Agribusiness,Legislative Elections and Party Fragmentation in Brazil

The article explores the impact of agribusiness on the politics of legislative elections in Brazil. The central argument is that social contexts dominated by agribusiness tend to amplify the number of right-wing micro-parties, due firstly to the economic interests prevalent in such regions and secondly given the ‘catch all’ nature of Brazil's traditional right and centre-right political parties. By showing how agribusiness favours the proliferation of small parties, we may also reveal one of the main reasons behind the ‘hyperfragmentation’ of Brazil's party system.     

Rewarding Lula: Executive Power, Social Policy, and the Brazilian Elections of 2006

This article analyzes Luiz Inácio da Silva's resounding reelection victory in the wake of corruption scandals implicating his party and government. Voters with lower levels of economic security and schooling played a critical role in returning Lula to the presidency. Least prone to punish the president for corruption, poorer Brazilians were also the most readily persuaded by the provision of material benefits. Minimum wage increases and the income transfer program Bolsa Família expanded the purchasing power of the poor. Thus, executive power and central state resources allowed Lula to consolidate a social base that had responded only weakly to his earlier, party-based strategy of grassroots mobilization for progressive macrosocietal change. Although Lula won handily, the PT's delegation to Congress shrank for the first time, and the voting bases of president and party diverged. The PT benefited far less than the president himself from government investment in social policy.     

Religious Geopolitics of Palestinian Christianity: Palestinian Christian Zionists,Palestinian Liberation Theologists,and American Missions to Palestine

The introduction of Protestantism into the Middle East by American missionaries in the nineteenth century met with limited success while the responses and internalizations of local converts proved incredibly diverse. The two resultant theological descendants are Palestinian Christian Zionists and Palestinian Liberation Theologists. The article provides a short history of these two movements and highlights influential voices through interviews and media analysis. This article argues that hybrid religious identifications with nation and place has transcended, in some cases, political struggle for territory.     

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?     

Education,Federalism and the 2013 Bundestag Elections

The cycle of introducing and recalibrating reforms has become a hallmark of German education policy; progress in updating institutions and policies and educational outcomes is dogged by chronic problems. The drivers of change have been a medley of interests, actors, and socio-economic conditions. Institutional change has blended with established policy-making patterns and a move towards greater ideological pragmatism. Due to its national significance, education is prominently positioned in coalition agreements that precede the formation of a new government but plays a marginal role in federal election campaigns. Its treatment in the 2013 coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and the SPD reaffirms continuity in broad policy goals; the omission of important questions exposed ongoing battles over jurisdiction that are closely tied to conflicts over authority and funding. The results fit a pattern in which flexible policy adjustments and fund distribution result from negotiations among interlocking networks of policy entrepreneurs.     

Elections and Economic Turbulence in Brazil: Candidates, Voters, and Investors

The relation between elections and the economy in Latin America might be understood by considering the agency of candidates and the issue of policy preference congruence between investors and voters. The preference congruence model proposed in this article highlights political risk in emerging markets. Certain risk features increase the role of candidate campaign rhetoric and investor preferences in elections. When politicians propose policies that can appease voters and investors, elections may have a limited effect on economic indicators, such as inflation. But when voter and investor priorities differ significantly, deterioration of economic indicators is more likely. Moreover, voter and investor congruence is more likely before stabilization, when an inverted Philips curve exists, as opposed to following stabilization, when a more traditional Philips curve emerges.     

Campaign Strategies in the 2015 Swiss National Elections: Nationalization,Coordination, and Personalization

This research note examines parties' campaign strategies in the 2015 Swiss elections. We base our analyses on a collection of more than 5000 party advertisements, which were published in the forefront of the national elections in more than 50 daily and weekly national and cantonal print media. By comparing the amount of party and candidate ads, as well as the content and nature of the political advertisements, we explore the degree of professionalization of electoral campaigns in the most recent federal elections in terms of nationalization, coordination and personalization. First results show that although national campaign coordination exists, Swiss elections are to a considerable extent still cantonal and personal affairs.     

文化、政治与腐败--关于亨廷顿论新加坡有效治理腐败原因的一点质疑

本文对亨廷顿关于新加坡有效治理腐败的原因提出了质疑.亨廷顿认为,李光耀及其政府的政治作为成功地改变了新加坡的文化,在文化已经西化的基础上,新加坡治理腐败取得了成功.但是,笔者以为,新加坡的文化并没有西方化或发生了根本性的变化,其变化主要是表层和生活方式上的,而不是深层的价值观和思维方式上的.从这种变化的原因来看,也并非主要是李光耀及其政府的政治作为所致,而是各种外在的挑战和内在的主客观条件所致.笔者还对关于文化与政治之间关系的不同流派的主流观点进行了评述.     

Resisting the Fall: The Single Dominant Party,Policies and Elections in Malaysia

Before Malaysia’s 2013 general election, one of the few remaining dominant coalitions in the world was aware it would struggle to retain power. A fledgling opposition coalition had inspired public confidence of its capacity to competently rule while public discontent with the ruling party was rife due to the ubiquity of patronage that had prevented the responsible implementation of policies. However, regime change did not occur. How does the protracted rule of Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional coalition, and the hegemonic party in it, the United Malays National Organisation, relate to debates over authoritarian durability, during a period when dominant parties struggle to sustain power? Malaysian elections have been free enough that the opposition has been able to obtain and retain control of state governments, so why has Barisan Nasional not lost power? This article reviews the 2013 election examining three issues: the significance of coalition politics; how policies have shaped voting trends; and the growing monetisation of politics. These perspectives provide insights into the institutional structure of coalitions and their conduct of politics, including clientelistic practices, forms of mobilisation and governance and the outcomes of policies introduced to address socio-economic inequities and drive economic growth.     

Political Parties and Governors as Determinants of Legislative Behavior in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, 1988–2006

This article examines the relative importance of regional and national forces in shaping the behavior of Brazilian legislators at the national level. A widely held view is that national legislators respond to state pressures in making decisions, rather than pressures from the national government. Governors not only can influence national debates but also can determine outcomes by exerting control over their states' legislative delegations. This article examines a dataset of all roll-call votes in the Chamber of Deputies between 1989 and 2006 to isolate and evaluate the impact of local pressures on legislative voting. Spanning the terms of five presidents and five different congresses, the data show that the local influence is weaker than the national on the voting decisions of individual legislators and the voting cohesion of state delegations. Alternative institutional resources allow the central government to counteract the centrifugal pressures of federalism and other institutional influences.