Closed spaces or (in)competent citizens? A study of youth preparedness for participation in elections in Zimbabwe

This study sets out to explore the barriers to youth participation and how youth could be supported to enhance their participation in elections and governance processes in Zimbabwe. The study was carried out using quantitative methodologies. A survey was carried out to collect data, which in turn was analysed using SPSS. Evidence from the study shows that decision-making processes are not improving and becoming more participatory and youth inclusive. It was observed that youth participation in elections and governance processes is low and it is hampered inter alia by restrictive political structures, lack of interest, lack of information and lack of funds. Whilst some youth are ready to run for public office, they need to freely participate in politics and develop without restrictions, including getting support through leadership training. These young candidates will also need training in elections and governance processes as well as mobilise and sensitise other youth to register to vote if they are to succeed in their quest for public office. Resources and support must be given to youth-led initiatives that are reaching out to young people and ensure they play their part in democratic processes at all levels of governments.     

Getting things straight: The effects of ballot design and electoral structure on voter participation

This paper considers the implications of the straight-party voting option (STVO) on participation in judicial elections. Voters using straight-party options (by definition) do not vote for candidates in nonpartisan elections. Consequently, ballot roll-off in these elections is more likely to occur when people are given the chance to vote the party ticket and complete the voting process quickly. This is the case because nonpartisan judicial elections are considerably less salient than statewide and federal partisan elections. This article separates out the effects of the institutional structure of the election on political participation with the effects of ballot design. We find that in nonpartisan elections, the straight-party option decreases voter participation since voters who utilize the straight-ticket option may erroneously believe that they have voted for these nonpartisan offices, or simply ignore them. However, in nonpartisan elections without straight-ticket voting, participation is increased compared to nonpartisan elections with straight-ticket voting. Additionally, both forms of nonpartisan elections have less participation than partisan elections, all of which have the straight-ticket option. Thus, voter participation is affected not only by the type of election, but the type of voting rules in the election.     

Which democracy for the European Economic Community? Fernand Dehousse versus Charles de Gaulle*

This article analyses the political debate that developed within the European Economic Community (EEC) about the so-called Dehousse Convention (1960), the first concrete proposal to elect the European Parliament by universal suffrage. It argues that both supporters and opponents of the Dehousse Convention justified their stance through a blend of domestic experiences and European aspirations. More precisely, the article argues that the Dehousse Convention was deeply rooted in the model of parliamentary democracy which triumphed in Western Europe after the Second World War and that it aimed at favouring the federal evolution of the community; through the introduction of direct elections it would have been possible to strengthen the European Parliament which, eventually, would have turned the EEC into a federation. To fully understand Charles de Gaulle’s rejection of the Dehousse Convention, this article argues that his hostility to the supranational evolution of the community was strengthened by his long-standing criticism of the limits of parliamentary democracy. These two visions clashed and intertwined, shaping the political evolution of the EEC in the following decades.     

How campaigns promote the legitimacy of elections

Why do people see elections as fair or unfair? In prior accounts, evaluations of the election depend on people's candidate preferences, where supporters of the winning candidate tend to call the election fair while those on the losing side feel it was unfair. I argue that perceptions of election fairness reflect not just the election outcome, but also the campaign process. Using a set of multilevel models and data from the 1996–2004 American National Election Studies, I explore the consequences of campaign experiences in shaping people's evaluations of the fairness of a presidential election. I find that as campaign competition increases, people are less likely to translate their feelings about the candidates into their evaluations of the election. Rather than alienating citizens, competitive campaigns mitigate the effects of prior preferences in a way that promotes the legitimacy of elections.     

Do parties respond? How electoral context influences party responsiveness

How responsive are political parties to the issue priorities of voters? While there are numerous studies that examine policy position congruence between parties and voters or government responsiveness, we know little about the extent to which parties adjust their policy priorities to the issue concerns of voters. Following saliency and issue ownership theory, we argue that political parties listen to their voters by emphasizing policy issues in their election manifestos that have been prioritized by citizens. However, in line with second-order election theory, we expect that issue responsiveness varies with the electoral context. To test our theoretical expectations, we generated a novel dataset that combines data on issue attention of political parties from the Comparative Manifesto and the Euromanifesto projects with data on policy priorities of voters from the European Election Studies, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various national election studies. We empirically test our theoretical claims based on a comprehensive analysis of 104 parties from 17 countries competing in 84 national and European elections from 1986 to 2011. Our findings have important implications for political representation in Europe.     

Electoral Violence in Conflict-Ridden Societies: Concepts,Causes, and Consequences

What are the causes of electoral violence? And how does electoral violence influence conflict resolution and democracy? This article argues for a conceptualization of electoral violence as a specific sub-category of political violence, determined mainly by its timing and target. The enabling conditions and triggering factors can be identified in three main areas: 1) the nature of politics in conflict societies, 2) the nature of competitive elections, and 3) the incentives created by the electoral institutions. These clusters of factors are important for understanding electoral violence both between different societies and across elections in a specific country.     

The Madrid Bombings and Negotiations With ETA: A Case Study of the Impact of Terrorism on Spanish Politics

This article analyzes the impact that two terrorism-related matters had on Spanish politics and electoral processes in the country. First, the article analyzes the terrorist attacks perpetrated by jihadists on March 11, 2004, three days before Spain's general election. The indiscriminate, lethal attacks caused a state of shock in the country, brought the election campaign to a sudden end, and led to the defeat of the party in power. Second, the article analyzes the negotiations entered into with the ETA terrorist organization by the new government during its first term, from 2004 to 2008. This controversial step, upheld by the Spanish government despite massive opposition by civil society and the main opposition party, failed to bring about the end of ETA. Both the Madrid attacks and the negotiations with ETA were responsible for the breakdown of the consensus in regard to terrorism that had existed among the main Spanish political parties. The article analyzes how both events generated an unprecedented level of polarization and tension among political parties and society from 2004 to 2008, and how each event had a different impact on the general elections held during that period. The period under examination provides an example of adversarial politics; terrorism was highly influenced by the management of both events by the main political players.     

Safety-Valve Elections and the Arab Spring: The Weakening (and Resurgence) of Morocco's Islamist Opposition Party

ABSTRACT

By strange coincidence, Greece's Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17 N) met its end almost exactly a year after Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorists felled New York's twin towers, when the group's leader of operations, Dimitris Koufodinas, turned himself in to the police after months on the run, on September 5, 2002. The capture of Koufodinas and his group marked the demise of the last and most stubborn of a generation of ideological terrorists whose campaigns caused serious political and security problems in Western Europe for more than a quarter of a century. Drawing on the judicial investigation findings and the courtroom testimonies of the terrorists, this article attempts to tell the stories of the four most senior group members in order to understand what led them to act in the way they did and, more crucially, what kept them inside a terrorist organization with no prospects and community support for so long.     

Democracy promotion between the “political” and the “developmental” approach: US and German policies towards Belarus

Following the end of the East–West conflict, the global spread of liberal democracy became an important strategic objective in world politics. Primarily, the foreign policy of the US and EU (states) demonstrated the relevance of democracy promotion abroad. While Western democracies' policy objectives regarding democracy promotion go well together, an obvious difference between their approaches in this area has often been shown: a largely “political” approach of the US vs a “developmental” one of European states. Accordingly, this article focuses on recent tendencies in democracy promotion by comparing US and German policies in the European post-Soviet space in order to investigate the expression of both approaches in a strategically important region. It thereby analyses the pivotal case of Belarus, which presents a great challenge to democracy promoters. The study concludes that external democracy promotion in that part of the world does not show a clear differentiation between the two approaches, and suggests a few potential explanations to be explored in future research.     

Nonviolent revolutions: civil resistance in the late 20th century

Why do young Africans participate less in elections than their older counterparts? Given Africa's growing youth bulge, this constituency represents a numerically important voting bloc, and their lower participation in elections could undermine the legitimacy of the region's democratic trajectory. We address this question through a multi-level model that relies on individual-level data from the Afrobarometer surveys and country-level data for 19 of the region's more democratic countries. We classify Africa's youth as belonging to two categories, those aged 18–24 and those aged 25–35. We find that key determinants of the youth's voting behaviour include their access to political knowledge and information as well as their perceptions of the electoral context and party system. In the latter regard, the efficacy and fairness of elections and the degree of partisanship increase the youth's decision to vote, while the length of party incumbency is a deterrent to turnout. These findings hold important implications by highlighting that Africa's youth not only need to be exposed to greater fora for learning about the political process and party options but also that political parties in the region need to become more relevant to this constituency.