Instituciones electorales,derecho a la información y medios de comunicación durante las campañas presidenciales de 2012

This paper assesses the performance of Mexican electoral authorities during the 2012 presidential campaigns concerning citizens’ right of information. By means of a theoretical review of the concepts of freedom of speech and right of information a case is made for the necessary complementarity and interdependence of both concepts. The paper explores the approach that electoral authorities adopted on three different spheres, namely, the “suggested guidelines” that were submitted to radio and television agencies for the coverage of electoral campaigns; the monitoring of campaigns coverage by radio and TV news broadcasts; and the organization and promotion of electoral debates among Mexico’s presidential candidates. This review reveals a considerable clash between theory and the ife’s and tepjf’s practices. The paper closes with some general remarks on freedom of speech and the role of electoral bodies in Mexican politics, as well as with a proposal of various reforms that could reinforce freedom of speech and the right of information in the coming electoral campaigns.     

Uneasy Partners Against Crime: The Ambivalent Relationship Between the Police and the Private Security Industry in Mexico

Legitimation is a fraught process for private security companies operating in Mexico and other countries in the Global South where the police have a poor reputation. Mexican private security companies have an ambivalent relationship with the police, which causes firms to engage in two seemingly contradictory practices. Companies attempt to gain legitimacy by aligning with the image of the police to earn a sense of “symbolic stateness” while simultaneously distancing themselves from Mexico's actual police forces so as to disassociate from the institution's poor reputation. Consequently, collaboration between public and private security is limited, despite official attempts by the Mexican state to foster positive contact between them. Overall, this study contributes to the growing literature on private security by providing novel insights into the strategies private security firms utilize to navigate within states possessing delegitimated security forces, and the resulting lucrative political economy landscape.     

INDONESIA’S 2019 ELECTIONS: A FRACTURED DEMOCRACY?

In April 2019, Indonesia carried out simultaneous presidential and legislative elections. With an estimated 192 million voters acceding to 800,000 polling stations, this was the world's largest direct presidential election. Barring some dispersed claims of irregularities, the mammoth task of electing public representatives at the national as well as provincial and local levels was successfully carried out. Indonesia's voters had to decide on the 575 members of the national parliament, as well as some 20,000 seats in the country's many provincial and local legislatures, including 2,207 provincial level MPs from 34 provinces and 17,610 local councillors from more than 500 local authorities. Voter turn-out was an estimated 81.9 percent, the highest yet since Indonesia's transition to full democracy. Thus, at first blush, this electoral exercise can be seen as a logistical and political achievement, and an addition to Indonesia's track record of successfully-held elections. Yet, despite its technical proficiency and solid participation, the 2019 polls highlight pervasive societal and geographic fault-lines and raise questions about the strength of Indonesia's democratic institutions.

In order to analyse the importance of these elections, this article is comprised of six parts. Following this introduction, the second section briefly discusses the salient aspects of Jokowi's first administration. The subsequent part sets out the run-up to the presidential campaign, paying particular importance to changes in ‘rules of the game’ that altered the structural dynamics of the elections. The fourth section compares and contrasts the campaigns of the two opposing coalitions and the fifth analyses the electoral results. The final section concludes by discussing the denouement of the elections before looking forward.     

Campañas negativas en las elecciones 2000 y 2006 en México

This article explores the nature of negative campaigns that were held in both 2000 and 2006 Mexican presidential elections. The purpose is to establish that the generalized use of negative campaigning concurs with the development of two unusual electoral processes: the transition of the State party into an opposition party (2000), and its consolidation as government (2006). Based on the theoretical claims of Shiv (1997), Lau (1999), and Finkel (1998), the author describes the development of negative campaigns in those elections that represented the starting point and the presumed consummation of the use of this kind of campaigns. With journals’ documented records and the monitoring of tv spots of both elections it is established that the 2000 presidential election used negative campaigns based on decrying the official party, while the 2006 election resorted to negative tv spots.     

Mariano Arista and the 1850 Presidential Election in Mexico

Abstract – This article examines the 1850 presidential election in Mexico. It is divided into five sections: party political background, electoral regulations, candidates, campaign, results. General Mariano Arista was the successful candidate in what was the first genuinely contested presidential election since independence.     

Regulation and Quality Assurance Agencies of Higher Education in Mexico

This article examines the quality assurance (QA) regime of higher education (HE) in Mexico. In particular, we examine how the regulatory framework of HE quality has evolved in the past three decades and the different regulatory configurations and policy instruments used by QA agencies. We argue that the Mexican case is illustrative of a (weak) hybrid regulatory model that combines the policy instruments of both a state-centred model and a market-oriented model. Our results show diverse institutional patterns in the evaluation and accreditation of both public and private institutions.     

Campaigning on Public Security in Latin America: Obstacles to Success

Crime and violence have made public security a major concern to voters throughout Latin America. Existing research predicts that such widespread concerns should make public security a consistently successful issue in presidential election campaigns. Yet recent empirical reality in Latin America has been more varied. This study argues that success on public security is not so automatic. Human rights concerns combine with low trust in security forces to make success on security contingent on the correct conditions. Two key conditions affect the use of the issue: the degree to which security threats are organized and the degree to which recent repression has occurred. Then, winning votes depends on two further conditions: having a civilian background and a campaign that balances security with other issues. Together, these factors explain the dramatic variation in success, and suggest a key change from Latin America's past.     

The Role of the Internet in Political Campaigns in Germany

The Internet has become an important infrastructure for political campaigns around the world, and various online tools have become pervasive campaigning devices. Still, most research on the role of the Internet and online tools in political campaigns focuses on US presidential campaigns. Due to the specific institutional context in the US, this research might not provide realistic observations about the role of the Internet in future campaigns in other countries. Researchers will have to enrich the debate through systematic studies of the role of the Internet and various online services in campaigns in political, legal and cultural contexts different from those prevailing in the US. This special issue aims to add to the discussion by presenting a number of empirical studies focusing on the role of the Internet and various online services during the campaign for the German federal election of 2009 and its aftermath.     

Defending Negativity? Evidence from Presidential Campaigns in Taiwan

This article presents an empirical analysis of TV and newspaper advertising across four presidential election campaigns in Taiwan. The findings suggest that although there are high levels of negativity, negative claims are a potential source of substantive information for voters. The findings support theoretical expectations derived from work in the US, and confirm that negative advertising can be a prevalent mode of campaign communication in non-western, newer democracies.     

Mexican teleteatros: the cultural politics of prime-time series

This article focuses on the ideas and discourse of some early television critics regarding the content and direction of television drama specifically teleteatros, the first prime-time dramas in Mexican television. Their opinions reflect the divisions among the Mexican intellectual elite in regard to the meaning of Mexican culture. Professionals and intellectuals advocated for television dramas that would reflect the Mexican culture as cosmopolitan and modern. In their writings and public statements, folkloric aspects such as ranchera music were considered unworthy for the medium. In opposition to the critics was the business class whose interest in television content had two purposes: to develop programs with the widest appeal possible and to represent Mexican culture in a way that did not challenge the discourse of the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) that ruled the country from 1928 until 2000. Thus, television during the 1950s, and into the 1960s, wrangled not only with the usual growing pains of a new technology but also the contradictory perceptions of how Mexico and Mexican culture should be portrayed in television dramas.     

Model or deterrence? The United States presidential election campaigns and the bundestag election campaigns

This article focuses on the election of the President of the United States of America in 2004 and on the premature election of the Bundestag in Germany in 2005. The main questions which are discussed are: Where can we currently discern central similarities in campaigning, which remain functionally powerful despite the considerable differences in system and context? What can be learned from the United States 2004 presidential election campaign for future Bundestag election campaigns in Germany? Can we observe developments in the USA which we have already seen in the 2005 Bundestag election? Could these trends be useful for the German parties in the future? This contribution argues that there are some developments in the United States which may prove useful to the German parties in future Bundestag campaigns.     

La descentralización de los procesos de selección de candidatos en los partidos y su impacto en la nominación de mujeres en los Congresos Estatales de México

The analysis of state democratization includes recent studies of the methods by which political parties are selected, and their possible effect on the political participation of women. Considering the renewal of Mexican federalism, which took place since the dismantling of the presidential regime at the end of the 1990s, this article brings together issues of decentralization and party nomination processes, as well as “selectorate agencies” and the formal institutions that limit them in order to question the effect of the combined presence of these factors on women’s political participation patterns. The article analyzes local election data from twelve states in Mexico, focusing on the period 1998 to 2012. The evidence reveals that in the case of Mexico, decentralization has had no effect on nominations made by a relative majority. Furthermore, it suggests that centralization in decision-making is an important factor in achieving the nomination of more women based on the principle of proportional representation.     

Renegotiations of femininity throughout the constitutional debates in Turkey: representative claims in 2014 presidential elections

In August 2014, for the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic, the president was elected through a popular vote. The quest for a new constitution and revisions to the political system were the main topics that the three presidential candidates, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Selahattin Demirtas, raised during their presidential campaigns. Women’s problems and issues were among the central topics through which the matters of the new constitution and the revisions to be made in the system were addressed. Through a qualitative content analysis of the campaign material, this article maps the candidates’ approaches to women’s interests and the roles the candidates promised to play to promote these interests and roles. The findings indicate that motherhood, daughterhood and sisterhood are the key terms through which the candidates formulated the ultimate purpose of their gender-related agenda. They simply blamed the existing constitution as the main cause of alienated motherhood, polarized daughterhood and complicit femininity respectively. Based on the analysis of these simultaneous calls for heightening-disavowal of certain femininities, the article argues that competing projects for the (re)establishment of the constitutional regime in Turkey can be construed as renegotiations of feminine attachments to political authority.     

Participación política y violencia de género en México

This work studies the relationship of women and politics within the framework of the Mexican law on quotas, stressing gender political violence as an explanatory variable of women political underrepresentation. Besides basic information resulting from in-depth interviews and discussion groups, data from the last federal election (2012) are analyzed, and studies on women and political parties in Mexico are reviewed from a critical angle. Research outcomes reveal that the existing dynamics within the political parties –understood as organizations that reproduce traditional gender patterns—represent a crucial variable to explaining the peculiarities of the process through which women can have access to candidatures, and explain their experiences of discrimination, harassment, and violence related to campaigns and parliamentary performance. Also, it is claimed that the implementation of regulatory frameworks aimed at promoting women participation in parliaments depends on the prevailing political party culture in Mexico.     

Public Opinion, Privatisation and the Electoral Politics of Telstra

During the 1996 election campaign, the Liberal-National Party Coalition pledged that if elected it would partly privatise Telstra. The pledge was a central part of its campaign pitch. This paper argues that the proposal came at a time when the tide of public opinion had moved against privatisation; it shows how the Opposition used poll data both to present its own proposal in the most favourable light and to portray the difference between its position and that of Labor Government's as minimal; and, using the surveys commissioned by both sides, it evaluates the success of this strategy. More generally, it suggests that in a "post-ideological" age, party ideology remains important. And it illustrates how polls can be used by parties not just to establish what the majority thinks but to galvanise support, neutralise opposition and convert those who harbour doubts.     

The Lost Sexenio: Vicente Fox and the New Politics of Economic Reform in Mexico

The 2000 presidential election of opposition candidate Vicente Fox signaled an end to seven decades of Mexico's single-party regime and seemed to herald the advent of truly competitive politics. But by 2003, economic reform had largely stalled, and Fox's party suffered a historically unprecedented midterm' loss in the congress. This article analyzes the underpinnings of policy gridlock in the Fox administration. Fox inherited the need for microeconomic restructuring and increased competitiveness, more innovative and pragmatic state policies, the need to pay attention to the country's sharp income inequalities, and the challenge of crafting a political strategy that could build a middle ground and foster policy consensus. With his party's minority standing in the congress, Fox was constrained from the start by divided government. But more effective statecraft and coalition building would have helped. These will be essential elements for the success of any post-Fox regime.     

Las élites neoliberales en México: ¿cómo se construye un campo de poder que transforma las prácticas sociales de las élites políticas?

The recomposition of Mexican political elites during the 1980s overlaps with the transformation of a development model that shifted from a basically protectionist and nationalistic model to a neo-liberal and open-oriented one. Such a switch has implied far-reaching changes in the social practices of political elites. Based on a record that contains each high-rank official during the 1988–2014 period, the mechanisms having established a transnational power network crossing from one presidential term to the next are reviewed, as well as those factors that favored the organization of a power field increasingly focused on the border between the national, regional and global spaces. Some of those mechanisms include the international historical context; the creation of working teams with a basically neo-liberal worldview; the trajectories of the high-rank officers; the reforms that have been driven; the fluent transit among public and private positions, and the highly varied relationships established between this group of officials and transnational actors and organizations. It is concluded that the elites’ new social practices do not only hamper and challenge the creation of public goods and autonomous structures with the capacity of planning according to the general interest, but they also encourage institutional depredation.     

Newspaper Coverage of Three Presidential Campaigns in Chile: Personalisation and Political Strategies

We investigate the evolution of political campaign coverage through a content analysis of the topics highlighted in newspapers' agendas during three presidential elections in Chile. Results show an expected increase in the space allocated to the politicians' private lives (privatisation) by 2009, but no change in the attention given to individual politicians' political traits (political competence). Coverage of candidates' campaign strategies had increased markedly in media agendas by 1999, and by 2009 in politicians' agendas. These changes are consistent with some of the recent transformations of political communication in Western democracies, within the framework of the so‐called ‘mediatisation’ of politics.     

Leaders,the Economy or Iraq? Explaining Voting in the 2004 Australian Election*

Following the 2001 “border security” election, it was assumed that the 2004 federal election would revert to the traditional campaign battleground of socio‐economic issues. This prediction proved to be only partly true, and while economic and social issues did figure in the election campaign, much more important were popular perceptions of the leaders. Indirectly, the Iraq War also had some impact, mediated through evaluations of John Howard. Analysis of leader effects suggests that Mark Latham was not the electoral liability for Labor that many have subsequently claimed. Ultimately, the Coalition won the election because they had a highly popular leader who had presided over a period of sustained economic growth. The election emphasizes the central role that the party leaders play in modern election campaigns.