Alexandre Afonso

Alexandre Afonso

Leiden University

Tag: Switzerland

  • Support for the Swiss anti-immigration party SVP and actual share of immigrants

    In the graph above I have plotted the share of immigrants in Swiss cantons and the percentage of votes for the Swiss People’s Party in the Swiss federal elections of October 16. The relationship is similar as the one we could observe for the anti-immigration referendum earlier. The fewer migrants there are, the more people Read.

  • The Economic Dilemma of UKIP

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    Let us take a short trip Back to the Future. Step into The Doc’s DeLorean modified time Machine, fasten your seat belt, greet Marty McFly in the back seat, and set the destination to 2016 Britain. We accelerate to 88 miles per hour, and after a loud “bang”, it only takes a few seconds to Read.

  • Why School Choice is Bad for Social Mobility

    I am quite a good example of  social mobility. My parents only completed obligatory school – that was four years in rural Portugal in the 1950s – and started working at 12. They moved to France and then Switzerland in the 1970s, and worked their whole lives in unskilled jobs. In spite of that, I Read.

  • La cuisine statistique de l’UDC

    On vote dimanche sur l’initiative “contre l’immigration de masse”. L’UDC a produit des projections de croissance de la population dans ses encarts publicitaires qui ont déjà été critiquées par Martin Grandjean (ci-dessus). l’UDC base ses projections sur la croissance de la population si l’immigration restait à des niveau similaires à ceux de ces dernières années, Read.

  • The Media as a Chinese Whisper Machine

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    In his book (based on a public lecture) on Television, Bourdieu uses a good concept to describe how information is produced within the news media: he calls it the “circular circulation of information”. In a nutshell, the main idea is that, despite its function as a window open to the world, the media actually work Read.

  • The Swiss Apartheid

    This week, Switzerland has been presented as the new country of apartheid. On Wednesday, international media outlets reported that the Federal Office for Migration had agreed exclusion rules with the town of Bremgarten in the Canton of Zurich for its new national centre for asylum seekers. Asylum seekers sheltered in that small town would not be Read.

  • I have met Pre-distribution. It Wears Clogs, Eats Chocolate, and Works Part-Time.

    “Predistribution” is Labour’s new policy buzzword. It’s been all over the news. Policy Network has events and publications about it, the BBC talks about it, Ed Milliband talks about it, David Cameron ridicules it. Predistribution is supposed to be the new silver bullet for the centre-left, the agenda that will both create social justice and appeal Read.