A vital element of liberal democracy is the relationship between a government and its citizens, which is often characterised by the concept of political support or its reverse, political alienation. Ideally, this relationship should display political support since this indicates a high level of trust …

The Dutch ‘NO’ during the Dutch referendum regarding the treaty establishing the European Constitution in 2005 was considered a political earthquake for the integration process of the European Union. A high percentage of ‘NO’-voters (>80%) lived in the five Dutch municipalities of Urk, Reiderland, Staphorst, …

Since Sweden joined the European Union in 1995, the nature of its political decisionmaking processes have changed. Instead of creating laws purely based on the mandate of Swedish citizens, a portion of Sweden’s national legislation is now created taking the input of the 27 other EU Member States into …

The rise of populist movements in Europe is partly explained by the power of mass media. The press, public and politicians keep each other prisoner. The media increases incidents and looks for personal stories while politicians respond to those stories in order to be noticed by the public. Therefore …

Leading up to the European parliamentary elections in June 2009, the question to which extent political parties are able to engage citizens through strategic marketing efforts regains significance in the public discourse. The paper analyzes both the origins and trends of political marketing to distill …