The Political Economy of Facebook Advertising: Election Spending,Regulation and Targeting Online

Political advertising on Facebook is the latest in a long line of developments in campaign practice, and is a tool that has been mobilised extensively in elections around the world. In this article, we explore what we know about Facebook advertising at elections and ask what existing data from the UK Electoral Commission can reveal about current usage. Highlighting the principles behind Facebook advertising, we argue that existing metrics offer little insight into current campaign trends—posing analytical, methodological and normative challenges for academics and electoral regulators alike. Moreover, we argue that these challenges strike at the heart of debates about democratic responsibility and the degree to which governments should cede responsibility to commercial actors who may have differing understandings of fundamental democratic norms.     

‘Austria First’ revisited: a diachronic cross-sectional analysis of the gender and body politics of the extreme right

ABSTRACT

In this paper, Rheindorf and Wodak provide a discourse-historical analysis of extreme-right cultural politics in Austria, ranging from the blatant racism in the speeches of Vienna’s former Deputy Mayor Johann Gudenus (now MP in the Austrian parliament) to the construction of an idealized national body in the election campaigns of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), its programmatic agenda in handbooks and pamphlets, and the performances of far-right pop singer Andreas Gabalier. Rheindorf and Wodak argue that such cultural politics use a wide spectrum of discursive strategies both inside and outside established party politics and that the accompanying production of an ideal extreme-right subject is informed by nativist ideology. The cross-sectional analysis demonstrates that the cultural politics of the Austrian extreme right ranges from appropriated national symbols to coded National Socialist iconography. These politics pervasively construct a gendered and racialized national body, policed by a ‘strict father’ and nurtured by a ‘self-sacrificing mother’, vis-à-vis an apocalyptic threat scenario identified with migration, intellectual and political elites, cosmopolitanism and progressive gender politics.     

“Lucy says today she is a Labordoodle”: how the dogs-of-Instagram reveal voter preferences

Instagram is an image-centric social media application, launched in October 2010 with the explicit aim of allowing members to share their smart phone photos with the world. Posts typically combine photographs with a short verbal text, and as such provide fertile ground for multisemiotic analysis. Further, at times of political significance or upheaval, Instagram, like other social media platforms, provides a space for the public to express opinions or emotions. The fact that citizens do this through a combination of words and images on Instagram is the subject of analysis in this article. Using a dataset of 92 Instagram posts that made use of the discourse tagging hashtag #dogsatpollingstations at the time of the 2016 Australian federal election, this study demonstrates the multisemiotic strategies used by members of the public to show their dissatisfaction with the incumbent government, and their endorsement of other political parties. The study also demonstrates the triangulation of multiple methods, and as such is an example of corpus-assisted multimodal discourse analysis.     

庸人政治、偏激取向与民主社会的异化

现代社会民主化进程中往往呈现出两种现象:一是庸人往往占据高位,而那些事变创造性人物则越来越为主流社会所遗弃,导致新思想对社会产生作用的时滞越来越长;二是呈现出强烈的极端性和好斗性,那些拥有权力优势的国家和个人更易于实行机会主义。究其原因,这体现了当今民主体制的缺陷和相关条件的不成熟。一者,如果对民主选举的范围和内容不进行界定,那么多数至上规则中获得优胜的往往是基于影响力原则而不是贤能原则;二者,如果社会大众的教育水平没有达到一定程度,那么集体行动往往会呈现出狂热和非理性。     

对社会主义协商民主的理论阐释

协商民主是20世纪80年代兴起于西方的一种民主理论范式。传入中国后,引起了国内学者的广泛关注,党的十八大提出了发展"社会主义协商民主"的目标。从结构上看,社会主义协商民主应该包括党内协商民主、执政协商民主、国内党际协商民主以及人民协商民主四个方面。就目前而言,我国既存在着发展社会主义协商民主的有利因素,同时也存在着民主传统缺失、选举民主不发达、公民社会发育不成熟等不利因素。发展社会主义协商民主,在思想上要正确理解社会主义协商民主与西方协商民主、政治协商以及选举民主的内在区别,在制度上要将协商嵌入票决民主的已有制度结构,在行动上要选好社会主义协商民主的突破口。     

'Brazil Needs to Change': Change as Iteration and the Iteration of Change in Brazil's 2002 Presidential Election1

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's triumph in Brazil's 2002 presidential election was construed in terms of a promise of radical change against the holders of the status quo . This article argues that in fact a more subtle political game was a stake in the election, a contest over the meaning and limits of change itself. The article examines how the various players – Lula da Silva, outgoing president Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the PSDB's presidential candidate José Serra – invoked and iterated a discourse of change to define and redefine the political dividing lines that marked out the electoral dispute and attempted to set or fix the distinctions between their political positions.     

刑事罪犯参政权的法律保障

当今社会罪犯参政权保障问题已成为我国与西方敌对势力在国际人权斗争中的焦点之一。本文主要阐述未附加剥夺政治权利的刑事罪犯参政权的宪法和法律保障;指出在实际选举中,他们的选举权一般被停止,甚至被非法剥夺的主要原因;并提出在构建和谐社会目标下,执法部门必须与时俱进,转变执法观念,保障未被剥夺政治权利刑事罪犯的合法选举权。     

论基层人大代表选举制度与公民政治参与

人民代表大会制度是我国公民政治参与水平和效果的直接体现，基层人大代表选举是我国公民政治参与的主要舞台。当前，我国基层人大代表选举中存在一些问题，主要表现在基层人大代表的确立制度存有缺陷、人大代表候选人与选民的沟通不畅、选民的实际参与度有限三个方面。完善基层人大代表选举制度，提高公民政治参与的有效度，必须提高人大代表确立的竞争性，增强人大代表与选民的合意性。     

跨境犯罪中死刑问题研究

由于中国内地与港澳死刑政策的冲突,及三法域间各自独立的刑事管辖权的并行存在,使得跨境犯罪的死刑案件的司法协助变得更为复杂。本文探讨两个问题:跨境犯罪死刑案件中死刑犯是否该移交及移交的标准。在对前一个问题作出肯定回答的同时,进一步论述在跨境犯罪死刑犯移交中应遵循坚持“属地管辖原则”为基础,加强三法域间平等的“协议管辖”协商。从立法和司法方面进行三法域间刑事方面的联系与协助,有效打击严重的跨境刑事犯罪。     

基层人大选举中“贿选”行为探析

随着我国社会的全面转型,社会的政治生态环境也发生了很大变化,一些极具负面效应的政治行为也初见端倪。近年来,基层人大选举中出现的“贿选”行为正是这种大背景之下的一种腐败现象。文章在对基层人大“贿选”行为的内涵、特征进行分析的基础上,探究了这种行为产生、发展的社会历史根源,并尝试提出相关对策。