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AbstractFor the past century, the expansion of free speech rights has been the domain of liberals. Recently, however, conservatives have become advocates for expanded free speech rights. For Evangelicals Protestants, this advocacy would have been highly controversial only a generation ago, offending the base's ordered liberty sentiments. I suggest that abortion politics is a primary contributor to the evangelical free speech advocacy shift. Using a variety of data, I detail the evangelical shift toward expanded free speech by exploring the topics of radical protest, campaign finance, and obscenity. While rank-and-file evangelicals are less supportive of free speech than the general-public, elites have routinely used abortion politics to frame the shift toward individual free speech rights. Elites have diverged from their constituents to support a higher-priority issue (abortion), and the constituents have been supportive. Abortion politics has come to dominate evangelical advocacy decisions and has cultivated an evangelical rights culture.

AbstractIn anticipation of the upcoming five-hundreth anniversary in 2017 of the start of the Reformation, this article addresses the memory of this event in Central Europe by focusing on the tricentennial celebrations of 1817. The jubilees that took place that year were unique in that they were the first ones characterized by an ecumenical spirit. The article focuses on the Habsburg lands, where the 1817 jubilees were especially significant because of the recent dismantling of the Counter-Reformation by Emperor Joseph II and the favorable policies for Protestants pursued by his conservative successors. Using sermons and state records from archives in Vienna and Budapest, the article argues that the Austrian government used this event to display its newfound policies of religious toleration. Although the Austrian celebrations mirrored, in many respects, the ones in the German states, the infamous censorship regime of the pre-1848 Habsburg government paradoxically promoted an atmosphere of toleration that ensured the ecumenical nature of the celebrations in the Habsburg Empire.

Recent research has shown that fluctuations in revenue availability over the business cycle cause the adoption of fiscal policy that amplifies economic cycles. Building on theoretical models that address the political economy of fiscal expansions and adjustments and the fiscal policy preferences of voters and policymakers, this article examines whether those procyclical effects are symmetric between boom and recession. The analysis reveals that the procyclical effects of cyclical revenue increases (in upturn years) on expenditures are smaller than those of cyclical revenue decreases (in downturn years), whereas the procyclical effects of cyclical revenue increases on tax rates are larger than those of cyclical revenue decreases. That is, policymakers prefer tax cuts to spending increases in pursuing expansionary fiscal policy during booms and spending cuts to tax increases in making fiscal adjustments during recessions. Taken together, the results suggest that cyclical fluctuations in revenue availability have procyclical effects on state fiscal policies in a manner that is asymmetric between boom and recession and fiscally conservative.

Experiments conducted during the 2004 and 2008 U.S. presidential elections suggested that mortality salience primes increased support for President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, respectively. Some interpreted these results as reflecting "conservative shift" following exposure to threat, whereas others emphasized preferences for "charismatic" leadership following exposure to death primes. To assess both hypotheses in the context of a new election cycle featuring a liberal incumbent who was considered to be charismatic, we conducted four experiments shortly before the 2012 election involving President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. Contrary to earlier studies, there was little evidence that mortality salience, either by itself or in interaction with political orientation, affected overall candidate ratings or voting intentions. However, a significant interaction between mortality salience and system justification in some studies indicated a more circumscribed effect. The failure to "replicate" previous results in the context of this election may be attributable to disagreement among participants as to which of the candidates better represented the societal status quo.

Under the SNP, Scotland has sought to develop a reputation for itself as a renewables powerhouse and a counterweight to the perceived anti-green Conservative party in Westminster. From the 'Saudi Arabia of Renewables' to 'the land of food and drink', the last eight years have seen the development of a self-consciously Scottish environmental framework. This article is intended as a brief critique of the SNP's environmental record in government in both rhetorical and policy terms, looking not only at policy outcomes but the discursive limitations within which the Scottish Government has constrained itself. It argues that nationalist governance strategies are limited in their ability to fully deal with both local and global environmental challenges. It concludes that, although the SNP have a fair record on 'shallow' environmentalism, there is still no policy agenda present within the government to radically modernise Scotland in the way that is necessary to protect the environment and guarantee higher quality of life for its people in the long term.

Crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, have been the focus of considerable popular press news coverage in the past few years, with stories emphasizing how crowdfunding can bring indie creative projects into being through monetary contributions from several individuals online. As a method for financing small or risky artistic products unlikely to receive mainstream corporate or government support, crowdfunding has been celebrated in press coverage for "democratizing" the arts funding process. However, these same celebratory claims about crowdfunding giving everyday people a voice in bringing art into fruition eerily echo arguments in the United States by conservative groups to de-fund public arts programs. The very language crowdfunding proponents use may well fuel politicians hoping to unravel public arts funding. This article presents a critical discourse analysis of news coverage about crowdfunding, analyzing the similarities between pro-crowdfunding sentiments and anti-public arts funding advocates. An uncritical embrace of an Internet trend may threaten public funding for the arts by aligning with neoliberal ideological language.

AbstractEstablished in 1933 by Oliveira Salazar, the Portuguese New State was a civil, nationalist, conservative and corporatist dictatorship. A concordat was established between the New State and the Holy See in 1940, yet the treaty did not favour the Catholic Church to the degree one might expect from a Catholic interwar dictator. The fact that the political legitimacy of the Portuguese regime was not dependent on sanctioning by the Holy See justifies this apparent inconsistency. The distinctive features of the Portuguese concordat were enhanced by the authoritarian, rather than totalitarian, nature of the regime. Salazar, more so than Mussolini or Franco, was constrained by political forces not in favour of Catholic privileges. In addition, the dictator himself defended a strict separation of church and state as prescribed by the Portuguese constitution. Nonetheless, Salazar regarded the concordat as an important propaganda instrument that, in association with the 1940 Exhibition of the Portuguese World, would allow the internal and external prestige of the regime to be increased.

The term 'fascist' has been misused by both the Soviet totalitarian system and Russian authoritarian nationalist militocracy to such an extent that it is detached from scholarly understanding and openly manipulated for political purposes. In Vladimir Putin's Russia World the term 'fascist' is manipulated even further by political technology and massive state control of television that spews Ukrainophobic and anti-Western xenophobic propaganda. The article investigates a hitherto under-researched field of Tsarist, Soviet and Russian continuity in the denigration of 'Ukrainian nationalism' that goes back as far as the early 18th century. The article focuses on the Soviet and post-Soviet eras by showing how the growth of Russian nationalism, 'conservative values' and anti(Ukrainian)nationalism has taken place during specific periods that have combined re-Stalinization through the glorification of Joseph Stalin and downplaying and ignoring of his mass crimes against humanity with anti-Western xenophobia. Putin's re-Stalinization is therefore in line with a tradition that requires domestic and external enemies to sustain the authoritarian nationalist militocracy.

This article treats a multi-player Stag Hunt where each player may have a different threshold (the number of other players that need to act along with the player for benefits of collective action to arise). Players are modeled as solving the strategic-uncertainty problem of whether or not to act, by assuring each other of their willingness to act. We show that in equilibrium there may, but need not, be homophily (players with the same thresholds seek assurance from each other) or a threshold-based social hierarchy (players with high thresholds, or "conservatives," seek assurance from players with low thresholds, or "radicals," but not vice versa). Put otherwise, a new strategic-uncertainty problem arises, namely, the problem of who should seek assurance from whom. We propose that players solve this problem by forming core-periphery assurance networks, with a number of players equal to the largest threshold in the core, and the remaining players in the periphery.

It is often held that the self-employed are an economically conservative, political right-wing class. Previous studies, however, have primarily dealt with self-employed workers as a relatively monolithic social class with shared interests as entrepreneurs and (potential) employers. But, with its recent rise, self-employment has developed into a heterogeneous employment type, with a growing number of dependent and precarious self-employed. In this article, the political preferences of people in selfemployment are compared to the preferences of employees on temporary contracts. In doing so, hypotheses are tested from both classic theories on class voting, as well as theories on job precariousness and labor market vulnerabilities. For this purpose, European Social Survey Round 4 (ESS-4) data on eight West European countries are analyzed. The findings suggest that particular segments of selfemployment share the characteristics of other forms of 'atypical' work, not only with respect to labor market insecurities, but also regarding the political orientations associated with such insecurities.

In the context of the crisis of socialism and the often-conservative emergence of postmodernist positions, this text questions the presumptions that guarantee the end of utopia. For this, it elaborates a historical review and discusses the positions of those authors (philosophers, theoreticians and novelists) who have approached, from different perspectives, this political and social phenomenon. Understood as a search and improvement, this essay bets on a sense of utopia marked by an opening of nascent bluntness. ; En el contexto de la crisis del socialismo y la emergencia -muchas veces conservadora- de los posicionamientos postmodernistas, este texto cuestiona las presunciones que, en la actualidad, garantizan el final de la utopía. Para ello elabora un recorrido histórico y discute las posturas de aquellos autores (filósofos, teóricos y novelistas) que han abordado, desde distintas perspectivas, este fenómeno político y social. Entendida como búsqueda y superación, este ensayo apuesta por un sentido de utopía marcado por una apertura de despunte auroral.

Political scientists increasingly use instrumental variable (IV) methods, and must often choose between operationalizing their endogenous treatment variable as discrete or continuous. For theoretical and data availability reasons, researchers frequently coarsen treatments with multiple intensities (e.g., treating a continuous treatment as binary). I show how such coarsening can substantially upwardly bias IV estimates by subtly violating the exclusion restriction assumption, and demonstrate that the extent of this bias depends upon the first stage and underlying causal response function. However, standard IV methods using a treatment where multiple intensities are affected by the instrument–even when fine-grained measurement at every intensity is not possible–recover a consistent causal estimate without requiring a stronger exclusion restriction assumption. These analytical insights are illustrated in the context of identifying the long-run effect of high school education on voting Conservative in Great Britain. I demonstrate that coarsening years of schooling into an indicator for completing high school upwardly biases the IV estimate by a factor of three.

In many regions of the world the process of globalization triggered new conservative counter movements highlighting the autochthonous elements of the specific cultures. In China, the discussion started during the 1980s and developed throughout the 1990s into a highly political and ideological battle. The title of this paper refers to a highly popular Anglo-American discussion from the 1990s which questioned the role of Confucianism for the Chinese modernization process. In these discussions, modernization is linked mainly to industrialization and modem capitalism. The Chinese discussions on a specific "Chinese modernity" are manifold, linking modernity with the enlightenment movement of 4 May 1919 as well as with the adaptation of modem technologies and cultural practices. This article focusses on the arguments given for a specifically Chinese modernity and the specifically "Chinese" problems of modernity. It discusses the role Confucianism plays in Chinese debates on modernity by focussing on the different explanations given and patterns applied for a characterization of Chinese modernization.

Assessing the transformation of Russian nationalist discourse in the 21st century Russian nationalism, previously dominated by "imperial" tendencies— pride in a large, strong and multi-ethnic state able to project its influence abroad— is increasingly focused on ethnic issues. This new ethno-nationalism has come in various guises, like racism and xenophobia, but also in a new intellectual movement of "national democracy" deliberately seeking to emulate conservative West European nationalism. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 10/10/2014 and the subsequent violent conflict in Eastern Ukraine utterly transformed the nationalist discourse in Russia. This book provides an up-to-date survey of Russian nationalism as a political, social and intellectual phenomenon by leading Western and Russian experts in the field of nationalism studies. It includes case studies on migrantophobia; the relationship between nationalism and religion; nationalism in the media; nationalism and national identity in economic policy; nationalism in the strategy of the Putin regime as well as a survey-based study of nationalism in public opinion.This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a high level overview of some of the issues and stumbling blocks Canada has encountered in building a diverse judiciary. Part 1 of the paper begins by providing a brief overview of the heterogeneous makeup of Canadian society against the homogenous makeup of the judiciary. This will provide a helpful backdrop from which to explore conceptual questions related to the question of why a diverse judiciary matters. Part 2 examines some of the historical questions and milestones in the judiciary related to diversity. Part 3 summarizes the judicial appointments processes and takes a look at Canada's recent history related to judicial appointments and judicial diversity – specifically judicial appointments under Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government and recent moves by the new Liberal government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The paper wraps up with our thoughts on reforms that might signal greater commitment to diversity and inclusion as essential elements of an effective and independent judiciary.