This paper aims to analyse the relationship that exists between state capture, party patronage, and the conduct of electoral processes in the settings of post-communist countries, of which Albania is one. A characteristic of the political developments of the transition period in many post-communist countries has been the phenomenon of state capture, which has occurred mainly through the endemic party patronage and politicization of state institutions. The phenomenon of state capture by the ruling political parties has had a (...) negative conditional impact on the conduct of competitive, free and fair elections in these countries, leading to distrust regarding the credibility and integrity of the process. This study argues that phenomena such as state capture and extensive party patronage as informal practices/mechanisms in the hands of the ruling political parties affect the creation of a skewed playing field and the production of hyper-incumbency advantages in holding electoral contests between political parties, making the possibility of political power rotations difficult. Albania, in the case of its last parliamentary elections, held on 25th April 2021, constitutes the case study (Section IV) to which the theoretical framework of the paper is applied, by identifying the informal practices and methods through state capture that the ruling political party used to provide structural, institutional, and financial advantages in its favour regarding elections. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of pollster and sociological approaches to electoral research.The article shows that conducting electoral research in modern election campaigns is carried out equally by pollster (for purely political purposes) and sociological (for scientific and sociological purposes) technologies. It has been proven that optimal results can be achieved by combining pollster and sociological approaches to electoral research. It was determined that today the organization of an effective election (...) campaign requires equally sociologists-pollsters and sociologists-analysts, the result of whose work is respectively collected empirical data and an analytical product, scientific expertise.It has been demonstrated that pollster and sociological approaches to conducting electoral research differ not only in the concepts of public opinion and the styles of its research, but also in the subject field. The electorate as a subject of electoral research acquires different content for different approaches. The pollster approach is more likely to understand the electorate as a circle of voters who vote for one or another party or candidate for an elected position and, in fact, are supporters of a certain political force or personality, while representatives of the sociological approach mostly consider the electorate as a collection of all citizens who vested with the right to vote and who exercise or do not exercise it under specially created conditions. It is argued that the integration of the subject fields of electoral polling and electoral sociological research will allow more effective and productive use of analytical potential in the election campaign, since such an organization of patronage work will help not only to record the results of electoral research, but also to predict the trends of electoral choice, the flow of votes, the reactions of electoral groups to specific political events. The availability of systematic ideas about the types of voters and their personal profiles will help to meaningfully approach the understanding of the electorate. (shrink)

The Green Party Taiwan represents an important case both for scholars of environmental politics but also Taiwanese politics. Established in 1996, it is the oldest Asian green party and is one of the most active parties in the Asia-Pacific Greens network. The party has enjoyed mixed electoral fortunes. After promising early election results, the GPT virtually ceased contesting elections between 2000 and 2005. However, from 2006 the party began a gradual revival in its vote shares. This process culminated in (...) the January 2012 Legislative Yuan election when the GPT surprised many observers by coming fifth in the proportional party vote. Considering the limited resources at the party's disposal this was quite an achievement. In this study, we examine and explain the changing electoral fortunes of the GPT since its establishment in 1996. We are interested to see whether standard theories for explaining small or ecological party success, that have been developed in western Europe, work well in the Taiwan context. Our research is based on a range of new fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2014. These include in-depth interviews with campaigners and party leaders, focus group sessions with party leaders and candidates, and interviews with party supporters. (shrink)

Austin's theory of theory of law is simple: the law follows the pattern of power; the sovereign gives commands and obeys none; the subject obeys commands; the law consists in only those commands that directly or indirectly emanate from the sovereign. Nevertheless, Austin's theory of sovereignty is not simple at all. When we look at the relevant chapters closely, it becomes evident that Austin has two rival theories of sovereignty, one for a single person and one for a 'determinate body'. (...) It is only the latter that allows him to say that sovereignty lies, ultimately, with the electors, the strange conclusion of his book. But Austin's second theory of sovereignty is not consistent with his own theory of law. Austin's faces a dilemma. Is law - as most people take it to be - a public order of standards of conduct aiming to guide behaviour? If so, sovereignty ought to be public and intelligible. If not, sovereignty can remain a mystery to those living under it . For the latter reading, law and sovereignty are 'normatively inert,' as some of Austin's followers claim today. But Austin does not agree with his modern followers. Austin's second theory of sovereignty is aimed at satisfying a practical requirement of law and jurisprudence, i.e. to be in the position of publicly guiding conduct. (shrink)

The ongoing process of democratisation lead to the growing importance of the electoral systems that regulate the procedures of gaining and legitimizing power in democracy. Taking it into account it is worth asking about the relationship between these particular ‘game rules’ contained into electoral law and the respect of the rule of law, being one of the basic norms of a democratic system. A question then may be raised about the existence and the character of the relation between (...) electoral systems and the level of political corruption. It is worth noticing that besides the research conducted by political scientists and the representatives of various branches of social sciences the significant analysis of the issue have been presented by the economists. In this article a brief overview of the economic studies on the relationship between level of political corruption and the electoral systems is presented so as to assess to what degree this approach may be treated as fruitful. (shrink)

This paper explores the time-inconsistency problem of audience costs in international disputes. The nature of democracy makes it difficult for leaders to back down from earlier diplomatic positions in an international dispute, out of fear of domestic political costs. Few studies have addressed the temporal aspect of such costs. This study argues that election timing impinges on the extent to which the audience cost mechanism works, and consequently, on state conflict behavior. While competitive elections are central to the political accountability (...) inherent in a democracy, voters typically lack enough opportunities to punish unsatisfactory leaders in a timely way, because of fixed election timing, and also may disregard foreign policy missteps that occurred in the distant past. Democratic leaders therefore have an incentive to choose strategically, with the electoral calendar in mind, when selecting a form of conflict behavior. Leaders can retreat from their demands without paying high audience costs when the upcoming election is in the distant future. To test this argument, the authors conduct a natural experiment featuring territorial disputes between Russia and two Baltic republics – Estonia and Latvia. Despite the commonalities in the disputes, as well as in their political systems and socioeconomic backgrounds, the governments of the two Baltic countries showed a sharp contrast in their diplomatic decisions. This paper argues that only the temporal gap in electoral timing can explain this variation, imparting the ironical implication that frequent democratic elections can obstruct peaceful conflict resolutions, and that excessive democratization may well hinder the very goal of peace. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to highlight the clientelistic strategies and informal practices that the ruling political parties in Albania use during the elections to ensure an unfair advantage in their favour over the opposition challengers. One of the main characteristics of the political developments of the transition period in Albania since 1991 has been the flourishing of informal practices and clientelist networks of political parties within state structures, which has produced an extreme politicization of these institutions. These strategies (...) that in general terms we label as “clientelistic” and that have been used to a large extent by the incumbent political parties have had a direct negative impact on the conduct of free and fair elections in Albania by distorting their main goal: to reflect the will of the people. This is because such clientelist strategies, together with the informal practices/mechanisms that accompany them, have influenced the creation of an unlevelled playing field, and have produced a hyperincumbency advantage in the electoral contests between political parties in Albania. The case of the recent elections held in Albania on 25 April 2021 will be the empirical case of this study, in which are evidenced the electoral containment strategies and practices that the ruling political party used to provide an unfair advantage in its favour and to secure its grip on power. (shrink)

We propose that leaders play a more important role in voters’ party sympathy in proportional representation systems than previous research has suggested. Voters, from the 2018 Swedish General Election, were in an experiment asked to describe leaders and parties with three indicative keywords. Statistical models were conducted on these text data to predict their vote choice. The results show that despite that the voters vote for a party, the descriptions of leaders predicted vote choice to a similar extent as descriptions (...) of parties. However, the order of the questions mattered, so that the first questions were more predictive than the second question. These analyses indicate that voters tend to conflate characteristics of leaders with their parties during election campaigns, and that leaders are a more important aspect of voting under PR than previous literature has suggested. Overall, this suggests that statistical analysis of words sheds new light of underlying sympathies related to voting. (shrink)

I argue that the possibility of non-perceptual experience need not compel a naïve realist to adopt a disjunctive conception of experience. Instead, they can maintain that the nature of perceptual and hallucinatory experience is the same, while still claiming that perceptual experience is presentational of the objects of perception. On such a view the difference between perceptual and non-perceptual experience will lie in the nature of the objects that are so presented. I will defend a view according to which in (...) non-perceptual experience one is presented with mere universals, while in perceptual experience one is presented with the instantiation of a universal by a particular. This is to adopt disjunctivism about the objects of experience, about that which is apparently present in experience. (shrink)

Disjunctivism about sensory experience is frequently put forward in defence of a particular conception of perception and perceptual experience known as naïve realism. In this paper, I present an argument against naïve realism that proceeds through a rejection of disjunctivism. If the naïve realist must also be a disjunctivist about the phenomenal nature of experience, then naïve realism should be abandoned.

My paper has three parts. First I will outline the act/object theory of perceptual experience and its commitments to (a) a relational view of experience and (b) a view of phenomenal character according to which it is constituted by the character of the objects of experience. I present the traditional adverbial response to this, in which experience is not to be understood as a relation to some object, but as a way of sensing. In the second part I argue that (...) acceptance of (a) is independent of acceptance of (b). I then present a modified adverbialism that presents experience as relational in nature but whose character is nevertheless to be explained in terms of the way in which one senses an object. Finally, I will offer an explanation of how a naïve realist about experience can adopt this modified adverbialism and in so doing accommodate the possibility of perceptual error. (shrink)

This article examines the role of social media and journalistic media in presidential electoral processes. A systematic review of scientific articles published from 2012 to 2022 was conducted. The results indicate that the media has a significant influence on public perception and the political agenda during election campaigns. Furthermore, the importance of evaluating political leaders in the voters' decision-making process is emphasized. In summary, the article provides valuable insights into how the media can shape the narrative and public opinion (...) during presidential elections. (shrink)

National Baha’i elections, conducted world-wide without nominations, competitive campaigns, or parties, challenge the emerging consensus that the only truly democratic elections are multiparty elections in which each party’s candidates compete freely for votes. National Baha’i electoral institutions are based on three core values: respect for the inherent dignity of each person, the unity and solidarity of persons collectively, and the justice and fairness of institutions. While liberal political philosophy interprets respect for dignity exclusively in terms of equality and freedom, (...) the Baha’i model interprets dignity to require respect for the equality, freedom, and nobility of each person. The perfectionist focus on nobility helps explain the distinct features of national Baha’i elections and, in particular, the ban on campaigning. In light of ongoing concerns about the character of the electoral process in actually existing democracies, further research into Baha’i elections and their philosophical foundations provides a promising basis for rethinking widely held liberal assumptions about how democratic elections must be conducted. (shrink)

This article conducts a decision theoretic analysis of the effect of dual candidacy on voting decisions in the Japanese variant of the mixed electoral system, where each candidate can run in both a single-member district (SMD) and a proportional representation (PR) block, and dual candidates can be ranked either individually or equally in parties' PR lists: their post-election ranking is determined by their SMD votes. The model shows that dual candidacy differentiates the mixed system from merely the simultaneous use (...) of the SMD and PR systems. That is, if an SMD candidate also runs in the PR block, it lowers voters' utility increment obtained by casting their SMD votes for him. If he is ranked equally in the PR list, however, SMD votes for him may help him win a PR seat against other equally ranked dual candidates, which enables dual candidacy accompanied by equal ranking to attract more SMD votes. (shrink)

Is voting a duty of democratic citizenship? This article advances a new argument for the existence of a duty to vote. It argues that every normative account of electoral representation requires universal turnout to function in line with its own internal normative logic. This generates a special obligation for citizens to vote in electoral representative contexts as a function of the role morality of democratic citizenship. Because voting uniquely authorizes office holding in representative democracies, and because universal turnout (...) contributes powerfully to representation being fair, to be a good citizen of such democracies requires one to vote. Whereas previous arguments for a duty to vote have invoked basic moral principles like fairness or a Samaritan duty of rescue, this account is based on citizens occupying a vital functional role within electoral representative institutions. This institutional duty solves the “specificity problem” of justifying a duty to vote better than competing accounts and also immunizes the duty to objections that there is no duty to vote when there are only bad choices and that there is a no duty to vote but rather duty to vote well. By emphasizing the tight connection between institutions and individual conduct, the role morality approach used here supplies a less abstract and more realistic framework than much previous research on the ethics of democratic citizenship and brings the debate closer to constitutive features of democratic politics. (shrink)

This article compares the ‘enfranchisement lottery’, a novel method for allocating the right to vote, with universal suffrage. The comparison is conducted exclusively on the basis of the expected consequences of the two systems. Each scheme seems to have a relative advantage. On the one hand, the enfranchisement lottery would create a better informed electorate and thus improve the quality of electoral outcomes. On the other hand, universal suffrage is more likely to ensure that elections are seen to be (...) fair, which is important for political stability. This article concludes that, on balance, universal suffrage is prima facie superior to the enfranchisement lottery. Yet the analysis shows that the instrumental case for the ‘one person, one vote’ principle is less conclusive than democratic theorists usually suppose. (shrink)

This article compares the ‘enfranchisement lottery’, a novel method for allocating the right to vote, with universal suffrage. The comparison is conducted exclusively on the basis of the expected consequences of the two systems. Each scheme seems to have a relative advantage. On the one hand, the enfranchisement lottery would create a better informed electorate and thus improve the quality of electoral outcomes. On the other hand, universal suffrage is more likely to ensure that elections are seen to be (...) fair, which is important for political stability. This article concludes that, on balance, universal suffrage is prima facie superior to the enfranchisement lottery. Yet the analysis shows that the instrumental case for the ‘one person, one vote’ principle is less conclusive than democratic theorists usually suppose. (shrink)

Many commentators lament that American democracy is in crisis. It is becoming a system of minority rule, wherein a party with a minority of the nationwide vote can control the national government. Partisan gerrymandering in the House of Representatives fuels this crisis, as does the equal representation of small and large states in the Senate. But altering these features of the legislature would not end minority rule. Indeed, it has long been held that majority rule cannot be guaranteed within any (...) district system, as a minority of voters nationwide can be efficiently distributed such that a minority party wins a majority of districts by narrow margins. -/- This Article offers a way to save majority rule. Since the way a party can gain control of the legislature with a minority of the vote is to win a majority of districts by narrow margins of victory and lose a minority of districts by large margins of victory, the solution is to make margins matter. Hence, this Article proposes that we preserve electoral districts in which the candidate with the most votes wins, while making the weight of their vote in the legislature (a representative’s “legislative power”) a function of margins of victory. The first goal of this Article is to outline how this proposal, which I call “weighted voting by margin of victory” (WVMV), retains the democratic virtues of district systems while ending minority rule. This is the first basis for the democratic imperative to make margins matter. -/- There is, however, a second basis for that same imperative, which turns on the political equality of voters. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the democratic equality should be understood in terms of equal voting power (one person, one vote). But when margins of victory don’t matter, the power of a vote lies exclusively in its potential decisiveness. A vote that changes the margin of victory without changing the victor is “wasted”. But it is an electoral reality that votes in competitive districts are more likely to be decisive, and votes in uncompetitive districts are more likely to be wasted; as a result, candidates and parties are more responsive to some voters than others. So voters are not political equals. They do not have equal voting power, except in an empty formalistic sense. By contrast, WVMV gives votes a second type of power. The power of a vote is to potentially decide who wins and to actually change the legislative power of the victor. Each vote, in effect, transfers a unit of political power to a democratic representative. This “transference” power can be meaningfully equalized between voters. A voter in an uncompetitive district is far less likely to change who wins, but is equally able to change the margin of victory, such that their vote is no longer wasted. This gives candidates and parties a strong reason to be more equally responsive to all voters who can change the margins. Hence, there is a democratic imperative to make margins matter, in order to give voters a meaningfully equal form of voting power. -/- The final goal of this Article is to explain how we can implement WMVM in modern democracies, focusing on three particularly challenging cases: the U.S. Senate, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and the U.S. House of Representatives. These cases are challenging for several reasons, the most pertinent of which turn on the ways we should understand margins of victory when electorates are of unequal sizes (as in the U.S. Senate) or are contested by more than two parties (as in the U.K.) or are conducted under different voting procedures (as in many districts in the U.S. House). I argue that WVMV should be considered feasible in such contexts, and hence offers a practical, rather than purely theoretical, alternative to the status quo. (shrink)

The outcomes of a bibliographic review on political communication, in particular electoral communication in social networks, are presented here. The electoral campaigning are a crucial test to verify the transformations of the media system and of the forms and uses of the linguistic acts by dominant actors in public sphere – candidates, parties, journalists and Gatekeepers. The aim is to reconstruct the first elements of an analytical model on the transformations of the political public sphere, with which to (...) systematize the results of the main empirical research carried out in recent years, in particular those conducted with a promising methodology: Digital Trace Data Analysis. (shrink)

Elsewhere I have defended utilitarianism as a philosophy peculiarly well suited to the conduct of public affairs, on grounds of the peculiar tasks and instruments confronting public officials. Here I add another plank to that defence of ‘utilitarianism as a public philosophy’, focusing on the peculiar role responsibilities of people serving in public capacities. Such ‘public service utilitarianism’ is incumbent not only upon public officials but also upon individuals in their capacities as citizens and voters. I close with reflections (...) on how best to evoke appreciation of these utilitarian role responsibilities from officials and electors alike. (shrink)

Introduction Understanding the views of the public is essential if generally acceptable policies are to be devised that balance research access to general practice patient records with protection of patients' privacy. However, few large studies have been conducted about public attitudes to research access to personal health information. Methods A mixed methods study was performed. Informed by focus groups and literature review, a questionnaire was designed which assessed attitudes to research access to personal health information and factors that influence these. (...) A postal survey was conducted of an electoral roll-based sample of the adult population of Ireland. Results Completed questionnaires were returned by 1575 (40.6%). Among the respondents, 67.5% were unwilling to allow GPs to decide when researchers could access identifiable personal health information. However, 89.5% said they would agree to ongoing consent arrangements, allowing the sharing by GPs of anonymous personal health information with researchers without the need for consent on a study-by-study basis. Increasing age (by each 10-year increment), being retired and primary level education only were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of agreeing that any personal health information could be shared on an ongoing basis: OR 1.39 (95% CI 1.18 to 1.63), 2.00 (95% CI 1.22 to 3.29) and 3.91 (95% CI 1.95 to 7.85), respectively. Conclusions Although survey data can be prone to response biases, this study suggests that prior consent agreements allowing the supply by GPs of anonymous personal health information to researchers may be widely supported, and that populations willing to opt in to such arrangements may be sufficiently representative to facilitate valid and robust consent-dependent observational research. (shrink)

Social networking sites allow politicians to reach followers directly and offer citizens platforms to express their opinions. However, online discussions often lack civility, leading to increased polarization. Although existing research has brought important insights into populist effects on political trust, attitudes, or electoral behavior, we know less about how populism’s use of divisive rhetoric and identity-based appeals contribute to the confrontational responses of social media users. To address this gap, we investigate the relationship between the use of populist communication (...) in migration-related social media posts by populist and non-populist political actors and the use of uncivil and intolerant rhetoric by social media users. Focusing on the case of the Czech Republic between 2013 and 2020, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of Facebook posts about the contentious issue of migration created by political parties and comments under those posts published by social media users. Our results indicate that while different elements of populist communication bring mixed results to the responses in online discussions, the social media posts created by populist political parties are positively associated with increased online incivility and intolerance. These findings have significant implications for understanding the potential influence of populist messages on social media and its consequences for democratic societies, highlighting their relevance in addressing and mitigating crises beyond the migration crisis, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other emergencies. (shrink)

It would be unproblematically correct to say "the laws of Pennsylvania have it that a person is eligible to vote at age eighteen." But whether someone is actually mature enough to exercise his electoral franchise appropriately will very much depend on the individual. In setting the voting age by fiat, Society leaps in where Nature fears to tread. Many quantities that figure importantly in shaping our conduct of affairs are not specified by nature but are artifacts of human (...) contrivance. At what age, for example, is a person old enough to marry, drink alcoholic beverages responsibly, handle fireworks safely, manage his own property, enter into contracts, see a violent movie, serve on a jury, or hold a public office? These are not quantities writ large in nature's impersonal scheme of things but matters of social decision made for reasons of public polity and administrative convenience. They are legislated quantities. (shrink)

In ten years the National Front's scores rose from less than 2 percent to more than 13 percent of the valid votes and the number of its electors from a hundred thousand to almost four millions. On the basis of two surveys conducted by CEVIPOF and OIP, this paper analyses the factors that account for this electoral rise. If the National Front vote is more frequent in urban areas, it is not so much because of objective factors than because (...) of subjective factors in relation with sociocultural and political specificities of the National Front's electorate. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Four decades ago, Gerald Kramer showed that economic conditions affect electoral outcomes. Some researchers took this to mean that voters were self-interested, voting their “pocketbooks,” while others, such as Leif Lewin, took it to mean that voters were sociotropic, motivated by the public interest—and therefore altruistic. It is important, however, to avoid conflating sociotropic voters with altruistic ones. Voters might be voting in favor of politicians or parties that they think will further the public interest as an indirect (...) route to furthering their own interests, as members of the public. More research, perhaps conducted using novel methodologies, is needed in order to settle the extent to which voters are motivated by self-interest or by the public interest. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Four decades ago, Gerald Kramer showed that economic conditions affect electoral outcomes. Some researchers took this to mean that voters were self-interested, voting their “pocketbooks,” while others, such as Leif Lewin, took it to mean that voters were sociotropic, motivated by the public interest—and therefore altruistic. It is important, however, to avoid conflating sociotropic voters with altruistic ones. Voters might be voting in favor of politicians or parties that they think will further the public interest as an indirect (...) route to furthering their own interests, as members of the public. More research, perhaps conducted using novel methodologies, is needed in order to settle the extent to which voters are motivated by self-interest or by the public interest. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Four decades ago, Gerald Kramer showed that economic conditions affect electoral outcomes. Some researchers took this to mean that voters were self-interested, voting their “pocketbooks,” while others, such as Leif Lewin, took it to mean that voters were sociotropic, motivated by the public interest—and therefore altruistic. It is important, however, to avoid conflating sociotropic voters with altruistic ones. Voters might be voting in favor of politicians or parties that they think will further the public interest as an indirect (...) route to furthering their own interests, as members of the public. More research, perhaps conducted using novel methodologies, is needed in order to settle the extent to which voters are motivated by self-interest or by the public interest. (shrink)

This study considers two problems: the extent to which feminist opinions are distinct from feminist identity and the generalizability of these separate constructs across gender and time. Using pooled cross-sectional data from the six National Election Study surveys conducted from 1972 through 1992, the author employs a series of measurement and structural equation models to evaluate the validity and reliability of various feminist orientations and to estimate the relationships among feminist identity, feminist opinion, and individual characteristics associated with feminism. The (...) results indicate that identity and opinion are separate but related constructs. This configuration generalizes across women and men and two decades of American electoral history. (shrink)

Felony disenfranchisement is best understood as a means of vote suppression. Quite apart from its significance as a form of criminal stigma, disenfranchisement is most properly characterized as one of the ways in which the American voting system reserves political participation for a privileged social and intellectual class. Thus understood, felony disenfranchisement reveals the theoretical underpinnings of an exclusionary version of American democracy in which more or less widespread disenfranchisement is an acceptable or necessary political tactic. Felony disenfranchisement should not (...) be characterized as a sanction for criminal conduct: It fits none of the usual justifications for punishment. Most commentators agree that felony disenfranchisement as a collateral sanction for criminal conduct stigmatizes alike a disparate collection of individuals convicted of crimes carrying a penalty of one year or more - everything from drug possession to murder - and extends, in many instances, long after former felons have completed their sentences. Justifications for refusing the vote to felons, and to former felons who are no longer incarcerated, are surprisingly weak and clearly related to larger issues of democratic participation. Accordingly, it is under the framework of democratic participation that the most persuasive justifications of disenfranchisement might be found. Under the framework of democratic participation, the disenfranchisement debate implicates competing theories of democracy, each of which has profound consequences for the constitution of the American polity. I contend that there are currently three models for the right to vote in American society: (1) a membership model premised upon popular participation in the democratic process as an expression of citizenship; (2) a deliberative model in which popular participation is conditioned upon the duty to be an informed and reflective citizen; and (3) an elite model entrenching political office in a political class that competes for votes among the electoral masses. The continuing vitality of these three models at the level of political debate and constitutional doctrine unsettles the dominant history of the franchise as one of progress from an exclusionary to an inclusionary extension of the mandate, and requires us to acknowledge felony disenfranchisement as part of a larger process of voter exclusion and suppression. (shrink)

Resumen En este trabajo abordamos del papel de la ideología y distintas formas de interpelación en las elecciones presidenciales de Argentina en 2015.Partimos de dos imputaciones cruzadas: la que surge del kirchnerismo, enfatizando el rol de los medios de comunicación masivos sobre los sectores medios y populares, y la respuesta progresista que insiste en una serie de motivos materiales de insatisfacción de estos sectores, a los que el kirchnerismo, afectado por una " miopía política " , no atendió durante su (...) gobierno y a los que desconoció en su discurso de campaña electoral, dejándolos librados a la interpelación por una forma de " individualismo miope ". Insistimos en que estas atribuciones cruzadas de ideologismo constituyen un campo ideológico por sí mismo, cuyo presupuesto común es el individualismo. A partir de allí intentamos comprender las condiciones histórico-políticas en la Argentina del siglo XX que hacen del individualismo una evidencia ideológica fundante en la Argentina del siglo XXI. Abstract In this paper we consider the role of ideology and different forms of interpellation in the presidential electionsof 2015 in Argentina. We start analyzing two crossed imputations: one, sustained by Kirchnerism, stresses the influence of mass media over popular sectors, which would have conducted them to vote against their own interests. The leftist answer to that imputation insists on a series of material reasons of thesesectors to be unsatisfied with Kirchnerism. Kirchnerism, affected by a " political myopia " , would have misrecognized the real situation of popular sectors during his government as well as during the electoral campaign, leaving them consequently exposed to an interpellation that we call " myopic individualism ". We argue that these mutual imputations of individualism constitute an ideological field by itself whose common ideological presupposition is individualism. We try to understand the historical political conditions in the Argentinean history of the XXth century of these foundationalideologicalevidences of the Argentine of the XXIth century. Keywords: discourse, juridical ideology, individualism, interpellation, Kirchnerism. (shrink)

The delineation of constituency boundaries and variations in vote distribution across districts often favor certain parties at the expense of others. Applying a hitherto under-utilized formula (Brookes, 1959; Johnston et al., 1999), this study investigates whether the mechanism translating votes into seats in Japan's single-member districts results in systematic partisan advantage that may influence election outcomes. Simulations are conducted for the 2003 and 2005 general elections under two scenarios: where the governing coalition and the main opposition party receive equal vote (...) shares, and where their vote shares are reversed from the actual results. Components of electoral bias are then disaggregated into size and distribution effects, and the impact of malapportionment, electorate size, turnout, and the role of third party/independent candidates on overall electoral bias is examined. Results show that while partisan bias exists, disadvantages toward one party in some components are likely to cancel out benefits derived from others, producing a relatively small net effect. Furthermore, electoral bias in Japan is found to award sectoral rather than partisan seat bonuses. (shrink)

The central theme of this paper is that the development of a technology that is predicted to have a major impact on the way we transact with each other should be a matter where the needs of society at large are taken into account. Where the technology is one that emerges from the domain of the Internet, inclusivity becomes even more acute in order to avoid widening the already existing gap in reaping the “digital dividend.” With blockchain, the obligation could (...) even be seen as a moral one, as blockchain is said to have the potential to negate the scope for the abuse of trust by states and institutions. This could be a game changer in areas such as public procurement and the conduct of elections where abuse can lead to the denial of essential resources and a concomitant loss of life, or to conflict and mass killings. Blockchain presents an opportunity for the Internet development community to claim a degree of recognition in the human rights realm by aiding civil intervention in areas where military intervention has been deemed inappropriate. (shrink)

During the last two years Belgian television has broadcast five parliamentary debates in full and live. They were either the first appearance of a new government or important government declarations. These broadcasts were encouraged by the president of the Lower House, who hoped to familiarize a large part of the electorate with the work of its members.Audience research has shown however that interest is low and is decreasing. On the other hand, cameras have definitely influenced members' conduct : they (...) attuned their appearances to the television audience, in tone, in wording and in argumentation. Sessions were also drastically prolonged.Conclusion : neither the broadcasting authority nor parliament have any interest in the live and full broadcasting of parliamentary debates. It is much to be preferred to limit them to a summary, put in an appropriate context in a special program. (shrink)

While there is only little transformation to the absolute power of the party-state to be detected, some grassroots democratic experiments, however, are receiving enormous attention of the world, especially village elections. Nevertheless, this preliminary exercise of democracy is widely characterized as a mixed bag of results. Since its first conduction, it has experienced immense development and bought great impact not only on different rural political institutions, but also on common mass villagers, as well as changes to the local governance. But (...) at the same time, the limitations of the factual effectiveness of these elections can hardly be underestimated and such aspects as the standardization of electoral procedures are still to be further improved. Moreover, given the wide variations across Chinese countryside and the strong oppositions from all levels, the future of China’s village elections remain hard to gauge. (shrink)

This article argues that Jeremy Bentham put forward a distinctive and original theory of representative democracy which can be helpfully analysed through his concept of the ‘deputy’. A deputy, Bentham argued, evoked a specific political relationship between governors and the governed – a relationship that was functionally different to that between the people and a ‘representative’ or a ‘delegate’. Whereas a representative was suggestive of too great a degree of governmental independence from the people and a delegate implied an excessive (...) dependency of governors upon the governed, a deputy for Bentham best described the relationship between the rulers and the ruled that should subsist in a representative democracy. A political form based on deputies, who were to be relatively free to conduct the business of government yet simultaneously accountable to their sovereign electors, was the only way in his eyes to guarantee the promotion of utility in politics and the security of the people from being misruled. (shrink)

Gendered language is becoming a matter of serious concern for legal drafters and policymakers because 'it is always changing as societal views change' (The University of Calgary: Office of diversity, equity and protected disclosure 2017:1). Many western countries have made considerable progress towards using inclusive legal language. However, inclusive language is not implemented in other parts of the World; the Arab World is no exception. This may be due to the violation of language rules, the decline of language, and the (...) lack of enough evidence that changing the language will change society (Brown in ABA J, 2019) and (Brown in ABA J: 24–26, 2018). In this paper, I explore the challenging socio-cultural and linguistic factors that may hinder the implementation of gender-inclusive language in Arabic and explain the current situation in two current constitutions of Egypt and Tunisia in particular. The main aim of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of terminology representing gender in the Egyptian (2014, amended 2019) and Tunisian (2014) Arabic-English Constitutions using corpus-based tools. The analysis shows inconsistent attempts at a more inclusive source text through using neutral terms and adding inclusive pre-modifiers to these terms. It also shows inconsistent translation of gender-specific terminology and pronominal references. Both constitutions explicitly stress the ‘eradication of violence against women’ and express parity between ‘women’ and ‘men’ in terms of ‘equal rights’ and ‘appropriate political representation’ (e.g. in the Egyptian House of Representatives (28%) and the Tunisian Assembly of People’s Representatives (26%)) (International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, IDEA 2021). Although these percentages are not far away from the representation of women in European countries such as the United Kingdom (35%) (International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, IDEA 2021), it is the reality of women’s actual roles, change they initiate and their impact in the society that counts. (shrink)

This article gives a first account of a survey conducted in Wallonia in May 1976, before the municipal elections.A specific survey was conducted in each town of more than 18.000 citizen.The complete sample is of ± 8000 persons. Comments are introduced on two type of questions : 1° thoseconcerning the relation of people with the municipality and 2° those concerning the electoral motivations.

The development of radar, jet propulsion, ballistic missiles and the atomic bomb during the Second World War established and made visible to an unprecedented degree governmentally supported and directed research and development. National survival was now seen to depend on the mobilisation of a country's talents and resources in science and technology for military purposes.Prior to the Second World War, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had established its own role in research. It also established the legitimacy of governmental patronage (...) for scientific research far beyond aeronautics. It was during that period that American politicians and the organs of public opinion became convinced and persuaded the electorate to think that science was indispensable for national security and well-being. A very great deal has been accomplished since then, but the credit for a pioneering role in the conduct of research with the financial support of the federal government must be given to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. (shrink)

This paper examined the integrity, impact and good governance value of election prophecies (EPs) in the last 20 years in selected African countries juxtaposed with President Donald Trump’s EPs in America. As a primary source, empirical research was conducted alongside a historical survey. The data collected from 519 respondents revealed that a majority believe in prophecies, but they queried the integrity, impact and value of EPs due to the inconsistency, inaccuracy, confusion and unhealthy public panics engendered. Despite the adverse effects, (...) many adherents still subscribe to the phenomenon due to the psychological and emotional influence. Subsequently, this article critiqued the research outcome through Biblical Theology. It held that EPs remain vital in the public life of nations, but the current approach in Africa needs some review. These include: (1) the need to revisit the tasks of prophets as Hope givers, Reformers and those who speak truth to power in pre- and post-election seasons; (2) the scrutiny of EPs by the plurality of Prophets, ecumenical leaders and the public, with the four suggested evaluation indices; and (3) the need to curb the negative effect of EPs on healthy electoral processes using enacted public account policies. Contribution: This article contributes to an interdisciplinary religious aspect of research covering Biblical theology, psephology and politics. (shrink)

This article investigates the efficacy of a form of electoral innovation unique to the island-state of Singapore, the Nominated Member of Parliament scheme, and its impact on democratic governance, in light of the changing political landscape. A comparative perspective will be employed and broader conclusions on electoral engineering will be reached, especially for democratizing countries. Contrary to conventional scholarly wisdom, I argue that the NMP scheme can actually boost democratic representation in the country, considering the changing political landscape (...) in the state previously dominated by a hegemonic party. This is via two ways: firstly, NMPs could better represent the voices of the people at the margins of society and, secondly, they could be better positioned to raise issues that are deemed too to be raised by opposition parties. NMPs can enhance democratic governance by promoting deliberation, accountability, and representation. (shrink)

Electoral representation is a cornerstone of contemporary democracy. Democracy today is widely interpreted to mean that the people governs itself through electing officials of government. But while...

The electoral college is inconsistent with the underlying principles of the US constitution and the basic ideas of John Rawls' theory of justice. The college introduces an undefined variable into the basic structure and violates the Rawlsian idea of a stable society and public reason. Public reason involves constitutional essentials of the basic structure and constitutive of the overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Since the electoral college need not respect the majority vote of the citizenry nor publicly (...) justify its vote, it violates the idea of public reason of citizens as free and equal since political discourse must be public and consistent with the principles implicit in the basic structure. (shrink)

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online tools designed to help citizens decide how to vote. They typically offer their users a representation of what is at stake in an election by matching user preferences on issues with those of parties or candidates. While the use of VAAs has boomed in recent years in both established and new democracies, this new phenomenon in the electoral landscape has received little attention from political theorists. The current academic debate is focused on epistemic (...) aspects of the question how a VAA can adequately represent electoral politics. We argue that conceptual and normative presuppositions at play in the background of the tool are at least as important. Even a well-developed VAA does not simply reflect what is at stake in the election by neutrally passing along information. Rather, it structures political information in a way that is informed by the developers’ presuppositions. Yet, these presuppositions remain hidden if we interpret the tool as a mirror that offers the user a reflection of him/herself situated within the political landscape. VAAs should therefore be understood as electoral dioramas, staged according to a contestable picture of politics. (shrink)

This article argues that major cases of electoral reform across democracies in Asia in recent years can be explained as institutional measures aimed at curbing corruption and . More specifically, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand rid themselves of their extreme candidate-centered electoral systems as a means to encourage politicians to invest in collective party labels, while Indonesia discarded its extremely party-centered electoral system to increase the accountability of individual politicians. The article thus disagrees with scholars who argue that (...) recent electoral reform should be understood as part of a wider project by Asian governments to engineer a majoritarian form of democracy. Instead, the comparative analysis shows that democracies across Asia, in line with global trends in institutional design, have been their electoral systems, moving them closer towards the ideal of electoral. (shrink)

A growing literature looks at how the design of the electoral system shapes the voting behavior of politicians in parliaments. Existing research tends to confirm that in mixed-member systems the politicians elected in the single-member districts are more likely to vote against their parties than the politicians elected on the party lists. However, we find that in South Korea, the members of the Korean National Assembly who were elected on PR lists are more likely to vote against their party (...) leadership than the members elected in single-member districts (SMDs). This counterintuitive behavior stems from the particular structure of candidate selection and politicians' career paths. This suggests that any theory of how electoral systems shape individual parliamentary behavior needs to look beyond the opportunities provided by the electoral rules for voters to reward or punish individual politicians (as opposed to parties), to the structure of candidate selection inside parties and the related career paths of politicians. (shrink)

What happens when we vote? What are we counting when we count ballots? Who decides what an election should look like and what it should mean? And why do so many people believe that some or all elections are rigged? Moving between intellectual history, literary criticism, and political theory, The Electoral Imagination offers a critical account of the decisions before the decision, of the aesthetic and imaginative choices that inform and, in some cases, determine the nature and course of (...) democratic elections. Drawing on original interpretations of George Eliot and Ralph Ellison, Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Arrow, Anthony Trollope and Arthur Koestler, Richard Nixon and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Palm Beach Butterfly Ballot and the Single Transferable Vote, The Electoral Imagination works both to understand the systems we use to move between the one and the many and to offer an alternative to the 'myth of rigging.'. (shrink)