On the causes of electoral volatility in Asia since 1948

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110468
Author(s):  
Don S Lee ◽  
Fernando Casal Bertoa

Electoral stability has been viewed as an essential condition for the healthy functioning of representative democracy. However, there is little agreement in the literature about what shapes the stability of the electorate in general nor much attention paid to that of the Asian electorates in particular. We propose historical legacies, uniquely testable in Asia, as central determinants, but also test for conventional factors examined in other regions. By analyzing more than 150 elections in 19 post-WWII Asian democracies, we find that certain types of authoritarian (military or personalist) and colonial (non-British) legacies have a detrimental impact on the stabilization of the electorate, while some of the findings from other regions apply also to Asia. Our additional finding that such effects of historical legacies, particularly authoritarian interludes, are attenuated and cease to be significant with sufficient maturation of democracy, has important implications for the way party systems develop and democracies consolidate.

Author(s):  
Sunghack Lim

Since the late 1980s, South Korea has established democratic rules and institutions to protect the political freedom and civil rights of its citizens. In this process, political parties played a pivotal role in building democratic institutions and became a necessary actor for democratic governance. The characteristics of South Korean political parties and party system such as non-ideological regional factionalism, personality-based party organization, growing electoral volatility due to party changes, and a cartelized two-party system have contributed to weak party system institutionalization (PSI). Despite weak PSI, South Korea successfully underwent three peaceful power transfers, thus exceeding Huntington’s two turnover test of democratic consolidation. The stability of interparty competition has been maintained despite moderate electoral volatility. While regionalism is still the most important factor in voter decisions, the ideological linkage between parties and voters has been tightening. The South Korean parties and party system have a long way to go before achieving the levels of PSI seen in the West, but they have followed in these countries’ footstep to some extent. More sophisticated measures and concepts should be developed to analyse political parties and party systems in new democracies.


2018 ◽  

This book examines the role of the papacy and the crusade in the religious life of the late twelfth through late thirteenth centuries and beyond. Throughout the book, the contributors ask several important questions. Was Innocent III more theologian than lawyer-pope and how did his personal experience of earlier crusade campaigns inform his own vigorous promotion of the crusades? How did the outlook and policy of Honorius III differ from that of Innocent III in crucial areas including the promotion of multiple crusades (including the Fifth Crusade and the crusade of William of Montferrat) and how were both pope’s mindsets manifested in writings associated with them? What kind of men did Honorius III and Innocent III select to promote their plans for reform and crusade? How did the laity make their own mark on the crusade through participation in the peace movements which were so crucial to the stability in Europe essential for enabling crusaders to fulfill their vows abroad and through joining in the liturgical processions and prayers deemed essential for divine favor at home and abroad? Further essays explore the commemoration of crusade campaigns through the deliberate construction of physical and literary paths of remembrance. Yet while the enemy was often constructed in a deliberately polarizing fashion, did confessional differences really determine the way in which Latin crusaders and their descendants interacted with the Muslim world or did a more pragmatic position of ‘rough tolerance’ shape mundane activities including trade agreements and treaties?


Author(s):  
Rajesh Heynickx

In this article it is demonstrated that an analysis of how building metaphorswere used in the Flemish Catholic discourse of the interwar years can offermore insight into the way a community of believers tries to establish a culturalcohesiveness. The main argument is that in a period of deep transformations,building metaphors could become "instruments" for Catholics whowanted to defend and promote a traditional dimension of their religion.Building metaphors allowed Catholics to stress the stability of their own ideology(the fundaments) and to formulate their own cultural project (buildingplan). By analysing such strategic use of building metaphors in artistic andphilosophical discourses, it can become possible to shed more light on the roleneo-thomism, a main philosophical current in interwar Flanders, played inartistic debates and more specific in discussions on the modernisation of religiousart.


Author(s):  
Eva Sørensen

Representative democracy is in transition in theory as well as in practice, and this transition affects the way we think about political leadership and democratic representation. New theories of democracy challenge traditional understandings of what it entails to represent the people, and a mushrooming of new forms of political participation destabilizes traditional views of the role of citizens in democratic decision-making. Chapter 4 shows how these theoretical and empirical developments, which are partially triggered by inherent tensions in democratic thought, promote a turn towards interactive forms of political leadership. Interactive political leadership can potentially alleviate the tensions in democratic thought and strengthen the input legitimacy of representative democracy in times of declining trust in politicians. A turn to interactive political leadership is no panacea. It triggers new dilemmas and challenges for elected politicians.


1916 ◽  
Vol 20 (77) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
G. H. Bryan

In the stability investigations which the late Captain Ferber published in the Revue d'Artillerie, the sustaining and other surfaces of an aeroplane were in certain cases taken to be represented, for dynamical purposes, by a system of three plane resisting laminæ fixed mutually at right angles. Unfortunately, however, such a system cannot in general be made equivalent to a collection of surfaces, such as those of an aeroplane, with the result that Captain Ferber's investigation failed to give the correct conditions of lateral stability. At the same time, Ferber's system of three orthogonal planes is so convenient, especially for forming a general idea of the effects of wind gusts on an aeroplane, that it is desirable to investigate conditions and limitations under which such a representation is valid. The desirability of a further investigation of the forces and couples acting on a system of resisting surfaces of a general character was foreshadowed in “Stability in Aviation,” and a more detailed discussion of the problem has now become necessary in order to prepare the way for further studies in the rigid dynamics of the motions of aeroplanes or of systems resembling them.


1978 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-208
Author(s):  
Christian Deschamps

The village celebrations take place within the context of villages which are not administrative units, but which are autonomous social units in which the actual power is held by the generation of older men. The offering ceremony is the central part of the celebration ; it occurs in a place called tang, which can be a tree, a rock or a small building. It is adressed to one or several spirits which have a rather imprecise physionomy, but whose main feature is their being the protec tive spirit of the village. Those who officiate at the offering ceremony are chose from among the village men ; the essential condition for this position is to be « pure » from any contact with a death or a birth. After the offering ceremony, which consists of offering the protective spirit of the village rice wine and food, and pre senting him prayers for the village, the inhabitants gather for a communion meal, after which they hold a meeting in which they discuss village affairs. The village celebration is an important moment of the manifestation of a village community's identity. It gives the latter the possibility to renew the link with its origins and to assert itself in a regard to the other villages. Moreover it plays an important role as a catalyst of social cohesiveness of the village. But the importance of this celebration in village life varies from village to village, and by observing the way in which the inhabitants participate in the celebration you can measure rather accurately the degree of cohesiveness which exists among the village inhabitants.


2015 ◽  
Vol 779 ◽  
pp. 87-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Beilharz ◽  
A. Guyon ◽  
E. Q. Li ◽  
M.-J. Thoraval ◽  
S. T. Thoroddsen

Drops impacting at low velocities onto a pool surface can stretch out thin hemispherical sheets of air between the drop and the pool. These air sheets can remain intact until they reach submicron thicknesses, at which point they rupture to form a myriad of microbubbles. By impacting a higher-viscosity drop onto a lower-viscosity pool, we have explored new geometries of such air films. In this way we are able to maintain stable air layers which can wrap around the entire drop to form repeatable antibubbles, i.e. spherical air layers bounded by inner and outer liquid masses. Furthermore, for the most viscous drops they enter the pool trailing a viscous thread reaching all the way to the pinch-off nozzle. The air sheet can also wrap around this thread and remain stable over an extended period of time to form a cylindrical air sheet. We study the parameter regime where these structures appear and their subsequent breakup. The stability of these thin cylindrical air sheets is inconsistent with inviscid stability theory, suggesting stabilization by lubrication forces within the submicron air layer. We use interferometry to measure the air-layer thickness versus depth along the cylindrical air sheet and around the drop. The air film is thickest above the equator of the drop, but thinner below the drop and up along the air cylinder. Based on microbubble volumes, the thickness of the cylindrical air layer becomes less than 100 nm before it ruptures.


2018 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 07013 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Kolevatov ◽  
S. Mironov ◽  
V. Rubakov ◽  
N. Sukhov ◽  
V. Volkova

We discuss the stability of the classical bouncing solutions in the general Horndeski theory and beyond Horndeski theory. We restate the no-go theorem, showing that in the general Horndeski theory there are no spatially flat non-singular cosmological solutions which are stable during entire evolution. We show the way to evade the no-go in beyond Horndeski theory and give two specific examples of bouncing solutions, whose asymptotic past and future or both are described by General Relativity (GR) with a conventional massless scalar field. Both solutions are free of any pathologies at all times.


2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 1375-1380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell A. Worthy ◽  
Marissa A. Gorlick ◽  
Jennifer L. Pacheco ◽  
David M. Schnyer ◽  
W. Todd Maddox

In two experiments, younger and older adults performed decision-making tasks in which reward values available were either independent of or dependent on the previous sequence of choices made. The choice-independent task involved learning and exploiting the options that gave the highest rewards on each trial. In this task, the stability of the expected reward for each option was not influenced by the previous choices participants made. The choice-dependent task involved learning how each choice influenced future rewards for two options and making the best decisions based on that knowledge. Younger adults performed better when rewards were independent of choice, whereas older adults performed better when rewards were dependent on choice. These findings suggest a fundamental difference in the way in which younger adults and older adults approach decision-making situations. We discuss the results in the context of prominent decision-making theories and offer possible explanations based on neurobiological and behavioral changes associated with aging.


2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (77) ◽  
pp. 39-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hrvoje Butković

Abstract In 2010 the Croatian Constitution was changed to lower the requirements for the implementation of direct democracy at the national level, in order to save the referendum on Croatia’s EU membership from possible failure. Since then, Croatia has witnessed a sharp increase in people’s initiatives that have managed to block a number of the government’s reform proposals. Therefore, the newly discovered appeal of direct democracy in Croatia has created a new environment for the operation of its representative democracy. Starting from theoretical notions, this paper analyses the practice of direct democracy in selected transitional countries, which could be instructive for Croatia. In its central part, the paper explores the obstacles that stand in the way of the efficient implementation of direct democracy in Croatia.


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