoji se od Uvoda i sedam poglavlja nakon kojih slijede bibliografija i indeks. Predgovor knjizi napisala je Judith Butler, koja već u prvoj rečenici napominje da se radi o važnom doprinosu razumijevanju današnjega povijesnog trenutka u kojem Isabell Lorey detektira prekarnost kao novi modus upravljanja populacijom i kao neizbježno stanje svakoga građana u neoliberalno organiziranom društvu, ali i kao stanje koje otvara nove mogućnosti emancipacije. U prvim rečenicama uvodnoga poglavlja Lorey razbija mnoge predrasude i predodžbe o tome što i kako moderna država čini za svoje građane. Dok u javnom diskursu, pa i u osobnim fantazijama, građani državu zamišljaju u starom levijatanskom modelu suverenosti i predstavničke demokracije ili kroz model države blagostanja, gdje se poslušnost razmjenjuje za sigurnost i zaštitu, Lorey – temeljeći svoju teoriju na Foucaultovu konceptu moći kao afirmativne i produktivne – postulira da je prekarnost danas ne samo prisutna u svim, pa čak i najbogatijim zemljama Europe, nego se i proizvodi kako bi postala \"sredstvo upravljanja i osnova za kapitalističku akumulaciju koja služi društvenoj regulaciji i kontroli\". Neoliberalno upravljanje izvodi se uglavnom \"preko društvene nesigurnosti, provodeći minimalno osiguranje uz istovremeni rast nestabilnosti\", a prava koja je podrazumijevala država blagostanja rastaču se i remodeliraju u novi oblik vladanja za koji se tvrdi da nema alternative, primjećuje autorica. Danas uspješnu vladavinu čini upravo dobro balansiranje granicom prekarnosti građana. Lorey nas poziva da u tim novim uvjetima uvidimo i razumijemo kako bivamo upravljani kroz prekarnost te da unutar takva sustava pronađemo pukotine koje će nam omogućiti otpor i emancipaciju. S neoliberalnim restrukturiranjem društvene sigurnosti i rastom kratkoročnih i nesigurnih tipova zapošljavanja nestale su mogućnosti kolektivnog organiziranja radnika, a nastaju novi oblici individualizacije, kojima se ne mogu braniti zajednički interesi radnika. Lorey se pita kako nove prakse organiziranja mogu nadjačati te nove oblike individualizacije? To je, prema Lorey, moguće ako se prekarnost prestane gledati kao prijetnja svakom pojedincu i ako se široko polje nesigurnosti života zajedno s trenutačnim funkcijama dominacije i osiguranja i osobnim iskustvima prekarnosti uzmu kao polazište za političke borbe. Autorica misli da nije samo polje rada mjesto stvaranja prekarnosti nego je čitav život prekaran, a svi koji žive prekarnost toliko su različiti i raspršeni da njihova brojnost i raznolikost u krajnosti predstavljaju priliku za nove oblike političke mobilizacije. Primjer toga jesu MayDay pokreti, kojima nije bio cilj predstavljati prekarne subjekte kroz stvaranje zajedničkog identiteta nego isprobati nove nereprezentacijske prakse koje su nastale kroz te pokrete i nastavile se razvijati u blokadama sveučilišta i u Occupy pokretima koji su \"inzistirali na demokraciji izvan reprezentacije\".

Isabell Lorey. State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious

During the last 30 years, significant debate has taken place regarding multilevel research. However, the extent to which multilevel research is overtly practiced remains to be examined. This article analyzes 10 years of organizational research within a multilevel framework (from 2001 to 2011). The goals of this article are (a) to understand what has been done, during this decade, in the field of organizational multilevel research and (b) to suggest new arenas of research for the next decade. A total of 132 articles were selected for analysis through ISI Web of Knowledge. Through a broad-based literature review, results suggest that there is equilibrium between the amount of empirical and conceptual papers regarding multilevel research, with most studies addressing the cross-level dynamics between teams and individuals. In addition, this study also found that the time still has little presence in organizational multilevel research. Implications, limitations, and future directions are addressed in the end.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244013498244

Multilevel Research in the Field of Organizational Behavior: An Empirical Look at 10 Years of Theory and Research

Estimating Multilevel Models using SPSS, Stata, SAS and R

Retrospective voting is often considered representative democracy’s saving grace. But just how long is the retrospective voter’s time horizon? Do voters make decisions by taking into account evidence accruing over the policy maker’s full term in office? Or do they rely on information from the recent past alone? We address these questions through a unique survey design which leverages real-world heterogeneity in economic outcomes prior to the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our findings do not support claims that voters are myopic. Although they are able to distinguish between short- and long-term benchmarks, voters are no more accurate in assessing the former than they are the latter. The choice of time horizon also has no consistent effect on the decision to hold the incumbent to account. Our results question assumptions of voter myopia, revealing voters to be more misinformed than short-sighted.

More Misinformed than Myopic: Economic Retrospections and the Voter’s Time Horizon

Recent scholarship has identified problems in the measurement of party system instability. To limit the conflation of different sources of instability in party systems (e.g., electoral shifts between stable parties and instability in parties, such as mergers, splinters or new parties), this article introduces a new indicator of electoral instability in parties, tests its robustness and construct validity and demonstrates its usefulness empirically. The indicators of party instability and the accompanying data of 27 European democracies, 1987–2011, will be valuable resources in comparative research on the interplay between elite and mass behavior, party and electoral systems, and democratic consolidation.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S2049847014000351

A New Approach to Estimating Electoral Instability in Parties

A strong argument can be made for the prime importance of information in the context of an economic recession. It is in times of crisis that information on the state of the economy is abundant and citizens have incentives to acquire it in order to sanction incumbents for mismanagement of the economy. Simultaneously, however, economic hardship strains people’s cognitive resources and motivations to seek relevant information. Using a novel research design, we assess how the recent economic recession has shaped information acquisition. Our results indicate that while personal economic hardship depresses levels of information, the recession overall boosted considerably the public’s knowledge of the state of the economy and, to a lesser degree, of parties’ policy positions in elections. For both economic and electoral types of information, economically marginal groups caught up to the economically secure in contexts of economic hardship, thereby reducing information inequalities. We discuss the findings’ implications for representative democracy.

/pdf/when-bad-news-is-good-news-information-acquisition-in-times-3la1x67xtn.pdf

When Bad News is Good News: Information Acquisition in Times of Economic Crisis

Recent scholarship has identified problems in the measurement of party system instability. To limit the conflation of different sources of instability in party systems (e.g., electoral shifts between stable parties and instability in parties, such as mergers, splinters or new parties), this article introduces a new indicator of electoral instability in parties, tests its robustness and construct validity and demonstrates its usefulness empirically. The indicators of party instability and the accompanying data of twenty-seven European democracies, 1987-2011, will be valuable resources in comparative research on the interplay between elite and mass behavior, party and electoral systems and democratic consolidation.

Dani M. Marinova

Papers

Estimating Multilevel Models using SPSS, Stata, SAS and R

More Misinformed than Myopic: Economic Retrospections and the Voter’s Time Horizon

A New Approach to Estimating Electoral Instability in Parties

When Bad News is Good News: Information Acquisition in Times of Economic Crisis

A New Approach to Estimating Electoral Instability in Parties