Bernhard Wessels
Biographic Data
| ID | 3717414 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bernhard Wessels |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bernhard |
| FAMILY NAME | Wessels |
| SIGNATURE | WESSELS B |
| AFFILIATIONS | WZB Berlin Social Science Center |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0127-3556 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 54 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 271 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 34 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 20 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Support for insider parties
European democracies have experienced drastic changes in electoral competition. Voter support for insider parties that have traditionally governed has declined while support for radical and populist parties has increased. Simultaneously, citizens’ declining political trust has become a concern, as confidence in political institutions and actors is low across numerous countries. Interestingly, the linkage between political trust and support for in…
Do populist values or civic values drive support for referendums in Europe
Representative democracy gives voters the right to influence who governs but its influence on policy making is only indirect. Free and fair referendums give voters the right to decide a policy directly. Elected representatives usually oppose referendums as redundant at best and as undermining their authority at worst. Democratic theorists tend to take electing representatives as normal and as normatively superior. The nominal association of popul…
Money, Sex and Broken Promises
This article develops and tests empirically a theory of the effect on political trust of forms of behaviour that violate social, political and legal norms about how politicians ought to behave. These include taking money for favours, over-indulging in private life and making misleading promises to win votes. The evidence comes from a specially designed survey in Britain, France and Spain, countries where popular distrust of politicians appears gr…
Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland
If You Don't Know Me by Now
For the personal vote to be cast in a meaningful way it is a minimal condition that voters recognise candidates. However, from earlier studies we know that there is huge variation in the number of candidates recognised. Little to nothing is known about candidate recognition and its determinants. This study explores the sources of candidate recognition from three different angles: candidates; citizens; and context. Furthermore, it enables the dist…
Wahlen und Wähler
Wahlen und Wähler
Wahlen und Wähler
Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland
Democratic Legitimacy
Political Representation and Electoral Systems
This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Please check back later for the full article. Political representation is at the heart of liberal democracies. Whether democracy is understood as popular rule or as effective fate control by the people, representation is the means to realize the democratic idea of giving people a voice in large states. Thus, from a normative point of view, there s…
Wahlen und Wähler
Koalitionen, Kandidaten, Kommunikation
Abgeordnete und Bürger
Wahlen und Wähler
Wahlen und Wähler
Erosion des Wachstumsparadigmas
Verbände und Demokratie in Deutschland
Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Campaign Foci in European Parliamentary Elections
Personalization of politics is a major topic in discussions about elections and electoral behavior. Does the personalization of politics imply an individualization of campaigning as well? Up to now, this question has not been sufficiently dealt with. On basis of the 2009 European Election Candidate Study carried out in all 27 member countries of the EU, three main research questions are addressed: (1) Are there significant differences with regard…
Parties and their Leaders. Does it matter how they match? The German General Elections 2009 in comparison
The Democracy Barometer
Measuring characteristics of democracy is not an easy task, but anyone who does empirical research on democracy needs good measures. In this article, we present the Democracy Barometer, a new measure that overcomes the conceptual and methodological shortcomings of previous indices. It allows for a description and comparison of the quality of thirty established democracies in the timespan between 1995 and 2005. The article examines its descriptive…
Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland
Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland
Wahlen und Wähler
Die "Blaue Reihe" präsentiert seit ihrem Beginn 1980 umfassend und systematisch Analysen zu Bundestagswahlen und zu international relevanten Ergebnissen der Wahl- und Wählerforschung. Der neueste Band der Reihe widmet sich der Bundestagswahl 2005.
Meaningful choices, political supply, and institutional effectiveness
The Democracy Barometer
Measuring characteristics of democracy is not an easy task, but anyone who does empirical research on democracy needs good measures. In this article, we present the Democracy Barometer, a new measure that overcomes the conceptual and methodological shortcomings of previous indices. It allows for a description and comparison of the quality of thirty established democracies in the timespan between 1995 and 2005. The article examines its descriptive…
Discontent and European Identity
Roles and orientations of members of parliament in the EU context
2005). Roles and orientations of members of parliament in the EU context: Congruence or difference? Europeanisation or not? The Journal of Legislative Studies: Vol. 11, The Europeanisation of Parliamentary Democracy, pp. 446-465
Do populist values or civic values drive support for referendums in Europe
Representative democracy gives voters the right to influence who governs but its influence on policy making is only indirect. Free and fair referendums give voters the right to decide a policy directly. Elected representatives usually oppose referendums as redundant at best and as undermining their authority at worst. Democratic theorists tend to take electing representatives as normal and as normatively superior. The nominal association of popul…
Turning Out or Turning Off
How can we understand the low turnout seen in the 2004 European Parliament elections? One possibility would be that new member states were ‘just different’ either because of the post‐communist legacy in some of them or because of an unexplicated ‘low propensity to vote’ in some of those. This article explicates the low propensity to vote in some post‐communist countries by means of a general model of turnout that applies also to established EU me…
Support for insider parties
European democracies have experienced drastic changes in electoral competition. Voter support for insider parties that have traditionally governed has declined while support for radical and populist parties has increased. Simultaneously, citizens’ declining political trust has become a concern, as confidence in political institutions and actors is low across numerous countries. Interestingly, the linkage between political trust and support for in…
Money, Sex and Broken Promises
This article develops and tests empirically a theory of the effect on political trust of forms of behaviour that violate social, political and legal norms about how politicians ought to behave. These include taking money for favours, over-indulging in private life and making misleading promises to win votes. The evidence comes from a specially designed survey in Britain, France and Spain, countries where popular distrust of politicians appears gr…
Parties and their Leaders. Does it matter how they match? The German General Elections 2009 in comparison
Territorial representation
This paper examines the opinion congruence of voters and representatives in European Parliament elections taking nation as the constituency of interest, an implied model of representation similar to that in a classic Miller and Stokes analysis. Congruence is greater for some countries than others. MEPs are even less representative of their voters than are candidates in general, and all are more pro–integrationist than the electorate. Differences …
Campaign Foci in European Parliamentary Elections
Personalization of politics is a major topic in discussions about elections and electoral behavior. Does the personalization of politics imply an individualization of campaigning as well? Up to now, this question has not been sufficiently dealt with. On basis of the 2009 European Election Candidate Study carried out in all 27 member countries of the EU, three main research questions are addressed: (1) Are there significant differences with regard…
Parties and Voters—Representative Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe
This article investigates representative consolidation in three dimensions: the party system, party—voter relations, and public support for parties and party democracy. With regard to the consolidation of the party system, results indicate that political supply is sufficiently differentiated in terms of numbers of competitors and policy positions. Furthermore, political competition is centered on program parties and is rather stable despite high …
If You Don't Know Me by Now
For the personal vote to be cast in a meaningful way it is a minimal condition that voters recognise candidates. However, from earlier studies we know that there is huge variation in the number of candidates recognised. Little to nothing is known about candidate recognition and its determinants. This study explores the sources of candidate recognition from three different angles: candidates; citizens; and context. Furthermore, it enables the dist…
Konfliktpotentiale und Konsensstrategien
Abgeordnete und Bürger
Erosion des Wachstumsparadigmas
Politische Klasse und politische Institutionen
Politische Klasse und politische Institutionen
Territorial representation
This paper examines the opinion congruence of voters and representatives in European Parliament elections taking nation as the constituency of interest, an implied model of representation similar to that in a classic Miller and Stokes analysis. Congruence is greater for some countries than others. MEPs are even less representative of their voters than are candidates in general, and all are more pro–integrationist than the electorate. Differences …
Whom to Represent? Role Orientations of Legislators in Europe
This chapter is the fifth of six on the question of political representation in the EU. It analyses to what extent institutional differences between the member‐states of the EU are constraining the attitudes of representatives in respect of one major aspect—whom to represent; this is done by exploring the role orientations of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and comparing them with those of members of 11 national parliaments (MNPs). The …
The European Parliament, National Parliaments, and European Integration
Overarching this book and its companion volume Political Representation and Legitimacy in the European Union (ed. Schmitt and Thomassen) is the theme of exploring political representation in Europe in a truly comparative context. A distinguished array of academic experts analyse the ‘views from within’ concerning European integration and the role of parliaments in this process. Ranging from chapters on role orientations among parliamentarians to …
Policy representation in Western democracies
System Characteristics Matter Empirical Evidence from Ten Representation Studies
Political representation lies at the heart of democratic systems. However, political representation is possible in political systems different from liberal democracies (Weissberg 1978: 547). But in no other system is representation as important in normative terms as in democracies. The normative theory of democracy explicitly calls for political representation. Dahl (1989: 95) regards as the reasonable justification for democracy that citizens ar…
Thomas König
Verbände und Demokratie in Deutschland.
Bürger und Demokratie in Ost und West
Politische Kultur und politische Werte - Wahlen und politischer Prozess - Politische Partizipation und Interessenartikulation - Politische Parteien und Politiken - Politische Reprasentation und politische Leistungsfahigkeit - Anhang
B urger und Demokratie in Ost und West
Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
The Political Consequences of Germany's Mixed‐Member System
Addresses the question of the relevance the German mixed‐member electoral system has for the party system and for candidate vote, and argues that the mixed‐member electoral system does indeed live up to its German moniker of ‘personalized proportional representation’, in that it provides at once individualized representation of geographic constituencies and proportionality. The analysis proceeds in four steps and discusses the impact of the elect…
Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Ulrich Kohler
Wahlen und Wähler
Die "Blaue Reihe" präsentiert seit ihrem Beginn 1980 umfassend und systematisch Analysen zu Bundestagswahlen und zu international relevanten Ergebnissen der Wahl- und Wählerforschung. Der neueste Band der Reihe widmet sich der Bundestagswahl 2002. Der erste Teil "Analysen zur Bundestagswahl 2002" umfasst u.a. Beiträge zum Wahlverhalten, zum Medieneinfluss und zu den Besonderheiten dieser Wahl, z.B. die Fernsehduelle der Kandidaten. Vier Beiträge …
Wahlen und W ahler
Roles and orientations of members of parliament in the EU context
2005). Roles and orientations of members of parliament in the EU context: Congruence or difference? Europeanisation or not? The Journal of Legislative Studies: Vol. 11, The Europeanisation of Parliamentary Democracy, pp. 446-465
Parties and Voters—Representative Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe
This article investigates representative consolidation in three dimensions: the party system, party—voter relations, and public support for parties and party democracy. With regard to the consolidation of the party system, results indicate that political supply is sufficiently differentiated in terms of numbers of competitors and policy positions. Furthermore, political competition is centered on program parties and is rather stable despite high …
Die Bundestagswahl 2005
Die Bundestagswahl 2005 war in vielerlei Hinsicht besonders. Die vorgezogenen Neuwahlen stellten die Wahlkampfführung der Parteien vor ungewohnte Aufgaben. In kurzer Zeit musste die SPD eine Strategie entwickeln, den scheinbar uneinholbaren Vorsprung von Schwarz-Gelb wieder wettzumachen. Die Union musste sich zwischen einem offensiven Oppositionswahlkampf und einem im Zuge der Siegesgewissheit gouvernementalen Wahlkampf entscheiden. Besonders war…
Discontent and European Identity
Die Bundestagswahl 2005
Political science (36 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (21 works) · Law (20 works) · Politics (20 works) · Public Administration and Political Analysis (14 works) · Germany (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Political economy (13 works) · politics and government (13 works) · Sociology (13 works)