The electoral consequences of the financial and economic crisis in Europe

The electoral consequences of the Great Recession are analysed in this article by combining insights from economic voting theories and the literature on party system change. Taking cues from these two theoretical perspectives, the impact of the Great Recession on the stability and change of Western, Central and Eastern European party systems is assessed. The article starts from the premise that, in order to fully assess the impact of the contemporary crisis, classic economic voting hypotheses focused on incumbent parties need to be combined with accounts of long‐term party system change provided by realignment and dealignment theories. The empirical analysis draws on an original dataset of election results and economic and political indicators in 30 European democracies. The results indicate that during the Great Recession economic strain was associated with sizable losses for incumbent parties and an increasing destabilisation of Western European party systems, while its impact was significantly weaker in Central and Eastern European countries, where political rather than economic failures appeared to be more relevant. In line with the realignment perspective, the results also reveal that in Western Europe populist radical right, radical left and non‐mainstream parties benefited the most from the economic hardship, while support for mainstream parties decreased further.     

Subnational electoral regimes and crisis recovery in Argentina and Mexico

The confluence of Latin America's volatile economic development patterns and transition to democracy has given rise to a proliferation of work on the national-level political causes and consequences of economic shocks and recovery rates. We explore the subnational electoral determinants of crisis recovery through analysis of growth rates in Mexico's thirty-one states and Argentina's twenty-three provinces following their economic declines of 2000–2002. Consistent with a theory that views intra-national variations in democracy as critical to understanding broader development patterns, we find that subnational electoral “regimes” significantly affect provincial recovery rates. Provinces that have an established electoral legitimacy prior to the onset of an economic shock, and those in which the governor enjoyed a substantial margin of victory, had significantly stronger recovery rates than those provinces stuck in a subnational regime transition with a sitting executive who lacked any claim to an electoral mandate.     

The electoral impact of the financial crisis: Evidence using district-level data

Do economic downturns increase voter support for left or right parties? In our empirical analysis, we combine fine-grained registry-data on the labor market impact of the crisis and how it varied across 5000 electoral districts, with district-level data on vote-shares for all major parties in Swedish parliamentary elections before and after the crisis. Because the impact was so diverse across districts, we can estimate the electoral impact of unemployment more efficiently than usual. Moreover, because the crisis was an external and unexpected shock to the Swedish economy, we argue that the selection bias that is usually inherent in estimating the electoral impact of unemployment is mitigated. We find that the electoral impact of crisis-induced unemployment was large, benefiting right parties.     

The politics of social assistance in South Africa: How protests and electoral politics shape the Child Support Grant

Since the 1990s, South Africa, like many other countries from the Global South, has provided extensive social assistance for the poor. The literature on these policies, however, is largely dominated by structuralist accounts, and it largely overlooks political factors. We conducted quantitative analyses regarding the South African flagship Child Support Grant (CSG) program and investigated how contentious and electoral political dynamics jointly shape the provision of this program. Based on a logistic regression analysis, we measured the effect of protest participation, voting preference, and their interaction on the likelihood of CSG receipt. Our analysis showed that CSG receipt is much higher among “uncontentious supporters” of ANC and “contentious nonsupporters,” as well as those who join violent protests. This lends support for our argument that CSG is being used as a tool for electoral politics and containment of unrest, providing fresh evidence for political mediation theories of social policy.     

Fixing failures of U.K. electoral management

Concerns about electoral malpractice have been raised in many democracies in recent years because of errors made in the administration of elections by local election officials (LEOs). This article argues that adopting appropriate policy instruments to manage LEOs is an under-explored method for improving election administration and reducing electoral malpractice. The article provides a case study of the use of performance benchmarking schemes in the UK 2008–2010. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 74 LEOs from 41 organisations subject to newly devised performance indicators. The research demonstrates that performance benchmarking can encourage learning amongst local electoral officials and strengthen central control over them.     

新闻媒体在政府危机管理中的作用

随着全球化和信息化进程的推进 ,国际、国内利益关系和矛盾冲突日益复杂 ,世界已步入危机频繁的时代。如何成功地应对各种危机 ,已经成为各国政府面临的重大挑战。在社会面对危机时 ,新闻媒体作为一种重要的社会力量 ,在政府危机管理中发挥的作用愈加突现出来。本文详细论述了作为社会“第四权力”的新闻媒体 ,在政府危机管理中所承担的职责和应该发挥的作用 ,并强调了政府与新闻媒体在良性互动关系对于成为解决危机事件的重要性和必要性。本文把“9·11”恐怖袭击事件和全球性的“SARS”危机作为典型案例 ,分析并对比了中美媒体在政府危机管理中作扮演的角色 ,提出我国政府和新闻媒体在应对危机时存在的问题 ,以及两者之间缺乏良好的互动关系的观点。文章最后部分针对“SARS”危机中 ,我国政府和新闻媒体没有能够及时向公众公开信息的问题 ,分别对政府和媒体提出了改进建议。     

危机环境下的政府管理--对我国公共危机管理若干问题的分析

随着当今世界危机事件的增多 ,加强政府危机管理已成为各国政府建设的一个重要方面。我国政府也应该适应这种行政环境的发展要求 ,不断加强政府危机管理建设 ,提升防变抗变能力。本文介绍了政府危机管理的相关内容 ,就我国的政府危机管理中存在的问题进行了分析 ,并就我国的政府危机管理体制建设提出了相关建议     

论政府危机管理的制度创新

在全球化进程中,危机管理是各国政府面临的一项重大课题。而政府危机管理水平依赖于制度创新。本文首先界定了危机和危机管理,以及从制度经济学的角度界定了制度的内涵,接着分析了我国政府危机管理现行制度的缺陷以及政府为提升危机管理水平进行制度创新的内容,在最后探讨了危机管理制度创新的几种方式。     

Social analysis,project development and advocacy in U.S. foreign assistance

In 1975 the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), the principal administrative agent for American bilateral development assistance, mandated a social analysis component to the project preparation and approval process.¹ Although 'social soundness analysis' is now a required dimension of project identification and design its presumed positive effects are not yet apparent on the output side. Post project impact evaluations reveal that there continue to be negative social effects from AID'S development efforts, regardless of project type. In the process by which projects are identified, framed, approved, and ultimately implemented, important signals identified by pre-project social analysis get displaced. This occurs because anticipating social impact is only one of several goals or functions served by pre-project design analysis. This essay interprets the role of social analysis in the dynamics of project preparation, identifying structures and procedures which attenuate its influence.     

论公共危机事件管理中的公众参与

近年来,我国公共危机事件频发,对我国政府应对危机的能力提出了严峻的挑战。危机事件的有效解决不仅需要提高政府自身的管理能力,还必须注重社会公众的有效参与。本文针对当前我国危机管理中公众参与的现实困境,从政府、制度和社会公众三方面寻求改善的途径,并提出相应的对策建议。     

Technology diffusion through foreign assistance: Making renewable energy sources available to the world's poor

This paper examines the role of foreign assistance organizations in promoting the diffusion of renewable energy systems to the rural sectors of the world. The first section discusses the background to the current energy problems of much of the developing world - spiraling world prices for fossil fuels, a lack of indigenous reserves of petroleum, and rapidly expanding populations - and the results of these factors.The major portion of the article examines the current approaches of the foreign assistance community to an alternation solution to the energy problem of developing countries - the introduction, adaptation, and diffusion of renewable energy technologies.The final section of the article examines the impacts of the foreign assistance procedures on the acceptance of these new technologies. It argues for the importance of local participation, for technology adaptation to local customs, traditions and needs, and for the sharing of information developed by donor organizations on the performance of renewable energy systems in the field.This paper originally was prepared for the Technology and Public Policy Workshop held in conjunction with Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology and Policy Program on February 16–17, 1979. The sponsorship of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Solar Energy Research Institute or its sponsor, the US Department of Energy.     

The effect of electoral rules on voting behavior: the electoral college and shift voting

The Electoral College has a measurable effect on the propensity of the rational voter to vote for the candidate he most prefers. The ‘slippage’ between the individual's articulated preference ordering and his actual vote is analyzed (using 1968 data) with respect to the strategic position of the voter in his state. The direction of the findings support the theoretically-derived propositions. Nevertheless, the low overall incidence of shifts and the reluctance of voters to shift from nationally-viable candidates demonstrates the overwhelming influence of the national electoral environment.     

危机管理中政策制定的行政伦理建设研究

行政伦理建设是危机管理中政策制定研究的重要组成部分,行政伦理的建设情况直接关系到危机管理中政策制定的效率和质量,从而影响应对危机的成败。在危机管理的政策制定中,加强行政伦理建设将有利于维护危机中公民和国家的利益,提高政府制定政策的效率,促进危机管理中政策制定的目标实现,以及巩固危机管理中政府的权威和提高政府的公信力,因此,研究政策制定的行政伦理建设对危机管理具有深远的意义。     

Confounding sources of variance in the macro-analysis of electoral data

Abstract. Four sources of variance are examined in the construction of ecological models of electoral behaviour: aggregation bias, contextual effects, temporal and spatial diffusion. The proper specification of both micro- and macro-models of political behaviour requires these four sources of variance to be taken into account. Ecological analysis may make valid inferences to individual behaviour once the models are properly specified. Electoral data for Britain between 1955 and October 1974 are used to test a series of structural equation models specifying developmental relationships between class and electoral behaviour and taking into account the four potential sources of bias.     

我国政府危机管理中的公众参与研究

危机管理是政府社会公共事务管理的重要内容,近年来我国政府危机管理过程中的公众参与有较大发展,但公众参与的偶发性、无序性特征依然比较明显,同时政府动员公众参与危机管理的意识也较为淡薄,缺乏法律制度保障公众参与的地位、途径和权益.造成这一现状的根本原因有两个,一是我国市民社会力量相对弱小,公众参与意识根基薄弱,二是我国社会缺乏发育成熟的民间组织,公众缺少有效参与的途径.解决公众参与政府危机管理中存在的问题需要从多方面着手,首先是增强公众危机参与意识,提升社会自我救助能力,其次要积极发挥民间组织力量,提升公众参与有效性,再者健全公众与政府沟通渠道,保障危机事件信息通畅.     

Government stability in six European countries during the world economic crisis of the 1930s: some preliminary considerations

Abstract. To date there is no genuine cross-national analysis of the world economic crisis of the 1930s. of the political turbulence it led to and of the economic and political measures that were taken. In this study the focus is on Great Britain, France. the Netherlands, Belgium. Germany and Austria from 1927 to 1938 or the collapse of the polity. Possible determinants of governmental instability are discussed and considered in preliminary bivariate testing. The main findings are: the survival measure of governments suggested by Sanders and Herman does not add any information at all; parliamentary variables in this analysis do not satisfactorily explain the duration of governments; though exempted from this verdict are variables like proportion of seats held by governing parties. parliamentary fractionalization. share of oppositional seats in parliament and percentage of seats held by anty-system parties. It is suggested that the economic and political impact of the world economic crisis of the 1930s worked through linkages other than those spelled out in post-World War II parliamentary and coalitional analyses on the determinants of government stability.