The 1988 Presidential Election in Finland

The article aims to describe and analyse the 1988 presidential election in Finland. The parties and candidates in the election are presented and the electoral system is discussed. For the first time a double-vote system was used in which there are two ballots, one for the direct election of the president and one for the elector of the president. If a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, then that candidate is elected. If, however, no candidate receives 50 percent or more of the vote, then the electoral college elects the president. Although it was fairly certain that the incumbent president Mauno Koivisto would be re-elected, the campaign was a heated one, with the electorate very politically engaged. It is concluded that despite the fact regional differences between north and south Finland were aggravated—the candidate for the opposition, Paavo Väyrynen, received considerable support especially in northern Finland-the presidential election showed that the Finnish political system functions relatively smoothly and that its overall effect is highly legitimizing.     

The Presidential Election of 2008*

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain each has severe problems. McCain must take his distance from the very unpopular President Bush while keeping the support of the core Republican voters, but suffers from lack of rapport with the Fundamentalist Protestants and traditionalist Catholics. In foreign policy, he is more devoted to US global hegemony (in a world which stubbornly refuses it) than the incumbent. Senator Obama knows that this is a dangerous illusion but thinks that it is unwise to say so. He supports Israel in exaggerated terms and repeats the fabrications of the war party about Iran. Obama has the difficulty of being part black and entirely intellectual, and he needs the votes of the working class men and women who are very reserved about him. McCain seeks low taxes and less government expenditure and intervention, but tens of millions of economically hard‐pressed citizens are ready to return to the ethos and practices of the New Deal. Obama promises to revive the regulatory and redistributive role of government to help them, but his reluctance to criticise the arms budget may makes him seem unrealistic. Obama's vision of the United States puts the achievement of the American Revolution in the future whereas McCain thinks of the nation as already perfected. In many respects, we have a classical conflict between left and right.     

Goodbye to Revolution: The Portuguese Election of July 1987

State, Economy and Society in Western Europe 1815–1975: A Data Handbook in Two Volumes. By Peter Flora et al. Frankfurt/London/Chicago: Campus Verlag; Macmillan Press and St James Press, 1983. Volume I, Pp.633. £40.00.

Moderates and Conservatives in Western Europe: Political Parties, the European Community, and the Atlantic Alliance. Edited by Roger Morgan and Stefano Silvestri. Policy Studies Institute. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1982. Pp.266. £14.50.

Conservative Politics in Western Europe. Edited by Zig Layton‐Henry. London: Macmillan, 1982. Pp.346. £25.00.

The Mediterranean Basin: Its Political Economy and Changing International Relations. by Glenda G. Rosenthal. London: Butterworth, 1982. Pp. 140. £18.00.

Political Forces in Spain, Greece, and Portugal. By Beate Kohler. London: Butterworth, 1982. Pp.270. £27.50.

The Impact of Parties: Politics and Policies in Democratic Capitalist States. Edited by Francis G. Castles. London: Sage Publications, 1982. Pp.370. £17.95.

National Separatism. Edited by Colin H. Williams. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1982. Pp.317. £9.95.

The Successor Generation: International Perspectives of Postwar Europeans. Edited by Stephen F. Szabo. London: Butterworths, 1983. £20.00.

The Political System of the Federal Republic of Germany. By Klaus von Beyme. Aldershot: Gower, 1983. Pp.xiii + 224. £15.00.

Les nouvelles idéologies. By P. Bacot, C. Journés et AL. Lyons: Presses Universi‐taires, 1982. Pp.228. Ff.49.

Policy and Politics in France: Living with Uncertainty. By Douglas E. Ashford. Philadelphia: Temple, 1982. Pp.xx + 345. $29.95 (hardback), $12.95 (paper).

French Planning in Theory and Practice. By Saul Estrin and Peter Holmes. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983. Pp.viii + 215. £15.00 (hardback).

The Corsican Time Bomb. By Robert Ramsay. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983. Pp.xii + 245. £21.00 (hardback).

Britain Against Itself: The Political Contradictions of Collectivism. By Samuel H. Beer. London: Faber &; Faber, 1982. Pp.xvi + 231. £9.50.

Modern British Politics: Parties and Pressure Groups in the Collectivist Age. By Samuel H. Beer. London: Faber &; Faber, 3rd edition, 1982. Pp.xiv + 434. £4.95.

Crosses on the Ballot: Patterns of British Voter Alignment Since 1885. By Kenneth D. Wald. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp.xvi + 263. £21.60.

Nation, Class and Creed in Northern Ireland. By Edward Moxon‐Browne. Alder‐shot: Gower, 1983. Pp.xv + 205. £14.50 (hardback).

Socialism with a Human Face. By Michael Meacher. London: Allen &; Unwin, 1982. Pp.295. £15.00.

Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development. By Alexander De Grand. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Pp. 174. £14.10 (hardback), £6.80 (paperback).

Zwischen Koalition und Konkurrenz. Österreichs Parteien seit 1945. Edited by Peter Gerlich and Wolfgang C. Müller. Vienna: Braumüller, 1983. Pp. 378. DM36.     

Sub-National Election Campaigns: The Danish Local Elections of November 1989*

Electoral campaigning is studied almost without exception at the national level. This article has chosen another road, claiming that electoral campaigning can also be studied at the local election level. Campaigning before the Danish local elections of 21 November 1989 is studied. The design permits comparisons between the two levels (national/local) as well as between different units at the local level. It furthermore provides an opportunity for studying the influence of local party systems as well as local mass media on election campaigning. A substantial part of the article discusses the institutional frameworks surrounding electoral campaigning in the municipalities studied and in general. It is maintained that the electoral system, the mass media structure, and the (local) party system are important contextual factors or frameworks. Given this, it is argued that organization, past performance, and campaign focus as a mix of policy proposals and leader image are paramount in affecting the local election vote. The main conclusions are: local election campaigning differs from national election campaigning; local election campaigning matters, i.e. it has a direct effect on the vote; and the functions of local party organizations in connection with local elections and local performance make them less vulnerable to organizational decline, which most mass membership political parties are experiencing at the national level.     

Public Allocation by Private Organizations: The Case of Finland*

Research on government-group relations has primarily concentrated on policy stages related to agenda-building, consultation and negotiation. However, interest organizations also play an increasingly important role in the final stage of allocation as they have in several instances been entrusted with the execution of state authority. This is especially true in the field of so-called indirect public administration. The paper reviews various forms of public allocation by private organizations in Finland and presents some empirical data indicating the growth of this form of allocation.     

The 1987 Norwegian Local Elections: A Protest Election with a Swing to the Right

In one way. Norway's local elections would seem to he a deviant case a protest election with a landslide victory to a recently established neo-liberalistic party, greater volatility among the voters, and an unusually low turnout. However, the election survey and other electoral statistics reveal a continuation and reinforcement of social and regional trends in voting patterns, trends which have emerged during recent elections.     

Social Structure and Campaign Style: Finland 1954–1987

This study addresses the hypothesis concerning the ideological convergence of political parties in light of election campaigns in Finland. The basic expectation is that the parties have become more alike in terms of their orientation vis-à-vis the electorate and in their use of propaganda techniques. The empirical data consists of editorials in the leading newspapers of the four largest Finnish parties in connection with the parliamentary election campaigns of 1954, 1966, 1975 and 1987. The main hypothesis is clearly corroborated, as traditional elements such as class orientation have been replaced by references to the nation at large and to the political elite. A re-ideologization could be noted in connection with the 1975 campaign, followed by a strong de-ideologization in 1987. Despite the virtual disappearance of offensive propaganda techniques, recent campaigns were not found to be decisively less 'propagandists' than the earlier ones.     

The 2008 Election

The 2008 presidential election will be significant both for domestic and for foreign policy. Issues of security in domestic policy will continue to trump issues of freedom. The difficulties of resolving our military presence in Iraq will be the first among many important issues the new administration must confront. In both domestic and foreign affairs the new administration will have to deal with the unanticipated consequences of inherited policies even as it creates its own agenda and its own set of unintended consequences.

The Election Monitor's Curse

Election monitoring has become a key instrument of democracy promotion. Election monitors routinely expect to deter fraud and prevent post‐election violence, but in reality, post‐election violence often increases when monitors do expose fraud. We argue that monitors can make all elections less fraudulent and more peaceful on average, but only by causing more violence in fraudulent elections. Due to this curse, strategic election monitors can make a positive impact on elections only if their objectives are aligned in a very specific fashion. Monitors who do not aim to prevent violence can be effective only if they are unbiased, whereas monitors who do aim to prevent violence can be effective only if they are moderately biased against the government. Consequently, election monitors with misaligned objectives will fail to prevent violence, whereas monitors with well‐aligned objectives will be blamed for causing violence.     

The 1988 Election Campaign in Denmark

In this article the 1988 national election campaigns of the Conservative Party, the Christian People's Party and the Social Democratic Party are analysed focusing upon: the impact of environmental factors – i.e. the constitutional setting, the party system and the media system; and the campaigns themselves – i.e. preparation and planning, control, strategy, financing and style. Findings indicate that the single most important factor for understanding national election campaigns in Denmark is that parties never know when a general election will be called. As a result, preparation and planning are virtually absent, TV is assessed as the most important channel of communication, the campaign is fairly centralized and controlled by the party leadership, the parties are dependent upon voluntary manpower and financial support, the use of 'outside' expertise is minimal, and the complex pattern of cooperation and conflict in Danish politics has a modifying impact on the amount of aggressiveness displayed in the campaign. All in all, similarities among the parties' campaigns are more pronounced than differences. It appears to make no difference whether the party is incumbent or in opposition, established or new, left-wing or right-wing, large or small.     

The American Presidential Election in Perspective

In 2004 President Bush was elected more decisively than in 2000, but he would have lost if Ohio had voted for John Kerry. Turnout in a polarised electorate was the highest since the 1960s. Bush saw his party increase its existing majorities in both houses of Congress - the first Republican candidate to do so since 1924. The Republicans benefited from political trends in the South, international developments and the impact of social issues. Gains by Bush at the time of the national conventions were reduced by Kerry's strong showing in the televised debates. In the end, Americans were unwilling to eject their commander-in-chief during the wars on terror and in Iraq. While the Republicans have been advancing in national politics since the 1960s, it is unclear whether 2004 was a realigning election. There was not a realignment in the classic way that it occurred in 1932.