A Review of: “Media Democracy: How the Media Colonize Politics,by Thomas Meyer with Lew Hinchman”

This study assesses the importance of paid advertising. Drawing from observations and interviews with ad creators and campaign managers, it describes, analyzes, and evaluates what the candidates did and why in the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primary election. Specifically, the study examines the importance of initial ads, consistency in ads, and the use of negative ads. It demonstrates that candidates flooded the airwaves with 30‐second ads, spending well in excess of overall spending limits on advertising alone. Ad innovations in 1992 were as follows: heavy New Hampshire and Boston time buying, an attack strategy against an incumbent president, an informercial to raise money, distributed videotapes, interactive video appeals, and half‐hour programs. Candidates who advertised early and stayed consistent in their imagery did better than candidates who advertised later and created multiple images and varied ads.     

A Review of: “Free Press vs. Fair Trial: Examining Publicity's Role in Trial Outcomes,by Jon Bruschke and William E. Loges”

Using data from the 2002 Wisconsin Advertising Project and a Democratic direct mailing firm, we ask if candidates publicly court African American and Hispanic voters through the inclusion of these groups in their campaign advertisements or through appeals to their substantive policy interests. We find evidence that Democratic and Republican candidates make symbolic and substantive appeals only when these appeals are very unlikely to be viewed by White voters. These findings lend credence to studies that conclude that candidates are hesitant to publicly court minority voters due to concerns that such activities may harm their existing electoral coalitions, particularly their standing with White voters.     

Multi-dimensional economic voting in Spain: The 2008 election

Economic voting studies remain contentious in Spain. The notion is widely-held that there is no economic vote in that country, due to the pervasive and effacing influences of left-right ideology. Still, a growing number of investigations show a significant impact of economic evaluation on the vote choice in Spanish national elections. At least one possible exception here is the 2008 election, where the question has received no systematic treatment. In this study, we explore the impact of economic voting in that contest. We find, first, the presence of strong economic voting of the valence kind. Second, we find that two hitherto unstudied dimensions of economic voting – position and patrimony – have their own independent effect.     

European integration and electoral democracy: How the European Union constrains party competition in the Member States

The assignment of policy competencies to the European Union has reduced the divergence of party policy positions nationally, leaving the electorate with fewer policy options. Building upon insights from spatial proximity theories of party competition, the convergence argument predicts convergence particularly in policy domains with increasing EU competence. As the policy commitments that derive from EU membership increase, parties become more constrained in terms of the feasible policy alternative they can implement when in office. The analysis uses manifesto data at the country‐party system level for nine policy domains. It uses ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation with country fixed effects, a lagged dependent variable and country corrected standard errors. Controlling for other factors that could plausibly explain policy convergence, the models also assess whether the convergent effect of party positions varies across different types of parties. The main finding is that in policy domains where the involvement of the EU has increased, the distance between parties' positions tends to decrease. The constraining impact of EU policy decisions differs between Member and non‐Member States. This effect is more apparent for the policy agendas of larger, mainstream and pro‐EU parties in the Member States.     

Nationalisation of multilevel party systems: A conceptual and empirical analysis

The concept of ‘nationalisation’ is vigorously discussed in the literature and three dimensions have been proposed. A first dimension considers the extent to which a party's vote in territorial units varies across time and this is labeled ‘dynamic nationalisation’. ‘Distributional nationalisation’ focuses on the degree to which there is an equal distribution of party votes across territorial units. Finally, ‘party‐linkage nationalisation’ concerns the extent to which candidates link together under common party labels. In addition to a conceptual debate there has been a simultaneous debate on the measurement of the various forms of nationalisation. This article contributes to both debates and argues that most of the literature on nationalisation suffers from a methodological nationalism bias – that is, the tendency of many scholars to choose the statewide level and national election as the natural unit of analysis. This claim is supported by a conceptual and empirical analysis regarding the effects of decentralisation on nationalisation. The conceptual analysis shows that the non‐robust findings of many studies concerning the effects of decentralisation on nationalisation can be related to the methodological nationalism bias. An effect of decentralisation is found once nationalisation is conceptualised with regard to its multilevel dimension and the measurements of nationalisation are differentiated according to parties, regions and type of elections (national or regional). An empirical analysis on the nationalisation of party systems, parties and regions in 18 countries for national and regional elections held between 1945 and 2009 shows that regional authority has a significant and robust effect on regions and regional elections but not on parties, party systems and national vote shares.     

What Explains President Joseph Kabila’s Quest for a Third Term until Pressured to Reluctantly Relinquish Power,late in 2018?

Abstract

The era of Congolese political, socio-economic instability that has affected the central African region has returned, yet again. Nearly two decades after Joseph Kabila was installed as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo by the Southern African Development community (SADC), at the height of the regional central African war, following the assassination of his father, Laurent Desire Kabila, he has not shown any willingness to relinquish power. This is even so after the lapse of his constitutional mandates in December 2016, secured in 2006 and 2011. This continued reign, which is dependent on the repressive use of force by the state, has elicited spirited attempts by the political opposition, including the influential Catholic Church, calling for his immediate resignation. In response, the state has unleashed repression, which has resulted in fatalities and uprooted communities, resulting also in forced migration that destabilised the Great lakes sub-region. This article argues that the state reconstruction of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the hurried departure of Mobutu Sese Seko, engineered by Laurent Kabila, and his son Joseph, has failed to take root, resulting in sub-regional instability that has engulfed, not only the Great lakes region, but also southern Africa as a whole.     

Doing more with less: the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkish elections,and the uncertain future of Turkish politics

The outcome of Turkey's June 2011 elections temporarily quelled – though by no means entirely put to rest – growing concern over the creeping autocratic tendencies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). To ensure that democracy remains durable, the AKP must now clearly demonstrate that it is willing to shun heavy-handed tactics and instead engage the opposition in a genuine dialog regarding important matters of constitutional change, especially those related to individual rights and identity issues. A slide toward autocracy has been an all-too-common pitfall in Turkish politics over the years. Should it so choose, the AKP is well poised to break the cycle at this critical juncture in Turkish politics.     

The ‘Modi Wave’: Behind the Results of the 2014 General Elections in India

Narendra Modi’s spectacular victory over Congress in the 2014 Indian general elections was made possible by many factors. However, the main and overarching cause of Modi’s victory was the process which, starting in 2009 with the backing of the Indian corporate sector, built up the image of Modi as a kind of fearless and unblemished hero who, having raised his home state, Gujarat, to an extraordinary level of economic development, was now in a position to replicate the same feat at the all-India level. ‘Modi’s legend’ first conquered the middle class’ imagination and, then, was spread among the masses and, transversally, among first-time voters by that same middle class, with the help of RSS volunteers. Thus, a juggernaut was created and deployed with devastating effects, not only against Congress but, as shown by the cases of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, against some of India’s strongest regional parties.     

Electoral Violence in Africa Revisited

This article addresses the still unsettled question of the incidence of violent election periods in Africa. It uses two new datasets, which report episodes of social conflict in the region for 1990–2011, and elections worldwide from 1960 to 2010. When combined, these data suggest that onsets of electoral violence peak around major election days in Africa as a whole, but with wide national variability in the volume of new episodes. Depending on the time span and type of social conflict, from one-quarter to three-quarters of the elections for national leadership have been without incident. The article also investigates the timing of electoral violence and the extent to which there is an experience curve effect, whereby subsequent elections have fewer onsets of social conflict. The data indicate that two-thirds to three-quarters of elections are free of onsets of social conflict, but that the proportion does not change much with experience. Overall, there appear to be reasonable grounds for optimism about peaceful elections in many African countries.     

Anti-Immigrant Parties,Local Presence and Electoral Success

Abstract

Does the local organisational presence of anti-immigrant parties affect their chances for electoral success? In order to answer this question, the article explores the potential of a supply-oriented explanation to anti-immigrant party success by examining the electoral advancements the Sweden Democrats (SD) made in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Our results indicate that traditional demand-side explanations to anti-immigrant party success can be successfully complemented by an ‘internal supply-side argument’ to make the electoral fates of these parties more intelligible. Whether the SD had a local organisational presence had a substantial effect on its results in the national election and on the probability of gaining representation in local councils. Thus, the party’s fate in the national as well as local elections was largely determined by whether or not it had a local organisational presence in Swedish municipalities.