Progress and challenges of consolidating the African state: “consolidation indicators” and the African Charter on Democracy,Elections and Governance

Since independence, there have been some improvements in political development in African states in respect to the prevalence of democracy, recognition of the rule of law, reduction in unconstitutional changes of governments, regular, transparent, free and fair elections, and a conducive environment for doing business. This article proposes a range of “consolidating indicators” that can be used to measure the consolidation of the African State in light of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG). Consolidation indicators examined include the level of internal integration/disintegration of the state, the degree and nature of peace, the nature of democracy and elections and of governance systems, levels of capacity, the social fabric of the state as well as issues concerning women and youth. The use of consolidation indicators is a new effort to address issues of contingency and preventive planning, with the aim of having more peaceful and progressive African states. Characterising African states, based on various consolidation indicators, is an important and relevant endeavour, especially because the concept of the “consolidation of the African State” is under-researched, with a paucity of a clear assessment. The discussion highlights the importance of the ACDEG and notes the increasing recognition by African states of the importance of democratic values and practices to the continent. Understanding the progress and challenges of consolidating the African State will help policy makers to strengthen the implementation of ACDEG, in pushing African states towards realising the African Union (AU) Africa Agenda 2063. This article takes an Afrocentric approach by discussing the positive role of regional and continental institutions in promoting and strengthening democracy and governance in Africa.     

Analyzing partisanship in Central Mexico: A geographical approach

The article explores the relevance of socioeconomic variables on partisanship in Central Mexico for the 2006 presidential election. We perform an exploratory canonical correlation analysis, a predictive binomial logit analysis and a further confirmatory set of OLS regression analyses. The analyses are based on a data set that uses electoral results as well as census information, constructed as 1.6 km (one mile) radii GIS neighborhoods, which allow for the integration of electoral and census geographies. The results suggest that income and education do not always influence party preferences in the same direction. In particular in the case of the vote for the left leaning party, these two variables have contradicting effects.     

Coalition type and voter support for parties: Grand coalitions in German elections

While scholars have generally acknowledged that coalition governments are less accountable to voters than single party majorities, surprisingly little differentiation is made among different types of coalition governments. In this paper, we examine voter support for two very different types of coalition governments: those with a single large party and a junior partner and grand coalitions—governing coalitions between two large but ideologically dissimilar parties. We argue that grand coalitions differ from the more typical senior–junior partners in terms of the ability of individual parties to respond to their constituencies. We test this argument using survey data from four German Election Studies (GES), before and after each of the two German grand coalitions (1965, 1969, 2005, and 2009), which provide a unique opportunity to compare voter support for grand coalitions to those of the more typical senior–junior party model. We find evidence that voters responded to grand coalitions by moving away from their traditional voting patterns, and increasing their support for parties outside of the grand coalition, although this effect varies by the number of alternative parties.     

Is small beautiful? Transitional and structural effects of municipal amalgamation on voter turnout in local and national elections

The effect of jurisdiction size on democracy is hotly debated. Allegedly, smallness promotes democracy, whereas effectiveness and efficiency increase with size. Neither claim has strong empirical underpinnings. We provide evidence for the former. We use municipal amalgamations as a source of exogenous variation in jurisdiction size and show that it reduced voter turnout in Dutch elections in the 1986–2018 period. This period is sufficiently long to separate potential temporary effects of the amalgamation process from a structural effect of size increase. Surprisingly, we find no evidence of the former. Municipal amalgamation reduces turnout in local elections by 2.2 percentage points and in national elections by 0.7 percentage points. Both effects are long-lasting, persisting at least five elections after amalgamation. More detailed analysis reveals that the most likely driving forces are a weakening of the social norm to vote, and, in municipal elections, increased distance between voters and politics.     

Does Political Advertising Persuade?

Well over $1 billion was spent on televised political advertising in the U.S. in 2004. Given the ubiquity of the 30 second spot, one might presume that ads must affect viewers’ vote choices. Somewhat surprisingly, though, scholars have yet to make much progress in confirming this claim. In this paper, we leverage a comprehensive dataset that tracks political ads in the nation’s top media markets and a survey of presidential and U.S. Senate voters in 2004. We ask whether exposure to presidential and Senate advertising influences voters’ evaluations of candidates and the choices that they make at the ballot box. In the end, we find considerable evidence that advertising persuades—and that its impact varies depending on the characteristics of the viewer.

Losers' Second Chances and Control of the Party Machine: Aspirant Premiers in Regional Spain

In parliamentary democracies, controlling party machines has traditionally been a key asset for nascent political leaders, allowing them to continue in their position even after suffering a bad electoral start. Recent research suggests that in ‘old democracies’ this is no longer the case. Seeking to find whether this finding also applies to ‘young democracies’, the article analyses a dataset (built by the author) of candidates from the main national parties for the premiership of the Spanish Comunidades Autónomas, to ask whether being party chair increases the chances of ‘reselection’ after losing a first election. I conclude that in Spain, an example of a ‘young’ democracy, party machines still play a fundamental role at the start of politicians' leadership careers.     

Climbing to the Rooftop,Falling off,yet Landing on One’s Feet (and Finding a Wallet on the Pavement?): The Electoral Fate of the Greek Ecogreens (2004–15)

After a prolonged period of feeble electoral success, the Ecologists Greens (Ecogreens) managed to break into the Greek political landscape by electing one MEP in the 2009 European election. However, that electoral success proved to be quite short-lived, since in the years to follow the Greek Greens faded away. They were divided and faced the threat of political extinction, only to be resuscitated at the national election of 2015 by allying themselves with the winning leftist Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). This article draws on archival and survey data to recount the electoral fate of the Ecologists Greens from their creation to their current place in the Greek parliament and government.     

The 2015 National Elections in Switzerland: Renewed Polarization and Shift to the Right

The 2015 election to the Swiss Parliament marks a return to an already observed trend that was only interrupted in 2011: a shift to the right and an increase in polarization. The vote share of the nationalist-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP) has now reached a historical height of 29.4% (+2.8). This note discusses why cantons matter in the Swiss national elections, and to what degree elections have become nationalized. Institutionally, the 26 cantons serve as electoral districts. This leads to a highly disproportional electoral system and has magnified the minor vote shifts to a slightly more pronounced shift in seats, with the right now holding a tiny majority of 101 of 200 seats in the first chamber. The two winners, the SVP and the Liberals, also had most campaign funds at their disposal. They were able to guide an extensive nationwide campaign in which they advocated their core issues instead of candidates. Other parties only advertised at the cantonal level.