Thomas Denk

• PhD in Political Science
• Professor at Örebro University

This article re-examines the relationship between democracy and semi-presidential regimes. While numerous scholars have traced the effects of semi-presidential regimes on democracy, few have addressed the risk of reverse causality, namely, that democracy influences the establishment of semi-presidential regimes. This article uses statistical analys...

In this article, we introduce a new dataset—the Comparative Semi-Presidential Database (CSPD)—covering classifications of semi-presidential regimes. In contrast to other databases, the CSPD offers several classifications based on different definitions of semi-presidential regimes along with subtypes of semi-presidential regimes. We use definitions...

The death penalty is a unique form of punishment as it is the most consequential penalty with no options for reversibility. Politically, it is a highly controversial form of punishment, the usage of which varies strongly between and within countries over time. Existing databases on death penalty usage generally cover a time period from the 1950s an...

Public organisations are starting to show an interest in automated decision-making (ADM). So far, existing research focuses on the governmental perspective on this phenomenon. Less attention is paid to citizens’ views on ADM. The aim of this study is to provide empirical insights into citizen awareness of and beliefs about ADM in public-sector serv...

Denk argues for more comparative studies on political awareness. He claims that comparative research would provide theoretical and empirical contributions to the field, noting that it is necessary to establish comparative equivalence to ensure that studies compare the same qualities in different contexts. Concepts, measurements and sampling methods...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the connection between different perceived organizational cultures and information security policy compliance among white-collar workers. Design/methodology/approach The survey using the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument was sent to white-collar workers in Sweden ( n = 674), asking about compliance...

This interdisciplinary volume presents a comprehensive framework to understand political awareness. Political awareness has become an important part of research on political attitudes and political behavior since the publication of John Zaller's work on political opinion. The authors elaborate on his theory and present a new conceptualization, whic...

Det här kapitlet undersöker i vilken utsträckning som individer uppfattar att olika frågor handlar om politik och om dessa uppfattningar har samband med individernas ideologiska vänster-höger positioner respektive partisympatier. Med detta fokuserar kapitlet på grundläggande frågor om vad som uppfattas vara politik. De flesta har uppfattningar om v...

The ecological impacts of consumption are well acknowledged, and most people worldwide are likely to have encountered proofs for or information about it. Likewise, online and offline media seem to be full of information on the issue. Even so, large numbers of people are ‘non‐political’ consumers, inconsiderate of the ethical and ecological implicat...

Sammanfattning Alltfler myndigheter inför automatiserat beslutsfattande, vilket innebär att en dator fattar beslut istället för handläggare och utredare. Detta kapitel undersöker med-borgarnas inställning till att öka det automatiserade beslutsfattandet i myndigheter. Kapitlets analyser visar att en majoritet (64 procent) anser att det är ett mycke...

While significant research has been conducted on both the diffusion of democracy and the various democratic government systems (parliamentary, presidential and semi-presidential), the diffusion of individual democratic government systems has rarely been addressed. Therefore, this article examines whether diffusion explains why countries have establ...

Why do the poor stay poor? And, crucially, why are their children likely to be poor and end up poor later in life? This is a familiar question in the fields of development, social policy and economics alike. Bangladesh has seen notable successes in reducing poverty, and yet, addressing the transfer of deprivations and disadvantages within and betwe...

Hur fungerar politiska system? Hur är de uppbyggda och hur skiljer de sig åt länder emellan? Det är några av de frågor som behandlas i Komparativ politik. Utöver en presentation av grundläggande begrepp och metoder jämförs centrala institutioner, som till exempel parlament, regeringar och statsformer, samt aktörsgrupper som politiska partier, intre...

I allt större utsträckning införs automatiserat beslutsfattande i offentlig sektor. Det innebär att datorer ersätter handläggare som beslutsfattare. Flera av de ärenden som avgörs med automatiserat beslutsfattande berör medborgarna. Detta kapitel undersöker om medborgarna är medvetna om denna förändring och hur de tror att besluten förändras när da...

The chapter aims to obtain empirical understanding of the connection between paths to independence and the democratization of the initial regime, i.e., the set of political institutions that constitutes the political regime at the time of independence. The conventional perspective on democratization claims that democratic transitions replace autocr...

Denk and Lehtinen present a theoretical model of state formation, which assumes that state formation is a sequence of events that have five phases: demand phase, response phase, reaction phase, decisive phase, and implementation phase. The chapter argues that cases of state formation may have different qualities in these phases and presents a frame...

This chapter introduces the concept of path to independence, which is a central concept in the book. A path to independence consists of a specific combination of modes in the phases that are parts of the state formation. The empirical analyses focus on how cases of state formation in different ways have combined modes in the phases into processes a...

This chapter examines the stability and the long-term effects of initial regimes on democratization in the new states. Based on theoretical discussions about path-dependence and critical juncture, Denk and Lehtinen develop a core proposition about the effects of the initial regime on the level of democratization in new states. They expect the mode...

This concluding chapter integrates the theoretical frameworks and empirical results from the previous chapters to present a summarized answer to the research question: In what ways have processes of state formation created new states? The result is a comprehensive model of state formation and democratization. The parts from the previous chapters cr...

This book examines the connection between two major developments in the world: state-formation and democratization. Since 1946, the number of states has increased from 66 to almost 200 independent states, but our knowledge of these state-formation processes is limited. The authors present a new database on state-formation and democratization, which...

Purpose This article investigates the occurrence of value conflicts between information security and other organizational values among white-collar workers. Further, analyzes are conducted of the relationship between white-collar workers’ perceptions of the culture of their organizations and value conflicts involving information security. Design/...

The role of secularization remains underdeveloped in theoretical studies of democratization. We hold that the relation between the two processes is difficult to analyse by help of standard, cross-sectional analysis. We therefore propose a process-oriented model of democratization in relation to secularization. We suggest that these processes do not...

Previous studies about democracies on a global level have assumed that democratisation occurs when an autocratic regime moves toward becoming a democratic regime. This article recognises an alternative mode to democratic transition: democratisation by state-formation, which occurs when democratic regimes are established in new states as an outcome...

To study the composition of political cultures, it is necessary to classify citizens according to a theoretical typology of political subcultures. Different methods of classification have been used for confronting this challenge, but the choice of method is rarely discussed in any detail because most studies apply a method without considering impli...

The Civic Culture by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba is a path-breaking work within political science. Although The Civic Culture still provides inspiration for studies, new approaches to political culture have identified alternative citizen orientations that may be replacing the value orientations identified at the time. The more recent studies ha...

Contextual analyses are essential in comparative research, as they investigate the importance of contextual conditions for causal relationships. During the last decades, an increasing number of comparative studies have also focused on how contextual conditions affect causal relationships. At the same time, new comparative methods have been develope...

This article takes as a point of departure a well-known but rarely tested assumption in the literature on state-building and democratisation, namely that democratic regimes in newly established states are politically unstable. When states take their first steps as independent entities, the state-building process is often incomplete, the political i...

Does size of municipality have an impact on political support? This study investigates the connection between municipality size and political support in 55 Swedish municipalities. Three hypotheses about the connection between municipality size and political support are developed from previous research. These hypotheses claim negative, positive, and...

In studies on democracy and democratization, the Freedom House Index (FHI) is frequently used to measure the concept of polyarchy. This approach creates an often noticed discrepancy between the conceptual and measurement levels. The concept of polyarchy is regarded as a minimalist definition of democracy, which mainly refers to the procedural aspec...

What are the challenges to future democratization in states regarded as democratic? This study shows that some states that are traditionally regarded as democratic consist of political institutions in need of further democratization. On average, states that are classified as democratic have one or two institutional dimensions in need of further dem...

This article presents a new methodology for multilevel analysis using a small number of cases, named Comparative Multilevel Analysis (CMA). A classic problem in comparative studies has been the presence of too many variables and too few cases. One traditional solution to this problem has been to study subsystems within a system. However, the approa...

Research on citizen participation has been guided by two core issues: first, the observation of a widening repertory of modes of participation, and second, the argument that participation is not an undifferentiated phenomenon, but must be conceived as an inherently multidimensional reality. In this article, we argue that conventional participation...

The starting point for this article is the need for empirical knowledge about organizational configuration for societal risk and safety management activities in a modern welfare society. In this paper, we use Sweden as an empirical frame to analyze the administrative management structure at the local governmental level. The analysis is based on sta...

The starting point for this article is the need to develop empirical insights about contemporary societal risk and safety management practice and executive structures. In order to facilitate insights about societal risk and safety management in a Scandinavian welfare context we use Sweden and its local governmental level (municipal) as an empirical...