Bye-Bye Bipolarism: The 2015 Regional Elections and the New Shape of Regional Party Systems in Italy

In May 2015, 19 million Italians were called to renew the legislative assemblies and presidencies of seven regions, thus concluding an electoral cycle begun in February 2013 that involved all the 15 ordinary statute regions. Beyond their immediate relevance – of the 15 incumbent presidents only three were confirmed in office – these elections represented a turning point for regional party systems, paralleling the earthquake of the 2013 general elections. The ‘fragmented bipolarism’ characterising elections in Italy at the two levels since the mid-1990s, has been replaced by a multipolar competition, as a consequence of the consolidating presence of the Movimento 5 Stelle and the internal divisions of the centre-right coalition. At the same time, fragmentation of regional councils has remained high. The evolution of regional party systems and patterns of competition are analysed in this paper, taking into account the electoral offer, turnout and results in the majoritarian and proportional arenas of the 15 ordinary statute regions.     

Die parlamentarische Vertretung von ethnischen Minderheiten und das österreichische Verfassungsrecht

SUMMARY

The representation of ethnic minorities has remained an issue in the parliament of the Austrian Republic at the end of the twentieth century, just as it had been in that half of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy a century earlier. However, in modern Austria theoretical discussions of the problem have not yet led to any attempt at a practical solution. Whereas the Dual Monarchy's system was based on the majority principle, so that the size of constituencies could be ‘gerrymandered’ to secure more seats for ethnic minorities, the republics since 1918 have been committed to proportional representation. The much smaller ethnic minorities in the twentieth century gave rise to little interest in their representation until after 1955, when the state undertook new obligations under international law, albeit in rather general terms committing it to ‘equal elections’ and ‘the rights of minorities’. The federal constitutional court had to consider these matters once the Slovenian minority in Carinthia brought a case in 1979 complaining of their non-representation in the provincial parliament. The court would not accept the argument that formal equality of votes did not lead to equality of representation. None of the subsequent proposals to alter the legal or constitutional framework so as to meet the demands of minorities in Carinthia or elsewhere in the Republic overcame the problems of misuse by those for whom the measures were not intended or the changing nature of minority groupings. Heinz Tichy concludes his review by arguing that present Austrian constitutional law guarantees equal rights for individuals, not collective groups, and merely allows for, but does not require, modifications to the electoral laws to secure representation for ethnic minorities. He warns that a special parliamentary mandate for relatively small national minorities might create more problems than it solved, and suggests instead following the Danish model of using lobbyists to represent minority interests.     

Concession or compromise? The politics of abortion in United Germany

Most GDR policies instituted to secure women's equality between 1949 and 1989 have been dismantled in the name of German unity, including freedom of choice regarding abortion. That right ceased to exist in May 1993, when the Constitutional Court imposed a number of western restrictions on eastern women as the new law of the land. This study addresses the post‐unity search for an acceptable compromise between the western constitutional mandate of foetal protection and the eastern guarantee of a woman's right to choose. It argues that a three‐year reform process which should have provided a positive introduction to the art of democratic compromise served instead as a negative socialising experience for Germans in the new Lander. Besides denying them a chance to render a meaningful policy contribution to their new state, the nature of the process has distorted East German perceptions of the quintessential ‘balance of power’ between legislative and judicial institutions under democracy. ‘Compromise’ has been attained, but consequences for the German Rechtsstaat are not all positive.     

When There's No Easy Way Out: Electoral Law Reform and Ballot Position Effects in the 2011 Hamburg State Elections

The new electoral law in the state of Hamburg, which was first used in the 2011 elections for the state parliament, abolished the optional overall list vote in the electoral districts and thus forced voters to cast preference votes for individual candidates. Supporters of the new electoral law assume that voters will inform themselves better about the candidates. This assumption contrasts with the voters' tendency to choose their favourite option based on the little information which is provided on the ballot paper. We show that the new electoral law has missed its target and that voters rely heavily on the ballot paper cues, resulting in the replication of the behaviour pattern they were used to under the optional list vote and earlier under the closed list. Most importantly the ballot position has the largest effect on being elected to the parliament.     

The first six länder elections of 1999: Initial electoral consequences and political fallout of the Neue Mitte in action

This article examines the six regional elections that took place in Germany between February and September 1999 (in Hesse, Bremen, Brandenburg, Saarland, Thuringia and Saxony respectively) to illustrate the different contexts conditioning Gerhard Schröder's political problems and the initial performance of his SPD‐Green federal coalition. The conclusion suggests that Schroder may have been temporarily blown off course by the regional electoral losses in 1999, but it is far too soon to write off his chances of winning a second term in office in 2002. In particular, he has every chance of success if he can develop a credible and common language of modernisation which he then effectively ‘connects’ with the overall acceptance of the need for socio‐economic change amongst the German people.     

From ‘Dream Team’ to ‘Marriage of Convenience’? An Introduction

This introduction connects some of the main themes covered in this special issue on Chancellor Merkel's second coalition cabinet, which was formed in October 2009 and ended with the electoral collapse of the FDP in the Bundestag election of September 2013. It starts by setting out an interesting ‘puzzle’: the parties forming the coalition of 2009–2013 (CDU, CSU and FDP) had expressed a strong preference for this coalition in the run-up to the election of 2009. Despite their seeming agreement in many policy areas, the coalition formed in 2009 faced tough negotiations and conflicts between the parties from the beginning. The economic crisis the preceding government faced between 2005 and 2009 and unforeseen events during the course of the CDU/CSU–FDP coalition 2009–2013 (e.g. the Euro crisis and the Fukushima environmental disaster) had altered the policy agenda in important ways and rendered the former ‘Christian–Liberal reform project’ obsolete.     

Electoral Redistribution in Australia: Accommodating 150 Years of Demographic Change

Electoral redistribution (redistricting) is a process that has the potential to advance the principle of “one vote, one value” in the face of dynamic human populations. Using the Australian federal electoral system as a case study, this article examines the impact of changes in the size, composition and spatial distribution of the population on electoral boundary delimitation over the past 110 years, and analyses the likely impact of future population change over the next forty years. The article concludes that the Australian electoral system has moved progressively towards greater equality of voting power encapsulated by the “one vote, one value” principle. However, the capacity to achieve even greater equality through electoral redistribution is constrained by constitutional and pragmatic considerations.     

The New Electoral Law – or: Good Things Don't Always Come to Those Who Wait

In the year 2008, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the formerly applicable Electoral Law was unconstitutional due to the effect of the so-called ‘negative voting weight’. After a five-year debate, the new Electoral Law was passed in spring 2013, according to which the following parliamentary elections were conducted in autumn. This new law mainly fulfils the regulations laid down by the Constitutional Court, although not to their full extent. Through the introduction of adjustment mandates for overhang mandates, the proportional representation between the parties represented in the German Parliament Bundestag was guaranteed for the first time. At the same time, however, an abundance of new problems such as a procedural return which is hard to reason, and the risk of a severely inflated Bundestag, are created.     

The role of African Union law in integrating Africa

This article traces how the development of regional law is linked to the state of regional integration in Africa. Given the prominent role European Union law plays in the functioning of the European Union, the question is posed whether there is similar scope for the development of ‘African Union law’, a term not established hitherto. Initially devoid from the necessary supranational elements required to adopt law that would automatically bind member states, the African Union is leaning towards a functionalist approach paving the way for transfer of sovereign powers to African Union institutions. It is argued that law-making capacity, be it through the activities of the Pan-African Parliament, the Peace and Security Council or the African court system, is a necessary requirement to accelerate the process of regional integration. African Union law will hold member states accountable to comply with international and continentally agreed standards on, inter alia, democracy, good governance and human rights.     

Chile's 2015 Electoral Reform: Changing the Rules of the Game

In 2015, a center‐left government introduced an electoral reform that replaced the binomial electoral system governing parliamentary elections since 1989 with a more proportional system. This article provides an account of the reform process, describes the new electoral law, and discusses the factors explaining the reform. We argue, first, that it was possible, due to the incentives the government provided, to secure the support of an ample majority of parliamentarians; also, a new and favorable political scenario had emerged, in which the support of the main right‐wing parties was not necessary for the reform to pass. Second, we maintain that the reform sought mainly to resolve problems affecting the parties of the governing coalition related to negotiations of coalition lists for elections. As a complementary objective, the reform promoted a general interest by establishing rules that allowed a “fairer” system of representation and improved competitive conditions.     

Die Linke: Still an Eastern Cultural Icon?

As the self-proclaimed champion of East German regional identity, the former Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) was often viewed as the central political force of a lingering cultural divide in united Germany. Desperate to increase its paltry electoral support among western voters, the PDS merged in 2007 with a band of western leftists to form the Left Party, casting doubt on whether the new party would remain symbolic of regional division. Using survey data from the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), this article compares the changing bases of electoral support between eastern and western supporters of the Left Party as evidence for greater change in the political culture of the two regional constituencies. Though notable points of divergence remain, results centre on several areas of convergence that together highlight a common profile for Left Party supporters defined above all by strong leftist ideological views.     

Is electoral authoritarianism good for women's representation? Evidence from the 1999–2011 regional legislative elections in Russia

This article employs a comprehensive set of data on 226 regional legislative elections held in Russia in 1999–2011 in order to assess the impact of electoral authoritarianism upon women's representation in sub-national legislative bodies. The analysis of 50,520 cases of candidate nomination and 9553 cases of electoral success, supported by a cross-regional statistical study of the factors of women's nomination and success, empirically confirms an explanatory model that incorporates three working hypotheses derived from the mainstream literature on women's representation. According to this model, the 2002–2003 electoral reform, by introducing proportional representation into regional electoral systems, strongly facilitated women's representation. After the advent of electoral authoritarianism, proportional rules, in combination with the increased ‘party magnitude’ of the pro-government party, continued to exert expectedly positive effects; yet these effects were offset by the decreased competitiveness in majority districts. As a result, political regime transformation did not lead to a significant increase in the number of female deputies.     

La mujer en México: inequidad,pobreza y violencia

This article explores the main problems that Mexican women endure, especially those which arise from the inequality that they face in numerous social milieus. Despite the undeniable progress that has been made with respect to women's rights and equal opportunities, full gender equality still seems like a distant ideal for Mexico. There have even been important setbacks, such as access to healthcare, legislation that has been enacted that does not respect women's decisions over their bodies, or in the persistence of various forms of violence that they bear. This article will begin by exploring the advancement in rights which women have achieved, in order to later describe the problems that Mexican women still face in terms of work, health, social security, education, poverty, politics, and the violence which they still encounter.     

The Costs and Benefits of Party Switching in Mexico

Are party switchers successful at furthering their careers? Most research on party switching focuses on the decision to switch and with which party to affiliate. Less attention is paid to the costs and benefits of switching parties. Moreover, previous research examining the electoral success of party switchers has often ignored how costs vary between the candidate selection process and the general election. This study addresses this gap in the literature by using original data on the careers of Mexican federal deputies to examine the costs and benefits of switching parties at the candidate selection stage and during general elections. The results suggest that party switchers are more successful at winning ballot access than nonswitchers but are less likely to win office. These results help explain why ambitious politicians would switch parties, given the known risks of changing party affiliation.     

Technology transformation and changing demographic patterns: Perspectives for Africa’s future elections

The last decade of the 21st century has so far seen many important elections on the African continent. These elections offer windows for the development of democracy and freedom throughout the continent. The same period has been characterised by a burgeoning population, estimated to be over one billion. The rapid growth in population has fuelled a quick growth in the number of eligible voters. Around the same period, another increase has been under way: evolving new technology penetration in electoral management systems. The introduction of innovative technologies into the electoral management systems (prior, during and post-election) has raised both interest and concerns. This review article provides insights into, and a critique of the role of emerging technologies in Africa’s electoral managements systems. The article taps on some of the best practices of modern technology applications in the electoral process. Some of the areas of focus in this article include constituency delimitation, political party registration, voter registration, voting operations and stakeholder engagements. The discussion denotes a rising recognition and use of new technologies in these areas to improve efficiency, ensure credibility of democratic processes and reliability of election results. The literature engages with a mixture of successes and failures, improvements and challenges, innovations and obstacles in the context of countryspecific electoral systems technological applications.     

Intra-Elite Factionalism and the 2004 Majles Elections in Iran

Over the last two decades, the political ideology of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has evolved to proactively advocate a democratic form of government. This evolution has taken place both through protracted internal discussion and through experiments in participatory politics, leading the Brotherhood to further develop Islamic justification for a democratic regime. Despite generational differences within the Brotherhood over the extent of democratic activism, the Brotherhood's emerging political platform asserts the need both for a democratic regime and a ‘civil state’ which guarantees political and civil liberties within the boundaries specified by Islam. Three guiding principles are central to the Brotherhood's current political vision, including legislative compliance with Islamic law, a wide range of civil and political liberties with an emphasis on equal treatment, and a robust electoral process that institutionalizes guarantees of democratic accountability for elected officials. These principles allow the Muslim Brotherhood to effectively challenge the current Egyptian regime on democratic grounds, but are also in tension with one another, highlighting the boundaries of legislative independence under a political system constrained by Islamic law.     

A Small Yes for Presidentialism: The Turkish Constitutional Referendum of April 2017

Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This article reviews the content of the proposed constitutional amendments, analyses the campaign including the strategies employed by the main political actors in the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps and the resource advantages enjoyed by the ruling party, assesses the electoral performance of both sides through a summary of results from provincial areas and geographical regions, and considers how Turkish politics are likely to take shape under the new system.     

Electoral Gender Quotas: Lessons from Argentina and Chile

This comparative case study examines the role of electoral quotas for increasing women's representation in Argentina and Chile. The Central hypothesis is that gender quotas in favourable electoral systems increase women's representation, and a corollary hypothesis is that more women in politics should also promote gender issues in public policy. Since the transitions to democratic regimes, many Argentine and Chilean women still promote gender issues, such as gender quotas, but the different transitions shaped the opportunity space for gender issues in politics. Thus, gender quotas can be effective, but the types of electoral and quota systems are important defining conditions and improvements in gender issues are not guaranteed.     

Die Lassersche Wahlrechtsreform. Der Kampf um die Einführung der Volkswahl des cisleithanischen Abgeordnetenhauses 1871–1873

SUMMARY

After the creation of the Dual Monarchy of Austro-Hungary in 1867, the 17 kingdoms and provinces with a population of over 20 million gathered in the (Cisleithanian) Austrian half comprised a multitude of nationalities. Since 1861 they had been represented in the imperial council (Reichsrat) consisting of an aristocratic upper house and a lower house of representatives from the 17 local diets. The local diets were a modified form of Estates, with a first house of large landlords, a second house elected by those entitled to vote in urban elections, in some cases a third house for trade and craft bodies, and another house for rural communities. Many of these elections were also indirect and based on a property qualification, and bishops and others sat by right in the local diets. Deputies from the local diets to the imperial council were chosen in a variety of ways. Despite previous demands for direct elections, this remained only to a limited extent a constitutional monarchy. The non-German nationalities had an overall majority in the population but were severely underrepresented in the House of Deputies (Abgeordnetenhaus) and divided among themselves. The self-imposed absence of several of them from its sessions gave force to the demands for electoral reform and put pressure on the Emperor to grant concessions. Complex negotiations with the parties and changes of government led to the ministry in 1871 of Adolph Fürst Auersperg, who appointed Joseph Freiherr Lasser von Zollheim as Interior Minister with the task of completing the electoral reform. Thomas Olechowski proposes in this article that the measures eventually introduced in 1873, hitherto ‘nameless’, be named the Lasser Electoral Reform, on the analogy of later reforms named in the literature after their progenitors. Lasser resisted pressure for a more open constitution from the liberals who held an effective majority in the newly elected House of Deputies, but not the required two-thirds for constitutional change. It also proved difficult to satisfy the national elements in the Empire, especially Czechs and Poles, and hard-fought local elections accompanied the stages in introducing reform. Among many detailed plans publicly aired was one by Eduard Herbst which would have reduced the electoral advantage of the richest elements, but Lasser was able to recruit Herbst to help formulate his own more conservative proposals. Lasser's concern was to take the election of deputies away from the local diets, not to broaden the franchise nor alter the existing balance of power between countries and classes, and the Emperor too wanted minimal reform. Where popular unrest broke out, military force soon suppressed it. The withdrawal of a large Galician contingent from the debate in the House of Deputies failed to stop the legislation. The end result was only a small change in the balance between the provinces and a modest reduction in the representation of large landlords. Only 6 per cent of the population received the vote, with that of a large landlord counting 140 times that of a member of a rural community. Even so, the now directly elected imperial council proved less compliant than its predecessor, and new electoral reforms were to broaden the franchise in 1882, 1895 and 1907.     

Post-Cabinet Careers of Regional Ministers in Germany, 1990–2011

The study of ministerial careers in Germany is rather new. So far it has been mainly restricted to the federal level and to the career pathways up until cabinet exit. This article, by contrast, concentrates on the post-cabinet careers of regional ministers. Drawing from the scarce literature we first sketch out career patterns of regional ministers prior to and during their time in the regional cabinet. The main focus, though, is on the post-cabinet biographies of all regional ministers in the sixteen German Länder since unification. Our empirical analysis reveals the regional cabinet as the career apex for most ministers. Looking at those ministers who do move up the political ladder after leaving the cabinet shows a clear preference for the national over the European level and the executive office over the legislative mandate. Variation in post-cabinet careers seems not only to be influenced by party, Land and ministerial office (Prime Minister vs normal minister) but also by the causes and circumstances of exit from the cabinet (exit type). These empirical results represent a first step into a new research field – lying waste since Blondel's early attempt in 1991 – and will hopefully provide a starting point for more comprehensive and comparative analysis.