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)

On the whole, the Electoral College, with all its deficiencies, has served us well, providing leadership and decent representation. Therefore it should not be abolished.

The 2000 U.S. presidential election was one of the most bizarre and fateful in American history. Described in books as a “deadlock,” “thriller,” “the perfect tie,” and even “Grand Theft 2000,” studies of the election have dissected its anomalies and scandals and have attempted to describe and explain what actually happened.1 In this study, I will analyze how the turn toward media politics and spectacle in U.S. political campaigns and the curious and arguably archaic system of proportional voting in the (...) U.S. tilted the campaign toward George W. Bush and were prejudicial to the election of Al Gore. Gore received over 540,000 votes more than Bush, but because of the U.S. system of proportional voting won less electoral votes and lost the crucial state of Florida. In this chapter, I will argue that media representation of the two candidates and the anomalies of the U.S. system of proportional representation in an arguably archaic Election College were major factors in the highly controversial ascent to the presidency of George W. Bush. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court decision directly decided the election results and the story of Election 2000 is highly complex and contested. Yet focus on the media in the election and problems with the system of proportional representation provide revealing lenses on the events of the 2000 election and call attention to major problems in the U.S. system of representational democracy. (shrink)

Trump’s election renewed discussion about the Electoral College, mostly centered on its disparity with the popular vote. Yet much commentary about the Electoral College neglects its original purpose grounded in the Founders’ concern to provide for indirect election to many important offices. The Founders’ project entailed determining the people’s aptitude to elect the types of individuals desirable for high office, in an attempt to harmonize their dual commitments to political right and political legitimacy. The Electoral (...) College’s function was soon frustrated by the rise of political parties, yet parties came to serve at least part of that function, with party leaders standing as a moderating force between the people and the presidency. However, the 2016 elections suggest that parties no longer play this intermediary role effectively. Examining the steps that led to this result, we seek to provide a reminder of the enduring thesis that the dangers inherent in republicanism require creative republican remedies. (shrink)

Weighted voting involves weighting representatives’ votes by the populations that they represent. Such systems have been adopted in some legislative bodies as a remedy for malapportionment, and are sometimes used to elect candidates for the executive branch of government. But they receive little attention. This note observes the neglected vices of weighted voting systems: they violate intuitive conditions of monotonicity and participation. These vices count significantly against the use of weighted voting, and reflecting on why they arise improves our understanding (...) of axioms in social choice theory. (shrink)

Colorado’s Amendment 36 proposed to switch Colorado’s representation in the Electoral College from winner-takes-all to proportionality. We evaluate unilateral and uniform switches to proportionality both from Colorado’s perspective and from an impartial perspective on the basis of a priori and a posteriori voting power measures. The present system is to be preferred to a unilateral switch from any perspective on any measure. A uniform switch is to be preferred to the present system from Colorado’s perspective on an a (...) priori measure, and from an impartial perspective on an a posteriori measure. The present system is to be preferred to a uniform switch from Colorado’s perspective on an a posteriori measure (with some qualifications), and from an impartial perspective on an a priori measure. We conclude with a discussion of the appropriateness of these measures. (shrink)

The mean majority deficit in a two-tier voting system is a function of the partition of the population. We derive a new square-root rule: For odd-numbered population sizes and equipopulous units the mean majority deficit is maximal when the member size of the units in the partition is close to the square root of the population size. Furthermore, within the partitions into roughly equipopulous units, partitions with small even numbers of units or small even-sized units yield high mean majority deficits. (...) We discuss the implications for the winner-takes-all system in the US Electoral College. (shrink)

The American presidential election of 2000 was perhaps the most remarkable, and in many ways the most unsettling, that the country has yet experienced. The millennial election raised fundamental questions not only about American democracy, but also about the nation's constitution and about the legitimate role of American courts, state and federal, and in particular about the United States Supreme Court. _The Longest Night _presents a lively and informed reaction to the legal aftermath of the election by the most prominent (...) experts on the subject. With a balance of opposing views—including those of some of the most distinguished foreign commentators writing on the subject today—the contributors present an unusual breadth of perspectives in addressing the judicial, institutional, and political questions involved in the disputed election. Their commentaries bring the confusion and frenzy of the event into clear focus and lay the groundwork for an essential public debate that is sure to continue well into the future._ _The Longest Night _contains a thorough chronology of the events in Florida, a detailed account of the institutional structure of American presidential elections, a series of analyses both criticizing and defending the decisions in _Bush v. Gore, _American perspectives on the Florida struggle and America's electoral system, and a debate on maintaining or reforming the electoral college. The authors include participants in the legal and political battles surrounding the Florida election, foreigners charged with monitoring and supervising elections, and scholars from many disciplines specializing in constitutionalism, democracy, and American election law. _Contributors__. (shrink)

This study sought to identify content on the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit in the 12 most commonly used high school and college-leveleconomics textbooks. Our systematic review of these sources leads to two key findings: (1) Textbooks are similar in how they represent fiscal policy yet treatthe federal budget, deficit, and debt differently across the sample, and (2) Textbooks treat the federal budget, budget deficit, and national debt as theoretical, without an examination of values and systemic (...) class='Hi'>electoral and budgetary politics. These findings lead us to argue that curriculum is needed that will permit a careful examination of how everyday citizens can gain knowledge, acknowledge values, and work towards a reasoned and realitybased view of what is at stake with regard to these issues in the 21st Century. (shrink)

The Federalist, justifying the Electoral College to elect the president, claimed that a small group of more informed individuals would make a better decision than the general mass. But the Condorcet Jury Theorem tells us that the more independent, better-than-random voters there are, the more likely it will be that the majority among them will be correct. The question thus arises as to how much better, on average, members of the smaller group would have to be to compensate (...) for the epistemic costs of making decisions on the basis of that many fewer votes. This question is explored in the contexts of referendum democracy, delegate-style representative democracy, and trustee-style representative democracy. (shrink)

Majority rule is often regarded as an important democratic principle. But modern democracies divide voters into districts. So if the majority should rule, which majority should rule? Should it be the popular majority, or an electoral majority (i.e., either the majority of voters in the majority of districts, or the majority of voters in districts that contain the majority of the population)? I argue that majority rule requires rule by the popular majority. This view is not novel and may (...) seem obvious. But it is rarely defended, and often rejected. I defend it by arguing that this view about which majority should rule is best supported by the arguments for why the majority should rule, and best avoids the arbitrary and perverse verdicts of rule by electoral majorities. I close by considering the significant practical implications of the view. The Electoral College is often criticized on the basis that the winner of the popular vote doesn’t always win the election. But all district-based democracies have this feature, so all district-based democracies must be reformed if they are to satisfy the principle of majority rule. (shrink)

In this paper we consider several ways in which voting systems can be manipulated and we pose some related ethical questions. Our focus is on the recent phenomenon of vote trading or vote swapping that was invented in 2000 and used in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential elections. Vote trading is an Internet-based technique that sought to allow Democrats in heavily Republican states (like Texas) to effectively vote in swing states (like Florida), where their votes would have more impact. (...) We also look at some other new ways that voting systems can be manipulated and we consider the general question of whether there exist voting systems that cannot be manipulated. (shrink)

In this contribution, different elements which clarify the influence of the four yearly social elections on workers'participation are brought together. The author explains that representatives of only two advisory bodies on company level are elected. Nevertheless the social elections have an effect on a broader scale. The elections play a part in the protection of representatives in the trade union delegation, a third representative body on company level. Furthermore the elections can affect the relations which are situated above the company (...) level. Moreover a growing package of powers is granted to the workers' representatives. There is however an important difference between the social and the political elections. Political elections can cause a genuine change of power, social elections on the other hand can never change the postwar basic compromise: the employer preserves most of the decision power.The author outlines furthermore the battle necks of this participation mechanism. The most important bottleneck certainly is the low turn out of candidates for the social elections. For the first time this problem is analysed sectoraly over a longer period of time. It is concluded that there are great differences not only between the economic sectors and the non-economic sectors, but also between the economic sectors themselves. The author also indicates that the decline of active participation in the economic sector since 1975 is mainly situated in seven sectors, which deliver altogether 60% of the mandates in the profit sector. Finally the author touches upon two more bottlenecks, which are already discussed before but which remain nevertheless very important: the low presence of women as candidates and likewise in the distribution of seats, furthermore the relatively great amount of invalid votes in the electoral colleges of workers and young people. (shrink)

Standing institutions have a continuous existence: examples include the United Nations, the British Parliament, the US presidency, the standing committees of the US Congress, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Intermittent institutions have a discontinuous existence: examples include the Roman dictatorship, the Estates-General of France, constitutional conventions, citizens' assemblies, the Electoral College, grand and petit juries, special prosecutors, various types of temporary courts and military tribunals, ad hoc congressional committees, and ad hoc panels such as the 9/11 Commission and (...) base-closing commissions. Within the class of intermittent institutions, one may distinguish periodic from episodic institutions. The former come into being on a schedule set down in advance, while the latter come into being at unpredictable intervals. The Electoral College is a periodic institution, while the Roman dictatorship is an episodic one. This article attempts to identify the benefits and costs of intermittent institutions, both as a class and in their periodic and episodic varieties. The largest goals are to state some general conditions under which intermittent institutions prove superior or inferior to standing institutions, and to illuminate the temporal dimension of institutional design. (shrink)

Introduction. The trial; the right to a lawyer; double jeopardy; the electoral college; the senate; presidential pardon; judicial review; lifetime appointment; campaign finance reform; the right to political leave; the democratized corporation -- The right to a lawyer -- Abolish double jeopardy -- Empower the jury -- The electoral college -- Abolish presidential pardon -- Abolish the Senate -- Limit the power of the Supreme Court -- Abolish lifetime tenure of Supreme Court justices -- Reduce private (...) money in election campaigns -- Expand the right to run for political office -- Expand employee rights -- The contradictions of libertarianism. (shrink)

In the December 2015 Issue of the Police Journal Sam Poyser and Rebecca Milne addressed the subject of miscarriages of justice. Cold case investigations can address some of these wrongs. The salient points for attention are those just before his sudden death: Milligan was appointed Private Secretary to Jonathan Aitken, the then Minister of Arms in the Conservative government in 1994. The known facts are as follows: 1. Stephen David Wyatt Milligan was found deceased on Tuesday 8th February 1994 at (...) his Chiswick, West London house where he lived alone. His body was found by his secretary Vera Taggart who was told by Julie Kirkbride where a spare key to his London house was kept and who decided to go to his house that day because he was not answering his telephone. Police said he had made one last telephone call on Saturday evening at 9.00pm. 2. Stephen David Wyatt Milligan had been the elected Member of Parliament (‘MP’) for Eastleigh in Hampshire since 1992. 3. The important topics this MP was addressing in 1994 at the time of his death included: (i) rail privatization plans and the impact through job losses on communities, especially his own constituency of Eastleigh; (ii) arms dealings with Saudi Arabia, especially with his previous intelligence gathered as an economics journalist for esteemed publications; (iii) the UK military industry; (iv) homosexuality among senior government Ministers, as revealed by British footballer Fasanu; (v) personal relationship and planned marriage to his fiancée (Julie Kirkbride) who at the time was a political journalist. 4. Stephen Milligan was also appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Jonathan Aitken, Arms Minister and this position must have required that he came ‘up to speed’ on international arms trade and indeed its relation to bribery and corruption across jurisdictions. Milligan’s experience and knowledge as a former high-level political and economics journalist must have been of huge benefit to government minister Jonathan Aitken who was later imprisoned for perjury. 5. Regarding Stephen Milligan’s death in 1994, the Guardian newspaper in their immediate obituary said that ‘The death of one of the government's most outspoken and loyal supporters will pose a stiff electoral test for the Tories to surmount. He was on the left of the Tory party - he had even had a brief flirtation with the SDP when it was formed - and was a noted Euro-enthusiast… the death of one of the government's most outspoken and loyal supporters will pose a stiff electoral test for the Tories to surmount. Regarding Stephen Milligan’s sudden and unexpected death in 1994, MP David Willetts (Conservative, Havant) said in March 2015, in his address in the House of Commons. ‘…The inevitable ups and downs and triumphs and disasters of politics are among the great features of this place. There are colleagues in all parts of the House who are tolerant and understanding. There are friendships that keep the downs as well as the ups of politics in perspective. Having entered the House in 1992, I think particularly of two good friends, Judith Chaplin and Stephen Milligan, who both died within two years of being elected; that loss stayed with me for a long time...’ 6. On 28 February 2000, in the House of Commons, at Column 106, Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth) said, on the deaths of Michael Colvin and of Stephen Milligan MP: ‘I knew Michael Colvin for nearly 30 years, from when he was first elected to Hampshire county council. During my time as leader of that council, he and the late former Member of Parliament for Eastleigh, Stephen Milligan, were usually the only Members of Parliament who readily supported the council when necessary. Michael Colvin supported many ventures in the county of Hampshire. He will be missed here, in his constituency, and in Europe, and I stress that Hampshire has lost a staunch supporter. I am sure that the county will at some stage want to record its regret at his death and its deepest appreciation of the part that he played in its life....’ -/- Mike Hancock had, like Stephen Milligan, served on the Select Committee on Defence. It is interesting that he mentioned Stephen Milligan’s support as MP for Eastleigh when Milligan had only been so appointed a couple of years before his sudden death, as compared to 30 years of support from Mike Colvin. 7. Mr Andrew Robathan (for Blaby) said in the House of Commons Hansard Debates on 27 January1997, (Column 62) (on the registering of sex offenders): ‘I remember the death of my honourable friend Stephen Milligan, who represented Eastleigh. The press reports of the time stated that each Metropolitan police station had a police officer in the pay of newspapers. I do not know whether that is true, but I am aware that the police are not renowned for being entirely secure with their information…’ This statement is mischievous and it has been demonstrated time and time again, as being untrue, especially during the recent press inquiry leading to the four-volume Leveson Report, published in November 2012, into phone hacking and the ethics and culture of the UK media, pursuant to section 26 of the Inquiries Act 2005, and ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 29 November 2012, ISBN: 9780102981063, by the Stationery Office Limited on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. In Volume 4 of the 2012 Leveson Report, chapter 4 concluded on the Press Complaints Commission (‘PCC’) and its effectiveness and revealed that the PCC does not initiate its own investigations other than those ‘needed to head off criticism of the press or self-regulation- or to accept complaints from third parties across the board and on a transparent basis… and the report states that ‘the resources of the police are limited’ in terms of being able to fully inspect the Press and media reports. (shrink)

The Demise of California's “Master Plan for Higher Education”After buying a home, a university education is the largest financial investment that most Americans ever make. Universities provide the learning environment to produce an informed electorate, support basic research and train professionals. A college education prepares a skilled workforce but, above all, the main purpose of higher education is to create and transmit knowledge, promote critical thinking and literacy, and prepare students to be enlightened, active citizens. California taxpayers generally considered (...) public higher education one of the best investments they could make in the future of their state. Since 1960…. (shrink)

Democracy establishes relationships of political equality, ones in which citizens equally share authority over what they do together and respect one another as equals. But in today's divided public square, democracy is challenged by political thinkers who disagree about how democratic institutions should be organized, and by antidemocratic politicians who exploit uncertainties about what democracy requires and why it matters. Democratic Equality mounts a bold and persuasive defense of democracy as a way of making collective decisions, showing how equality of (...) authority is essential to relating equally as citizens. James Lindley Wilson explains why the US Senate and Electoral College are urgently in need of reform, why proportional representation is not a universal requirement of democracy, how to identify racial vote dilution and gerrymandering in electoral districting, how to respond to threats to democracy posed by wealth inequality, and how judicial review could be more compatible with the democratic ideal. What emerges is an emphatic call to action to reinvigorate our ailing democracies, and a road map for widespread institutional reform. Democratic Equality highlights the importance of diverse forms of authority in democratic deliberation and electoral and representative processes—and demonstrates how that authority rests equally with each citizen in a democracy. (shrink)

The belief that White people are targeted victims of dispossession, displacement, and genocide has spread with shocking intensity since Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral college victory. Although this Great Replacement myth may seem absurd and irrational, its destructive real-world consequences force the question: what explains its efficacy and appeal? Drawing on White nationalists Greg Johnson and Tucker Carlson, I argue that the Great Replacement myth functions as an explanation for the real socioeconomic decline that has culminated in deaths of (...) despair. I then explore this decline’s sociohistorical context to argue that deaths of despair are consequences of political-economic domination reinforced by White supremacy. Put otherwise, these deaths result from socioeconomic violence that White people have inflicted on each other. I conclude that the real problem “the White race” faces today is not a Great Replacement but a Slow White Suicide. (shrink)

This article has two goals: 1° to illustrate certain methods which are completely new in their application and ; 2° to communicate and analyse the results obtained by these methods.The first part of this study concerns the application of a mathematical model to the nominal votes in the French-speaking electoral college for the European elections of June 1984. The statistical categories of the log linear model, logically translated, permit to isolate and to measure the effects of list, position, (...) and personality of each candidate.The second part of the article studies in more detail the results for the candidates Happart and Nols. This provides the occasion to introduce and to illustrate a method which permits the measurement of the nature of the performance of each candidate in terms of votes and percentages. The application of this method to the totality of French - and Flemish -speaking candidates, with an interpretation of the significance of themeasures, forms the last part of this study. (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)

Niche parties have been increasingly successful during the last 30 years and have accordingly received a lot of scholarly attention. So far most of the focus has been on Green and radical right parties, and to a more limited extent, regional parties. In this paper I analyze the electoral fates and policy outcomes of another type of niche party, namely those focusing on anti-corruption, whose successes culminated during the 2000s. The study is limited to all new parties campaigning on (...) the issue of anti-corruption in Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall and the questions to be answered are: To what extent are these parties successful in obtaining relevant positions in the government so that they are able to effectively fight corruption? What impact do they have on anti-corruption measures, thereby influencing the level of corruption? How successful are these parties in the elections that follow? In short, to what extent do anticorruption parties matter? Apart from electoral and governmental data, the analysis is based on the Freedom House Nation in Transit annual reports, in which one section deals with the efforts to curb corruption. The results are rather mixed, but indicate that the more influential positions the anti-corruption parties (ACPs) have in government, the better are their anti-corruption performances. That implies that they are serious and competent enough to tackle those issues, despite their newness and lack of experience. Not surprisingly, the incumbent ACPs fare worse than those in opposition in subsequent elections, but quite a few still remain popular. Finally, all but one party abandoned their anti-corruption rhetoric in their second election, which implies that anti-corruption is a different type of issue, compared to the ones used by previous niche parties. (shrink)

Community Colleges, as contemporary educational institutions, are best understood by elucidating their legitimacy needs in a technological society. The nature of a technological society has been most clearly articulated in the work of Jacques Ellul. The growth of the technological society is inextricably tied to a vision of reality centered upon the empirical world and its manipulation by humans. This capacity to manipulate becomes so compelling that reality is virtually ex hausted of anything that cannot be objectively verified and subject (...) to manipulation. Within this framework, precise quantitative measures and manipulation be come the sole form of legitimacy. The community college is caught in this predicament and in compliance mutates into a pseudo-laboratory of interventions on its objects. The proposed trajectory of said institutions is one that is incapable of providing the fertile soil for the development of character or the discovery of meaning. (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)

The community college movement has been eager to embrace the accelerating changes brought about by global capital and facilitated by information technology. Leadership for the community college role in globalization has been cultivated by the American Association of Community Colleges and the League for Innovation in the Community College. As the administrators of publicly funded community colleges view themselves as managers and CEOs in a competitive market for education, the colleges look to private industry for funding. Meanwhile, (...) the voice of the community college is nearly silent with regard to environmental destruction and human rights abuses e xacerbated by globalization. This article will focuse on the role of community colleges in facilitating and cheerleading the corporate global economy while attenuating dissenting world views that would promote a more just and sustainable future. (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)

Annotations to the Dbu ma'i spyi don zab don gsal ba'i sgron me by Paṇ-chen Bsod-nams-grags-pa, 1478-1554.

Were women agents of their own political emancipation or did politicians preemptively grant rights to them in a bid for electoral success? This article claims that both electoral politics and the ordinary strategies of women’s movements explain the timing of female suffrage. Drawing on archival evidence from the United Kingdom, I show how in an electoral environment where the incumbent Liberals saw disadvantage to reform, an enterprising group of Liberal suffragists formed a pact with the Labour party, (...) trading economic resources for the party’s promise to push for suffrage reform. The Election Fighting Fund, as the pact was called, was key to securing women’s place in the 1918 Representation of the People Act. In raising the possibility that ordinary instead of revolutionary tactics proved key to voting rights reform, women emerge as an interesting new case for the study of democratization. (shrink)

This volume explores the history of the Delhi college - considered the centre of Delhi Renaissance and the meeting ground between British and Oriental culture before 1857 - against the background of both traditional scholarship and the British education policy in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Conventional theories of government formation have assumed that the coalition formation process starts after legislative elections are over and the distribution of parliamentary seats becomes common knowledge. This perspective, however, ignores the important constraints that the formation of electoral coalitions may exert on the formation of the government. This article argues that the electoral system of Hungary provides very strong incentives for political parties to build electoral coalitions, which are also identified as alternative governments before the electorate.

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)

Insightful essays from community college leaders provide an interesting introspective on the importance of international education, while providing examples and advice for creating and improving programs at community colleges. Topics include developing ESL and study-abroad programs, partnerships abroad, curriculum development, faculty development, and funding sources.

A college academic course is an argument constructed by the professor who teaches the course. Richard Paul’s elements of thinking are used to clarify this contention. It is the responsibility of the professor to choose reading materials, construct lectures, and develop other activities and assignments that can best aid her students to understand the argument. Reading texts and listening to lectures effectively to grasp the argument requires critical thinking skills that can be learned by students. Students fail when those (...) responsible for their education either assume they already possess such skills or that they cannot learn them. (shrink)

German MS. 2 is a previously unstudied armorial dating from the mid-sixteenth century. This article shows that it was produced in the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger for Elector August of Saxony, and that it was copied from an earlier armorial of c.1500 which was kept in Cranach’s workshop, probably as reference material. Much of the original content and structure of this ‘old armorial’ has been preserved in Rylands German 2. On this basis, the original armorial can be located (...) in a late fifteenth-century Upper German tradition of armorial manuscripts known as the ‘Bodensee’ group. It was also closely linked to the Habsburg dynasty, and appears to have been dedicated to Empress Bianca Maria Sforza. The armorial therefore opens significant new perspectives on the relationships between artists and heraldry and between women and heraldic knowledge, and on ways of visualising the Holy Roman Empire through heraldry. (shrink)

The article focuses on the role of social technology in the Russian electoral process. On this basis, the author provides answers to more general issues concerning such questions as whether it is possible in the Russian context to combine social stability and informative political communication; whether a conflict-free processing of objective information can be achieved; whether political communication can extricate itself from self-referential isolation around the issue of social unity and address the real challenges facing society; and whether the (...) authorities will be able to transition from motivative-integrative social technologies to object-information technologies. (shrink)