Allocating Campaign Effort in Spain: Evidence from Four General Elections

Abstract

This paper analyses which districts are targeted by Spanish political parties in their electoral campaigns. We find that the major Spanish parties - PP and PSOE - mobilise districts where they are more likely to win a new seat or are in danger of losing one they already hold. The predicted closeness of the district race is more relevant in the smallest districts. We also find that Spanish parties mobilise their strongholds. We suggest that, apart from the pure office-seeking strategies, political finance motivations might also play a role in the mobilisation choices made by Spanish party elites.     

Emerging Patterns in Liberia's Post-Conflict Politics: Observations from the 2005 Elections

The 2005 elections were the first Liberian elections in overa century in which the political environment was controlledneither by the settler oligarchy nor, latterly, by the dictatorsSamuel Doe and Charles Taylor. Observers feared that the post-conflictenvironment was not conducive to holding elections and thata serious programme of reconciliation and constitutional reformshould have preceded them. Nevertheless, elections were conductedwith some degree of success, providing an opportunity to identifysome emerging patterns in post-conflict Liberian politics. Thisarticle assesses some of the new or hitherto dormant institutionsand processes that are likely to play a significant role inshaping Liberia's political order in the twenty-first century.     

Assessing Candidates at Home and Abroad: A Comparative Analysis of Colombian Expatriates in the 2010 Presidential Elections

This article examines candidate favorability among Colombian expatriates and Colombians in the home country in the 2010 Colombian presidential elections. It analyzes the influence of several socioeconomic, migratory, mobilizing, and contextual factors on candidate appraisal using a large exit poll conducted at Colombian consulates in five cities in the United States and Europe and five cities with high emigration rates in Colombia. Aside from differences in candidate favorability stemming from socioeconomic variables (education, income, and religious affiliation), Colombians living abroad largely evaluate candidates in ways similar to Colombians living in the country.     

韩国学全球化的战略方法论——基于韩流经验的研究

本文旨在探讨韩国学研究在社会学领域构建普遍问题框架的方法和战略.为此,首先分析韩流的经验教训为构建韩国学的问题框架带来的启示;然后,着眼于韩国学的未来发展,从社会学的角度探讨普遍的知识体系应该关注的方法论策略.全球化带来了文化的广泛传播,强化了地方和世界之间的相互联系和沟通,所谓的全球本土化和本土全球化现象日益普遍.韩流作为一种创造性的杂糅文化,在跨文化交流中起到了重要作用.分析并借鉴韩流的经验及吸取其教训,有助于韩国学在国际学术界建立具有独创性的知识体系.为了在社会学领域实现韩国学的全球化,应该摒弃照搬西欧或美国学界框架的做法,开发出符合韩国社会历史现实的概念、理论和方法,根据韩国国情确立问题框架,对事实和价值做出判断,从韩国的角度分析和解释全球问题,实现韩国学的全球化,将韩国的特殊性与区域和世界的普遍性相结合,促进韩国学的发展.     

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.     

The Salience of Ideology: Fifteen Years of Presidential Elections in El Salvador

The victory of the FMLN in El Salvador's presidential elections of March 2009 has been considered remarkable, given the dominance of ARENA in four consecutive presidential races from 1989 to 2004. Using individual‐level data, this article examines the determinants of electoral support for both parties over the past 15 years. Several statistical models illuminate some of the factors that led to ARENA's dominance and ultimate defeat. A combination of variables associated with different theoretical models of voting helps explain the choices made by Salvadoran voters over the years. The most consistent predictors of vote have been voters' self‐reported ideology and their evaluation of the incumbent government's performance. The 2009 turnaround relates to fundamental changes in the national and international context, and also to the selection of candidates.     

帝国研究视角下的苏联解体研究

苏联的建立与演进,似乎都与"帝国"有复杂的关联性。其前身——俄罗斯帝国是典型的陆上帝国。苏联成立后坚持反帝立场,但之后逐渐演变成为一个"社会帝国主义"国家。其标志就是形成了核心—边缘的帝国结构体系,以苏联统治中枢莫斯科及俄罗斯为核心,向外形成了三层边缘地带,其中第一层是苏联的加盟共和国,第二层是中东欧华约成员国,第三层是在亚洲和美洲的经互会成员国。苏联解体实际上是"帝国终结"历史的一个组成部分,是一次迟来的非殖民化,也是人类历史发展的自然进程。这方面的具体原因至少有以下三个:其一,苏联领导人对当时局势的认识及判断和采取的对策及政策;其二,边缘地区民族主义产生了重要的动员和发动作用;最后,"帝国的负担"成为难以承受的现实负担。     

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.     

Rituals of Power and Political Parties in Morocco: Limited Elections as Positional Strategies

The article argues that the monarchy's religious authority and its use of rituals of power limit the ability of political parties to contest the monarchy's legitimacy. It goes beyond most institutionalist accounts of authoritarian persistence by exploring the micro-dynamics of symbolic power and the extent to which the regime's ritualization of power creates a political culture conducive to the monarchy's supremacy in the socio-political realm, thus promoting regime stability in Morocco. These rituals have been institutionalized in the political system and have become part of the political discourse in Morocco. The monarchy's religious authority and its use of rituals of power impede the ability political parties to mobilize and to penetrate Moroccan society, and force them to adopt positional strategies in limited elections.     

6·2地方选举结果与预示：以政党公推为中心

2010年6月2日,韩国在全国范围内进行地方选举,此次地方选举是1991年韩国重新实施地方选举以来的第六届。在以往的地方选举中,获胜的往往是在野党,而此次地方选举也沿袭了这一趋势,作为第一在野党的民主党人士占据了地方自治团体长和地方议会的大部分席位,这预示着当前的政治版图将发生巨大的变化。大国家党在选举中落败的一个原因正是在于公推制度的弊端,因此,本文将以该问题为切入点深入分析6.2地方选举的结果及其预示,以期为地方选举制度中存在的问题提供有益的改善方案。     

The Supply Side of Second-Order Elections: Comparing German National and European Election Manifestos

The second-order character of past European elections is a well-established hypothesis with respect to voter turnout and voting behaviour. This paper presents a conceptual framework for testing this hypothesis on the supply side of European elections. It includes three groups of indicators allowing for the comparison of national and European election manifestos to determine the latter's second-order nature: (1) resource allocation, measured by the number of actors involved in manifesto adoption and by the manifestos' length; (2) the manifestos' content, comparing issue congruence and framing; and (3) political competition, measured by the ideological distance between manifestos. Building on this, we analyse the manifestos of all relevant German parties in the 2009 European and national elections using Comparative Manifesto Project data as well as original, self-created data on election manifestos. We find major variations between parties which can neither be explained by government participation nor satisfaction with the European Union.     

Embeddedness and Restructuring: Case Studies from Singapore

Free market ideology has continued its hegemonic reign notwithstanding considerable opposition. Under capitalism, the relationship between the political and economic realms is intricate. This inquiry on corporate restructuring in Singapore between the late 1990s and the early 2000s scrutinizes how a dominant state collaborated with the multinational corporations to reconstitute their accumulation regimes to outlast the business cycles. Based on six cases, the findings underscore the critical role of the state on the subject of restructuring. The peculiar configuration of the relations between the state and labour in Singapore shaped how they negotiated the restructuring process with the companies. While those involved reckoned that training, research and technology were pivotal, the foregoing were not the panacea that optimistic consultants had made them out to be. The interactions among capital, labour and the state remained the underpinnings of solutions.     

中俄、中澳能源合作比较研究——合理性、有效性、可持续性探析

为了减少对中东能源的依赖,中国实施了能源进口多元化、拓展海外能源产地的战略,加强了与俄罗斯、澳大利亚等国的能源合作。俄、澳两国作为中国的重点合作对象,在能源结构、国内制度、与中国合作的模式等方面有着各自的特点。从合理性、有效性、可持续性三个视角对中俄、中澳能源合作进行比较分析,有助于我们探寻两种合作模式的成功经验以及如何克服不利因素的影响。     

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.     

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.