scholarly journals France: Electoral Necessity and Presidential Leadership Beyond Parties

2021 ◽  
pp. 206-246
Author(s):  
Isabelle Guinaudeau ◽  
Simon Persico
Keyword(s):  
Electoral System ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Policy Document ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Minor Parties ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Potential Partner ◽  
Coalition Bargaining

Coalition-making in France is under-studied, due to the peculiar way coalitions are formed, maintained, and terminated. Due to the majoritarian two-round electoral system, parliamentary elections often result in a one-party parliamentary majority, which barely leaves room for post-electoral coalition bargaining. Coalition agreements are negotiated prior to elections. They mostly consist of pre-electoral deals in which the coalition’s senior party grant a few seats to its potential partner, after both parties agree on a laconic policy document. Moreover, in a semi-presidential regime where the executive enjoys increasing powers, coalition members play a small role compared to the president (or the prime minister in times of cohabitation). Cabinet formation and portfolio allocation rest in the discretionary power of the chief of the executive and no real (in)formal coordination or negotiation takes place. Over the past few decades, France has undergone major institutional and political transformations that have reinforced those dynamics, effectively increasing the weight of the president in coalition bargaining and leaving minor parties quite powerless.

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.

Le parlement européen : Comparaison des résultats de juin 1979 et portrait de l'Assemblée élue

Res Publica ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-501
Author(s):  
Dusan Sidjanski
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
European Community ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
General Distribution ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Minor Parties ◽  
The Past ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Comparison Of The Results

The results of the first European elections reflect the general distribution of the European electorate slightly center-right oriented, even if the abstentionism of almost 40 % caused some distorsions as in the case of United Kingdom. After the comparison of the results, state by state, it appears globally that the socialists ( 113) and liberals (40) regressed, the gaullists and their allies (22) suffered a serious defeat, white the christian democrats ( 107) and the communists (44) progressed and some minor parties (leftists and regionalists) entered the European Parliament.The second part contains a portrait of the new European Parliament which is younger than its predecessor, has more women including its president and has many high personnalities. As in the past, the political groupsplay a central and dynamic role. The question is to know if they will be capable of maintaining their cohesion. The examined cases give no evidence of the existence of the center-right majority in front of the left opposition. In fact, there were changing coalitions and voting constellations according to different problems, ideological options or concrete choices. The recent vote rejecting the proposed budget expresses a will of the European Parliament to impose its style and its democratic control on the European Community.

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.

Deby’s control of Chad looks unlikely to be shaken

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Vice President ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Humanitarian Emergencies ◽  
Border Regions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Family ◽  
Military Posts

Significance The presidential election will take place on April 11 and parliamentary elections are scheduled for October. As the country prepares for the polls, security challenges and humanitarian emergencies are unfolding in various parts of the country, especially in remote and border regions. Impacts The designation of a vice-president could shift balances of power within the family network that dominates top political and military posts. Western powers and other African states are likely to accept even a highly flawed election, as they have in the past. Further protests may occur, but Deby appears less vulnerable in the short-term than Malian President Ibrahim Keita proved in 2020.

Pandemic year in Spain. Political outcome

2021 ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Alexandra Kurakina-Damir
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Image Point ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The One ◽  
Regional Elections

Despite well-founded doubts about the viability of the coalition (which had insufficient support of the deputies for the adoption of important laws), a well-built strategy of political communication during the pandemic allowed the cabinet of ministers not only to withstand, but also to strengthen its positions. Over the past year, a number of strategically important decisions, both from a political and image point of view, have been adopted. The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the legislative process. The solution to the Catalan problem faded into the background. In part, this was due to the need for early parliamentary elections in the region and the alleged regrouping of political forces. The revealed facts of possible financial abuse of the honorary king hurt the image of the Crown, but the measures taken today to restore prestige are bearing fruit. Among the electoral trends noted, it is worth highlighting the strengthening of positions of socialists and rightwing populists (especially following the results of early regional elections in Catalonia), as well as a decline in support for left-wing populism. Ciudadanos' position remains unstable: on the one hand, it managed to slightly regain its position in early 2020, but further growth in support stalled, and poor results in the Catalan elections once again raised the question of whether the party has a future. Conservatives, by contrast, have established themselves as the leader of the bloc. Having lost a share of supporters at the beginning of the study period, they tried with all their might to restore the balance, periodically changing the strategy of actions.

Mobilising the vote

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek S. Hutcheson
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
General Sense ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Civic Duty ◽  
The Past ◽  
Sense Of Efficacy ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Do So ◽  
Electoral Data

This chapter focuses on mobilisation and turnout in Russia’s parliamentary elections. Through the use of electoral data, and focus group and survey results, it examines how voters balance cost, benefit, civic duty, and systemic disenchantment in a calculus of whether to vote. The first part of the chapter looks at the efforts of the authorities to mobilise voters using ‘administrative resources’, while the remainder of the chapter looks at how voters respond to these. Examination is made of the bases of turnout; patterns of and explanations for abstention; and the profiles of non-voters compared with those who cast a ballot. Many of those who do so vote out of a general sense of civic duty, rather than because they feel any sense of efficacy; and cynicism about the process has steadily been growing throughout the past few years.

Notes from the Field: Return to the Ruin that is Gaza

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Jennifer Loewenstein
Keyword(s):  
Personal Account ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
The Past ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
The Impact

This personal account of the author's November 2006 visit to Gaza, which coincided with Israel's launch of its ““Operation Autumn Clouds,”” examines the impact on the Strip of economic and military siege, which intensified following Hamas's victory in the January 2006 parliamentary elections. The author also addresses post-election changes in Gaza, both politically (especially the rise of open conflict between factions) and socially. She concludes by examining Gaza's grim and uncertain future in the wake of the intense devastation——economic, political, and social——wreaked over the past several years.

The Electoral System, the Party System and Accountability in Parliamentary Government

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 744-760 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER KAM ◽  
ANTHONY M. BERTELLI ◽  
ALEXANDER HELD
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Party System ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Government

Electoral accountability requires that voters have the ability to constrain the incumbent government’s policy-making power. We express the necessary conditions for this claim as an accountability identity in which the electoral system and the party system interact to shape the accountability of parliamentary governments. Data from 400 parliamentary elections between 1948 and 2012 show that electoral accountability is contingent on the party system’s bipolarity, for example, with parties arrayed in two distinct blocs. Proportional electoral systems achieve accountability as well as majoritarian ones when bipolarity is strong but not when it is weak. This is because bipolarity decreases the number of connected coalitions that incumbent parties can join to preserve their policy-making power. Our results underscore the limitations that party systems place on electoral reform and the benefits that bipolarity offers for clarifying voters’ choices and intensifying electoral competition.

The corruption of popular sovereignty

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Issacharoff
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Institutional Constraints ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Legislative Branch ◽  
Institutional Actors

Abstract Populism marks a departure from the central forms of democratic governance over the past two centuries. As opposed to the primacy of the legislative branch and of institutional actors, most notably political parties, populism tends toward the unilateral authority of a charismatic leader, ruling on the basis of an electoral mandate. This article starts from an understanding of populism as being grounded in political mobilization in disregard of the institutions of governance. Even more centrally, populist leaders try to dismantle institutional constraints to allow for greater individual discretionary power. This article looks to legal vulnerabilities that might allow the institutional framework of democracy to withstand the new populist assault. The central insight is that corruption might prove the means of checking governance by the new breed of caudillos, the strongman rule that stands in opposition to separation of powers limitations on the executive. Two forms of corruption are examined. The first is the attempt to subordinate the electoral system itself. The second is the use of state discretionary authority to push the boundaries of clientelism and ultimately outright corruption. Whereas questions of electoral integrity are more commonly checked by formal constitutional boundaries, the question of ordinary corruption surfaces with regularity under populism. The article offers reasons why this might be the product of a descent from clientelism to cronyism to outright capture of public resources for private gain. In turn, the article offers arguments for how corruption invites review by broader layers of judicial and prosecutorial authorities than constitutional law.

scholarly journals Citizens and Citizenship

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-48
Author(s):  
Dana Rem ◽  
Des Gasper
Keyword(s):  
Problem Formulation ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Policy Document ◽  
World Picture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Language Choices ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Governmentality Studies

The past generation has seen a switch to restrictive policies and language in the governance of migrants living in the Netherlands. Beginning in 2010, a new government with right-wing populist backing went further, declaring the centrality of proposed characteristic historic Dutch values. In this article, we investigate a key policy document to characterize and understand this policy change. Discourse analysis as an exploration of language choices, including use of ideas from rhetoric, helps us apply and test ideas from governmentality studies of migration and from discourse studies as social theorizing. We trace the chosen problem formulation; the delineation, naming, and predication of population categories; the understanding of citizenship, community, and integration; and the overall rhetoric, including chosen metaphors and nuancing of emphases, that links the elements into a meaning-rich world picture. A “neoliberal communitarian” conception of citizenship has emerged that could unfortunately subject many immigrants to marginalization and exclusion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document