The Transformation of Australian Electoral Analysis: The Two‐Party Preferred Vote — Origins,Impacts, and Critics

Measuring party support in Australia by constructing a “two‐party preferred” vote has had a profound effect, not only on the way political scientists, journalists, and politicians understand electoral “swing” and predict electoral outcomes, but also on their understanding of the party system, their thinking about electoral fairness, and their views about which party or parties can legitimately claim government. This article traces the origins — the maternity as well as the paternity – of the “two‐party preferred”. It documents its spread from federal to state elections, even as voting systems in some states have switched from exhaustive preferential to optional preferential. It discusses its wide‐ranging impact, and its implications for notions of electoral fairness and the legitimacy of election outcomes. It evaluates various criticisms of the concept — technical, pragmatic, and conceptual. And it notes the implications for marginal seat campaigning of the commonly observed “uniform swing”— implications completely at odds with the idea that marginal seats matter.     

Electoral Systems in a Divided Society: The Case of Afghanistan

Electoral systems can be powerful instruments for shaping the content and practice of politics in divided societies, such as Afghanistan; and their design needs to be closely linked to context. This paper explores the suitability of Afghanistan's electoral mechanisms in light of the nation's political system, social divisions, and the process, which led to their adoption. There is no perfect electoral system; and the winners of the country's first-ever presidential election and the subsequent assembly elections face the formidable challenge of transforming Afghanistan from a war torn fiefdom into a nation. Hamid Karzai's victory and Afghanistan's improved, although fragile, security environment appear to represent an important step toward democracy. Yet, elections and electoral mechanisms are a necessary but insufficient means to the introduction and endurance of constitutional democratic government. The legitimacy of Afghanistan's new democratic institutions will rest on the government's progress in producing results, such as disarming the private militias of powerful commanders, some of whom represent sizeable ethnic minorities, and curbing the burgeoning poppy cultivation. An electoral system is but one piece, significant but not the linchpin, of the schema of Afghan political dynamics.     

Gendering moral capital: Morality as a political asset and strategy of top female politicians in Asia

Abstract

In contrast to social capital, moral capital remains an under-researched topic in political science. In Asia, however, moral capital is one of the core assets of women politicians on their way to power. Kane defines moral capital as a specific political value of virtue that inclines others, in particular the political public and followers, to bestow (ethical) prestige, respect, loyalty, and authority on a political actor or the representative of an institution that the actor herself/himself can use as a resource to mobilize for political goals, activities, or support. This article addresses two questions. First, in which circumstances does moral capital become a significant asset for women on the rise to the top echelons of political power in Asia? Second, how do women politicians use moral capital as a political strategy, campaign instrument, and/or asset of public imaging? The authors discuss four case studies of female opposition politicians — Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, Malaysia's Wan Azizah, South Korea's Park Geun-hye, and Japan's Tanaka Makiko — in three types of political systems: democratic, semi-authoritarian, and authoritarian. All four women are descendants of political dynasties and each of them used moral capital to reach top political offices in their countries. But significant differences emerge regarding the importance of moral capital as a prime asset in the development of each of their political careers. These differences originate from (a) the power configurations in the political context in which each woman operates, and (b) the legacies of their fathers or husbands.     

The Electoral Cycle and Multi-Level Voting in Germany

The aim of this contribution is to analyse whether Land elections may (have) become uncoupled from the federal electoral process, and, if they have, to explore the implications for party competition in Germany. Initially, an overview is presented of the relevant theoretical models that can help unpack the relationship between different electoral arenas. Secondly, how these ideas have been applied to national and sub-national electoral competition in Germany is outlined, before an examination of the 'fit' of the data in both the pre- and post-unification periods. We conclude with reflections on two key features that have regularly surfaced in Gordon Smith's writings: party system change and political stability.     

Magic Mayors: Predicting Electoral Success from Candidates' Physical Attractiveness under the Conditions of a Presidential Electoral System

A range of empirical studies has shown that candidates' physical attractiveness can substantially influence the outcome of political elections. This applies to different countries, different electoral systems, and different levels of political systems, and equally affects simple direct or list candidates and front-runners. However, no previous investigation using actual election results has been made into whether candidates' attractiveness also has an effect under the conditions of a presidential electoral system. Theoretical reasons can be formulated that suggest attractiveness is ineffective under these circumstances. In order to clarify this point empirically, we analysed the 2009 North Rhine-Westphalia mayoral elections. Yet the results of the analyses clearly show that candidates' attractiveness has a substantial influence. Taking into account earlier findings, the influence of physical attractiveness in political elections appears to be resistant, to a large degree, to varying constraints.     

1902 and the Origins of Preferential Electoral Systems in Australia*

Australia is the birthplace of the two main forms of preferential electoral voting — the Alternative Vote (AV) and the Single Transferable Vote (STV) methods. Accident and force of circumstances largely explain their introduction. The Hughes Government introduced the AV system in 1918 in an attempt to prevent the right‐of‐centre parties from splitting their support to the benefit of the ALP. In 1948 the Chifley Government moved to replace the Senate's preferential block system with the STV method in an attempt to electorally contain Menzies. Yet credit also needs be given to the deliberate efforts and clear intentions of their designers. The electoral systems proposed in 1902 were ahead of their time. Indeed, 1902 marked an important step in the design of Australia's electoral system. Once the debate had crystallized around the relative merits of preferential methods, it was only a matter of time before the Commonwealth would see their adoption.     

Keeping Up with the Souzas: Social Influence and Electoral Change in a Weak Party System,Brazil 2002–2006

Despite weak partisanship and considerable political change in the wake of the 2002 election, three‐quarters of Brazilian voters supported a presidential candidate in 2006 from the same party they had backed in 2002. This article assesses the factors causing both electoral stability and electoral change with a transition model, a model testing whether the effects of respondents' evaluative criteria depend on their initial vote choices. Social context—personal discussion networks, neighborhood influences, and the interactions of social networks and municipal context—is the major force promoting stability and change, while the impact of partisanship is limited to a small share of voters.     

Electoral Accountability in the Midst of Criminal Violence: Evidence from Mexico

Rising levels of crime and insecurity affect the quality of life. A fundamental question for the prospects of democracy is whether voters, in hopes of reaching better solutions to conditions of prevailing insecurity, can hold their elected officials accountable for such situations. This article argues that electoral accountability amid criminal violence requires voters to be able to assign responsibility for crime, and that partisan alignment across levels of government facilitates this task. Recent Mexican elections are examined to test this argument. Relying on both aggregate electoral data and individual survey evidence, this study shows that voters hold politicians accountable for crime in the narrow circumstances of organized crime–related violence and political alignment. This evidence not only provides additional caveats to issue voting models, but also opens new avenues of research on electoral accountability.     

Is Consensual Politicizing Being Punished in Switzerland?

Over the last decade, Switzerland has been characterized by both a radicalization of its political system and the relative success of the SP and SVP parties, which tend to adopt a strategy of permanent campaigning. Because of this, it is often argued that politicians are held accountable for their behaviour and that their electoral successes depend on their voting behaviour in parliament. We thus explore whether the voting behaviour of representatives, or citizens' evaluations of parties' ideological positions had an impact on their electoral success in the 1995, 1999, and 2003 national elections. More precisely, we assess how far the proximity and directional models explain the electoral success of incumbents and parties using roll call data for the National Council as well as the Selects surveys at the individual level. The results at both levels suggest that voters' choice is largely consistent with what is predicted by the spatial models of electoral behaviour. Swiss voters form their party preference on both proximity and direction, which supports a mixed model of electoral behaviour.     

‘Made in Eastern Germany’: The PDS and the articulation of Eastern German interests

The electoral success of the post‐communist PDS has surprised politicians and academics alike. The PDS has been able to find a niche for itself within the German polity by articulating territorially salient political difference. The PDS has expanded its voter base beyond merely the politically disaffected and the former ‘Dienstklasse’ of the GDR, as it has developed into an effective articulator of eastern German interests. Western German parties have been unable to incorporate differences in eastern German attitudes and perceptions into their political platforms — leaving space for a regionally concentrated political party (the PDS) to establish itself.     

Informal Sector Work and Evaluations of the Incumbent: The Electoral Effect of Vulnerability on Economic Voting

Economically vulnerable voters are expected to hold politicians accountable for their management of the economy because these voters are more likely to be personally affected by economic shocks and less able to cope with the resulting dislocation. Evidence from the informal sector in Argentina, where the lack of formal registration increases income volatility and denies unemployment benefits, is consistent with this hypothesis. Data from Argentina from 2005 to 2006 show that the association between evaluations of the economy and evaluations of President Néstor Kirchner was stronger among those working without formal employment guarantees. The implication is that the electoral support of Latin America's many informal workers may very well be fickle and dependent on economic performance.     

Hooking Workers and Hooking Votes: Enganche,Suffrage, and Labor Market Dualism in Latin America

Labor market dualism—the segmentation of workers between formal, legally protected employment and informal, unprotected status—has long drawn attention from scholars and policymakers in Latin America. This article argues that lasting patterns of economic and political segmentation of workers arose earlier in the region's history than has previously been understood, well before the classic “incorporation” period. Late‐nineteenth‐century practices for the recruitment and retention of workers shaped Latin America's first sets of labor laws, most notably those governing union organization and individual worker job stability. Subsequently, these first laws served as important templates for development, constraining and conditioning the labor codes adopted under mass‐based politics. Using historical data drawn from Chile, Peru, and Argentina, this article shows how differing recruitment practices and variation in the extension of effective suffrage rights and electoral participation shaped early legal labor market segmentation and inequality in Latin America.     

Electoral Cycles, Party Organization and Mobilization in Canada

Canadian political parties oscillate between periods of inter-election quiescence and electoral year mobilization. In this paper we measure, across a series of elections, organizational activity in inter-election periods as parties develop strategic positions and seek to reshape their bases, and then their subsequent mobilization strategies and successes. Our research strategy employs ecological models rooted in electoral district level data including party resources and activity (from annual financial accounts), census data describing the electoral districts, as well as conventional aggregate electoral data. Our initial models utilise evidence from Ontario, Canada's largest province, and cover several electoral cycles that witnessed a string of governmental turnovers. This analysis provides a more nuanced model of party systems than those based on simple election results. Even in a period of remarkable electoral flux, party activity and success appear to be deeply rooted in the diverse constituency social and political contexts of the system.     

Explaining Electoral Reforms in Lithuania

This paper examines the numerous changes made to Lithuanian electoral laws between 1992 and 2010. It argues that the two dominant political blocs sought to avoid competition from smaller ‘challenger’ parties by reducing the proportionality of the mixed electoral system between 1992 and 2000. Despite such efforts, the number of effective parties increased and the parliamentary elections in 2000 resulted in a shift from a two-party system to a multiparty system. This created incentives for parties to ensure against future electoral exclusion by maintaining the vote aggregation rules, which had proven to allow for multipartism. This resulted in the relative stability of electoral rules between 2000 and 2010.     

The 2007 Australian Federal Election: The Story of Labor's Return from the Electoral Wilderness

In an era of continuous campaigning, elections are seldom won in the final weeks of the formal campaign period. The 2007 Australian federal election saw voters dispatch a Liberal Party and Nationals Coalition government that had presided over a buoyant economy, and return the Australian Labor Party from the electoral wilderness it had occupied since 1996. The explanation of this revival in Labor's stocks can be traced to the Wheat Board scandal, the unpopularity of the labour market deregulation, and to a series of other political tribulations that the fourth Howard Government faced during 2005 and 2006. Initially their impact was masked by the failure of Labor's parliamentary leadership. But when caucus elected Kevin Rudd and freed him to position Labor as offering fresh ideas and a safe pair of hands, Labor seized a lead in the opinion polls and retained it throughout 2007. Rudd's tactical leadership of his party proved critical. This article describes how the 2007 campaign unfolded and the pattern of events which saw a refashioned ALP win an eighteen‐seat lower house majority.     

Recent events in Sinkiang

This article draws on the concept of historical overhang, which essentially refers to the way in which negative historical memories both inform and influence public perceptions as well as those of policy makers. It is the manner in which perceptions drawn from historical episodes are interpreted that makes them enduring. The distortion of history and the misuse of nationalism are mainly responsible for the endurance of historical overhangs in Thai-Cambodian relations, particularly when political leaders encountered legitimacy crises at home. The article investigates two major causes of the recent severe deterioration in Thai-Cambodian bilateral ties- the conflict over the disputed Preah Vihear Temple and the clash between the Thaksin-Hun Sen alliance and the Abhisit Vejjajiva government and makes the contrast with the sudden improvement in relations after Abhisit's electoral defeat.     

The Electoral Supporter Base of the Alternative for Germany

Using data from a recent nationwide survey, we provide the first analysis of the supporter base of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) since the party's split and ideological re‐orientation in mid‐2015. Hypotheses are derived from the literature on Populist Radical Right Parties (PRRP s) in Western Europe. Our findings indicate that AfD support—despite the party's euro crisis origins and rapid organizational and ideational changes—is by now due to largely the same set of socio‐economic, attitudinal and contextual factors proven important for PRRP parties elsewhere. Right‐wing political attitudes concerning immigration, political distrust, fears of personal economic decline, as well as gender and socialisation effects are the most relevant explanatory variables. However, some of our findings – the importance of right‐wing economic policy preferences, the strong support by certain immigrant groups, and the role of the long‐term regional political context – stand out and distinguish the AfD from other Western European PRRP s.     

Casino Interests,Fujian Tongxianghui and Electoral Politics in Macao

The study of hometown associations has been traditionally focused on their social and cultural activities, but little research has been conducted on their political and electoral participation. The direct elections held for the Legislative Assembly in September 2013 in the Macao Special Administrative Region were characterised by the emergence of a clear triangular relationship between casino interests, Fujianese tongxianghui (a hometown association or an interest group with members sharing the same locality ties) and electoral politics. The prominent victory of an electoral group led by the Fujianese tongxianghui and represented under the umbrella of the United Citizens Association of Macao (UCAM) was unprecedented in Macao’s political participation and historical development. As a community leader of the Fujian community, Chan Meng Kam formed the UCAM to perform multiple functions: protecting his casino interests, articulating the interests of the Fujianese and the society vis-à-vis the casino state, acting as an intermediary between the Macao government and ordinary citizens, especially in the northern district which is the power base of the UCAM, and serving as a united front machinery for a unique sub-ethnic interest group to win the hearts and minds of the people of Macao.     

Why Party Organization Still Matters: The Workers' Party in Northeastern Brazil

Does party organization still matter? Much of the party literature suggests that politicians, who can use substitutes like mass media to win votes, lack incentives to invest in party organization. Yet it remains an electoral asset, especially at lower levels of government. Evidence from Brazil's Workers' Party (PT) indicates that party elites invest in organization when they prioritize lower‐level elections and that this investment delivers electoral returns. In the mid‐2000s, the PT strengthened its support across levels of government in the conservative, clientelistic Northeast. Drawing from underutilized data on party offices, this article shows that organizational expansion contributed substantially to the PT's electoral advances in the Northeast. While President Lula da Silva's (PT) 2006 electoral spike in the Northeast resulted from expanded conditional cash transfers, the PT's improvement at lower levels followed from top‐down organization building. The PT national leadership deliberately expanded the party's local infrastructure to deliver electoral gains.     

Clase política y medios: explorando el fenómeno de la publicidad política encubierta en México

This work presents the results of a qualitative research that explores the phenomenon of political publicity on noncommercial television content, which has been growing since the electoral reform of 2007–2008. Since then, the acquisition of airtime for electoral advertising purposes, as well as the appearance of public officials on government advertising has been prohibited. The information was gathered through ‘in depth’ interviews, and analyzed through Strauss and Corbin grounded theory model, which allowed confirmation of the existence of covert political publicity, as well as to provide a definition of this concept and determine its causes, characteristics, and consequences. It was concluded that, despite the legal modification aiming to guarantee a more equitable political communication model and the eradication of airtime commercialization for electoral campaigning, this was not achieved due to structural conditions of the political system in Mexico and the relation between media and government, which impacts political communication, and extends beyond the electoral issue and its regulatory framework.