This article explores Christian Democratic electoral decline in the 1990s through an examination of the key problems faced by the CDU, the ÖVP and the CDA. Although the problems of Christian Democracy in this period are identified as arising from exogenous changes, the article goes beyond a mechanistic approach by also scrutinizing the response of the various parties. It is argued that the contraction of core support bases, intensified party competition and the rise of problematic issues created a series of dilemmas for the parties but also that the unconvincing reaction of the parties contributed to their electoral predicament.

At various times the Roman Republic faced outbreaks of domestic political violence, including riots and intimidation, assassinations and conspiracies to overthrow the government. Violence was particularly noticeable in the Early Republic and the Late Republic. These activities were quite similar to the terrorism and violence used by mobs and groups during the French Revolution and the tactics of fascists and leftists in Europe in the 1920s or 1930s. More accurately, the actions of mobs and others during the French Revolution and leftists and fascists in Europe were very similar to the techniques used in the Roman political system in the last five centuries BCE.

This article observes a transformation in the largely essentializing, decontextualized form of identity politics that long defined political cosmology in Turkey, now in the process of negotiating accession to the European Union (EU). Accordingly, identity politics – not only the bread and butter of both Kurdish nationalism and Islamism, but also a justification for exhortations towards a limited, authoritarian democracy by Kemalists, the major power holders – is receding in favour of a civic, non-divisive political culture enabled by the EU anchorage. In danger of losing the longstanding centre–periphery configuration in an enhanced, participatory democracy and, concomitant with it, the periphery clientelism created by the waning identity politics, Kemalist nationalists, Islamists and Kurdish separatists appear to have stopped squabbling among themselves and joined forces against Turkey's EU bid.

This article examines why political schools have emerged in Japan. While the roles of founding fathers, the angst of national decline and the perception of a ‘leadership deficit’ in Japan have paved their emergence, a fundamental reason for their existence is the failure of Japanese political parties to recruit candidates from broader social backgrounds beyond political dynasties, the bureaucracy and narrow interest groups. The article examines four political schools in Japan including the Matsushita Seikei Juku (MSJ, Matsushita Institute of Government and Management). I argue that while the MSJ has successfully produced many students who have won elections, it has not nurtured visionary leaders who can lead Japan out of its economic and political malaise.

The explanatory capacity of ideas has been contested on two grounds. First, ideas have been dismissed as epiphenomenal. Second, ideational explanations have been criticized for the limited importance that they ascribe to agency. This article examines the involvement of the European Commission in previously uncharted territory, namely the regulation of professional sport in Europe. It demonstrates that, in conditions of ambiguity and uncertainty created by the need to implement broad Treaty-based principles in new areas of socio-economic activity, ideas, first, act as road maps that direct the executive activity of the European Commission, legitimize it, and set limits to it by identifying the relevant deeply embedded conceptions of the nature of a given activity and by linking them to a wider, historically defined normative order. Second, ideas are also powerful political weapons used by political actors in their quest to advance their interests.