The Myth of Media Globalization: Why Global Media Is Not Truly Globalized,by Kai Hafez

Political discussion is often seen as a potential shortcut to enlightened voting. If uninformed individuals receive useful information from their discussion partners, then they can make quality decisions at the ballot box without incurring the costs of becoming informed. Discussion partners, however, have biases and these biases are reflected in what they say about candidates. If individuals accept messages from sources with different preferences, they could end up supporting candidates who benefit their discussion partners instead of themselves. This article argues that egos will often accept messages from individuals with an incentive to mislead. Instead of evaluating the messenger, individuals evaluate the messages. When the messages are all in accord, individuals support the candidate suggested by the messages even if the messengers are all biased. This article presents the results of a group-based experiment in which ego networks were exogenously determined by the researcher. In the experiment, egos tend to vote for their party's candidate, but they defect with greater frequency when they receive messages from members of a different party. This willingness to listen to the other side has detrimental effects for the quality of their decisions.     

Revitalizing the United States‐Japanese alliance

Abstract

While the notion that subjective economic perceptions as well as objective economic conditions affect electoral outcomes has long been explored in advanced democracies and new democracies, evidence of the link between the economy and elections has been rarely found in East Asian countries. As economic issues have become salient since the 1997 financial crisis, political leaders’ capacity to manage the economy has become one of the most important criteria in electoral choice in East Asia. This paper examines how economic issues influenced the results of the 2007 presidential election in South Korea. By making use of the 2007 Presidential Election Panel Study, this study examines the continuity of and changes in the Korean voters’ electoral behavior. This study describes the political situation in the post-1997 financial crisis period under two liberal governments in Korea and introduces the processes and characteristics of electoral campaigns in the 2007 presidential election. This paper then explores the link between the economy and vote choice, focusing on whether economic issues were salient among the electorate, whether retrospective or prospective economic voting was prevalent among Koreans, and how the voters supported Lee Myung Bak across age groups, regions, and parties in the 2007 presidential election.     

Partisan Development in Post-Soviet Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The development of mass partisanship and party identification in post-Soviet societies is a controversial subject of scholarly research. One prevalent view argues that post-Soviet citizens are distrustful of parties and that it will take generations for party identification to appear in these societies. Others argue that partisanship is emerging as a result of citizens perceiving meaningful differences between the parties. If party identification is forming, partisanship should be relatively stable across time at the individual level. This study takes a rare look at 1999 panel data from Ukraine to determine the degree of partisan stability. The findings demonstrate that meaningful party identification appears to be emerging for a significant proportion of the population due to political information and this partisanship is influencing election decision making among Ukrainian voters.     

A theory of identification

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of “identification” by an individual with actors in his environment. It argues that individuals interpret their environment according to “frames,” which they, as recipients of a message, derive by a complex process of interpretation of the communication setting. The paper also argues that individuals identify with actors in their environment, because this identification increases their utility vis-à-vis a “neutral” watching of their environment. The paper applies this approach to a variety of real life examples, in particular to voting.     

股改中征集委托投票制度的思考

征集委托投票制度的理论基础是民法上的委托代理,但股权分置改革赋予委托投票诸多特殊性。同时,关于委托授权范围和法律效力在股改中呈现出百家争鸣的趋势,这不利于保护流通股股东的利益。因此,对委托投票进行统一的规范是必要的。     

论表决权信托

表决权信托作为获取公司控制权的一种重要手段 ,是美国公司法上比较活跃的制度。但是 ,它的命运经历了从否定到争议再到肯定的过程。表决权信托的成立要符合三个要件 ,即采取书面形式、不能超期并进行登记、公示。通过对表决权信托证书持有人及受托人权利和义务的分析 ,对表决权信托的构造进行了深入研究 ,并首重分析了事实上的虚假表决权信托。针对表决权信托的特性 ,我国应通过适当立法途径建立起相应的表决权信托制度。     

政府绩效管理：理性与反思

随着人们生活节奏的日益加快,现代政府管理发展趋势呈现出快速反应性、灵活应变性和高超技能性。为适应这种需要,以追求效率为核心价值的政府绩效管理模式应运而生。本文力图从理论和实践两个方面对政府绩效管理进行探讨,凸显公共部门的绩效理性,反思实践案例,以期对我国的政府改革有所借鉴。     

Testing for sources of electoral competition under authoritarianism: an analysis of Russia’s gubernatorial elections

What drives electoral competition in competitive authoritarian regimes? Most scholarship has assumed that the outcome of these elections is decided by regime manipulation alone. Using three rounds of newly reinstated gubernatorial elections in Russia’s regions, I test this assumption. I identify three distinct measures of competition calibrated to authoritarian elections and assess whether voter preferences or regime manipulation best explain the degree of electoral competition. Relying on new data on protests across Russia’s regions, I find that regions with high protest activity have more contested elections with narrower margins of victory. The results also confirm recent scholarship highlighting the importance of voter turnout for delivering pro-regime victories.     

Voting for Movement Parties in Southern Europe: The Role of Protest and Digital Information

In recent years ‘movement parties’ such as Syriza in Greece, the Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy, Podemos in Spain and—to a lesser extent—Bloco de Esquerda in Portugal shook national party systems, breaking the consolidated dynamics of political competition. Despite growing interest in movement parties, there has been scant attention to the role of citizens adopting unconventional forms of action and using digital media in accounting for their electoral performance. To fill this gap, four original internet-based post-electoral surveys are employed showing that protesters and digital media users are more likely to vote for these parties, despite important country differences.     

Institutional Grievances and Right-Wing Extremism: Voting for Golden Dawn in Greece

This article examines the effect of institutional grievances on extreme right voting by using an original survey to analyse voter support for the Greek Golden Dawn (GD). The article first examines various theories of extreme-right voting and then develops the concept of institutional grievances. Using structural equation modeling, it shows that that the strongest correlates of GD voting are those capturing institutional grievances. Economic grievances have a limited and cultural grievances a moderate effect on GD voting. The article compares the findings with those of the broader literature on extreme-right voting. It concludes with some suggestions on how to link the findings with broader developments in Europe.