Robbing Peter to pay Paul: changing clientelist patterns in East Timor’s 2017 parliamentary elections

This article examines the adverse impact of clientelist relations between political parties and campaign donors on parties’ relations with voters. Clientelism is generally conceptualized as a vertical, pyramid structure, whereby resources are distributed from politicians to voters at the base through brokers or programmatic politics. As Gherghina and Volintiru¹1 Gherghina and Volintiru, A New Model of Clientelism.View all notescontend, what is often overlooked is that in tandem with this vertical relationship with voters there is a complementary horizontal relationship with party donors. Parties with a weak organizational base focus on relations with party donors, such as private contractors, at the expense of their relationship with voters. Drawing on fieldwork conducted during East Timor’s 2017 parliamentary elections, I engage with Gherghina and Volintiru’s framework to argue that a bi-dimensional approach is integral to both understanding electoral outcomes and economic trajectories in developing country contexts. In East Timor, despite a decade of rampant patronage politics, the incumbent CNRT party’s prioritization of their relationship with party donors cost them the election. In turn, this focus on party donors has distorted policy and public spending priorities, with severe implications for future development.     

From the Secret Ballot to the Public Vote: Examining Voters’ Experience of Political Discussion in Vote-by-Mail Elections

Considerable research on political discussion has focused on identifying its antecedents and outcomes. The rise of voting by mail provides an opportunity to examine the subject in a new context—one in which voters discuss their views and electoral choices with others while filling out their ballots. We explored the possibility that conventional predictors of political engagement would predict who partakes in such discussions. Past research also suggested that those voters most likely to report changing their minds as a result of discussion would perceive their discussants as holding contrary views and higher levels of political sophistication. We further hypothesized that less politically engaged voters would seek out discussants they rated as more knowledgeable than themselves, whereas the more politically sophisticated voters would seek out like-minded discussants. Past research also suggested that the least partisan voters would be those most likely to report disagreement in their absentee discussions. To test these hypotheses, we analyzed telephone survey data from two elections conducted in Washington State. Results showed that the factors that predict traditional forms of political participation and discussion do not explain who engages in discussion during vote-by-mail elections. We also found that independent voters were more likely to talk with ideologically divergent discussants, whereas less knowledgeable citizens sought discussants who knew more about politics than they did. Many voters reported that these discussions shaped their vote choices, with the highest rates of perceived influence coming from those who viewed their discussion partners as more knowledgeable and more ideologically divergent.     

Economic Voting Appeals in Congressional Campaigns

Although they agree that economics and elections are intertwined, theories of economic voting disagree on the policy focus (on positions taken or outcomes achieved) and time horizon (retrospective or prospective) that guides voters’ decisions. Most research on these debates looks at the considerations voters weigh. Instead, I explore the types of economic voting that candidates encourage through their campaign appeals. Content-coded advertising data from the 2004 congressional elections show that appeals focus more on policy positions than outcomes and more on the past than the future. Consistent with predictions from emphasis allocation theory, strategic incentives and electoral context shape the exact mix of economic appeals campaigns make. When promoting their own candidacy, politicians ask voters to think about (more unifying) future economic outcomes; when attacking their opponent’s candidacy, they ask voters to think about (more divisive) past policy positions. In districts experiencing worsening economic conditions, voters are exposed to more information about policy outcomes; in districts where the incumbent is ideologically “out of step,” they hear more about policy positions. Studies that seek to evaluate competing theories of economic voting are thus likely to draw misleading conclusions if they treat the information environment as a homogeneous constant: Campaigns in different districts, facing different strategic incentives, encourage significantly different types of economic voting.     

South African election posters: Reflecting the maturing of a democracy?

Abstract

The South African democracy has survived three national and provincial elections and three local elections, since 1994. In comparison to other young democracies in Africa, South Africa has experienced a relatively stable transition to democracy. However, the ruling ANC has not been under pressure from opposition parties. Although this has helped pave the way, a dominant governing party does not necessarily encourage the growth of a mature, democratic political culture. The assumption of this article is that political parties in developing societies have a normative obligation to do more than canvas votes during election campaigns. Political parties should also be instrumental in fostering a democratic political culture by communicating democratic values, encouraging participation in the democracy and enabling voters to make an informed electoral choice. Although political posters contribute mainly to image building, the reinforcement of party support, and the visibility of the party, posters are the agenda setters or headlines of a party's campaign – it is therefore argued that political parties in developing societies also need to design political posters responsively, in order to sustain the democracy. In general it seems that the poster campaigns of parties have matured since 1999, in the sense that there was less emphasis on democratisation issues in the past, and the campaigns conformed more to the norm of Western political campaigning.     

Small wars in Marsabit County: devolution and political violence in northern Kenya

Abstract

When the elections of 2013 devolved budgetary and legislative powers to 47 counties in Kenya, there was nationwide relief when they passed off peacefully. The new county governments settled down to bargaining over local powers and appointments, delivering on their new institutional mandates, spending money and dealing with recentralisation manoeuvres. Now with the 2017 elections looming, the question has been raised, will there be violence? Based on qualitative interviews with citizens of the northern town of Marsabit shortly after the 2013 elections, this article presents citizens’ views on how devolution affected political competition, including how familiar repertoires of violence were used to influence not only the vote but also the construction of the new country government. To explain what concerned voters in the newly devolved county, the article explores the role played by colonially constituted ‘ethnicity’ in control of land and citizenship in the pastoralist north of Kenya and in the evolution of politics and the state after independence. It shows how the new configuration of power brought by devolution in 2013 has not yet resolved people’s feelings of deep insecurity over territorial tenure. It offers insight into the task faced by devolved institutions in relation to land, adding texture to current literature on the politics of devolution.     

Racial animosity and political party partisanship in South Africa: the case of the African National Congress and the Black African majority

As it is in many countries, racial rhetoric is a feature of South African national government elections. The use of such rhetoric provokes the question, how much is political party support in the country driven by interracial animosities? Using the nationally representative public opinion dataset, the South African Social Attitudes Survey, this article looks at party closeness to the African National Congress (ANC) amongst the black African population. The ANC is one of the oldest and most powerful political parties on the African continent and currently dominates South Africa’s parliamentary government. Constructing four indexes of racial attitudes and behaviours, the article investigates whether partisanship with the ruling party can be predicted by racial animosity. The period under investigation is 2010–2014. Bivariate and multivariate quantitative techniques are employed to test the relationship between ANC partisanship and racial animosity. The results of this investigation show that racial enmity in the country is troublingly widespread. Public opinion analysis, however, found no correlation between racial acrimony and ANC partisanship. Other factors are driving black African identification with the country’s ruling party. The implications of these results for the study for political party support in South Africa are discussed and future avenues of research presented.     

Liar,Liar, Pants on Fire: How Fact-Checking Influences Citizens’ Reactions to Negative Advertising

Electoral campaigns are dynamic and an important change in recent elections is the growth of fact-checking; the assessment of the truthfulness of political advertisements by news media organizations and watchdog groups. In this article, we examine the role that fact-checks play in shaping citizens’ views of negative commercials and political candidates. We rely on an Internet survey experiment where we vary people’s exposure to negative advertisements and a follow-up fact-check article (i.e., no fact-check, accurate fact-check, inaccurate fact-check). The results of our experiment show that fact-checks influence people’s assessments of the accuracy, usefulness, and tone of negative political ads. Furthermore, sophisticated citizens and citizens with low tolerance for negative campaigning are most responsive to fact-checks. The fact-checks also sway citizens’ likelihood of accepting the claims made in the advertisements. Finally, negative fact-checks (e.g., fact-checks challenging the truthfulness of the claims of the negative commercial) are more powerful than positive fact-checks.     

Electoral system effects re-examined using the largest vote share variable

In the search for a less controversial pattern between electoral systems and party systems, especially the institutional conditions for multipartism, this article develops and analyses a complete post-war dataset on largest parties’ vote shares. In contrast to the vague wording in the Duvergerian literature, it defends a strong proposition that majority parties are almost always a result of disproportionality. With some rare exceptions, they are either manufactured (without a majority of popular votes) or, less frequently, held together by heterogeneous groups (indicated either by a large number of swing voters or an exceptionally restrictive system) through strategic voting. I explain the phenomenon using a theory on politicians’ incentive for office turnover and voters’ demand for party accountability, and also theorize why South Africa and Namibia are the only two outliers to the pattern.     

Elections and landmark policies in Tanzania and Uganda

Much of the relevant literature on Africa downplays the salience of elections for policy-making and implementation. Instead, the importance of factors such as clientelism, ethnicity, organized interest groups, and donor influence, is emphasized. We argue that, in addition, elections now motivate political elites to focus on policies they perceive to be able to gain votes. This is based on analyses of six landmark decisions made during the last 15 years in the social, productive, and public finance sectors in Tanzania and Uganda. Such policies share a number of key characteristics: they are clearly identifiable with the party in power; citizens are targeted countrywide; and policy implementation aims at immediate, visible results.     

Know Me,Love Me,Fear Me: The Anatomy of Candidate Poster Designs in the 2007 French Legislative Elections

Candidates in many elections spend a significant amount of their budget on posters, yet we know virtually nothing about their communication roles. Based on party strategy and visual communication research, this article argues that poster content is the result of strategic choices by candidates, with major and niche candidates using significantly different poster designs in an effort to influence voters' evaluations. Using an original database of 256 candidate posters from the 2007 French legislative elections and content analysis computer software, I show that niche party candidates consistently emphasize partisan and factual information cues (through size and placement on posters), while major party candidates rely heavily on candidate-oriented visuals and on nonverbal cues (e.g., eye contact) to persuade voters. Preliminary analyses indicate that poster visual design strategies are significantly associated with both major and niche party candidates' electoral performance.     

Are Poor Voters Indifferent to Whether Elected Leaders Are Criminal or Corrupt? A Vignette Experiment in Rural India

Although in theory elections are supposed to prevent criminal or venal candidates from winning or retaining office, in practice voters frequently elect and reelect such candidates. This surprising pattern is sometimes explained by reference to voters’ underlying preferences, which are thought to favor criminal or corrupt candidates because of the patronage they provide. This article tests this hypothesis using 2010 data from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where one in four representatives in the state legislature have a serious criminal record and where political corruption is widespread. Contrary to the voter preference hypothesis, voters presented with vignettes that randomly vary the attributes of competing legislative candidates for local, state, and national office become much less likely to express a preference for candidates who are alleged to be criminal or corrupt. Moreover, voters’ education status, ethnicity, and political knowledge are unrelated to their distaste for criminal and venal candidates. The results imply that the electoral performance of candidates who face serious allegations likely reflects factors other than voters’ preferences for patronage, such as limited information about candidate characteristics or the absence of credible alternative candidates with clean records.     

Yes,no, maybe: an analysis of journalists’ views about political party membership in South Africa

This article reports on an analysis of South African journalists’ views on independence from political parties at a time when the journalist fraternity appeared to be split in two (with nuances in between): those who appeared to support the nationalistic, patriotic project of sunshine journalism to focus on the “positives” and enhance the image of the country as espoused by the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), and those who attempted to abide by codes of ethics according to the Press Council of South Africa (PCSA). The PCSA stipulates that belonging to a political party constitutes a conflict of interests, and recommends distance from political parties, with the liberal normative view of watchdog journalism and holding the powerful to account. The analysis combined and integrated a few methods to reach conclusions about the master signifier in the discourse of journalists. It used a survey conducted with journalists in 2015 for quantitative and qualitative analysis, and deployed Zizek’s use of the concepts of master and floating signifiers to offer some critical reflections about journalists’ relationships to political parties. It found that the majority of journalists felt that their credibility would be compromised if they belonged to a political party, but quite a large section felt that journalists had biases anyway, so what was the problem?     

从东南亚国家政府换届看其政治社会新发展

自2010年底以来,缅甸、越南、新加坡和泰国相继举行大选。大选过程及其结果透露了非常丰富和重要的政治信息,缅甸的军人政权向民主政府转型;新加坡执政党依然一党独大,但反对党实力有突破性增长;越南继续进行政治制度改革的探索;泰国迎来了社会和解的契机。     

Muslim welfare bodies: New avenues of representation?

ABSTRACT

A lot of ink has flown over the issue of political under-representation of Muslims in India and over affirmative action measures needed to redress this imbalance. However, a minimal amount of attention has been paid to how Muslims are finding new ways to counter this under-representation. The Ministry for Minority Welfare and subsequent creation of the Minority Welfare Department seem to have expanded the locus of representation for Muslims beyond elections, legislatures, and membership of political parties. Consequently, the number of “Muslim representatives” has increased, in addition to MPs and MLAs who strictly speaking are supposed to be “people’s representatives.” Focusing on two Muslim groups’ engagement with the minority welfare bodies, the article contends that the success or failure of Muslim appointments to state bodies is based not so much on religious differentiation as on the ruling party’s electoral strategies, and their inclusion in these bodies only reinforces their minority status without integrating them entirely in the political process.     

“Keeping Pandora's (ballot) box half-shut”: a comparative inquiry into the institutional limits of external voting in EU Member States

The article compares the institutional constraints that limit the potential electoral impact of external voting in national legislative elections in the 28 Member States of the European Union (EU). It shows that the discrepancy between policy aims and outcomes can be mainly attributed to a variety of institutional constraints restricting the scope of the policy (through residence and professional qualifications); limiting eligible voters’ access to the ballot (through cumbersome registration procedures and voting methods); and reducing the electoral weight attributed to their votes (through distinct modes of representation). It argues that the discrepancy is at least partly the result of a combination of electoral and normative concerns about the influence that external voters could and should have in elections. Institutional restrictions on the franchise of external citizens may be interpreted as a way to keep the “Pandora's box” of unexpected electoral consequences half-shut, by extending the suffrage to a traditionally excluded electorate while at the same time moderating the implications.     

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.     

Priming Issues,Party Visibility,and Party Evaluations: The Impact on Vote Switching

Voter volatility has become a hallmark of Western democracies in the past three decades. At the same time short-term factors—such as the media’s coverage of issues, parties, and candidates during an election campaign—have become more important for voters’ decisions. While previous research did look at how campaign news in general affects electoral volatility in general, it has omitted to explicitly test the mechanisms underlying these effects. Building on theories of agenda setting, (affective) priming, and issue ownership, the current study aims to explain why certain news aspects lead voters to switch their vote choice. We theorize it is the visibility of a party, the evaluation of a party, and the attention for issues owned by a party that primes voters to switch to a certain party. We use national panel survey data (N = 765) and link this to an extensive content analysis of campaign news on television and in newspapers in the run up to the 2012 Dutch national elections. The results show that issue news leads to vote change in the direction of the party that owns the issue. Even stronger is the effect of party visibility on vote switching. Our results, however, find the strongest support for the effect of party evaluations on vote change: More favorable news about a party increases switching to that party.     

End Matter

Namibian elections offer useful insights for the analysis of electoral democracy in territories with histories of protracted and violent liberation struggles. The 1999 general elections, Namibia's third national polls, occurred in the aftermath of a secessionist uprising and the formation of a new opposition party with credible leaders. This article describes in detail both the campaigning and the administrative dimensions of the Namibian election. A relatively strong electoral administration could only partly offset the effects of a dominant political culture in which opponents are regarded as public enemies. Where the ruling party was historically strongest it was responsible for the most aggressive electioneering: competitive contests tended to generate more relaxed electioneering.     

Party matters: the institutional origins of competitive hegemony in Tanzania

Electoral authoritarianism has emerged as a primary mode of authoritarian rule in the post-Cold War era. It is also a notably heterogeneous phenomenon, in terms of both its impact upon incumbents and the quality of contestation. This article investigates a specific type of electoral authoritarian outcome, a competitive hegemony. In competitive hegemonies regimes are able to dominate elections by large vote margins, but with comparatively much lower levels of electoral fraud and coercion. Using a case study of Tanzania and its ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), this article argues that distinct investments made under single-party rule into party institutionalization and the incorporation of subsistence-based peasants provided CCM with additional sources of elite cohesion, strong mobilization capacity, and therefore greater stability. The article shows how during multiparty elections elite defection has in fact been minimal, and voting patterns largely coincide with infrastructural investments made as part of Tanzania's socialist development programme, ujamaa. Moreover, while Tanzania's opposition parties have made important strides in recent years in terms of institutionalization, they are still precluded from competing effectively in large portions of the country where demand for new parties is low.     

Party politics,elections and (mis-)trust in Japan

Abstract

Trust matters profoundly for many dimensions of political life. In this article we focus on political trust: how the trust or mistrust citizens have toward the political process, politicians and government affects politics. Prior research has shown that political trust influences such crucial dimensions of politics as the basic legitimacy of government, political participation, voting behavior, compliance with government, and reform orientation. In this article, we seek to answer three major questions. First, is political trust declining in Japan? Second, we are interested in exploring the determinants of trust and distrust in politics: why do people lose trust in politics? What kinds of voters lose political trust? Third, we explore the consequences: what happens when people lose trust in government and politics.