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.     

Keeping the rascals in: Anti‐political‐establishment parties and their cost of governing in established democracies

Coalition governments in established democracies incur, on average, an electoral ‘cost of governing’. This cost varies across coalition partners, and is higher for anti‐political‐establishment parties. This is because, if such a party participates in a coalition, it loses the purity of its message by being seen to cooperate with the political establishment. In order to demonstrate that anti‐political‐establishment parties suffer an additional cost of governing, this article builds on the work by Van der Brug et al. and refines the standard cost of governing theory by ‘bringing the party back in’. The results of the analyses, based on 594 observations concerning 51 parties in seven Western European countries, cast doubt on the conventional concept of a cost of governing that pertains to all parties equally. The findings call for a major revision of the standard cost of governing literature, while adding a significant contribution to the debate on strategies against parties that may constitute a danger to democracy.     

Love and the State: Gay Marriage in Spain

On 30 June 2005, the Spanish Parliament approved Law 13/2005, which amends the Civil Code to permit same-sex marriage. This formal equality measure put Spain in the spotlight of the international media. It is the culmination of a series of developments spanning from the last years of the Franco regime (which ended in 1975), through the enactment of anti-discrimination measures in 1995, to the recent fight for kinship recognition. It also follows a recent shift, from 1998 to 2005, towards the enactment of same-sex partnership laws at regional level, the approval of same-sex marriage and finally, the approval of a ‹gender identity law’ (2007). This legislative note assesses the context in which the new law on same-sex marriage has been enacted. I argue that although same-sex marriage has been represented by many activists and politicians in Spain as a gender neutral contract, it has the potential for differential impacts on lesbians and gay men, and further research and debates are needed in this area.     

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.     

Split-ticket voting in German Federal elections, 1953–90: an example of sophisticated balloting?

Though the German electoral system has provided the opportunity of split-ticket voting since 1953, until now there has only been mere speculation concerning the rationality of ticket-splitting. In this paper we examine the rationality thesis empirically, using data provided by the official representative electoral statistics of the Federal Republic. Modifying the Downsian notion of rational voting, rational ticket-splitting is defined in terms of coalition building and of voters' expectations of the electoral success of candidates and parties. Applying this conceptual framework, it will be shown that the combinations of first and second votes actually chosen by a majority of the German electorate can rather be conceived of as a product of accident than of tactical considerations.     

The distorting effects of racial animus on proximity voting in the 2016 elections

While the use of racial appeals by the 2016 Trump campaign is indisputable, researchers are actively debating their precise role in influencing voter behavior in the election. We seek to expand upon existing research which finds that racial animus electorally benefited the Trump campaign. We examine to what extent those benefits also materialized for GOP candidates down-ballot and whether racial animus distorted ideological proximity voting in the 2016 election. We find that racial animus among voters helped Republicans at multiple ballot levels and that higher levels of racial animus distorted spatial voting among voters ideologically closest to the Democratic candidate.