对2012“大选年”世界变局的几点看法

2012年是世界＂大选年＂,纵观＂大选＂的诸多国家,＂选情＂主要可分为主要大国、阿拉伯世界中＂变天＂国家的政治＂重建＂、欧元区国家和新兴经济体国家四类。大量国家与地区的权力交接导致国际形势不确定性增大,深刻影响世界走向,影响有关国家本身发展,影响热点地区与热点问题产生,影响大国关系。主要大国集中换届加剧大国综合国力竞争,中国应统筹国际国内两个大局,一方面,要淡定、从容、自信、包容,另一方面,也要有的放矢、积极预防各类风险,稳妥应对世界新变局。     

The Morning After: The Effect of the Network Call for Bush

By the weekend following the election of 2000, two possible frames were available to the press covering developments in Florida. In the first, Gore had won the popular vote and the outcome in the electoral college was uncertain. In the second, Bush was ahead in the vote in the state that would determine the results in the electoral college and, as such, the presumed victor until Gore proved otherwise. Elite discourse as revealed in Sunday morning talk shows eventually settled into the second frame, but not until the certification of the Florida vote by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Elite discourse was not, however, beneficial to Bush in the early weeks of the protest phase of the election.     

The contingent effect of institutions: Electoral formulas,ethnic polarization,and election quality

This paper builds on existing studies linking formal electoral institutions to democracy. It reveals that there is an interactive effect between the electoral formula and the levels of ethnic polarization that systematically influences the quality of elections and the probability of government turnover. Proportional representation is associated with better elections and more frequent government turnover than single-member district majority formulas in ethnically polarized countries. However, the opposite is true when ethno-cultural groups are not numerous or polarized. This study contributes to the existing literature on formal political institutions by presenting evidence that the electoral formula's impact on governance is contingent on the context in which such institutions operate.     

印共(马)大选败北:反思与未来

在印度第15届人民院选举中,印共(马)惨败。面对选举失利,印共(马)深刻反省,土地与工业化政策失误、官僚主义与疏离人民、遭遇强有力政治对手是其失败的主要因素。全党将从大选失败中吸取教训,重塑党与人民之间的紧密联系,致力于左翼的团结,有效监督国大党领导的中央政府,继续捍卫世俗主义与独立的外交政策。     

Autocratic adaptation: The strategic use of transparency and the persistence of election fraud

Why would an autocrat want, or at least make it appear to want, to reduce election fraud? In recent years, non-democratic rulers have surprisingly begun to embrace fraud-reducing technologies, like web cameras or transparent ballot boxes. The reason for this is found in the relative ease by which one type of fraud can be replaced with another. With the help of new fraud identification techniques, I argue that the installation of web cameras in polling stations changes how fraud is conducted. Web cameras do not reduce fraud, but rather make certain blatant forms of fraud, like ballot box stuffing, more costly. Autocrats then substitute for other types of fraud, such as fabricating the vote count out of view of the cameras.     

Forecasting the 2016 General Election in Jamaica

The objective of the article is to explain the methodologies and the findings of the 2016 Jamaican General Election forecasts. The Good Judgment Project’s CHAMPSKNOW system was applied using qualitative and quantitative methods. The research question was: what were the probabilities of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) or the People’s National Party (PNP) winning the 25 February 2016 General Election? The data were drawn from election results and macro-economic variables from 1962 to 2015; polls from 1976 to 2016; campaign ads; election newspaper stories; constituency fund disbursements and independent surveys in marginal seats. The results showed that the JLP had a greater number of ads with better and clearer policy contents than the PNP ads. The JLP also received more positive news coverage during the campaign. MPs who spent a large part of their constituency funds on welfare were more likely to win. The PNP had more garrison, traditional and marginal seats than the JLP so the PNP had the edge. Moreover, the data from the independent surveys and the macro-economic analyses indicated the likelihood of a PNP win. The national polls revealed a statistical dead heat but the forecasts started with the governing PNP having a slightly greater probability of winning because of its active political business cycle in which the PNP was rolling out programmes throughout the country in the election year. The forecasts were revised when the JLP narrowed the gap because the PNP refused to participate in the national debate, which generated negative news about the PNP. The final forecast said the election would be close with the PNP having the edge. However, the JLP’s tax plan was a wild card, which gave the party the edge with a one-seat victory.     

Is There a Local Dimension to Modern Election Campaigns? Party Activists’ Perceptions of the Media and Electoral Coverage of Canadian Constituency Politics

Modern election campaign studies focus on national dimensions at the expense of attending to local campaigns in legislative elections. This is also true of analyses of media coverage and impact of election campaigns. This paper examines the local dimension of media and election campaigns across a wide range of diverse constituency contexts in Canada in order to identify the political, socioeconomic, and geographic determinants of constituency party associations ability to attract local media attention during an election campaign. We also examine the role of these features of the constituency settings and explain variations in satisfaction with the medias coverage of the local campaign.     

缅甸2010年大选前的政治经济形势

缅甸2010年大选在即,除了对外关系上与美国的关系出现转机之外,其国内政治经济形势也很值得分析.首先是民主运动节节退却,民盟将不参加大选;种族骚乱有惊无险,包括果敢在内的三支少数民族地方武装已经被改编成边防军;经济上受惠于宽松的环境,也取得了较大的发展.     

Values and Persuasion During the First Bush-Gore Presidential Debate

Appealing to values is an effective form of argumentation. In our analysis of the Bush-Gore debate, we found that values are fundamental in framing issues; their effectiveness is contingent on the issue context and the predisposition of the audience.­ Thus, merely constructing an appeal to values does not guarantee persuasiveness, as the appeal must be concrete in nature when attempting to move an audience to action. Such an appeal goes beyond creating a link between the value appeal and the issue, as the value appeal and the issue position must resonate with a defined audience. Our results indicate that most undecided voters who made up their minds as a result of the debate chose Gore, while a few chose Bush and some remained undecided. Those who chose Gore were clearly more egalitarian in their orientation than undecided voters who chose Bush or could not decide. Bush's use of individualism did not seem to persuade undecided voters, nor did it seem to have a detrimental impact on support for Gore. For the most part, Bush's support remained constant before and after the debate, at least among this particular audience.     

Voter overrepresentation,vote misreporting,and turnout bias in postelection surveys

Figures from postelection surveys often grossly overestimate election turnout. Two distinct phenomena are responsible for this gap: overrepresentation of actual voters and vote misreporting by actual nonvoters among survey respondents. Previous accounts of turnout bias are inconclusive in that they either focus on a single component, or fail to separate between the two. In this paper, we formally decompose turnout bias in election surveys into its constituent parts, assess their empirical prevalence and heterogeneity using an extensive collection of 49 vote validation studies from six countries, and employ Bayesian meta regression techniques to account for cross-study differences. Our results indicate that both election and survey characteristics such as actual voter turnout and survey response rates differentially affect the components of turnout bias. We conclude with a discussion of the threats and potentials of our findings for survey-based comparative electoral research.