台湾第二品牌政党的困境——第五、六届“立委”选举亲民党与“台联党”政党品牌之变化

针对台湾第五届与第六届"立委"选举的结果做一比较分析,以实证方式探究政坛两大阵营四个主要政党在三年中形象品牌的变化情形.尤其着力于蓝绿阵营中的第二大党--亲民党与"台联党"--在这三年间的席次增减,并以政党品牌的概念来解释此种蓝绿内部消长的情形,作为政治参与者与政治研究者进一步观察的方向与依据.     

农村宗族与村民选举的关系分析——对赣、晋两省56个村选举的跟踪观察和研究

作为对村选举状况的跟踪调查,本文分析表明,与首次村民直选相比,第二次村民直选的质量并没有提升,相反在江西两县还有下降。其中,既有选举程序与规则安排的影响,也有自治绩效和宏观体制等因素的影响。这表明,村民选举的质量并不一定会随着届期而直线上升,基层民主建设需要长期的艰苦努力。此外,选举对宗族的影响,主要表现为族际关系的变化。宗族在选举中的影响依然常见,但这种影响主要表现为选民投票的宗族取向。不过,与影响选举的其他组织因素相比,宗族因素依然微不足道,并未成为足以左右选举的主要因素,其影响的性质既有正面性也有负面性。     

对董事选任和分类董事会问题的思考

很多学者认为,股东选任董事是一种强制性的规范,但这并不意味着公司章程对选任董事的任何限制性规定都是无效的。股东同意的局限性可能使公司章程的某些条款难以反映股东的真实意思,但我们不能因此就禁止公司章程对董事选任作任何具体安排,应该允许公司在股东监督董事的基本框架内,设计各自的治理制度。对于公司章程中分类董事的规定是否有效,需要我们具体考察其是否剥夺了股东对董事的监督权,而不能一概认为是无效的。     

博弈论视角下的人大代表选举问题

全国人民代表大会制度是我国民主政治的一项根本制度。但是,这一制度还存在民主基础不够的问题。比如,民主和平等的选举原则有待于深入贯彻,选民对代表不便进行有效监督,选民素质与民主选举要求有一定距离,选举制度的某些规定不科学、不完善,各级人大代表数量过多,影响人大职能的发挥,等等。     

简析民进党“大选”中的政治传播策略

2004年“大选”,民进党阵营针对当时的选民状况和媒介资源,精心构筑了“多层＋突发事件”的政治传播策略,以“多层”的传播一点点地收割选票,最后以“突发事件”完成致命一击,这当中民进党对人际传播的运用尤为出色。2008年“大选”,民进党仍沿用了该策略中的一些内容,然而国民党已经习得经验,有所防范,马英九也发展出“Long Stay”这种直销式人际传播来破解民进党的攻击,而民众对民进党过度使用负面选举术的反感加大,马萧最终赢得了“大选”。     

Interpreting UKIP's ‘Earthquake’ in British Politics: UK Television News Coverage of the 2009 and 2014 EU Election Campaigns

UK broadcasters came under fire for the amount of airtime UKIP and its leader Nigel Farage received after the party won the most votes in the 2014 EU election. Our content analysis of television news during the 2009 and 2014 campaigns found little bias in terms of soundbites, but in the more recent election Farage visually appeared in coverage to a greater degree than other party leaders. Moreover, two core UKIP policies—being in or out of Europe and immigration—dominated coverage in 2014. We suggest the ‘UKIP factor’ and the media's fascination with Nigel Farage help explain why the 2014 campaign was more visible on television news than was the case in 2009 and was largely reported through a Westminster prism. Although television news bulletins attempt to impartially report elections, the 2014 campaign agenda was largely contested on UKIP's ideological terrain and the party's electoral fortunes.     

Can experts judge elections? Testing the validity of expert judgments for measuring election integrity

Expert surveys have been used to measure a wide variety of phenomena in political science, ranging from party positions, to corruption, to the quality of democracy and elections. However, expert judgments raise important validity concerns, both about the object being measured as well as the experts. It is argued in this article that the context of evaluation is also important to consider when assessing the validity of expert surveys. This is even more important for expert surveys with a comprehensive, worldwide scope, such as democracy or corruption indices. This article tests the validity of expert judgments about election integrity – a topic of increasing concern to both the international community and academics. Evaluating expert judgments of election integrity provides an important contribution to the literature evaluating the validity of expert surveys as instruments of measurement as: (1) the object under study is particularly complex to define and multifaceted; and (2) election integrity is measured in widely varying institutional contexts, ranging from electoral autocracies to liberal democracies. Three potential sources of bias are analysed (the object, the experts and the context), using a unique new dataset on election integrity entitled the ‘Perceptions of Electoral Integrity’ dataset. The data include over 800 experts in 66 parliamentary and presidential elections worldwide. It is found that validity of expert judgments about election integrity is increased if experts are asked to provide factual information (rather than evaluative judgments), and if they are asked to evaluate election day (rather than pre‐election) integrity. It is also found that ideologically polarised elections and elections of lower integrity increase expert disagreement about election integrity. The article concludes with suggestions for researchers using the expert survey data on election integrity on how to check the validity of their data and adjust their analyses accordingly, and outlines some remaining challenges for future data collection using expert surveys.     

Making democracy safe: Policies tackling electoral violence in Africa

This article analyses the ways in which African countries are grappling with the problem of electoral violence. It argues that, although electoral violence has posed a serious challenge to democratic consolidation and peace in Africa, knowledge of how to prevent and or manage it is largely inadequate. Much of the academic interest in electoral violence has focused on defining the phenomenon, particularly analysing its causes, scope, patterns and consequences. This article examines the measures adopted by Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria to manage electoral violence. The specific measures analysed in this study include: (1) establishment of commissions of inquiry; (2) mediation in high-tension situations; and (3) regulation of political activities. While these measures represent significant efforts to curb electoral violence in Africa, they do not, of course, directly address the underlying causes of the problem. Electoral violence will continue to pose serious challenges to democracy and peace in Africa until the lingering socio-economic and political tensions and the lack of credibility of the electoral process in many African countries are addressed; however, in the meantime, to save lives, it is worth putting into place effective deterrents to election violence wherever it threatens.     

A Multimodal Interaction Analysis of Selected 2015 Nigerian Election Campaign Adverts

ABSTRACT

Politics is intrinsic to the human societal structure and the exploration of language in politics has attracted the attention of social scientists and discourse/linguistic analysts. The role of mass media in framing political discourse has also been explored, particularly as the media is often exploited as a resource for influencing the audience. With the proliferation of the Internet and its democratising potentials, graphics and audio have become veritable tools for courting political patronage and maintaining positive perception by politicians. The present study analyses campaign videos from the two dominant parties during the 2015 Nigerian election. Six videos—three for each party—were selected and downloaded for the study. Employing the Multimodal Interaction Analysis theory as its framework, the research accounted for embodied and disembodied communicative modes in linguistically constructing and infusing meanings as campaign strategies to win the confidence of the voting public. The study identified history, declaratives, subtle imperatives, and linguistic tagging as discursive strategies used in political campaign videos. The study concluded that multimodal political advertisements strengthen Nigerian politics and engender positive citizenship participation in democratic practices.     

Third party monitoring in the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict

The 2014 elections brought a record number of xenophobic populist parties into the European Parliament (EP). They have a strong incentive to be more united and active than in previous terms, and they could use the Parliament to shape voter attitudes, pressure mainstream parties to adopt more xenophobic rhetoric, fragment the mainstream right, and obstruct parliamentary proceedings. The rise of xenophobic populism could affect the open society through the EU’s policies and budget if it alters EP debates on issues that split left and right, particularly Roma exclusion, migration and asylum, and EU external policies and development aid.