Revamping the menu – or just offering what’s in stock? Candidate list volatility in open-list PR systems. Evidence from Finland

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Vesa Koskimaa ◽  
Mikko Mattila ◽  
Achillefs Papageorgiou ◽  
Åsa von Schoultz
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Candidate List ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
Critical Case Study ◽  
Electoral Representation

Abstract Why do parties change candidate lists between elections? Although candidate list volatility is an important indicator of the responsiveness of electoral representation, it has received little attention in research. We offer a critical case study of party list volatility in Finland, using a candidate-centred open-list proportional (PR) electoral system with ideal conditions for ‘ultra-strategic’ party behaviour. Our explorative two-stage research design begins with party elite interviews, to extract factors that can affect list volatility, which in the following step are tested in a regression analysis of 564 party lists in parliamentary elections 1983–2019. Our results show that list formation is a complex phenomenon, where demand and supply factors interact in a contingent fashion. Following trends of voter dealignment, personalization and ‘electoral-professionalization’ of parties, volatility has increased over time. Electoral defeats and declining party membership increase volatility, but a member-driven mass-party heritage that limits party elites’ strategic capacity has a stabilizing effect.

scholarly journals Partisanship in the #MeToo Era

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mirya R. Holman ◽  
Nathan P. Kalmoe
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Partisan Change ◽  
Political Perceptions ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Critical Case Study

Partisanship structures mass politics by shaping the votes, policy views, and political perceptions of ordinary people. Even so, substantial shifts in partisanship can occur when elites signal clear differences on a political issue and attentive citizens update their views of party reputations. Mismatched partisans who strongly care about the issue respond by changing parties in a process of “issue evolution” when writ large. Others simply update their views to match their party in a “conflict extension” process. We build on these models by integrating the largely separate research strands of party issue ownership. Using sexual misconduct as a critical case study, we argue that partisan change can occur rapidly when party elites move strategically to take ownership of an issue, thereby clarifying differences between the parties. Using a quasi-experiment, a survey experiment, and data from dozens of national surveys, we find recent, rapid shifts in party reputations on #MeToo, views of the issue, party votes, and broader party support.

2018 Fiji Election Results: Patterns of Voting by Provinces, Rural-Urban Localities, and by Candidates

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruo Nakagawa
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
The Political ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Election Results

Akin to the previous, 2014 event, with no data on voter ethnicity, no exit polls, and few post-election analyses, the 2018 Fiji election results remain something of a mystery despite the fact that there had been a significant swing in voting in favour of Opposition political parties. There have been several studies about the election results, but most of them have been done without much quantitative analyses. This study examines voting patterns of Fiji’s 2018 election by provinces, and rural-urban localities, as well as by candidates, and also compares the 2018 and 2014 elections by spending a substantial time classifying officially released data by polling stations and individual candidates. Some of the data are then further aggregated according to the political parties to which those candidates belonged. The current electoral system in Fiji is a version of a proportional system, but its use is rare and this study will provide an interesting case study of the Open List Proportional System. At the end of the analyses, this study considers possible reasons for the swing in favour of the Opposition.

Electoral System Incentives for a Party-Serving Personal Vote

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
Marina Popescu ◽  
Mihail Chiru
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Campaign Strategy ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Almost All

Candidate-centric campaigns are most likely to occur when electoral system incentives to personalize do not conflict with party-based incentives. Then it makes sense for candidates to use any campaign mean to improve their chances to win a seat while also helping the party win more seats and increasing their standing within the organization. The Romanian electoral system uniquely combined mechanisms that enabled all three motivations for almost all candidates. Our analysis of the degree and determinants of personalization in the 2012 parliamentary elections illustrates that electoral system incentives were key factors driving campaign personalization as a party-congruent rather than adversarial campaign strategy.

Proportional Representation and its Impacts on Multi Ethnic Society of Sri Lanka

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seeni Mohamed Aliff
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Institutional Affiliation ◽  
Secondary Data Sources ◽  
The Impact

This paper will examine the impact of PR electoral systems in a divided society. This research will explore the strength and weakness of the current electoral system and institutional design of Sri Lanka and will recommend changes to decrease the risk of minority exclusion in decision making and ethnic violence. The objectives of this research are to examine the character of the merits and demerits of the PR, and to investigate and assess the impacts of the PR in the multi ethnic societies of Sri Lanka. The study is a qualitative case study, and primary and secondary data sources have been employed to gather relevant data. The My Fieldwork was conducted in Sri Lanka, with the intention of gaining a better and more thorough understanding of the current situation. The interviews conducted were as such not structured or semi-structured, due to the interviewees’ varying professional background and institutional affiliation. Accordingly, unstructured interviews, as well as informal conversations and meetings, were conducted throughout Sri Lanka.

Adaptation Trajectories of Dismissed Workers: A Critical Case Study of the Lithuanian Radio-Electronics Sector

2021 ◽  
pp. 095001702110412
Author(s):  
Žilvinas Martinaitis ◽  
Audronė Sadauskaitė ◽  
Mariachiara Barzotto
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Critical Case ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Sociology Of Work ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Skill Sets ◽  
Radio Electronics ◽  
Economic Shock ◽  
Critical Case Study

This article explores why some dismissed workers adapt successfully to the changing structure of an economy, while others remain trapped in low-quality jobs and experience deskilling. The associated case study relies on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 50 former employees of four bankrupt radio-electronics factories in Lithuania. It is found that workers with ‘inherited’ skills that are deep and technical are able to enter high-quality jobs when new firms emerge, recombining the physical, financial and human assets of destitute factories for new productive uses. However, if such economic opportunities are scarce, workers with inherited broad skill sets are relatively more successful in transitioning to services from manufacturing. Further, in line with the literature of the sociology of work, women and older workers are found to face more acute challenges in adapting to the economic shock associated with dismissal.

Polarization and Electoral Incentives: The End of the Chilean Consensus Democracy, 1990–2014

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Fábrega ◽  
Jorge González ◽  
Jaime Lindh
Keyword(s):  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Consensus Democracy ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Spatial Voting ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Political Center

AbstractConsensus democracy among the main Chilean political forces ended abruptly after the 2013 presidential and parliamentary elections, the most polarized elections since the return to democracy in 1990. Relying on spatial voting theory to uncover latent ideological dimensions from survey data between 1990 and 2014, this study finds patterns of gradual polarization starting at least ten years before the collapse of consensus, based on an increasing demobilization of the political center that misaligned politicians from their political platforms (particularly in the center-left parties). That phenomenon changed the political support for the two main political coalitions and the intracoalition bargaining power of their various factions. The pattern also helps to explain the process behind the 2015 reform of the electoral system.

scholarly journals Digital Civic Participation and Misinformation during the 2020 Taiwanese Presidential Election

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 144-157
Author(s):  
Ho-Chun Herbert Chang ◽  
Samar Haider ◽  
Emilio Ferrara
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The Political ◽  
Online Engagement ◽  
Fact Checking ◽  
Critical Case Study ◽  
Emergent Coordination

From fact-checking chatbots to community-maintained misinformation databases, Taiwan has emerged as a critical case-study for citizen participation in politics online. Due to Taiwan’s geopolitical history with China, the recent 2020 Taiwanese Presidential Election brought fierce levels of online engagement led by citizens from both sides of the strait. In this article, we study misinformation and digital participation on three platforms, namely Line, Twitter, and Taiwan’s Professional Technology Temple (PTT, Taiwan’s equivalent of Reddit). Each of these platforms presents a different facet of the elections. Results reveal that the greatest level of disagreement occurs in discussion about incumbent president Tsai. Chinese users demonstrate emergent coordination and selective discussion around topics like China, Hong Kong, and President Tsai, whereas topics like Covid-19 are avoided. We discover an imbalance of the political presence of Tsai on Twitter, which suggests partisan practices in disinformation regulation. The cases of Taiwan and China point toward a growing trend where regular citizens, enabled by new media, can both exacerbate and hinder the flow of misinformation. The study highlights an overlooked aspect of misinformation studies, beyond the veracity of information itself, that is the clash of ideologies, practices, and cultural history that matter to democratic ideals.

scholarly journals Quotations in Maximus the Greek’s “Dispute on the Avowed Monastic Life” Revisited

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxim Gavrilkov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Case ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Critical Case Study

The paper approaches Maximus the Greek’s polemical work both from the text-critical and functional perspectives. The text-critical case study reveals a new, refi ned and most complete attribution of biblical and patristic quotations and their thematic division. Restructuring quotations so that they form the “Salvation Ladder” demonstrates presence of the main imperative of Christian culture in the text.

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