Does policy motivation drive party activism? A study of party activists in three Asian democracies

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406882090802
Author(s):  
Sejin Koo

Studies of party activism highlight that party activists are driven by various motivations and that these affect their level of activism. However, it remains unclear whether policy-motivated activists are more engaged in party activities than those motivated by other incentives and whether the motivation–activism link varies with party characteristics. This article investigates these questions by focusing on political actors linking parties and voters in the local community. I use a party activist survey data set collected during recent national election campaigns in three Asian young democracies: Taiwan, Korea, and Mongolia. The results demonstrated the prominence of policy motivation as an impetus for activists’ intraparty commitment. I also found that the positive effect of policy motivation is especially robust in small parties, while it is muted in large parties and that party membership increases the probability of intraparty commitment, challenging the widely held belief that formal membership is pointless in Asian parties.

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sejin Koo

AbstractParty activists are important for building party–voter links. This study focuses on the motivations of these activists and the hypothesis that economic factors are associated with more programmatic and policy-driven platforms. I examine a novel comparative survey data set of party activists collected in multiple districts in South Korea and Mongolia to determine whether national economic development, the local economy, or individual income shapes activist motivations. The results challenge the economic account and, instead, shed light on the importance of party characteristics, such as size, ideology, and whether a party has its roots in authoritarianism.


Author(s):  
Wendy J. Schiller ◽  
Charles Stewart III

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.


Author(s):  
Ngoc Anh Nguyen

The analysis of a data set of observation for Vietnamese banks in period from 2011 - 2015 shows how Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) is influenced by selected factors: asset of the bank SIZE, loans in total asset LOA, leverage LEV, net interest margin NIM, loans lost reserve LLR, Cash and Precious Metals in total asset LIQ. Results indicate based on data that NIM, LIQ have significant effect on CAR. On the other hand, SIZE and LEV do not appear to have significant effect on CAR. Variables NIM, LIQ have positive effect on CAR, while variables LLR and LOA are negatively related with CAR.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert van Pinxteren

Africa is a continent of considerable cultural diversity. This diversity does not necessarily run in parallel to the national boundaries that were created in Africa in the colonial period. However, decades of nation building in Africa must have made their mark. Is it possible nowadays to distinguish national cultures in Africa, or are the traditional ethnolinguistic distinctions more important? This article uses an approach developed in cross-cultural psychology to examine these questions. In 2012, Minkov and Hofstede published an article in this journal analyzing World Values Survey data from seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa at the level of subnational administrative regions. They argued that national culture is also a meaningful concept in this region. This study reexamines the matter. It uses an innovative approach, looking at ethnolinguistic groups instead of at administrative regions and using the much more extensive Afrobarometer survey data set. It finds that although the Minkov/Hofstede study still has merit, the picture is more nuanced in several important ways. There is not one pattern that adequately describes the situation in the whole of Africa.1


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuan Luu

Purpose The interaction between opening and closing behaviors of ambidextrous leadership produces “change” force throughout the organization in proactive response to market forces. This research aims to assess the role of ambidextrous leadership in fostering entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market responsiveness. The research also seeks an insight into how external supply chain integration moderates the positive effect of EO on market responsiveness. Design/methodology/approach Research data were collected from 327 meso-level managers and 517 subordinates from chemical manufacturing companies in the Vietnam business context. Findings Research findings shed light on the positive effect of ambidextrous leadership on EO, which in turn contributes to market responsiveness. The moderation role that external supply chain integration plays on the EO–market responsiveness linkage was also grounded on the data set. Originality/value Through the identification of the predictive roles of ambidextrous leadership and EO for market responsiveness, the current research indicates the convergence between leadership, EO and market responsiveness research streams.


2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads Meier Jæger

Aggregated data on regions within countries have been used to analyze the effect of religion and religiosity on aggregate support for redistribution. The data are from the International Social Survey Programme and a panel data set was constructed at the level of regions that were observed several times over the period 1985–2010. Empirical analyses show that a higher share of Catholics within a region has a positive effect on aggregate support for redistribution; a higher share of Protestants has a negative effect; religiosity (measured by church attendance) has no effect; and the effect of a religious denomination is non-linear and depends on whether or not it has a weak or a strong presence in a region. It was also found that Scandinavia is unusual in combining a high share of Protestants with high aggregate support for redistribution.


2000 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 257-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Kirk ◽  
George Williams ◽  
A. Caseldine ◽  
J. Crowther ◽  
I. Darke ◽  
...  

Excavations at the Glandy Cross monumental complex during 1991 and 1992 formed part of an integrated programme of evaluation, rescue, and research by Dyfed Archaeological Trust (DAT). Enclosures, pit circles, standing stones, and cairns were excavated and their environs systematically surveyed. Radiocarbon dates show the monumental complex to have been constructed between c. 2190–1530 cal BC. However, the earliest activity at the site may date to c. 4470–4230 cal BC. A defended enclosure was constructed on the peripheries of the complex c. 830–510 cal BC.The 1991–92 excavation results are presented along with a summary of survey, salvage, and research spanning the period 1981 to 1992. This new data set is tentatively interpreted in terms of historical process and the social practice of monumental construction. A brief commentary on heritage management at Glandy Cross is also presented.A note on authorship: one of the authors (George Williams) directed the Glandy Cross excavations during 1991–92 and prepared an initial draft of the project report. Following his retirement from DAT a project editor (Trevor Kirk) was commissioned by Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments to guide the project towards publication. This paper was largely penned by the project editor, though the excavation and survey data were produced by George Williams and his fieldwork team. The excavation and survey archives are held at the offices of DAT.


2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Manning ◽  
Ian Smith

This article explores the factors affecting post-rebel party electoral performance. We present new research tracking the participation of these groups in national legislative elections from 1990 to 2016. Our full data set covers 77 parties and 286 elections in 37 countries. It includes parties formed after conflicts of varying length and intensity, with different incompatibilities, in every region of the world, and in countries with disparate political histories. Our analysis suggests that post-rebel parties’ early electoral performance strongly affects future performance, and that competition – crowd-out by older rival parties – and pre-war organizational experience in politics have a significant positive effect, particularly for those parties that are consistently winning more than about 10 per cent of seats. But especially for parties that consistently win very low seat shares, organizational characteristics yield increasingly to environmental factors, most importantly the presence of rival parties and the barriers to representation presented by electoral rules.


Author(s):  
E.V. x E.V. Efanova

The article presents a structural and functional analysis of election campaigns in Russia. It is obvious that electoral campaigns of candidates are unfolding during the election period, which, through interaction with citizens, enlist their support and sympathy, which contributes to their achievement of the main goal - victory in the elections and, therefore, the seizure and retention of power. The election campaign, being a structural element of the electoral process, is a set of events carried out by various subjects of this process in order to win the election by attracting the votes of the electorate. In general, the electoral company, on the one hand, is a set of measures for organizing elections, regulated by law and carried out by election commissions, and, on the other, a set of actions of political actors involved in the electoral process. It was established that election campaigns have a typical structure, organizational features, political, administrative and socio-cultural characteristics at the federal and regional levels of the electoral process. Among the regional organizational and functional features of domestic election campaigns are: a high degree of intensity of the election process, the dependence of the success of regional election campaigns on the electoral activity of citizens, the orientation of candidates to the needs of the residents of the region, and a prompt response to criticism from the electoral community. The study of the features of the implementation of regional election campaigns is important for Russian reality, especially in the conditions of the ongoing formation and intensive development of the democratic political process in the Russian Federation at the present stage.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Nderitu Githaiga

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate whether revenue diversification affects the financial sustainability of microfinance institutions (MFIs).Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a worldwide panel data set of 443 MFIs in 108 countries for the period 2013–2018 and two-step system Generalized Method of Moments estimation model.FindingsThe study finds that revenue diversification has a significant and positive effect on the financial sustainability of MFIs.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study actually offer important managerial and policy lessons on MFIs’ financial sustainability. Microfinance managers and policymakers should consider revenue diversification as a strategy through which MFIs can attain financial sustainability instead of overreliance on donations and government subsidiesOriginality/valueUnlike previous studies that examined revenue diversification in the context of banking firms, this study contributes to literature by examining the impact of revenue diversification of the financial sustainability of MFIs.


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