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The purpose of this paper is to analyse why Malta continues to show the highest level of turnout for European Parliament (EP) elections in a country where voting is not obligatory. By analysing the Maltese EP elections from 2004 to 2019, the paper seeks to understand why the Maltese engage with a second order election to the degree that they do.

The paper is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, first assessing the context of the 2019 elections, the historical trends and then the factors that help explain why the Maltese continue to engage with EP elections.

The paper finds that the Maltese political system, highly polarised and dominated by two parties, primarily galvanises people to engage with elections, that it is more about party leadership than actual engagement with Europe and that second order elections in Malta are often run as first order elections.

This paper is the only systematic evaluation of the 2019 EP elections in Malta, discusses categorically that EP elections are rarely about Europe while also showing clearly that political parties can make second-order elections appear as first-order elections should the stakes be high enough.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical examination of industrial relations in Denmark.

The approach is based upon available data and a mixture of Marxist theory and systems theory. The theoretical position is discussed in relation to the academic discourses on the main characteristics of Danish industrial relations and provides a review of the foundation and historical development of the Danish system.

From this basis, it is analysed how the stagnation or decline has taken place in recent years regarding representation of workers’ interest as well as the ability of the Danish system to maintain its key importance when challenged by decentralisation, decreasing union affiliation rates, cuts in unemployment insurance and social dumping due to labour migration.

It is an original paper which offers a critical analysis of the institutional decline and increasing inequality that are the result of the liberalist political-economic hegemony.

The purpose of the article is to outline the insights provided by Alan Fox in Man Mismanagement in relation to the rise of the New Right political economy and the spread of unitarist managerialism. The article assesses the contemporary work and employment relations implications of mismanagement arising from a “second wave” of the New Right ideology from 2010 in the UK.

Responding to the Special Issue on Alan Fox, the article focuses on Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, considering industrial relations developments arising between the 1st (1974b) and 2nd (1985) editions relating to the political rise of the New Right. It reviews various literature that illustrates the contemporary IR relevance of the book and Fox's insights.

The New Right’s ideology has further fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collective industrial relations institutions, and macho mismanagement praxis is even more commonplace, compared to when Fox wrote Man Mismanagement. The stripping away of the institutional architecture of IR renders the renewal of pluralist praxis, like collective bargaining and other forms of joint regulation of work, a formidable task.

The value of the article relates to the identification of dramatic historical industrial relations events and change in the UK in Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, most notably relating to the rise to power of the Thatcherite New Right in 1979. Originality is evidenced by the authors’ drawing on Fox's ideas and assessing the implications of the “second wave” of the New Right in the contemporary industrial relations (IR) context of the 2020s under the conceptual themes of fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collectivism.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider, from a historical perspective, New Zealand’s reputation as a country largely without corruption, with particular reference to the colonial government’s confiscation of Māori land in the 19^th century and beyond.

This paper is based on published historical commentary.

The findings are that much of the Māori land confiscation was rendered legal for illegitimate purposes, and that the colonial and successive New Zealand governments abrogated the country’s foundational document, the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between the colonial government and many Māori chiefs in 1840. Adverse consequences for Māori have been felt to this day, despite the Treaty settlements process that began with the Māori renaissance in the mid-1970s.

The academic analysis of corruption in New Zealand has seldom if ever adopted this historical perspective.

This study attempts to figure out the factors that contributed to deposing certain elected presidents before the end of their constitutional terms, alongside tracing the new political context that prevailed in Latin America since 1978 and its impact on direct political participation and military behavior during presidential crises.

The paper uses the comparative method to investigate the causes of presidential instability in three case studies.

The likelihood of presidential instability increases when a president enacts austerity economic policies that marginalize large sectors of the citizenry, becomes implicated in acts of corruption and develops a hostile relationship with members of the ruling coalition.

This study integrates the social movement theory with analytical perspectives from parliamentary behavior to explain presidential instability. It attempts to investigate the dynamics of interaction between the acts of furious citizens and disloyal legislators through the in-depth analysis of three case studies.

The authors investigate how COVID-19 has influenced the amount, type or topics of abuse that UK politicians receive when engaging with the public.

This work covers the first year of COVID-19 in the UK, from March 2020 to March 2021 and analyses Twitter abuse in replies to UK MPs. The authors collected and analysed 17.9 million reply tweets to the MPs. The authors present overall abuse levels during different key moments of the pandemic, analysing reactions to MPs by gender and the relationship between online abuse and topics such as Brexit, the government’s COVID-19 response and policies, and social issues.

The authors have found that abuse levels towards UK MPs were at an all-time high in December 2020. Women (particularly those from non-White backgrounds) receive unusual amounts of abuse, targeting their credibility and capacity to do their jobs. Similar to other large events like general elections and Brexit, COVID-19 has elevated abuse levels, at least temporarily.

Previous studies analysed abuse levels towards MPs in the run-up to the 2017 and 2019 UK General Elections and during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. The authors compare previous findings with those of the first year of COVID-19, as the pandemic persisted, and Brexit was forthcoming. This research not only contributes to the longitudinal comparison of abuse trends against UK politicians but also presents new findings, corroborates, further clarifies and raises questions about the previous findings.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2022-0392

The aim of this article is to explain why there is a higher degree of trust in some countries compared to others – and which are the main historical factors that explain these differences. The main focus is on how governments relate to and communicate with its citizens in the times of crises.

The analysis is based on comparative historical sociology with a modernity perspective with a special focus on Norway and Scandinavia. The authors do a parallel demonstration of history to confirm and expand the theories that could explain the high level of trust in these countries. The authors also bring in the Spanish experience in order to testify how governmental reactions affected the different levels of trust.

Scandinavian governments allowed open communication between different social classes on difficult and important issues, in contrast to Spain in the same period. These two factors therefore expand the understanding of the development of trust: (1) The establishment of the nation state as the organising concept and all-encompassing container of the other institutions (democracy, parliamentarism, trade unions, etc.); (2) The open hand strategy in dealing with deviant opinions, based on democratic compromises and a policing of consent ideology.

The article combines the understanding of the first crisis of modernity and the development of trust and contain a comparative analysis of the development of trust in four different countries. The investigation thus clarifies the correlation between specific historical factors and the levels of trust.

During the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, there was much debate about the future broader political direction of the country but little discussion about its impact on Scottish tourism. The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss the impact of the different future political options from a tourism perspective.

From the literature, four main political drivers were identified, and using Scotland as a reference, they were used in discussions with six experts to explore how tourism could develop under different political options. The outcomes from these discussions were combined by the researcher to develop in conjunction with the experts an agreed discussion note. This discussion note formed the basis for the exploration of the impact on tourism under four different future political options.

Of the four political options (devolution limited, devolution plus, devolution max/fiscal autonomy/federation and full independence), it is clear that all options had different positive and negative impacts for tourism. The devolution max option, however, was perceived as most damaging to tourism, because tourism would not be considered a priority, relative to other policy issues. The study concludes with six key lessons that destination management organisations (DMOs) should contemplate when considering the impacts of different political futures.

Being focussed on one country with a strong political party whose raison d'être is independence makes it difficult to extrapolate the results. Nevertheless, given the strong commonality of agreement of the impacts within the experts consulted, this study suggests that DMOs can and should engage in political debates about the future of tourism in their destination.

The 2014 independence referendum in Scotland failed to achieve its primary aim of independence for Scotland, but it did provide space for other political options to be explored. This paper provides a perspective on how tourism could develop under different political options, and so help raise its profile in any future debates, both in Scotland and other destinations.

This paper attempts to explain the phenomenon that Macau has a parliament (Legislative Assembly) and mass suffrage but no political parties.

This paper reviews the development process of “parliament – mass suffrage – political party” in Hong Kong and Macau and tries to explain why Macau does not have a party using comparative research methods.

The political party development of Hong Kong and Macau was influenced by both the (former) colonial power and China, and whether there were political parties in these two regions was the result of the game between China and the (former) colonial power. China hoped to limit the development of party politics in the two regions. Since Britain felt reluctant to cooperate with China, political parties in Hong Kong developed. At the same time, Portugal chose to defer to China, which led Macau not to have a political party.

Existing studies have yet to explain why there are no political parties in Macau, and this paper is the first attempt to do so.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate different approaches to effective campaigning in support of the Living Wage and so this paper contributes to the broader debate over the nature of the union movement’s engagement with community groups in pursuit of workplace and social issues.

The paper presents a systematic comparison of a union-led and a community-led campaign, drawing primarily upon interview and survey data.

Though different, both campaigns met with a measure of success in improving employee pay and in increasing union membership suggesting a pragmatic approach to the building of union-community relationships.

The paper shows the need for campaigners to adopt a strategic approach in identifying the target for their campaign, and also the importance of shaping a persuasive argument.

The paper reaffirms the importance of traditional union-led campaigning alongside campaigning through engagement with community groups and so offers a broader framework for exploring the relationships between union and community groups.