Democratization and the secularization of religious parties: the case of Mexico

Under what conditions does democratization erode religious political engagement? The dramatic democratic transitions in the Catholic world during the last quarter of the twentieth century have been accompanied by the widespread decline of Catholic political parties, but the interaction between democratizing reforms and the development of religious parties in the Catholic world remains poorly understood. This article analyses the crucial case of Mexico to explore if, how, and under what conditions electoral participation encourages the differentiation of religious and partisan activism. Relying on archival research and an original data set describing the religious linkages of 302 historic and contemporary leading members of the PAN, Mexico's largest Catholic-inspired party, this article shows that democratization is only indirectly linked to the secularization of religious parties, and its effects are conditional on the resources and opportunities available to religious activists.     

Electoral violence during party primaries in Kenya

ABSTRACT

Since the restoration of multi-party democracy in Kenya in 1991, elections have witnessed intra-party violence during the primaries for selecting parliamentary and civic seats candidates. This article addresses the question of why electoral violence occurs during party primaries in Kenya and argues that violence is an outcome of the organization of political parties, which has revolved around personalities identified with ethno-regional interests rather than institutionalism. The upshot has been the absence of party institutionalization to establish structures for recruitment of members and organization of primaries. Such organizational weaknesses have denied parties the capacity to match the intense competition for tickets of ethno-regional dominant parties that guarantees nominees to win seats in their strongholds. Intra-party violence has followed. The article submits that intra-party electoral violence in Kenya is a function of the politics of clientelism and ethnicity, both of which have severely hampered the institutionalization of political parties and their capacity to cope with the stiff competition for the tickets of ethno-regional dominant parties.     

Islam and politics in Europe and in Asia: Comparative reflections

This article compares the role of religion, and of Islam in particular, in politics in Europe and in South and South East Asia. It starts out with the policy dilemmas facing France, Europe's most secular country that also has Europe's largest immigrant Muslim community. After long debates nation-wide Muslim organisation is now sponsored by the state in order to strengthen moderate Islam in France. In contrast, explicit Christian parties are in decline in most of Europe. Those who are still electorally successful are Christian mostly in name only and have turned into centre-right conservative people's parties instead. Religious discourse in politics has hence vanished almost entirely in Europe. In difference in Asia Islamic opposition parties have managed to set increasingly the political agenda in the majority Islamic states. In those countries with an Islamic minority their public religious agitation serves to strengthen their ethnic minority identity. Meaningful bi-continental dialogue needs to be aware of this discrepancy in religious politics.     

The Contingency of Voter Learning: How Election Debates Influenced Voters’ Ability and Accuracy to Position Parties in the 2010 Dutch Election Campaign

Election campaigns are expected to inform voters about parties’ issue positions, thereby increasing voters’ ability to influence future policy and thus enhancing the practice of democratic government. We argue that campaign learning is not only contingent on voters’ characteristics and different sources of information, but also on how parties communicate their issue positions in election debates. We combine a two-wave panel survey with content analysis data of three televised election debates. In cross-classified multilevel auto-regression models we examine the influence of these debates in the 2010 Dutch parliamentary election campaign on voters’ knowledge of the positions of eight parties on three issues. The Dutch multiparty system allows us to separate voters’ ability to position parties from their accuracy in ordering these parties. We reach three main conclusions. First, this study shows that voters become more able and accurate during the campaign. However, these campaign learning effects erode after the elections. Second, whereas voters’ attention to campaigns consistently contributes to their ability to position parties, its effect on accuracy is somewhat less consistent. Third, televised election debates contribute to what voters learn. Parties that advocate their issue positions in the debates stimulate debate viewers’ ability to position these parties on these issues. In the face of the complexity of campaigns and debates in multiparty systems, campaigns are more likely to boost voters’ subjective ability to position parties than their accuracy.     

Political Parallelism in Media and Political Agenda-Setting

This article investigates whether agenda-setting relations between newspapers and political parties are influenced by political parallelism. Our case is the Netherlands, a country characterized by high levels of journalistic professionalization and independent media. We focus on newspaper coverage and oral parliamentary questions and use time series analysis to inspect influence both of parliament on newspapers and of newspapers on parliament. The results show that parties respond only to issues raised in newspapers their voters read, and that newspapers only respond to the agenda of parties their readers vote for. This demonstrates that even in mediatized, professionalized media contexts, parallelism is still of importance to understand the relationship between media and politics.     

Afghanistan's parliamentary election: towards the path of democracy

The parliamentary election in Afghanistan in September 2005, seen as the last step towards the establishment of a broad-based government based on democracy, depicts the overall political situation and power struggle among the involved parties, mainly the Islamic parties, the international community (mainly the USA) and the administration of President Karzai, all with different agendas. The immediate winners of the election were the Islamic parties, who not only used their wealth and power but also the ‘ethic card’. But they also had backing from the Afghan government and the Americans. This paper investigates what this election mean to different parties active in Afganistan's politics; the people of Afghanistan, its government and the USA. Will this election lead to the establishment of a democratic society or enhance the power of Islamic extremists and warlords?     

The party's over ‐ market liberalization and the challenges for one‐party and one‐party dominant regimes: The cases of Taiwan and Mexico,Italy and Japan

This article examines the recent political misfortunes of two ruling parties (the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico and the Kuomintang in Taiwan) and of two dominant political parties (the Christian Democrats in Italy, and the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan). It compares the causes of their misfortune, and emphasises the impact of the need to open their economies to take advantage of international trade and to make their macro‐economic policies conform more to international standards. In particular this has reduced such parties’ ability to reserve economic rewards for political supporters. It argues that these difficulties are symptomatic of broader problems which many parties will find in attracting long‐term political support and members in an era where ideology plays a lesser role in political life, and where economic pressures for the opening of markets to international competition will increase.     

Party “capacity” in new democracies: how executive format affects the recruitment of presidents and prime ministers

Scholars and practitioners express concern that parties in “third wave” democracies are poorly developed, compared to parties in older democracies. We suggest that parties vary in their organizational “capacity”, focusing on parties' ability to select trustworthy executive agents. Capacity is higher where parties can vet potential executive talent by observing future leaders over time in the legislature – an increasingly available option as democracy matures. The key distinction in parties' use of this option lies in the delegation structure between a party and the executive. Parliamentary systems offer a clear line of delegation, which parties control. In presidential systems, parties must recruit executive candidates who can win a popular election, requiring characteristics that may not be well correlated with those that make them good party agents. As parliamentary democracy matures, we find a steady increase in prime ministers' average length of prior legislative service. For presidents, there is significantly weaker growth in prior legislative service. We also theorize about and investigate patterns in semi-presidential democracies. Our findings suggest that the institutional format of the executive is more important for party capacity in new democracies than the era in which a democracy was born.     

The election trap: the cycle of post-electoral repression and opposition fragmentation in Lukashenko's Belarus

Recent work on competitive authoritarianism has not explored the full consequences of electoral participation for opposition movements. While prominent work argues that the government must employ a mix of side-payments and repression to fragment opposition to its rule, Belarus’ history since the ascension of President Alexander Lukashenko in 1994 shows that the opposition has been repressed after most parliamentary and presidential elections without any substantial co-optation. I argue that electoral contestation and subsequent post-electoral repression have led to the Belarusian opposition's fragmented state. This state is grounded in competition for foreign aid, which creates a need among Belarusian opposition leaders to demonstrate their ability to mobilize support through campaigns. Invariably, successful opposition leaders emerge as the principal challengers to the regime, leading to their arrest or exile. Repression then fosters division within anti-government movements and restarts the cycle for new aid-seeking parties and leaders. A quantitative test establishes that repression concentrates in post-electoral periods and a qualitative assessment shows that opposition fragmentation stems from the arrest or exile of opposition leaders. The empirical findings provide contrasting evidence to work on co-optation in autocracies while suggesting an adverse effect of foreign democracy assistance around the world.     

Compulsory voting and ethnic diversity increase invalid voting while corruption does not: an analysis of 417 parliamentary elections in 73 countries

Invalid voting, meaning blank and spoiled ballots, is a regular phenomenon in democracies around the world. When its share is larger than the margin of victory or greater than the vote share of some of the large parties in the country, invalid voting becomes a problem for democratic legitimacy. This article investigates its determinants in 417 democratic parliamentary elections in 73 countries on five continents from 1970 to 2011. The analysis shows that enforced compulsory voting and ethnic fragmentation are strong predictors for invalid voting while corruption has less impact. Our findings suggest that the societal structure is crucial in understanding invalid voting as a problem for democratic legitimacy because greater social diversity seems to lead to either a greater rate of mistakes or lesser attachments of social groups to the democratic process. Thus, rising levels of invalid voting are not only concerning in themselves but also for the divisive factors driving them.     

What Will Improve Governance?

Misgovernance in India ranks among its toughest problems to solve. Despite decades of seemingly progressive legislation, there is a simmering dissatisfaction even among those for whose benefits the legislation is designed. The electoral debacle of the UPA government in the parliamentary election of 2014 can be partly attributed to the disenchantment that a vast majority of people felt toward the governance issues. We argue that dynastic politics is the hallmark of many political parties in India and it prevents the emergence of meritorious leadership. Just as we need the process of creative destruction in the economic arena for sustained growth, we need a similar process in the political arena so that local leaders are chosen on the basis of their performance. The success of the new government at the center will depend on whether they succeed in jettisoning centralized decision making and moving the political process in this direction.     

Third party monitoring in the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict

The 2014 elections brought a record number of xenophobic populist parties into the European Parliament (EP). They have a strong incentive to be more united and active than in previous terms, and they could use the Parliament to shape voter attitudes, pressure mainstream parties to adopt more xenophobic rhetoric, fragment the mainstream right, and obstruct parliamentary proceedings. The rise of xenophobic populism could affect the open society through the EU’s policies and budget if it alters EP debates on issues that split left and right, particularly Roma exclusion, migration and asylum, and EU external policies and development aid.     

Playing Their Cards Right: Ethnic Parties and Government Coalitions in Postcommunist Europe

This article seeks to identify the determinants of ethnic parties’ access to coalition governments in Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia between 1990 and 2013. We conducted a cross-national and longitudinal analysis in which we took into account all the elections in which the ethnic parties gained parliamentary representation. With 21 cases over two decades—with the party at the election being the unit of analysis—and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as the method of analysis, this study concludes that the pivotal position is important for access to government coalitions, while organizational change and government incumbency have a limited explanatory power.     

Opposition parties and parliamentary oversight: The norwegian case, 1970–96

The numerous studies of parliamentary oversight and institutional design have largely ignored the ability of parliamentary opposition to strengthen and utilize mechanisms of parliamentary oversight by which they can challenge incumbents. This article explores the evolution of oversight mechanisms in Norway during 1970–96, and the ways new mechanisms have been utilized by the opposition to penetrate the policy‐making world of public bureaucracy. An analysis of two cases investigated by the new Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs in 1994 and 1995 reveals that opposition members imposed institutional constraints on the incumbents. That in turn produced a move away from the traditional fixed control system, and towards a shifting‐focus control mode. In addition, the strategic creation of oversight arrangements appears to offer incumbents very little control over the evolution of oversight arrangements. Some control, however, may be exercised over the conclusion of oversight cases due to the leadership's ability, through the use of selective incentives, to persuade parties to join the government in the final vote in the Committee.     

Partisan Bias in Message Selection: Media Gatekeeping of Party Press Releases

Parties try to shape media coverage in ways that are favorable to them, but what determines whether media outlets pick up and report on party messages? Based on content analyses of 1,496 party press releases and 6,512 media reports from the 2013 Austrian parliamentary election campaign, we show that media coverage of individual party messages is influenced not just by news factors, but also by partisan bias. The media are therefore more likely to report on messages from parties their readers favor. Importantly, this effect is greater rather than weaker when these messages have high news value. These findings have important implications for understanding the media’s role in elections and representative democracies in general.     

泰国：2012年回顾与2013年展望

2012年,泰国议会政治恢复正常,但危机根源犹在,他信问题仍是导致政府与反对党、不同政治派别针锋相对的直接导火索;南部动乱问题有所激化。英拉领导的联合政府工作颇有成效,洪灾之后经济得到快速恢复,全年国内生产总值增长率为6．4％,居东盟乃至亚洲国家前列。外交成果卓著,与周边国家的友好关系得到深化,区域及国际合作有所加强。     

泰国:2011～2012年回顾与展望

2011年7月,泰国提前举行大选,为泰党赢得选举并联合小党派组建联合政府。前总理他信的妹妹、为泰党候选人英拉·西那瓦当选泰国第28任总理,也是泰国历史上首位女总理。由于特大洪灾的影响,2011年泰国经济增长速度低于预期,新政府执政能力也经受考验。外交方面,泰柬边境冲突成为泰国本年度重要的外交事件,但两国关系随着英拉政府上台而开始出现缓和。     

The transformation of political party opposition in Malaysia and its implications for the electoral authoritarian regime

Malaysia's electoral authoritarian system is increasingly coming under pressure. Indicators of this are the metamorphosis of opposition forces since 1998 and, in particular, the results of the 2008 parliamentary elections. From 1957 until 1998 political party opposition was fragmented. An initial transformation of political party opposition began at the height of the Asian financial crisis, after a major conflict within the ruling United Malays National Organization in 1998. However, the regime was able to weaken the opposition, resulting in its poor performance in the 2004 elections. Afterwards, in a second transformation that has continued until the present time, an oppositional People's Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat) has emerged that now has a serious chance of taking over the federal government. This article argues that the increase in the strength and cohesion of political party opposition since 1998 has been caused mainly by five combined factors: the emergence of pro-democratic segments within a multi-ethnic and multi-religious middle class; the intensified interaction of political parties and civil society forces; the impact of new media; the eroded legitimacy of the United Malays National Organization and other parties of the ruling coalition; and the internal reforms within the Islamist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (Parti Islam SeMalaysia). Consequently it has become conceivable that the country will incrementally democratize in a protracted transition. Although the 1999 and 2008 elections were not foundational, they have been transitional. They may not have inaugurated a new democratic regime, but they have marked important phases in the struggle for democracy in Malaysia.     

The Challenge of Revolutionary Terrorism to Turkish Democracy 1960-80

After the dramatic failure of the socialist Turkish Labour Party in the election of 1969 many extremist left-wing ideologists seemed to regard terrorism as a legitimate method of achieving their objectives. Cayan, for instance, made it clear early in the 1970s that he considered that there was no alternative and that political power had to be obtained through the methods of armed violence. Although one of the main factors responsible for political violence was the autocratic state tradition and the rigid understanding about prevention of political terrorism and violence, the major political parties also failed to play a constructive role in protecting democracy in Turkey. The left in the period of 1960-80 claimed that parliamentary democracy in Turkey was a device to perpetuate social injustice and backwardness, allowing the upper classes to enrich themselves by maintaining semi-feudal relations in society while the right-wing groups considered that democracy had destroyed the traditional social order and its values, allowing the left the freedom to subvert and undermine the national integrity and character. In this framework, this article assumes that these bloody years in Turkey have many lessons for preventing revolutionary terrorism in a pluralistic environment.     

Elections,Election Outcomes,and Democracy in Southern Africa

Elections and election outcomes are widely used as a convenient short cut to measuring democracy. If this were correct, information on elections and election outcomes would be a time- and cost-saving means of identifying regime type. However, this article shows that the influential democracy measures of Beck et al., Ferree and Singh, Przeworski et al., and Vanhanen fail to adequately identify regime type when applied to ten countries in Southern Africa. For most countries, it is not possible to distinguish democracies from non-democracies on the basis of elections and election outcomes. Multi-party elections are not always free, fair, and democratic; dominant parties and dominant party systems are not necessarily undemocratic; large election victories are not by themselves proof of foul play; and not all authoritarian regimes maintain their rule through overwhelming parliamentary or electoral majorities.