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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the mapping of the social media discourse involving politicians and their followers during election campaigns, the authors examined Israeli politicians’ Aristotelian rhetoric on Facebook and its reception during the 2013 elections campaign.

The authors examined the Aristotelian rhetorical strategies used by Israeli politicians on their Facebook walls during the 2013 elections, and their popularity with social media users.

Ethos was the most prevalent rhetorical strategy used. On the reception front, pathos-based appeals attracted the most likes. Finally, the results point to some discrepancy between politicians’ campaign messages and the rhetoric that actually gains social media users’ attention.

The findings indicate that Israel’s multi-party political system encourages emphasis on candidates’ credibility (ethos) in contrast to the prevalence of emotion (pathos) in typical election campaigns in two-party systems like the USA. One possible explanation is the competitive nature of elections in a multi-party system where candidates need to emphasise their character and distinct leadership abilities.

Politicians and campaign managers are advised to attend to the potential discrepancy between politicians’ output and social media users’ preferences, and to the effectiveness of logos-based appeals.

The study highlights the possible effect of the party system on politicians’ online rhetoric in social media election campaigns.

Gorbachev′s vision of democratic, decentralised and market‐oriented socialism has generated diverse and controversial perceptions in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev′s claim that the USSR is not retreating from socialism but advancing towards it, having dismantled the Stalinist Command model, is assessed.

This paper aims to examine accountability arrangements in Bangladesh and to identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as potentials for improvement.

The study is based on review and analysis of published documents and data and information obtained on field visits to Bangladesh.

The administrative system in Bangladesh is driven by complex rules and procedures with weak institutional support. Internal mechanisms of accountability in administrative organizations have become ineffective due to existing political, economic and social conditions. Therefore, the external mechanisms of accountability must be strengthened to ensure good governance in Bangladesh.

A weak system of accountability renders the task of public management difficult and the establishment of good governance unattainable. Improvements in social conditions can be expected with the strengthening of accountability mechanisms.

The value of this paper lies in the identification of factors such as institutional disharmony, politicization and corruption as the most formidable barriers to accountability and good governance in Bangladesh. It presents a fresh analysis of the factors and points to the potentials for improvement.

Nepal's political economy has been in the process of changing ever since the establishment of a unified kingdom on November 12, 1769, following the unification drive by the King of Garkha, Prithivi Narayan Shah. Although Nepal has never been colonized, her political economy has been largely influenced by changes in neighboring countries. Monarchs ruled the country from 1770 to 1845. At that point, Jung Bahadur Rana, taking full advantage of the ongoing conspiratorial politics in the king's palaces, decimated his foes and established himself as the Prime Minister of the country and turned the powerful king into titular head of state from 1846 to 1950. After a brief experiment of open and competitive politics following the 1950 revolution, the country fell back into a rule of absolutism from 1960 to 1990, then finally reverted to a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary system in 1990 following the Jana Andolan (People's Movement).

Turkey is currently a candidate for accession to the European Union (EU), and one of the pre‐conditions is to address corruption. Turkey is also a member of the Council of Europe and subject to the GRECO peer‐review process on corruption. Various quantitative and quantitative surveys rank Turkey as having a continuing corruption problem, while the 2006 GRECO report warned of a lack of progress and proposed major institutional and other reforms. Turkey's political and administrative development, however, may require the EU to understand that addressing corruption in such a context may require different answers from those normally elicited to the usual questions about what is to be done.

The paper synthesizes publicly available information on Turkey's readiness to join the EU, on the basis of its capacity to address corruption.

Turkey's political and administrative development may require the EU to understand that addressing corruption in such a context may require novel answers.

The paper provides a new analysis of the situation in Turkey and has value for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of Members of Parliament (MPs) in Bangladesh. It aimed at determining the information sources, preferred information format, frequency of seeking information and access to information and communication technology and online information services by the MPs. The study also intended to assess the role of parliament library for satisfying the information needs of the MPs.

A survey method was adopted for data collection; the respondents were interviewed by the researchers with the guidance of a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was read out for the respondents and filled up by the interviewers based on the answers they received. Fifty MPs were selected for the study using simple random sampling. The data were analysed with the help of weighted mean.

The study found that the MPs mainly seek information to make a parliamentary request/inquiry, to make a speech and to make a decision. The most important sources of information were minutes of sessions, mass media, personal letters and information networks; and they preferred printed formats rather than online documents. The result also showed that only a few MPs were aware of the information services provided by the parliament library and were satisfied with the services they received.

There has been no study carried out on the information needs and information-seeking behaviour of MPs in Bangladesh prior to this research. The study will help the policymakers to improve the library services for MPs in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the realities of Algerian employee relations and the challenges autonomous trade unionists encounter in their activities, which are normally far removed from the eyes of the international community.

In total, 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Algerian autonomous trade union leaders, union members and non-members. The collected data were analysed using a thematic approach.

The interview results brought into relief the challenges of Algerian trade unionism with the following four themes: first, scepticism towards the only government-affiliated trade union in Algeria; second, the relationship between autonomous unions and the government; third, strike actions and intimidation/harassment; and fourth, views of non-trade unionists and the future of Algerian trade unionism.

The sensitivity of the topic and widespread fear limited the number of interviewees and the length of interviews.

This paper provides recent empirical evidence reflecting the contemporary nature of employee relations in Algeria, and its discussions consider the prerequisites for a more effective protection of workers’ rights in Algeria.

This study addresses the lack of examination of trade union activities in North Africa and in Algeria in particular. Whereas studies on employment relations in emerging economies have been conducted mainly at the macro level, this study makes important contributions by providing a first micro-level insight into the realities of trade unionism in Algeria through giving voice to those who struggle daily to protect workers’ rights.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the issues and variables that influence the bureaucracy’s role and work in the transitional period, which is known with its complexity, uncertainty, instability, ambiguity and asymmetry. This paper highlights the transition from theoretical perspective, giving examples from the Polish experience in transition.

This paper describes the changing roles of public bureaucracies in transitional periods by highlighting their ecology with the transitional period and analyzing the determinants of bureaucracy’s role and functions in terms of participation in policy-making policies, providing consultations to executives and elected officials, working as a mediator in communication and acting as an active participant in the development process giving examples from Poland. Finally, it highlights the way the bureaucracy manages its functions and the internal and external variables that constitute various levels affecting this role in the transition.

Bureaucracy is supposed to function naturally and stably in an unstable environment (transition) as its success in doing these functions and helping the new regime to exceed the transition and achieve its goals depends on many variables (bureaucracy capabilities and skills, history, power, experience, the nature of politics and bureaucratic functions, political support, policy environment, knowledge, cohesion, etc.). Most of these variables were demonstrative in the case of Poland.

This paper will be useful for scholars and policymakers interested in public administration role in the time of transition, especially countries that recently have been experiencing the transition.

Collaborative systems are particular cases of multi-team systems in which several groups representing various interests meet to debate and generate solutions on complex societal issues. Stakeholder diversity in such systems often triggers power differences and disparity and the study explores the dual role of power disparity in collaborative settings. The purpose of this paper is to extend the power approach-inhibition model (Keltner et al., 2003) to the group level of analysis and argue that, on the positive side, power disparity increases the cognitive activity of the interacting groups (i.e. task-related debates), while on the other hand it generates a negative affective climate.

The authors collected data at two time points across nine behavioral simulations (54 teams, 239 participants) designed to explore the cognitive and affective dynamics between six parties interacting in a collaborative decision task.

The results show that power disparity increases cognitive activity in collaborative multi-party systems, while it hinders the affective climate, by increasing relationship conflict and decreasing psychological safety among the stakeholders.

This study provides important theoretical and practical contributions mostly for the consultation processes, as interventions might be directed at fostering the positive effects of power disparity in collaborative setting, while mitigating its drawbacks.

By extending the approach-inhibition model to the group level, this is one of the first empirical studies to examine the dual nature of the impact that power disparity has on the cognitive (i.e. positive effect) and affective (i.e. negative effect) dynamics of multi-party collaborative systems (i.e. multi-team systems).

Multi-party systems (MPS) comprise interdependent stakeholders (teams, organizations) that engage in complex interactions and negotiations. Building on the approach/inhibition theory of power, the self-enhancement strategy and on social interdependence theory, this study aims to understand the mediating role of attributions (i.e. perception of who/what is responsible for a certain outcome) in the relation between perceptions of the stakeholders’ power (i.e. self-perceptions of power, power ascribed to others and others’ perception of one’s own power) and their perceptions of intergroup climate and future collaborative intentions.

Data were collected from 30 groups (113 participants) that took part in five multi-party simulations concerning the negotiation of funds allocation among six stakeholders. The authors have evaluated attributions, intergroup climate and future collaborative intentions using questionnaires and different facets of systemic power were derived from a round-robin procedure.

Mixed models and multi-level mediation analyses were carried out, and the results show that self-attributed power and power attributed by others predict internal attributions, while power attributed to others predicts external attributions. Moreover, attributions mediate the relationship between perceived power and future collaborative intention, as well as between power and perceptions of intergroup climate.

Managing the multi-party systems is a complex endeavor, and the results point toward ways in which power dynamics in multi-party systems can be addressed.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical attempts to explore the association between the perceptions of power and attributions in multi-party systems engaged in negotiation tasks.