Campañas negativas en las elecciones 2000 y 2006 en México

This article explores the nature of negative campaigns that were held in both 2000 and 2006 Mexican presidential elections. The purpose is to establish that the generalized use of negative campaigning concurs with the development of two unusual electoral processes: the transition of the State party into an opposition party (2000), and its consolidation as government (2006). Based on the theoretical claims of Shiv (1997), Lau (1999), and Finkel (1998), the author describes the development of negative campaigns in those elections that represented the starting point and the presumed consummation of the use of this kind of campaigns. With journals’ documented records and the monitoring of tv spots of both elections it is established that the 2000 presidential election used negative campaigns based on decrying the official party, while the 2006 election resorted to negative tv spots.     

Clase política y medios: explorando el fenómeno de la publicidad política encubierta en México

This work presents the results of a qualitative research that explores the phenomenon of political publicity on noncommercial television content, which has been growing since the electoral reform of 2007–2008. Since then, the acquisition of airtime for electoral advertising purposes, as well as the appearance of public officials on government advertising has been prohibited. The information was gathered through ‘in depth’ interviews, and analyzed through Strauss and Corbin grounded theory model, which allowed confirmation of the existence of covert political publicity, as well as to provide a definition of this concept and determine its causes, characteristics, and consequences. It was concluded that, despite the legal modification aiming to guarantee a more equitable political communication model and the eradication of airtime commercialization for electoral campaigning, this was not achieved due to structural conditions of the political system in Mexico and the relation between media and government, which impacts political communication, and extends beyond the electoral issue and its regulatory framework.     

Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey

Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are being systematically violated; and the playing field is highly skewed in favour of the ruling AKP. The June 2015 election results and their aftermath further confirm that Turkey has evolved into a competitive authoritarian regime.     

Theoretically,yes, but also empirically? How the corruption-turnout link is marginally explained by civic duty to vote

Corruption is generally associated with low electoral participation. A recurrent explanation of the negative correlation between corruption and electoral turnout involves the rational calculus of the costs and benefits of voting. More specifically, in a context of high corruption, citizens do not vote because they think that doing so will hardly affect policy decisions. A number of influential studies has argued that corruption affects citizens' electoral engagement in a different and more fundamental way as well: It erodes their sense of civic duty to vote in elections. Yet, a relation between corruption and civic duty and a mediation effect of the attitude remains empirically untested. This article examines empirically whether perceived corruption and sense of civic duty are correlated, as well as whether civic duty mediates the relation between perceived corruption and turnout. It does so with the pooled Making Electoral Democracy Work data, as these data contain measures on individuals’ sense of civic duty to vote in four election levels, namely, national, regional, European, and municipal elections, as well as on their perception of corruption in each of these government levels, and on their participation in these four election levels as well. I find a weak relation between perceived corruption and civic duty, and a low mediation effect of the attitude (compared with rational factors), irrespective of the election level.     

Quality challenger emergence under the top-two primary: Comparing one-party and two-party general election contests

Prior research finds that the emergence of a quality challenger is one of the most important factors predicting whether incumbents will be vulnerable. Reformers in California and Washington envisioned that the top-two primary reform would increase electoral competition by allowing for general election contests that feature two same-party candidates in safe districts. In this research note, I investigate the degree to which these expectations have been fulfilled by looking at the prevalence of quality challengers in U.S. House contests. I compare one-party and two-party general election contests, finding that incumbents are significantly more likely to face a quality challenger from the same party than from the opposite party, all else equal. In contrast, when both states used traditional primaries prior to reform, incumbents were no more likely to face a quality challenger in the primary election than in the general election. Findings reveal a key way in which the top-two primary may fulfill reformers’ expectations and complement our understanding of how electoral institutions condition challenger entry decisions.     

Racial attitudes & political cross-pressures in nationalized elections: The case of the Republican coalition in the Trump era

While scholars have found that Trump was able to capitalize on the racial attitudes of white voters, it is less clear how these racial attitudes influenced vote-choice across partisan and ideological cleavages in the electorate. It is also unclear whether racial attitudes affected voting at the congressional level or electoral outcomes at the aggregate level. Using a novel measure of racial attitudes at the subnational level and survey data, we make three clear findings: (1) Trump and Republican congressional candidates benefited from conservative racial attitudes both at the aggregate level and among white voters, (2) this electoral benefit for Republicans persisted during the 2018 midterm elections, and (3) the effect of attitudes on vote-choice did not significantly vary across partisan and ideological cleavages in the white electorate. Our findings suggest that, even during the era of highly nationalized and partisan elections, racial attitudes are still a mechanism by which Republicans can win significant electoral support among Democrats and relatively liberal voters in the white electorate. These findings have implications for the growing salience of race in the Republican electoral coalition.     

Transcending Thatcherism? Ideology and the Conservative Party Leadership Mandate of David Cameron

This paper examines the voting motivations of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary ballot of the Conservative Party leadership election of 2005. By constructing a data set of the voting behaviour of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary party ballot, and by determining the ideological disposition of the 2005 PCP this paper examines the ideological disposition of the candidates' vis-à-vis their electorate. The paper identifies the increasing Thatcherite nature of the PCP across three dominant ideological divides of contemporary British Conservatism-economic, European, and social, sexual and moral policy. Through such an analysis the paper demonstrates how the modernising David Cameron, who came first in the final parliamentary ballot and then won the membership ballot, transcended the traditional ideological voting motivations of candidates' vis-à-vis their electorate. Most significantly, the paper demonstrates that the European ideological policy divide was not a factor in the succession contest, unlike the succession contests of 1990, 1997 and 2001.     

An integrated perspective on the three potential sources of partisan bias: Malapportionment, turnout differences, and the geographic distribution of party vote shares

Partisan bias refers to an asymmetry in the way party vote share is translated into seats, i.e., a situation where some parties are able to win a given share of seats with a lesser (share of the) vote than is true for other parties. Any districted system is potentially subject to partisan biases. We show that there are three potential sources of partisan bias: (1) differences in the nature of the vote shares of the winning candidates of different parties that give rise to differences in the proportion of each party's votes that come to be ‘wasted’—differences which arise because of the nature of the geographic distribution of partisan support; (2) turnout rate differences across districts that are linked to the partisan vote shares in those districts, such that certain parties are more likely to have ‘cheap seats’ vis-à-vis turnout; and (3) malapportionment. In the context of two-party competition over single-member districts we provide a simple formulation to calculate the independent effect of each of these three factors. We illustrate our analysis with a calculation of the magnitude and direction of effects of the three determinants of partisan bias in elections to the US House and the US Senate in 1984, 1986 and 1988; then we consider how to extend the approach to a system with a mix of single- and multi-member districts or to a weighted voting system such as the US electoral college. We then apply the method to calculate the nature and sources of partisan bias in the 1984 and 1988 US presidential elections.     

The judiciary and post-election conflict resolution and democratic consolidation in Ghana’s Fourth Republic

ABSTRACT

In recent times most elections in Africa have been fraught with post-elections conflicts that have had dire consequences on citizens. Kenya, Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe are few of these cases. This makes post-election conflict resolution a very important aspect of the electoral process deserving enormous attention. However, extant literature has not accorded it the needed attention. It is as a result of this, that this study investigates the nature of post-election conflict resolution in Ghana’s Fourth Republic. The study, based on a qualitative case study approach, found among others that, the Courts have been instrumental in consolidating democracy in Ghana, and stakeholders are devotedly operating within the legal framework governing elections, despite logistical, law enforcement and justice delivery challenges. The study being conscious of the progress made over the years concludes that, where democratic institutions are consolidating, the use of unconventional means to resolve conflicts is usually not an option.