Tobias Gerhard Schminke studies how the global growth of minor and even quirky political parties affect democracy.
“Our understanding of democracy is locked in a 20th-century version of itself, overlooking newly emerging challenges.”
@TobiasSchminke
Political parties are in almost all cases at the heart of our representative democracy. Already in 1942, E. E. Schattscheider postulated that “the political parties created democracy and modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties.” When it comes to money and political parties, many think about corruption, bribes and hush money. Few […]
The European Parliament election is set to take place at the beginning of June next year, which makes it important to gauge what political direction the world’s largest single market may take. Right-wing and far-right support has increased across the Atlantic for decades. They reject almost all non-European immigration, most if not all aspects of […]
“I’m saddened there still won’t be a voice where decisions and policies that will impact our people will be made. We’ll be voiceless [in the Nova Scotia legislature] once again” — Nadine Bernard, one of only two Indigenous candidates in the 2021 Nova Scotia provincial election, to the Canadian Press after she failed to win […]
In 2021, Austrian newspapers revealed that then-chancellor Sebastian Kurz had placed manipulated polls in widely-circulated media that showed him in a favourable light, allegedly leading to the resignation of his inner-party rival and then ÖVP leader Reinhold Mitterlehner. These events eventually paved the way for Kurz to become the youngest chancellor in Austrian history, as […]
Canadian voters know the dilemma: Should I vote for the candidate I like best or the one with a realistic chance of winning? The Canadian electoral system, first-past-the-post (FPTP), divides the country into 338 individual constituencies, and the candidate with the most votes in each constituency gets sent to Ottawa. The party with the most […]
“A beer fountain for Vienna” was the central campaign promise of the Austrian Beer Party during the 2020 Vienna regional election. Two years later, the party’s candidate, Dominik Wlazny (stage name: “Marco Pogo”), won 8.3% in the Austrian Presidential election. Current polls suggest that his frivolous club would enter the national parliament if elections were […]
