The main objective of this paper is to survey whether there is a relationship between social class and choice between political parties in Paraguay and to ascertain if decreasing or increasing significance of class voting has showed. At first, by means of the empirical research, the specific Paraguayan class scheme is established and subsequently particular outputs of class voting are simulated using data from the questionnaire surveys and elementary logit, and multinomial logistic regression methods. The resulting finding is that social class has never significantly affected electoral decisions of Paraguayan voters. This paper also decisively demonstrates a dramatic decrease of class voting significance in Paraguay over the past 20 years. More detailed statistical methods established an apparent tendency of civil servants and employees classes to vote for the dominant ANR party.

This article discusses the origins of the central role of national security in Israeli foreign policy and analyses its implications for the relationship between Israel’s Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The research focuses on the changing nature of this relationship between Israel’s PMO and MFA during the last three consecutive Netanyahu administrations from 2009 to 2018, and the reflection of those dynamics on Israel’s bilateral relations with the United States of America, Israel’s most important strategic ally. The author argues that the Israeli MFA has faced a rapid decline in its foreign policy competences and influence in the analysed period of 2009–2018. Moreover, this process has accelerated significantly since 2015 when Netanyahu decided to hold simultaneously a portfolio of Prime Minister as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Proposed reasons for the decline of the Israel’s MFA are enumerated.

The paper focuses on relations between the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong as a prominent current example of the relationship between a sovereign and quasi-sovereign political unit in which indirect rule is applied. It aims to explicate how China consolidates and strengthens its influence over politics in Hong Kong. Building on Bob Jessop’s power-relational understanding of state configuration as a key theoretical perspective for approaching the issue, it is argued that the key dynamics does not solely lie in institutional changes (or attempted changes) of Hong Kong politics although they cause many concerns internationally and also within Hong Kong’s civil society. Rather, it is the interplay between these changes and China’s preservation and cultivation of its interest coalition with Hong Kong business elites which secures China’s influence in Hong Kong.