Local Elections and the Turkish Voter: Looking for the Determinants of Party Choice

On 30 March 2014 Turkish voters elected their local (city) councillors. Their party preferences seem to indicate considerable correspondence with the national vote choices. So, do voters' choices in local elections differ from voters' party preferences at the national legislative elections? Based on previous research findings on Turkish voting behaviour, a list of hypotheses was compiled and tested, using binary logistic regression analyses and survey data collected immediately prior to the 2009 and 2014 local elections. The main findings are that the party lists are supported at the ballot boxes on the basis of the voters' party identification, ideological positions, and economic (dis)satisfaction, whether in national or local elections.     

Contradiction Without Paradox: Evangelical Political Culture in the 1998 Venezuelan Elections

Venezuelan Evangelicals' responses to candidates in that country's 1998 presidential election seem to confirm the view that their political culture is inconsistent, contradictory, and paradoxical. Not only were they just as likely to support nationalist ex–coup leader Hugo Chávez as was the larger population, they also rejected Venezuela's one Evangelical party when it made a clientelist pact with the infamous candidate of Venezuela's discredited Social Democratic party. This article uses concepts from recent cultural theory to analyze qualitative data from these two cases and make sense of the contradictory nature of Evangelical politics.     

Cross-Cutting Networks and Political Participation: Lessons of the 2010 City Mayoral Elections in Taiwan

This research examines whether public political participation in Taiwan is influenced by people’s interactive relations and social environments. In contrast to the “sociodemographic factor” and “political mobilization” approaches used in previous studies of political participation, this paper’s theoretical structure is that of “cross-cutting networks.” It analyzes the influence exerted by social network “cross-pressures” on voters’ engagement in political activities and their likelihood of voting in the 2010 mayoral elections in Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung cities. The study uses national survey data to test the association between cross-cutting networks and political participation. The methodology adopted includes cross-tabulation analyses, ordered logit model, and logit model. The findings reveal that people in cross-cutting networks involving greater political disagreement are less likely to participate in politics while individuals engaging in homogeneous social interactions and under low-level cross-pressure are predisposed to participate more actively in politics.     

The Europeanisation of the German Bundestag: Institutional change and informal adaptation

At first glance, the Europeanisation of the German Bundestag seems quite straightforward: in reaction to the process of European integration the Bundestag acquired a set of comparatively strong participation and scrutiny rights in EU politics. It therefore seems rather astonishing that German members of parliament make only very little use of these rights. Different explanations have been put forward in the literature, such as the complicated decision-making system of the EU and the government's gate-keeper position within it, institutional flaws of the German scrutiny system as well as the overall consensus on European integration and the low electoral salience of EU issues. The paper contributes to this discussion in two respects: On the one hand, it offers an additional explanation for the infrequent use of formal instruments. The main argument is that the formal instruments of scrutiny in EU affairs are incompatible with both the overall logic of a parliamentary system as well as the challenges of policy-making in the EU multilevel system. On the other hand, the paper argues that the exclusive focus on the use of formal parliamentary scrutiny rights leads us to overlook more informal means of parliamentary influence and therefore to underestimate the involvement of German parliamentarians in EU affairs. Thus, in order to fully assess processes of parliamentary Europeanisation, we need to take forms of informal or strategic Europeanisation into account.     

The Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela: Change and Continuity (1998–2000)

The paper examines to what extent electoral behaviour in Venezuela, as it appeared in the elections of 1998 and 2000, is different from that observed between 1958 and 1988. The paper reaches the conclusion that given the decline in party identification (dealignment), the short-term variables specific to each election, in particular the attitude towards government performance and personalities, have grown in weight vis-à-vis the structural factors (party identification, institutions, long-standing political predispositions). However, the latter were still relevant and important in the 1998 and 2000 elections and it is very likely they will carry on as such for the future. It is also concluded that, even though the party system has become unstable due to the decline in identification with the traditional government parties, new stabilising factors seem to have appeared and should be taken into account. These are ideology and negative party identification.     

A Predictive Test of Voters' Economic Benchmarking: The 2013 German Bundestag Election

Do voters judge their national economy relative to economic performance abroad? In 2013 we took advantage of the German Bundestag election to test this hypothesis predictively. Nearly two months prior to the election, we published an election forecast relying on a theory-driven empirical model of election outcomes that draws on previous election outcomes; characteristics of the government and of voters; and, most originally, the relative economic performance of Germany (‘benchmarked' growth) in comparison to the three other most important economies in Europe – France, the UK and Italy. Our forecast put the outgoing coalition government of CDU/CSU and FDP at 47.05 per cent of the popular vote deviating from the actual outcome of 46.3 by 0.75 points. This makes our forecast one of the most accurate in this election cycle. Despite one-and-a-half months of lead time, our forecast performed on par or slightly better than the last poll results issued only two days before the election.     

"五月骚乱"以后印尼华人的政治参与

政治关系是印尼华人与当地民族关系的一个重要方面,政治参与活动是印尼华人保护自身,改善与当地民族关系的重要途径.本文简要叙述了1998年"五月骚乱"以后印尼华人参政条件的改善,重点说明了这一时期印尼华人参政的各种方式.     

Life After the Bundestag: An Analysis of the Post-Parliamentary Careers of German MPs

Is the transition from the political sphere to highly paid and attractive private and public sector positions a common phenomenon for legislators? If so, which variables determine these career moves? To answer these questions, the following variables are utilised: (1) the expertise gathered in certain committees, (2) strong professional networks resulting from a high position in party and legislature, (3) a business-friendly ideology, (4) the deteriorating party support and networking base indicated by a failed re-nomination, and lastly (5) the political success in winning elections. To comprehensively assess these factors, this study makes use of a new dataset that comprises information on the political positions as well as the professional status of 646 former German MPs who left the Bundestag between 1998 and 2009. Using probit regression analyses, it is shown that a higher hierarchical position in parliament and party and acquired expertise influence the probability of subsequently holding a more attractive private or public sector position. Moreover, the way in which legislators leave parliament – be it due to failed nomination, a scandal or failed re-election –serves as a reliable predictor for the status of subsequent employment.     

西方企业行为改造理论初探

现代企业管理激励理论中因素型激励理论、过程型激励理论早已为人们所熟悉 ,但行为改造理论却由于种种原因甚少被关注。而事实上 ,行为改造理论在现代管理中被广泛地应用着。该理论认为 ,人的行为是作用于一定环境 ,企业外部环境对人的行为有着重要的影响 ,激励的目的是为了改造和修正人的行为方式。充分认识环境对塑造人的行为的关键作用 ,正确理解、掌握行为改造理论的基本原理 ,将有助于提高企业管理的水平。     

Massacre of the Doves?: Interpreting Israel's 2003 Elections

This article argues that Israel's 2003 elections are best understood as a deeper embedding of neoliberalism in the Israeli polity. It is argued that the most accurate characterization of the elections is as an articulation of Polanyi's Phase I of the double-movement. The argument is developed in four stages. First, the Israeli elections are understood as a local reaction to the multilayered processes of globalization. The Israeli state and its elections are located in the neoliberal ideology which underwrites the phenomenon broadly defined as globalization. Second, the election results are reviewed. Third, the dominant interpretations of the elections are critically examined. Specifically, representations of the elections as a defeat of the parties of peace and as a rebuke of Sephardim/ultra-Orthodox influence in Israeli government are interrogated. Fourth, the coalition negotiations of February 2003, the constitution of Israel's 30^th government and some of the initiatives undertaken by Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are explicated through deployment of Polanyi's double-movement framework.     

A Coalition Lost,Then Found: A Spatial Analysis of Ukraine's 2006 and 2007 Parliamentary Elections

Between 2006 and 2007, four political scientists asked how an ostensibly "tired" electorate might respond to two successive parliamentary elections among a nearly identical set of alternatives. Using the same spatial perspective and multidimensional metric scaling methods employed previously, they asked whether those same tools can be used to summarize the electorate's perceptions of its electoral choices in 2006 and 2007 and whether those perceptions respond to events in ways that "make sense." Is there evidence to suggest that parties and politicians in Ukraine must now respond to the strategic imperatives described by an abstract theory of spatial analysis developed to organize study of more established democracies?     

The Role of Elections in the Peace-Building and Reconstruction of Afghanistan

Reconstruction of a failed state is possible by focusing on building up three pillars closely interlinked to each other: political process, civil order through security reform and reconstruction. Political process will provide a foundation for the other two. Civil order through security reform will allow the political process to proceed and reconstruction will enhance the people's confidence in the future. In Afghanistan, the political roadmap has been agreed upon in Bonn. Drawing upon traditional wisdom, the process has now come to the final stage, that is, the national-assembly and local elections. Prior to that, the presidential election was staged reasonably smoothly, against a tremendous number of difficulties, among them the terrorists' threat to the people not to vote. The main factor in the success of the presidential election was the people's participation through voting, thus defying the threat of terrorists. The tasks ahead towards peace and prosperity in Afghanistan are still tremendous and complex. It is, however, not an impossible task if the Afghan people and the international community are committed to working together henceforward, too.     

韩国的地方选举和民主巩固

民主巩固理论是用来解释第三波民主化浪潮中,部分新型民主国家民主制度的倒退或进一步深化发展的重要理论框架,其有广义和狭义之分。从狭义的角度看,执政党和总统和平轮替的次数往往被看做民主巩固程度的重要指标;从广义角度看,地方自治和作为地方自治核心组成部分的地方选举的代表性和独立性程度被看做判断民主巩固与否的重要指标。韩国是第三波民主化浪潮以后民主发展比较成功的国家,本文试图以地方选举的独立性和代表性程度来判断韩国的民主巩固程度。