Does online voting change the outcome? Evidence from a multi-mode public policy referendum

Do online and offline voters differ in terms of policy preferences? The growth of Internet voting in recent years has opened up new channels of participation. Whether or not political outcomes change as a consequence of new modes of voting is an open question. Here we analyze all the votes cast both offline (n = 5.7 million) and online (n = 1.3 million) and compare the actual vote choices in a public policy referendum, the world's largest participatory budgeting process, in Rio Grande do Sul in June 2014. In addition to examining aggregate outcomes, we also conducted two surveys to better understand the demographic profiles of who chooses to vote online and offline. We find that policy preferences of online and offline voters are no different, even though our data suggest important demographic differences between offline and online voters.     

Political participation in Africa: The role of individual resources

This paper aims to examine the role of individual resources in explaining African political participation. If political participation is costly and requires inputs in terms of individual resources, and citizens in young developing country democracies face comparatively high participation costs and have more limited individual resource endowments than citizens in more established democracies, a resource approach to political participation should be particularly relevant in the African setting. On the contrary, however, empirical findings drawing on recent data for more than 27,000 respondents in 20 emerging African democracies suggest weak explanatory power of the resource perspective. Often, the relatively resource poor actually participate to a greater extent than the more resource rich. The results are encouraging in that they suggest fairly broad-based political participation, but also call attention to the need to evaluate the motivational forces behind the decision to take part.     

Law enforcement access to personal data originally collected by private parties: Missing data subjects' safeguards in directive 2016/680?

Access by law enforcement authorities to personal data initially collected by private parties for commercial or operational purposes is very common, as shown by the transparency reports of new technology companies on law enforcement requests. From a data protection perspective, the scenario of law enforcement access is not necessarily well taken into account. The adoption of the new data protection framework offers the opportunity to assess whether the new ‘police’ Directive, which regulates the processing of personal data for law enforcement purposes, offers sufficient safeguards to individuals. To make this assessment, provisions contained in Directive 2016/680 are tested against the standards established by the ECJ in Digital Rights Ireland and Tele2 Sverige on the retention of data and their further access and use by police authorities. The analysis reveals that Directive 2016/680 does not contain the safeguards identified in the case law. The paper further assesses the role and efficiency of the principle of purpose limitation as a safeguard against repurposing in a law enforcement context. Last, solutions to overcome the shortcomings of Directive 2016/680 are examined in conclusion.     

Niederlassungsbewilligungen aus humanitären Gründen: Antragsrecht des betroffenen Einzelnen verfassungsrechtlich erforderlich

§11 Abs3 NAG schafftkeine M?glichkeit der Antragstellung auf Erteilung eines humanit?ren Aufenthaltstitels. Auf Grund der Art 8 iVm 13 MRK und aus rechtsstaatlichen Erw?gungen muss neben einer Erteilung von Amts wegen auch ein Antragsrecht des in seinen subjektiven Rechten Betroffenen auf Erteilung eines humanit?ren Aufenthaltstitels vorgesehen sein.     

Corrupt reciprocity - Experimental evidence on a men's game

Why are women regarded to be more resistant towards corruption? We address this question by letting students allotted the role of public servants receive a bribe and choose between reporting (whistleblowing), opportunism and reciprocity (delivery of a contract to the briber). Those acting as businesspersons choose whether or not to publicize at the end of the game. Male businesspersons more often depart from maximizing payoffs and allocate resources to punishing opportunistic public servants. Instead of acting opportunistically, some public servants tend to reciprocate or report. We find that female public servants are less inclined to reciprocate. Their resistance towards corruption is found to relate less to a willingness to report. Survey data from international households shows that men are more confident that bribes will be reciprocated, supporting our results.     

Nacherbschaft – Eintritt in die Vereinbarung über die Dauer des Bestandverhältnisses

§ 1120 ABGB ist im Substitutionsfall analog auf den übergang der Bestandsache vom befreiten Vorerben auf den Nacherben anzuwenden. Das Kündigungsrecht nach § 1120 ABGB muss binnen angemessener Frist geltend gemacht werden, andernfalls die Vereinbarung über die Beendigung des Bestandverh?ltnisses doch ma?geblich ist, weil ein Eintritt des Erwerbers der Bestandsache in allf?llige vertragliche Kündigungsbeschr?nkungen auch schlüssig zwischen Erwerber und Bestandnehmer vereinbart werden kann.     

Electoral registration and the control of votes: The case of Chile

We investigate how the employment relationship may lead employers to control the voting behavior and to induce the electoral registration of their workers. Forced registration and the control of votes become feasible when voting behavior is observable, as in open ballot elections. Workers whose vote is controlled are more likely to be registered as compared to other eligible voters, increasing their impact on electoral outcomes. Increasing the secrecy of the vote (for instance with the adoption of a secret ballot) significantly reduces the control of votes. Electoral registration, however, remains biased as long as the probability of voting behavior disclosure induces less ideologically motivated voters to comply with the political preference of the employer. We provide empirical support for the predictions of the model examining the effects of the introduction of the secret ballot in Chile in 1958.     

Technology and torts: Memory costs, nondurable precautions and interference effects

This article examines the influence of nondurable precaution technologies on the expansion of tort awards. We provide four contributions to the literature. First, we present a general, formal model on durable and non-durable precaution technology that focuses on memory costs. Second, because liability exposure creates interference, we argue that tort law perpetuates the expansion of awards. Third, because plaintiffs do not consider the social costs of interference effects, private litigation induces socially excessive suits. Fourth, while new harm-reducing technologies likely increase accident rates, such technologies also raise the ratio of trial costs to harm, leaving undetermined the overall effect of new technologies on the rate of litigation.     

Bring the party back in: Institutional design for ‘smart election fraud’

Autocrats face a dilemma. Continue with fraudulent electoral practices and risk revolt, or reduce fraud and risk losing elections. One solution is to structure electoral governance such that it allows for independence and professionalism at the center, lending credibility to the electoral process, and partisan local-level administration, enabling fraud at the micro level. Partisan poll workers can help deliver the vote by the use of ‘smart fraud’ – fraud that minimizes the risk of being caught and is used only when needed. In Armenia, the ruling party's vote share, as a proportion of all registered voters, increases with 2.5 percentage points in polling stations where the chairperson was randomly assigned to the ruling party. Fraud forensics suggests that one of the mechanisms behind this was falsification of the results protocol during the count. I conjecture that fraud is only used in high-stakes elections and that election observers are unable to detect it.