scholarly journals Democratic Institutions Beyond the Nation State: Measuring Institutional Dissimilarity in Federal Countries

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imke Harbers ◽  
Matthew C. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Institutional Characteristics ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
Call System ◽  
Institutional Variation

The persistence of subnational undemocratic regimes in new democracies has recently revived interest in intra-national patterns of democratization. This article offers new data and a methodological contribution to this literature, emphasizing the measurement of institutional variation across territorial units and levels of government. Developing new measures of the unevenness of democratic institutions within individual countries, and illustrating these measures with an original data set on electoral rules in Mexico at the federal level and across 32 subnational units, we provide tools to enhance the study of democracy, particularly at the subnational level and in federal or decentralized systems. More specifically, we develop measures of institutional characteristics across a country's spatial units and of federal-to-state institutional dissimilarity – what we call system-wide institutional incongruence.

Shaping Democratic Practice and the Causes of Electoral Fraud: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Germany

2009 ◽  
Vol 103 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL ZIBLATT
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Original Data ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Parliamentary Election ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Electoral Fraud ◽  
Proximate Cause ◽  
Imperial Germany ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Why is there so much alleged electoral fraud in new democracies? Most scholarship focuses on the proximate cause of electoral competition. This article proposes a different answer by constructing and analyzing an original data set drawn from the German parliament's own voluminous record of election disputes for every parliamentary election in the life of Imperial Germany (1871–1912) after its adoption of universal male suffrage in 1871. The article analyzes the election of over 5,000 parliamentary seats to identify where and why elections were disputed as a result of “election misconduct.” The empirical analysis demonstrates that electoral fraud's incidence is significantly related to a society's level of inequality in landholding, a major source of wealth, power, and prestige in this period. After weighing the importance of two different causal mechanisms, the article concludes that socioeconomic inequality, by making elections endogenous to preexisting social power, can be a major and underappreciated barrier to the long-term process of democratization evenafterthe “choice” of formally democratic rules.

Centralized or decentralized personalization? Measuring intra-party competition in open and flexible list PR systems

2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881985571
Author(s):  
Jérémy Dodeigne ◽  
Jean-Benoit Pilet
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Over Time

This article offers a comparative analysis of electoral intra-party competition in four countries – Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland and Luxembourg – based on an original data set of 79,621 candidates and 3150 party lists covering the last quarter century (1994–2017). We use two measures to describe the nature of intra-party competition over time, across countries and across party lists: a Gini coefficient and a measure of the effective number of candidates. First, in terms of change over time (personalization) – unlike hypothesized in the presidentialization thesis – there is no concentration of intra-party competition around a few leaders over time. Second, in terms of the dynamics of concentration of votes (personalized politics), the results invite to move beyond the clear-cut divide found in the literature between centralized and decentralized forms of personalized politics. Instead, personalized politics is best described by the concept of ‘elitization’, meaning the concentration of most votes on a medium-sized group of candidates (5–10 per lists). Finally, three sets of factors condition intra-party electoral competition: the electoral rules organizing preference votes, the level of elections (European, national and regional) and the presence on the party lists of incumbent politicians (party leaders, ministers and parliamentarians).

Electoral rules and minority representation in Romania

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oleh Protsyk ◽  
Lupsa Marius Matichescu
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Minority Representation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
Legislative Representation

This paper explores the effects that different institutional mechanisms for legislative representation have on ethnic diversity in the lower chamber of the Romanian parliament. It uses an original data set to examine representational outcomes generated by a combination of proportional representation and reserved seats provisions. The findings highlight the benefits that Romania’s choice of electoral rules generated for smaller minority communities and limitations that these rules impose on the nature and extent of legislative representation of large minority groups. The paper provides evidence for qualifying the scholarly support in favour of proportional representation. It also draws attention to potential trade-offs between communal representation and ethnic inclusiveness of main political parties that the use of special mechanisms for minority representation might encourage.

scholarly journals Determinants of legislative committee membership in proportional representation systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 524-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Riera ◽  
Francisco Cantú
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Representation Systems ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Committee Membership ◽  
Presidential Democracies ◽  
Committee Assignments

This article explores the determinants of the allocation of parliamentary posts to specific legislators. Using an original data set of biographical information and committee assignments for almost 10,000 legislators in five non-presidential democracies (i.e. Finland, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, and Spain), we provide evidence that distributive posts are more likely to be allocated to electorally vulnerable members of parliament, mainly under candidate-centered electoral rules. We also show that posts in high-policy committees are usually assigned to prominent legislators within the parties. Contrary to what one could expect based on the literature on candidates’ incentives to cultivate a personal vote, we find that the effect of district magnitude on the distribution of legislative posts does not depend on the type of list.

Rotational Characteristics of the Green Solar Corona: 1947-1991

1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 139-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rybák ◽  
V. Rušin ◽  
M. Rybanský
Keyword(s):  
Solar Corona ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Rotation Period ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Coronal Emission ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The World ◽  
Coronal Emission Line ◽  
Homogeneous Data

AbstractFe XIV 530.3 nm coronal emission line observations have been used for the estimation of the green solar corona rotation. A homogeneous data set, created from measurements of the world-wide coronagraphic network, has been examined with a help of correlation analysis to reveal the averaged synodic rotation period as a function of latitude and time over the epoch from 1947 to 1991.The values of the synodic rotation period obtained for this epoch for the whole range of latitudes and a latitude band ±30° are 27.52±0.12 days and 26.95±0.21 days, resp. A differential rotation of green solar corona, with local period maxima around ±60° and minimum of the rotation period at the equator, was confirmed. No clear cyclic variation of the rotation has been found for examinated epoch but some monotonic trends for some time intervals are presented.A detailed investigation of the original data and their correlation functions has shown that an existence of sufficiently reliable tracers is not evident for the whole set of examinated data. This should be taken into account in future more precise estimations of the green corona rotation period.

Electing the Senate

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy J. Schiller ◽  
Charles Stewart III
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Senate Elections ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Seventeenth Amendment ◽  
The People ◽  
Election Process

From 1789 to 1913, U.S. senators were not directly elected by the people—instead the Constitution mandated that they be chosen by state legislators. This radically changed in 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving the public a direct vote. This book investigates the electoral connections among constituents, state legislators, political parties, and U.S. senators during the age of indirect elections. The book finds that even though parties controlled the partisan affiliation of the winning candidate for Senate, they had much less control over the universe of candidates who competed for votes in Senate elections and the parties did not always succeed in resolving internal conflict among their rank and file. Party politics, money, and personal ambition dominated the election process, in a system originally designed to insulate the Senate from public pressure. The book uses an original data set of all the roll call votes cast by state legislators for U.S. senators from 1871 to 1913 and all state legislators who served during this time. Newspaper and biographical accounts uncover vivid stories of the political maneuvering, corruption, and partisanship—played out by elite political actors, from elected officials, to party machine bosses, to wealthy business owners—that dominated the indirect Senate elections process. The book raises important questions about the effectiveness of Constitutional reforms, such as the Seventeenth Amendment, that promised to produce a more responsive and accountable government.

Styles of Representation in Constituencies in the Homeland and Abroad: The Case of Italy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen ◽  
Stefano Camatarri
Keyword(s):  
Original Data ◽  
Role Orientation ◽  
International Mobility ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
At Home

Abstract The role orientation of political representatives and candidates is a longstanding concern in studies of democratic representation. The growing trend in countries to allow citizens abroad to candidate in homeland elections from afar provides an interesting opportunity for understanding how international mobility and context influences ideas of representation among these emigrant candidates. In public debates, emigrant candidates are often portrayed as delegates of the emigrant constituencies. However, drawing on the paradigmatic case of Italy and an original data set comprising emigrant candidates, we show that the perceptions of styles of representation abroad are more complex. Systemic differences between electoral districts at home and abroad are relevant for explaining why and how candidates develop a trustee or delegate orientation.

Do the Heterogeneous Determinants of Repayment Affect Differently across Borrowers of Diverse Credit Sources in Rural Assam? A Double Hurdle Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 245513332110316
Author(s):  
Tiken Das ◽  
Pradyut Guha ◽  
Diganta Das
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Probit Model ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Brahmaputra Valley ◽  
Double Hurdle ◽  
Instrumental Variable Probit ◽  
Instrumental Variable Probit Model

This study made an attempt to answer the question: Do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently? The study is based on data collected from 240 households from three districts in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam through a carefully designed primary survey. Besides, the study uses the double hurdle approach and the instrumental variable probit model to reduce possible selection bias. It observes better repayment performance among formal borrowers, followed by semiformal borrowers, while occupation wise it is prominent among organised employees. It has been found that in general, the household characteristics, loan characteristics and location-specific characteristics significantly affect repayment performance of borrowers. However, the nature of impact of the factors influencing repayment performance is remarkably different across credit sources. It ignores the role of traditional community-based organisations in rural Assam while analysing the determinants of repayment performance. The study also recommends for ensuring productive opportunities and efficient market linkages in rural areas of Assam. The study is based on an original data set that has specially been collected to examine question that—do the heterogeneous determinants of repayment affect the borrowers of diverse credit sources differently in the lower Brahmaputra valley of Assam—which has not been studied before.

scholarly journals Data Augmentation Using Generative Adversarial Network for Automatic Machine Fault Detection Based on Vibration Signals

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 2166
Author(s):  
Van Bui ◽  
Tung Lam Pham ◽  
Huy Nguyen ◽  
Yeong Min Jang
Keyword(s):  
Fault Detection ◽  
Data Augmentation ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Fault Classification ◽  
Training Process ◽  
Generative Adversarial Network ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Adversarial Network ◽  
Machine Fault

In the last decade, predictive maintenance has attracted a lot of attention in industrial factories because of its wide use of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence algorithms for data management. However, in the early phases where the abnormal and faulty machines rarely appeared in factories, there were limited sets of machine fault samples. With limited fault samples, it is difficult to perform a training process for fault classification due to the imbalance of input data. Therefore, data augmentation was required to increase the accuracy of the learning model. However, there were limited methods to generate and evaluate the data applied for data analysis. In this paper, we introduce a method of using the generative adversarial network as the fault signal augmentation method to enrich the dataset. The enhanced data set could increase the accuracy of the machine fault detection model in the training process. We also performed fault detection using a variety of preprocessing approaches and classified the models to evaluate the similarities between the generated data and authentic data. The generated fault data has high similarity with the original data and it significantly improves the accuracy of the model. The accuracy of fault machine detection reaches 99.41% with 20% original fault machine data set and 93.1% with 0% original fault machine data set (only use generate data only). Based on this, we concluded that the generated data could be used to mix with original data and improve the model performance.

scholarly journals Vielfalt and diversité: how local actors in France and Germany evaluate immigration and socio-cultural heterogeneity

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Schiller ◽  
Christine Lang ◽  
Karen Schönwälder ◽  
Michalis Moutselos
Keyword(s):  
Local Politics ◽  
Original Data ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Cultural Heterogeneity ◽  
Societal Actors ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Urban Level ◽  
And Migration

AbstractIn both Germany and France, perceptions of immigration, diversity and their societal consequences have undergone important transformations in the past two decades. However, existing research has only partially captured such processes. The “grand narratives” of national approaches, while still influential, no longer explain contemporary realities. Further, analyses of national politics and discourses may not sufficiently reflect the realities across localities and society more broadly. While emerging in different national contexts, little is known about how diversity is actually perceived by political stakeholders at the urban level. Given the key role of immigration and diversity in current conflicts over Europe’s future, it is imperative to assess present-day conceptualisations of migration-related diversity among important societal actors.This article investigates perceptions and evaluations of socio-cultural heterogeneity by important societal actors in large cities. We contribute to existing literature by capturing an unusually broad set of actors from state and civil society. We also present data drawn from an unusually large number of cities. How influential is the perception of current society as heterogeneous, and what forms of heterogeneity are salient? And is socio-cultural and migration-related heterogeneity evaluated as threatening or rather as beneficial? Based on an original data set, this study explores the shared and contested ideas, the cognitive roadmaps of state and non-state actors involved in local politics.We argue that, in both German and French cities, socio-cultural heterogeneity is nowadays widely recognized as marking cities and often positively connoted. At the same time, perceptions of the main features of diversity and of the benefits and challenges attached to it vary. We find commonalities between French and German local actors, but also clear differences. In concluding, we suggest how and why national contexts importantly shape evaluations of diversity.

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