Understanding the use of recall referendums: Evidence from Ecuador

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanina Welp ◽  
Ana Sofía Castellanos

The recall referendum – a referendum triggered by citizens seeking to remove elected officials by means of a binding vote – used to be a rare institution, but since the 1990s has spread in different areas of the world. The frequency of its activation has been explained by three sets of sometimes interconnected variables: growing citizen dissatisfaction, institutional design (i.e. ease of activation), and the activity of political parties using the mechanism against their opponents, specially in contexts of low party-system institutionalization. This article proposes an additional variable: the role of electoral management bodies (EMBs) in allowing or preventing recall attempts. The empirical analysis focuses on the Ecuadorian experience, where legal provisions governing recall were introduced in 1998, modified in 2008, and amended in 2011, with a dramatic variation in the frequency of recall activations after each change.

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-230
Author(s):  
Jef Smulders ◽  
Bart Maddens

Despite the pivotal role of payroll staff within political parties’ central offices, research on the staff expenses of parties remains scarce. In this article, we study the relative staff expenses of political parties, that is staff costs as a percentage of total annual expenses. We analyse which factors explain the differences between parties’ relative staff expenses, based on a dataset of 590 individual observations representing 52 parties from seven European countries. The multivariate model shows that relative staff expenses are higher among left-oriented parties and that they increase with party age, party membership figures and the number of years a party has been in government, while they decrease with party income. Relative staff expenses also decrease with the effective number of parties in the party system, and they are lower in election years.


2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 1106-1143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Gavazza

This paper investigates how trading frictions vary with the thickness of the asset market by examining patterns of asset allocations and prices in commercial aircraft markets. The empirical analysis indicates that assets with a thinner market are less liquid—i.e., more difficult to sell. Thus, firms hold on longer to them amid profitability shocks. Hence, when markets for assets are thin, firms' average productivity and capacity utilization are lower, and the dispersions of productivity and of capacity utilization are higher. In turn, prices of assets with a thin market are lower and have a higher dispersion. (JEL A12, L11, L93)


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolien van Ham ◽  
Holly Ann Garnett

Electoral integrity is a persistent concern in both established and transitional democracies. Independent Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs) have been championed as a key institutional reform measure to strengthen electoral integrity and are now the most common model of electoral management worldwide. Yet, empirical research has found conflicting evidence on the link between formal EMB independence and electoral integrity. We argue that conflicting findings might be driven by the lack of detailed data on EMB institutional design, with most studies using rudimentary classifications of ‘independent’, ‘governmental’ and ‘mixed’ EMBs, without addressing specific dimensions of EMB formal independence such as appointment procedures, budgetary control and formal competences. In this paper we analyse new detailed data on EMB institutional design in 72 countries around the world, develop a more detailed typology of dimensions of de jure EMB independence, and demonstrate how de jure EMB independence affects de facto EMB independence and electoral integrity.


Author(s):  
Renata Targetti Lenti

Since the beginning of the 90’s inequality, once again, become one of the central issues of the economic debate from different perspectives: theoretical, applied and of policy. Not only increased the attention toward the inequality within countries, but also toward the global one, that is the inequality between countries and between citizens of the world as they belong to a single community. The effects of globalization on inequality are still very controversial. According to some authors international integration has produced not only instability and recurring crises, but also a growing inequality within and between countries. For other authors, instead, inequality and poverty decreased with the globalization. This paper will analyze the issue of global inequality mainly from an empirical standpoint. First of all, however, it will be discussed some issues related to the definition of the phenomenon with reference to the theoretical as well to the normative aspects. The empirical analysis will be undertaken by distinguishing the weight of the inequality between countries from that within countries on global inequality. Changes of synthetic indexes will be calculated, but also the differences in income’s distribution in each country will be analyzed. This kind of analysis, innovative with respect to the traditional ones, will allow to observe how the differences in the income’s distribution of industrialized and of developing countries can justify phenomena of the global economy such as, for example, migratory flows.


2001 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 239-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Grimaldi ◽  
Alessandro Grandi

This paper examines the role of university business incubators (UBIs) in supporting the creation of new knowledge-based ventures. UBIs are described as effective mechanisms for overcoming weaknesses of the more traditional public incubating institutions. They offer firms a range of university-related benefits, such as access to laboratories and equipment, to scientific and technological knowledge and to networks of key contacts, and the reputation that accrues from affiliation with a university. The empirical analysis is based on the Turin Polytechnic Incubator (TPI) and on case studies of six academic spin-offs hosted at TPI. While TPI does not effectively resolve such problems as inadequate access to funding capital and the lack of management and financial skills in its tenant companies, the networking capacity of incubating programmes is seen as a key characteristic that may help new knowledge-based ventures to overcome such difficulties.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.I. Hejshkho ◽  
H.Z. Bagirokov ◽  
Z.B. Bguasheva ◽  
Z.K. Kahuzheva

The article is devoted to a comparative description of the phraseological picture of the world of two different languages-Russian and Adyghe. The empirical analysis has allowed to establish four basic ways in which the matching of phraseological units of Russian and Adyghe languages: full matching (equivalent), incomplete compliance (analogues), lack of correspondences in the Russian language, the lack of correspondences in the Circassian language. The analysis confirmed that in the phraseological picture of the world of the compared languages, equivalent phraseological units are found to a greater extent.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-356
Author(s):  
Dr. Subhash Talukdar.

Party system is the important factor in the working of representative form of Government.  India is a democratic state. In the democratic state, political parties are said to be the life – blood of democracies. Modern democracies are indirect in character. They can function with the help of political parties. In the absence of political parties democracy cannot deliver the goods. Well organized political parties constitute the best form of democracy. India has the largest democracy in the world. It introduced universal adult franchise as the basis of voting right in the country. Now the voting age has been lowered down to 18. Most of the Indian voters are not politically matured and they do not have the political education in the proper sense. Political parties in India are classified by the Election Commission of India. It was classified for the allocation of symbol. The Election Commission of India classified parties into three main heads: National parties, State parties and registered (unrecognized) parties.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Morgner

This paper addresses the role of time and meaning-making in the global mediascape. Particular attention will be paid to the role of past and future narratives, connections of messages with a global outreach and time as a topic of communication. The empirical analysis will use a comparative approach to explore these different dimensions by analysing three global media events, such as, the sinking of the Titanic, the assassination US President John F. Kennedy and the Fukushima Daiichi incident. The main findings of the paper will show that time is a constitutional part in the process of meaning-making in global communication.


Author(s):  
Thi Nham Le ◽  
Chia Nan Wang ◽  
Ying Fang Huang

<span lang="EN-US">Vietnam coffee industry has been well-known over the world for many decades. However, Vietnam products do not meet Taiwan customers’ expectation, it has lead to urgent challenges for the industry. Therefore, the paper proposed the integrated approach by using exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis and regression analysis. The results of this study were used to <a name="OLE_LINK175"></a><a name="OLE_LINK174"></a>formulate and recommend on how to improve the products of Vietnam coffee by using SPSS statistics for analysis. The major findings of this paper was found out that there are six important determinants of Taiwanese decision-making in buying coffee. In order to enhance customer satisfaction with the coffee products from Vietnam, the companies need right strategies to improve these six groups of factors. The paper contributes meaningful and helpful results to the development of Vietnam coffee industry.</span>


2018 ◽  
pp. 16-22
Author(s):  
Nataliya Khoma

The process of the formation of the party system of Cyprus was considered. The period from colonial to 1981 is covered. The factors that influenced the evolution of the parties of Cyprus, in particular the internal conflict, were underlined. Emphasizes the importance of the ethnic component of the population of Cyprus. The attention was paid to the role of the Orthodox Church in shaping the political system of Cyprus. The article analyzes the norms of the Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus (1960) concerning political parties, in which the focus was on the parliamentary aspect of party activity. The role of Archbishop Makarios III, the first president of Cyprus, for the further evolution of the party system in the 1960–70s was revealed. Presented chronology of the appearance of the main parties of Cyprus and their participation in elections and coalitions. The article emphasizes that after the accession of Cyprus to the EU in 2004, the party system of the state is experiencing the trend of the newest European tendencies on the national party palette: the level of people’s confidence in the parties is decreasing, the party identity is blurred, the voter turnout is gradually decreasing, new types of parties are emerging, Radicalization is notable and so on. The party system of Cyprus is special, even if only within the EU there is a pro-communist party (Progressive Party of the Labor People of Cyprus), represented in the European Parliament, among the leading political forces. It was emphasized that the political parties of Cyprus until 1974 were purely electoral mechanisms. The new stage of development began with the stabilization of the post-colonial political system of Cyprus. At this time, the church lost its past influence, and the majoritarian electoral system alienated itself. This led to a new stage in the development of the party system in the late 1970s. It is noted that the determining factor was the transition to a proportional electoral system and the introduction of mandatory participation of voters in the vote. It was emphasized that these legislative innovations became important factors in the development of the modern party system of Cyprus. Since that time, the Cypriot parties have become more independent and united in the coalition.


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