政党解盟视角下德国联盟党的选举困局——基于2021年德国联邦议院选举的分析

在西方政党政治中,主流政党的政党解盟趋势已经逐步成为常态化的政治现象.究其原因,新政治分野的出现使得主流政党整合人民意愿和解决选民诉求的能力持续弱化,选民对传统全民党的依附性与认同感下降,候选人的形象逐渐取代党派认同成为影响选民选举决策的关键因素,而这种政治个人化趋势的愈加显著进一步加剧了政党解盟现象.在2021年德国...     

韩国选民的政治社会化和支持候选人决定的稳定性——以第十七、十八届总统大选为中心

本文旨在从经验的角度,探讨不同的政治社会化经历对选民支持候选人决定的稳定性产生的影响。鉴于韩国政党政治历史不长,笔者将西欧意义上的政治社会化概念引入韩国社会。因此,本文以"和参照组的政治沟通"作为政治社会化指标,考察在2007年和2012年两次总统选举中韩国选民的政治社会化水平对支持候选人决定的稳定性产生的影响力。研究结果表明,韩国选民越是通过具有相同政治倾向的周围人实现政治社会化,稳定地支持同一政党候选人的倾向就越明显。这个结果意味着不同于以往不同居住地选民支持不同政党的惯例,韩国选民通过政治社会化来加强与特定政党之间关联性的基础正在形成。     

2010年中期选举及其对美国政治的影响

2010年中期选举是共和党自1994年国会选举以来取得的最为重要的一次胜利,本次选举也是最为重要的一次国会选举。民主党选举失利的原因在于:经济状况未能如期改善引起了选民的愤怒和"反在职者"情绪、保守的茶党运动的兴起和蔓延、两党选民之间的"投票热情差距",以及中间选民转而支持共和党。共和党控制众议院打破了民主党同时控制白宫和国会的政治格局,将对奥巴马今后两年的政策议程形成牵制,并对美国两党政治和选举政治产生一定的影响。     

2018年美国中期选举与特朗普政府政策走向

2018年美国中期选举以民主党重掌国会众议院多数、共和党维持并扩大国会参议院多数、两党在州长层次更加平衡的结果落幕。这一基本符合"民意回摆"历史规律的中期选举并不是一次关于经济等国内议题的竞争,而是围绕价值观展开的竞争。选举不但反映出了美国部分选民对特朗普两年执政所表现出的国家发展方向的深度不满,也体现出民主党巩固青年人、少数族裔以及其他群体等基本盘并扩展女性选民群体支持的成功。本次中期选举之后形成的"分立政府"将对特朗普政府的国内政策带来较大阻碍,但两党在基础设施建设等议题上仍存在妥协与合作空间。面对国内压力,特朗普政府可能更加急于寻求在对外政策维度上民众可以满意的进展,但也会遭遇国会民主党人的一定制约。在对华政策上,共和党主导的白宫与民主党主导的国会众议院的共同参与极可能导致当前分歧的复杂化,为中美关系带来更大风险与不确定性。     

从政党政治的缺陷看苏共必然灭亡

政党政治是人类有史以来民主政治的高级形式,是现代民主政治的典型形式,是人类政治文明的积极成果。政党政治首先形成于现代资本主义社会。最先发展资本主义商品市场经济的国家,如英、法、美等国,新兴资产阶级是在夺取政权后的议会斗争中才组成政党,经由多党竞争,选民投票,实现政党轮流执政或联合执政。后发资本主义国家,如德、意、俄等国以及广大被压迫民族国家,则是先组成各类政党,由政党领导或推进革命斗争,到斗争胜利后才形成完全的政党政治。政党政治依据长期     

新论集粹

<正>强化选举信息公开选举信息公开是保障选民选举权利的重要举措,建议把选举信息公开作为法定要求予以明确。积极回应选民诉求,向选民、向社会直播选举全过程。一方面,要在居民集中居住区、活动区定期公开选举进展情况。另一方面,要充分利用网络、电视、广播、短信、微信等载体,对选举工作进行全程公开。此外,应进一步完善选举委员会的产生、运行制度。让选举委员会成为选举信息     

2010年中期选举及其对美国内外政策的影响

在2010年中期选举中,共和党借助国内经济不景气的形势,夺取了众议院的控制权,大幅缩小了在参议院中与民主党席位的差距。共和党取胜的竞选方法包括:成功地将全国性议题与地方情况相结合,推出高素质的候选人,以及合理地使用竞选经费,集中力量制造角逐选区。此次中期选举的结果加剧了两党政治立场的极端化,增强了共和党的政治影响力,加大了奥巴马政府在制定和执行国内政策上的难度,并将由于选民态度的变化、国会及其委员会的构成和领导人的变动,而对美国外交政策和中美关系产生重要影响,也将对2012年的总统大选产生一定的影响。     

论日本自民党的中央集权化

20世纪90年代以来,日本进行的两次大的政治制度改革以及后来断断续续进行的仍处于其延长线上的制度改革,在促进日本政治体制转型与政治生态环境变化的同时,也推动了自民党的中央集权化。自民党内以派阀为代表的非正式组织功能弱化,以总裁为中心的执行部的重要性增强,权力向以总裁为核心的执行部集中。在实际的政治运行过程中,政治制度改革的两大制度性效应即内阁首相权力的扩大与自民党总裁权力的集中相互作用、相互影响,出现"首相支配"现象。"安倍一强"的出现,是自民党中央集权化趋于成熟的象征。强大的首相(总裁)权力仍然存在不能有效控制的空间——参议院。与众议院选举制度不同、议员任期不同以及宪法赋予它的法律权限等制度性安排,使参议院具有高度独立性,同时,自民党只要不能单独控制参议院过半数议席,与公明党在参议院的联合便不可或缺。首相则有必要在参议院与联合公明党共同通过法案的参议院自民党合作。参议院成为自民党的"软肋"。     

“五·八”选举后菲律宾主要对外关系

“五·八”选举后菲律宾主要对外关系厦门大学南洋研究所沈红芳菲律宾总统拉莫斯的乙抄民斗联盟党在１９９５年５月８日的参议院中期选举中获胜，对菲律宾主要对外关系产生较大影响。菲美关系结束了自马科斯中后期以来长达约２０年的“离心”现象，步入迅速全面的修复时期...     

"关键性选举"与美国选举政治的变化

本文在对"关键性选举"及其在美国政党和选举政治中的作用进行分析的基础上,进一步对相关理论进行评介,并以此为分析框架论述了20世纪60年代末以来美国选举政治的变化及其对美国政治进程和2004年大选的意义.作者认为,新政政党体制的解体使两党选民基础的社会和地理结构、选民的政党认同等发生了显著和持续的变化.这些变化对当今美国选举政治产生了重要的影响,其中最主要的是短期因素在美大选中的作用增大和造成两党在全国性选举中势均力敌的格局.2004年大选仍将是民主、共和两党间一场实力均衡的较量,九一一事件及布什政府所进行的反恐和对伊战争使美国全国的政治议程和选举议题发生了显著变化,此次大选的突出特点是外交与安全问题成为选举的主要议题.从美国选举政治的走向来看,在近期和可预见的未来仍难以形成一党长期控制白宫和国会的格局.政党选民重新组合和政党选民联盟解体两种趋向并存将长期主导美国选举政治的走向.     

日本政治中的“世袭”现象及潜规则

日本在明治维新后废除了身份制度,贵族制度也随之消失。但封建时代的许多旧俗仍然不可避免地残存下来,并在现代日本的政治生活中发挥着不可小视的影响。其中,“世袭议员”现象就是最为典型的政治文化遗产,折射出日本政治中某些传统的潜规则。日本政坛长期以来存在的“家族世袭”现象,在某种意义上对过去几十年日本的经济发展和政治稳定都起到了积极作用。但同时,“世袭”现象也使日本政坛的关系过于复杂化,权钱交易丑闻时有发生,增加了政治和经济改革的难度。日本大选使得民主党和自民党在这一问题上展开了激烈的斗争。“世袭议员”制度的政治传统面临着改革的压力,然而日本民族文化深远的影响力同样不容忽视。关注2009年日本大选背景下日本有关“世袭议员”现象的争论,从制度成因变化的角度分析日本政治的传统与变革之争,并尝试对“世袭议员”现象的前景做一展望。     

Political Issues, Generation Gap, and Voting Behavior in South Korea: The 2010 Seoul Mayoral Election

Against all odds, South Korea's 2010 local elections were a landslide victory for the coalition of the opposition political parties. This article aims to provide an insight on the dynamic nature of Korean elections and politics by using a public opinion survey in Seoul's mayoral election as a case study. This article finds that the "north wind" triggered by the sinking of the South Korean battleship Cheonan helped the ruling party candidate, but not as much as the ruling party had hoped. Furthermore, a high turnout of the younger voters helped the opposition party candidate by showing a clear generation gap in terms of the important issues, ideology, and party orientation.     

Singapore’s 2015 General Election: Explaining PAP’s Resounding Win

Abstract

While Singapore’s 15th general election came about as expected, the ensuing results did not. In view of the opposition’s performance in the 2011 general election and the general sense that the ruling party had done well despite its performance being anything but sterling, the results were somewhat shocking. Even the leaders of the ruling party were caught by surprise at the party’s ability to garner 70% of the valid votes, 10% more than in the previous election. While many factors played a role, it was the opposition parties that lost the election rather than the ruling party that won it. Most of the opposition parties were rejected by the voters on grounds of not being worthy of support. The leading opposition party, the Workers’ Party, also suffered as many voters feared that it might perform too well to the detriment of the ruling party. In the end, the 2015 general elections strengthened the one-party-dominant state in Singapore and the quest for greater political representation was placed on the back burner.     

Singapore Beyond Ethnicity: Rethinking the Group Representative Constituency Scheme

Abstract

The resounding victory of the People’s Action Party (PAP) in the 2015 Singapore general elections surprised many observers. Several observers had considered the previous election, held in 2011, to be the new normal in Singapore politics, with the Workers’ Party being the first opposition party to win a Group Representative Constituency (GRC). Instead of its popular vote sliding from 60% in 2011, the PAP secured almost a 10% increase in its fortunes. Analysts have spoken about PAP’s hard work and the opposition’s failures when commenting on the ruling party’s success; this article, however, points out how Singapore’s electoral system, especially the GRC, continues to favour the ruling party and why it should be rethought. Introduced in 1988, the scheme ensures minority candidates (non-Chinese) are voted into parliament. Candidates contesting in a GRC form a team of Members of Parliament (MPs) with at least one minority candidate in each team. This article argues that the 2015 election results proves that Singaporeans no longer vote along ethnic lines, and non-Chinese MPs have comfortably led the GRCs and won in Single Member Constituencies. To be sure, the GRC scheme does new PAP candidates a disfavour: it weakens their legitimacy with voters, since they remain under the shadows of senior PAP candidates and cannot win elections on their own accord.     

Testing Duvergerʼs law: strategic voting in Mongolian elections, 1996–2004

Recent empirical research on voting in single-member districts, based on extensive data-sets of election results, has demonstrated the general (although not universal) validity of Duverger’s law (i.e. that the average outcome under plurality rule is generally consistent with two-party competition). This article tests Duverger’s law through analysis of a data-set covering Mongolian parliamentary elections in the period of 1996–2004. The results show consistent, but not linear, movement towards the Duvergerian equilibrium in Mongolia, with large part of the districts conforming to the Duvergerian norm of two-party competition. Duverger treated his law merely as an important tendency but insisted that social forces are the main determinants of the number of political parties. The main factor that limited Mongolian voters’ rationality, and created problems with their strategic ability to distinguish and abandon hopeless candidates, was weak institutionalization of the Mongolian party system. Finally, I prove that the emergence of bipolar party politics was not an immediate process and will continue over a series of elections, supporting the so-called “learning hypothesis.”     

Electron democracy,populism, and generational politics: The case of the April 15, 2004 general election in South Korea

The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influenced the results of the April 15, 2004 general election in South Korea. A backlash after the impeachment of President Roh Moo Hyun by a coalition of opposition parties in the National Assembly (NA) was the single most important factor that determined the election outcomes. Generational and regional differences in the parties voters supported and the “defeat movement” of citizens' organizations also had significant effects on the election processes. For the first time since the early 1960s a progressive party won a majority of the NA seats. Thirty-nine women members will serve in the 17th NA, the largest number ever, and the left-wing Democratic Labor Party became the third largest party by receiving 13 percent of the proportional representation votes. Generational and ideological shifts in the power elites seem to be evident in the election results.     

The Baden-Württemberg State Election of 2011: A Political Landslide

After 58 years in the position of dominant political party, the Christian Democrats suffered from an electoral defeat in the Baden-Württemberg state election of 27 March 2011 and, as a result of the election, the first Green prime minister was elected and headed a state government formed by the Green and the Social Democrat parties. The main reasons for this political landslide were the unique constellation of political issues and the voters' attitudes towards the candidates for the office of prime minister. Instead of economic issues traditionally ‘owned’ by the Christian Democrats, the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima and the bitter conflict over the reconstruction of the Stuttgart railway station brought ‘new politics’ issues to the top of the agenda. Moreover, never before in the history of German state elections was a prime minister running for re-election as unpopular as the leading candidate of Christian Democrats. Finally, many voters were convinced that it was just time for a change.     

The Zero-sum Game of Governing Together? Effects of Merkel's Grand Coalition on the Results of the 2009 German Federal Election

Grand coalitions are highly debated in Germany, where large parts of the media and the political world expect negative effects of grand coalitions on parliamentary party systems. This did not happen either with Merkel's grand coalition resulting from the 2005 election or with other grand coalitions in the German Länder. On the contrary, only the SPD suffered heavy losses in 2009. Most experts agree that those losses were caused by the SPD's participation in the grand coalition. Still, it remains largely unclear how Merkel's grand coalition affected the 2009 federal election. To close that gap, this paper thoroughly analyses the effects of Merkel's grand coalition by looking at a crucial but mostly neglected factor in that regard, the evaluation of the grand coalition by voters. It can be shown that the CDU/CSU was mostly unaffected whereas the SPD suffered from being perceived as the less influential party in Merkel's grand coalition.     

Is There a Regional Cleavage in Germany's Party System? Unequal Representation and Ideological Congruence in Germany 1980–2013

Despite a growing convergence in the attitudes and behaviours of voters in the unified Germany, research shows that eastern and western German voters continue to differ over general ideological issues. How well does the party system in the unified Germany represent this ideological diversity? To answer this question, this paper analyses the extent to which (1) parties-in-electorates, (2) parties-in-parliament and (3) parties-in-government agree ideologically with voters from both regions between 1980 and 2013. Hypothetically, a lop-sided representation pattern, where the ideological location of parties converges primarily with those of western voters, suggests that existing ideological differences become institutionalised. Contrary to this scenario, we find that the German party system effectively articulates the ideological preferences of western and eastern voters. The same applies to parliaments and governments where the election outcome rather than any institutional bias affects the distance of parties to voters in the East and the West.     

Party Potential and the Pattern of Party Competition in the 2003 Swiss Federal Elections

This article explores both the party potential of the five major parties in Switzerland at the 2003 elections and how well the parties actually did in relation to how well they could have done. A party's electoral potential depends on both the probability of the electorate voting for the party and on the probability of individual voters participating in an election. The analysis shows that the SVP and the CVP were successful in mobilising their potential voters in the 2003 elections, while the FDP did almost as badly as they could have done. However, compared to the potential of the FDP or the SP, the overall potential of the SVP is limited. For the SVP, issue specific factors account for the mobilising success. This is especially the case for its stands against the EU and asylum seekers. The CVP profited from the Ruth Metzler effect, who was a key figure in the 2003 CVP campaign.