进步还是倒退?——政治发展视野下的缅甸2010年选举

从政治发展角度讲,缅甸2010的选举更多地意味着一种倒退。该选举赋予了军人集团的政治垄断以正当性。这样的结果之所以会出现,全国民主联盟的错误选择是其中一个重要的原因。选举后的缅甸新政权,虽然依然会面临来自西方国家的强大压力,但来自亚洲一些国家的支持,则会给缅甸的新政权提供有力的支撑。展望未来,缅甸的政治发展之路将十分艰难。     

Aggregate level forecasting of the 2010 general election in Britain: The Seats-Votes model

The Seats-Votes model forecasts party seat shares in the House of Commons using data from general elections and opinion polls between 1945 and 2009. The model is built on a generalisation of the cube rule which provided a fairly accurate method of translating votes into seats when Britain was effectively a two party system prior to the 1970s. It combines past information on seat shares in the current Parliament with voting intention data six months prior to the general election to forecast seat shares. Applied to the task of forecasting the outcome of a general election in early May of 2010, it predicts a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives as the largest party. The relatively small sample used to estimate the model means that predictions about the size of the parties in Parliament are quite tentative, though predictions about the likelihood of a hung Parliament are more certain.     

Nowcasting V. polling: The 2010 UK election trials

This paper first offers a final forecast for the May 2010 UK general election based on our “two-step model” [Nadeau, R., Lewis-Beck, M.S., Bélanger, É., 2009. Election forecasting in the United Kingdom: a two-step model. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 19, 333-358.]. That model is then used to explore a new technique, “nowcasting.” We examine our model “nowcasts,” comparing it to the classic forecasting strategy of the vote intention poll, across the contemporary election period, 2005-2010. As is shown, nowcasting offers forecasting advantages that simple polling does not. Most notably, the nowcast provides variation that appears much more subject to substantive explanation of the electoral cycle, and it provides predictions with a three-month lead.     

Why George W. Bush Is a Unilateralist and How It Will Affect the 2004 Presidential Election

ABSTRACT

U.S. President George W. Bush has had a stormy relationship with Europe. Bush campaigned on a theme of putting America's interests first and eschewing multilateralism when necessary. Since taking office, Bush has been true to his campaign pledges. Bush's style and substance have caused many in Europe to regard him as a “buffoon” at best and a dangerous cowboy at worst. What the Europeans do not seem to understand is that, for better or worse, George W. Bush's view of the world is held by a substantial portion of the American people, and even when the U.S. had a more Euro-friendly leader in President Bill Clinton, America's policies were often at odds with those preferred by its allies in Europe. This is due to a fundamental difference that has developed between Europe and the United States over the last century. Today, no matter who occupies the White House, American foreign policy is likely to be in conflict with Europe's. Far from being a liability, this difference is likely to be a political asset to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.     

韩国选民的政治社会化和支持候选人决定的稳定性——以第十七、十八届总统大选为中心

本文旨在从经验的角度,探讨不同的政治社会化经历对选民支持候选人决定的稳定性产生的影响。鉴于韩国政党政治历史不长,笔者将西欧意义上的政治社会化概念引入韩国社会。因此,本文以"和参照组的政治沟通"作为政治社会化指标,考察在2007年和2012年两次总统选举中韩国选民的政治社会化水平对支持候选人决定的稳定性产生的影响力。研究结果表明,韩国选民越是通过具有相同政治倾向的周围人实现政治社会化,稳定地支持同一政党候选人的倾向就越明显。这个结果意味着不同于以往不同居住地选民支持不同政党的惯例,韩国选民通过政治社会化来加强与特定政党之间关联性的基础正在形成。     

Assessing the Television Campaign: The Impact of Party Election Broadcasting on Voters' Opinions in the 1997 British General Election

Although paid television and radio political advertising is banned in the United Kingdom, parties fielding sufficient candidates are entitled to free air time during election campaigns for a fixed number of party election broadcasts (PEBs). Over the years, parties have experimented with a variety of different PEB formats. But the impact of PEBs on voters is underresearched. This article therefore analyzes the influence of PEB viewing in the 1997 British General Election. Though a majority do not view PEBs, those who do are influenced by them, especially in terms of their evaluations of parties and their leaders: Other things being equal, viewers of a party's PEBs become more favorably disposed to the party and its leader than those who do not see the broadcast. Labour and Conservative PEBs have no impact on vote intentions, however. But viewers of Liberal Democrat broadcasts become more likely to support that party. We speculate that this reflects different background levels of media exposure for the major parties as compared to the third party.     

Television and attitudes toward foreign countries: A report on a survey of Scandinavian children

Children of all ages are more likely to use electronic sources of information such as television and radio-than they are print sources-such as newspapers and magazines-according to a variety of studies. This study examines whether this tendency continues if the children are forced by their primary and secondary school teachers to use multiple news sources-of their own choice-to follow an election campaign. Based on responses from an extraordinarily large sample of 24,348 children, this study focuses on media use by participants in the Kids Voting USA civics education program. Study results demonstrate that even when seeking campaign information in 1994, a non-presidential election year when the emphasis was more on state and local races, children overwhelmingly preferred television and radio as sources of information. Newspaper usage trailed both electronic forms even when a child's family subscribed to a paper. The study found no significant difference between White and non-White children in their choices and uses of information sources. The large sample size also allowed for a detailed look at often neglected subgroups such as Native American children (n = 1,114) and Asian-American children (n = 768).     

Are you sitting comfortably? Estimating incumbency advantage in the UK: 1983–2010 – A research note

This note adapts two models commonly used to estimate the incumbency advantage that US members of Congress enjoy – the ‘slurge’ and the Gelman-King Index – to provide comparable estimates for UK MPs. The results show that Liberal Democrats enjoy extremely large such advantages on a par with those of US Congressmen of between 5% and 15% of the vote. Labour and the Conservatives have incumbency advantages at around 2% and 1% respectively. The note estimates that effects could have changed the outcome in as many as 25 seats in some elections, and that they cost the Conservatives the chance to govern alone after the 2010 election.     

Fixing failures of U.K. electoral management

Concerns about electoral malpractice have been raised in many democracies in recent years because of errors made in the administration of elections by local election officials (LEOs). This article argues that adopting appropriate policy instruments to manage LEOs is an under-explored method for improving election administration and reducing electoral malpractice. The article provides a case study of the use of performance benchmarking schemes in the UK 2008–2010. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 74 LEOs from 41 organisations subject to newly devised performance indicators. The research demonstrates that performance benchmarking can encourage learning amongst local electoral officials and strengthen central control over them.