On a Sociology of the Media

This article presents a detailed examination of the mass media's influence on candidate visibility and candidate awareness in House elections, using media markets as the vehicle for analysis. Simple comparisons reveal striking media market effects on both visibility and awareness: Voters are much more likely to report contact with the candidates in “media market districts"—House districts where there is a close fit between the local television market and the district's boundaries. Candidate recognition figures are also markedly higher in the media market setting. These findings indicate that the mass media have the potential to strongly influence competition in House races: Challengers are able to use the media advantages in media market districts to overcome the exposure gap associated with the incumbency advantage. Closer inspection reveals that these effects hold true even after controlling for other factors, most notably the spending activities of the candidates. These results suggest a substantial media influence on candidate awareness and thus on competition in House races.     

Congressional Communication: Content & Consequences,by Daniel Lipinski. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 143 pp. $29.95 paper.

Television interviews with political candidates are pivotal moments in election campaigns. Previous studies in Anglo-American contexts have shown that adversarialism in television interviews can be predicted by the power of the politician and by the status of the interviewer. However, worldwide the structural conditions of the liberal media system are unique. This article studies how the Anglo-American watchdog model of interviews should be adapted to polarized television markets such as Italy, where broadcast organizations are politically, financially, and historically linked to different political blocks. A content analysis of the level of toughness in questions posed to politicians from different parties during the 2006 and 2008 Italian general elections showed that, in line with the watchdog model, journalists are more adversarial toward politicians who are likely to win the elections. Apart from this, interviews in polarized television markets follow a different model: Interviewers with high status are less adversarial, politicians from minor parties face more threatening questions, and partisan bias is more important than role bias. The generalizability of this model is discussed in the light of the polarization of television markets, partisan segregation, and the potential consequences for vote choice and election outcomes.     

新加坡的军事外交及启示

军事外交是新加坡维护国家安全的重要手段。新加坡希望通过有效的军事外交,提高新加坡军队的威慑力和影响力。新加坡军事外交内容丰富,主要有参与海外军事行动、联合军事演习和训练、强化与大国的军事关系等。总体来看,军事外交起到了维护新加坡国家安全的作用。其中一些做法对中国军事外交的开展有一定的启示作用。     

Fighting for a name on the ballot: constituency-level analysis of nomination violence in Zambia

ABSTRACT

What factors increase the likelihood of nomination violence? Nomination violence can be an expression of both horizontal conflict, between local political elites, and vertical conflict, between national and local elites. We theorize about factors that may increase the risks of vertical and horizontal conflict and leverage a unique dataset of constituency-level nomination violence obtained from surveys with 464 domestic election observers active in the 2016 Zambian general election. Our statistical analyses show constituencies with an incumbent standing for re-election were more likely to experience nomination violence. Also, contrary to previous research on general election violence, we theorize and find that more rural constituencies had a higher propensity for nomination violence than urban constituencies. Our findings highlight the importance of intra-party power relations and the bargaining relationship between the centre and periphery.     

反腐倡廉与政府采购:新加坡的经验及启示

新加坡政府采购制度以其廉洁高效的管理体制在全球供应商当中赢得了良好的声誉,为世界各国的政府采购工作提供了一个典范。新加坡经验对我国构建完备的政府采购法律体系、强化政府采购监督机制、建立透明的信息公开制度有借鉴作用。     

寻求公共管理创新与经济发展的良性互动——中新苏州工业园区的成功探索及启示

苏州工业园区的成功很大程度上得益于园区积极借鉴新加坡公共管理的经验 ,形成了一系列富有特色的先进的公共管理意识、体制和模式。本文分析了园区政府理念创新的三个纬度 ,论证了体制创新是理论创新转化为实践的中介 ,以及园区公共管理体制创新与经济发展的互动 ,并在提出借鉴国外先进经验与立足本国国情相结合原则的基础上 ,深入探讨了园区借鉴新加坡经验对外辐射的制约因素。     

The Calculus of Voting in Compulsory Voting Systems

Compulsory voting laws have consistently been demonstrated to boost electoral participation. Despite the widespread presence of compulsory voting and the significant impact these laws appear to have on voting behavior, surprisingly little effort has been devoted to analyzing how mandatory voting alters the decision-making calculus of individual voters in these systems. Moreover, studies that investigate the influence of compulsory voting laws on electoral participation generally treat these policies monolithically, with scant attention to the nuances that differentiate mandatory voting laws across systems and to their consequences for voting rates. Analyses that explicitly and empirically examine the effects of penalties and enforcement are surprisingly rare. This study aims to fill that void by adapting rational choice models of participation in elections for compulsory voting systems. I find that the level of penalties countries impose for non-compliance and the degree of penalty enforcement impact turnout rates. Voters in mandatory voting systems abstain least when both the penalties and the likelihood of enforcement are high, and abstain most when both meaningless.

White Voters and African American Candidates for Congress

The vast majority of African American officeholders are elected from jurisdictions with sizable numbers of African Americans. The most common explanation for this phenomenon locates the cause among white voters who are reluctant to vote for black candidates, which thereby limits the electoral prospects of black candidates in white constituencies. This study analyzes exit poll data from the 1996 and 1998 House elections in order to test the notion that white voters are averse to black candidates. Despite theoretical expectations that predict the existence of white voter discrimination against African American candidates, remarkably little is apparent. Thus, other explanations for patterns of African American officeholding in the United States need to be pursued.     

Déjà vu? Conservative Problems in Historical Perspective

Since 2001, the Conservative party has found itself in turbulent times. Yet the party has survived similarly difficult periods in the past, eventually recovering its strength and returning to power. Can it do so again? The problems for today's party exist along four key dimensions: leadership, policy, organisation and political circumstances. How grave are contemporary difficulties in each of these areas in comparison to past experience? To what extent is the party now in uncharted waters? Where are there valid historical parallels? The article offers a brief sketch of the lessons that the party needs to learn to recover its election winning formula ‐ an appetite for power and an impressive ability to adapt to changed circumstances. Today's problems are not insurmountable, but the party still has a huge mountain to climb if it is to return to government.     

Remote Electronic Voting: Free,Fair and Secret?

Most of the debate surrounding remote electronic voting has focused on technical issues such as security and feasibility. This article examines the equally important issue of whether voting outside the context of the supervised polling place meets the legal and normative standards required of democratic elections. Our conclusion is that if voting that takes place in an unsupervised context, it is virtually impossible to guarantee that it will be carried out in secret, and that lack of secrecy constitutes a serious violation of the principles of freeness and fairness that govern elections in democratic states. This argument also has implications for postal voting, which are discussed in brief.