scholarly journals PREELECTION MOBILIZATION AND ELECTORAL OUTCOME IN AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES*

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-310
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Kadivar
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Independent Effect ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Authoritarian Elections ◽  
Nondemocratic Regimes

Does preelection protest have an effect on the outcomes of authoritarian elections? Electoral authoritarian regimes use elections to consolidate their power and claim democratic legitimacy. Nonetheless, on some occasions authoritarian incumbents lose elections despite their advantages, and a democratic breakthrough is achieved. I propose that preelection protests contribute to such election results. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on the effectiveness of postelection upheavals, and the effects of preelection protest are still theoretically and empirically understudied. This article proposes a theory for why preelection contention has an independent effect on incumbent defeat of authoritarian regimes and democratization. I present empirical support for the association between preelection protest activities, incumbent defeat, and democratization using data from 190 elections across 65 countries with nondemocratic regimes. The findings of this analysis have important implications for studies of social movements, authoritarian politics, and democratization.

scholarly journals Preelection Mobilization and Electoral Outcome in Authoritarian Regimes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Kadivar
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Support ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Independent Effect ◽  
Final Version ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Authoritarian Elections

Final version of the paper is available here:http://mobilizationjournal.org/doi/abs/10.17813/1086-671X-22-3-293Does pre-election protest have an effect on the outcomes of authoritarian elections? Electoral authoritarian regimes use elections to consolidate their power and claim democratic legitimacy. Nonetheless, on some occasions authoritarian incumbents lose elections despite their advantages and a democratic breakthrough is achieved. I propose that pre-election protest contributes to such election results. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on the effectiveness of post-election upheavals, but the effects of pre-election protest are still theoretically and empirically understudied. This paper proposes a theory for why pre-election contention has an independent effect on incumbent defeat of authoritarian regimes and democratization. I present empirical support for the association between pre-election protest activities, incumbent defeat, and democratization using data from 190 elections across 65 countries with non-democratic regimes. The findings of this analysis have important implications for studies of social movements, authoritarian politics, and democratization.

How Collective-Action Failure Shapes Group Heterogeneity and Engagement in Conventional and Radical Action Over Time

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762097056
Author(s):  
Morgana Lizzio-Wilson ◽  
Emma F. Thomas ◽  
Winnifred R. Louis ◽  
Brittany Wilcockson ◽  
Catherine E. Amiot ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Latent Profile Analysis ◽  
Profile Analysis ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Group Efficacy ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Over Time

Extensive research has identified factors influencing collective-action participation. However, less is known about how collective-action outcomes (i.e., success and failure) shape engagement in social movements over time. Using data collected before and after the 2017 marriage-equality debate in Australia, we conducted a latent profile analysis that indicated that success unified supporters of change ( n = 420), whereas failure created subgroups among opponents ( n = 419), reflecting four divergent responses: disengagement (resigned acceptors), moderate disengagement and continued investment (moderates), and renewed commitment to the cause using similar strategies (stay-the-course opponents) or new strategies (innovators). Resigned acceptors were least inclined to act following failure, whereas innovators were generally more likely to engage in conventional action and justify using radical action relative to the other profiles. These divergent reactions were predicted by differing baseline levels of social identification, group efficacy, and anger. Collective-action outcomes dynamically shape participation in social movements; this is an important direction for future research.

Did They Mind the Gap? Voter/Party Ideological Proximity between the BQ, the NDP and Quebec Voters, 2006–2011

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Gauvin ◽  
Chris Chhim ◽  
Mike Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Party Manifestos ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
The Face ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThe 2011 Canadian federal election results changed the face of federal politics in Quebec. In a sudden and spectacular reversal of electoral fortunes, BQ support crumbled while that of the NDP surged. While most commentators focused exclusively on the 2011 election itself to explain what had happened, we offer an interpretation that takes a longitudinal approach. Using data from the Canadian Election Study and political party manifestos from 2006 to 2011, we propose a three-dimensional proximity model of voter/party congruence to explore the evolution of the ideological stances of Quebec voters and parties. Empirical results suggest these ideological distances between the NDP and Quebec voters decreased over time, whereas the BQ has distanced itself from voters. Furthermore, ideological distances between party and voters are a significant predictor of vote.

scholarly journals Civil Society and Pro-Democracy Social Movements: Troubled Relations Within Authoritarian Regimes?

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murad Nasibov
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Organic Solidarity ◽  
Mechanical Solidarity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Conceptual Relationship

This article tries to conceptually lay down the troubled relations between civil society and social movements within authoritarian regimes. This is done by, first, bringing clarity to the conceptual relationship between civil society and social movement and, then, applying it to the authoritarian context, still theoretically. Following the “hints” of the Eastern European intellectuals of the late 1970s and the 1980s and building on the appropriation of Durkheim’s differentiation between mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity, the article distinguishes two types of solidarity: associative solidarity and action and collective solidarity and action. Civil society is proposed to emerge on associative solidarities (and their actions), while social movements build on collective solidarities (and their actions). Furthermore, associative and collective actions are identified to be progressive and transgressive, respectively. Consequently, the proposed theoretical account is applied theoretically to the authoritarian context and several hypotheses are proposed on the relationship between civil society and pro-democracy movement within authoritarian regimes.

Bending with the Wind: Revisiting Islamist Parties’ Electoral Dilemma

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 588-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Kadir Yildirim ◽  
Caroline M. Lancaster
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Support ◽  
Economic Openness ◽  
Support Level ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The One ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
Positive Effect

AbstractIslamist parties' electoral performance is a hotly debated question. Two arguments dominate the literature in terms of Islamist parties' performance in democratic elections. The conventional argument has been the “one man, one vote, one time” hypothesis. More recently, Kurzman and Naqvi challenge this argument and show that Islamists tend to lose in free elections rather than win them. We argue that existing arguments fall short. Specifically, we theorize that moderateness of Islamist platform plays a key role in increasing the popularity of these parties and leads to higher levels of electoral support. Using data collected by Kurzman and Naqvi, we test our hypothesis, controlling for political platform and political economic factors in a quantitative analysis. We find that there is empirical support for our theory. Islamist parties' support level is positively associated with moderateness; however, this positive effect of moderation is also conditioned by economic openness.

Legitimacy and Representation beyond Elections (Part Two)

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-127
Author(s):  
Hélène Landemore
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Selection Mechanism ◽  
Minimal Form ◽  
Liquid Democracy ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Electoral Representation

This chapter determines whether non-elected bodies with intrinsic democratic credentials, such as mini-publics and self-selected representative groups like social movements, also have the legitimacy to make binding decisions for the rest of the polity. It returns to the question of political legitimacy and proposes that the democratic legitimacy of representatives comes not from individual consent, as eighteenth-century theory of legitimacy understood it, but a plurality of factors, including majoritarian authorization as a necessary but insufficient condition. Majoritarian authorization need not be of directly individual representatives but, instead, of the selection mechanism through which they are selected. The chapter then considers the circumstances under which self-selected representatives can acquire a minimal form of democratic legitimacy even in the absence of any explicit majoritarian authorization of the selection mechanism or of the individual persons thereby selected. It also looks at the problems posed by potential conflicts of legitimacy between different democratic representatives and assesses how these problems may be solved. Finally, the chapter returns to electoral representation and asks whether it could be sufficiently democratized through so-called liquid democracy schemes, which would create a system labelled as “liquid representation.”

Conquering and coercing: Nonviolent anti-regime protests and the pathways to democracy

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
pp. 650-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nam Kyu Kim ◽  
Alex M Kroeger
Keyword(s):  
Indirect Effects ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Direct And Indirect Effects ◽  
Democratic Transitions ◽  
Leadership Change ◽  
Autocratic Regimes ◽  
Leader Survival ◽  
Empirical Analyses

Recent research finds an association between nonviolent protests and democratic transitions. However, existing scholarship either does not specify the pathways through which nonviolent protests bring about democratization or conduct systematic empirical analyses demonstrating that the specified pathways are operative. This article proposes four pathways through which nonviolent anti-regime protests encourage democratic transitions, emphasizing their ability to directly conquer or indirectly coerce such transitions. Most simply, they can conquer democratic reforms by directly overthrowing authoritarian regimes and installing democracies. They can also coerce democratic reforms through three additional pathways. Nonviolent anti-regime protests can coerce incumbent elites into democratic reforms by threatening the survival of authoritarian regimes. They also increase the likelihood of elite splits, which promote negotiated democratic reforms. Finally, they encourage leadership change within the existing authoritarian regime. Following leadership change, nonviolent movements remain mobilized and are able to coerce democratic concessions from the regime’s new leaders. Our within-regime analyses provide robust empirical support for each pathway. We show that nonviolent anti-regime protests conquer democratic reforms by ousting autocratic regimes and replacing them with democracies. Nonviolent anti-regime protests also coerce elites into democratic reforms by threatening regime and leader survival. These findings highlight the importance of protest goals and tactics and also that nonviolent anti-regime protests have both direct and indirect effects on democratization.

Bringing The Outsiders In: Opponents' Claims and The Construction of Animal Rights Activists' Identity

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Einwohner
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Movement Dynamics ◽  
Sense Of Identity ◽  
Using Data

Most research on the role of identity in social movements treats identity as something that is constructed solely by movement participants themselves. However, participants are not the only actors involved in this identity construction. This article uses basic insights from symbolic interactionism to argue that external claims, or claims made about movement participants by those outside the movement, also shape activists' sense of identity. Using data collected during three years of fieldwork with members of a non-violent animal rights organization, I show how the activists made use of their opponents' depictions of them—in particular, charges that the activists were "overly emotional" and "irrational"—when describing themselves. Specifically, I illustrate two processes by which these external claims left their mark on the activists' identity: identity disconfirmation and identity recasting. More broadly, I suggest that "bringing the outsiders in" to examinations of identity and collective action provides a more complete picture not simply of identity construction but of movement dynamics as a whole.

Virtual vs physical platform: organizational capacity and slack, strategic decision and firm performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 1983-1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hang Lee ◽  
Yung-Chang Hsiao ◽  
Chung-Jen Chen ◽  
Ruey-Shan Guo
Keyword(s):  
Firm Performance ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Organizational Capacity ◽  
Strategic Choice ◽  
Retail Industry ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Virtual Platform ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Better Than

Purpose This study aims to examine the relationship between organizational capacity, slack resource, platform strategic choice and firm performance. It also tackles the endogenous issues regarding the strategic choice of platform types. Design/methodology/approach This study uses Heckman’s two-stage procedures to examine the relationship between the variables. The sample in this study comes from Compustat annual company and segment files. The sample used in the main analysis consists of 252 individual corporations globally and 3,528 firm-year observations from 2004–2017. Findings The empirical results suggest that: (1) firms are more likely to develop physical platforms than virtual platforms when they possess higher levels of available slack, potential slack, research and development (R&D) capacity and marketing capacity; (2) in general, firms developing physical platforms perform better than firms developing virtual platforms after the endogeneity bias are controlled; and (3) firms that choose to develop physical platforms perform better than if they had chosen to develop virtual platforms. Research limitations/implications This study contributes to the platform research literature by proposing the endogenous role of platform type choice in firm performance in the context of the retail industry. Prior conceptual and theoretical platform studies have seldom focused on the retail industry through a strategic choice perspective. Furthermore, one of the contributions of this study is the derivation of empirical support for the research’s prediction using data from actual firms carried out by global physical and virtual platform companies. This study also presents many opportunities for further explorations on the relationship between firm strategic choice and firm performance in the context of platform retail industry. Practical implications The findings of this study suggest that firms must realize that their performance is not necessarily affected by these platform type choice determinants in terms of potential slack, available slack, R&D capacity and marketing capacity. By contrast, they should pay more attention to developing physical platforms if it is possible. The study findings indicate that although virtual platforms have grown rapidly because of the development of technology, firm performance is at all times superior when firms choose to develop physical platforms. Originality/value Prior platform studies have focused on the topic of network structure, platform architecture, pricing strategy, platform leadership and platform design and governance within the context of video game industry, software industry, hardware industry and telecommunications industry. Seldom of them focus on other industries through a strategic choice perspective. Furthermore, one of the contributions of this study is the derivation of empirical support for the research’s prediction using data from actual firms carried out by global physical and virtual platform companies.

Corporatism, Totalitarianism, and Transitions to Democracy

1994 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
BAOHUI ZHANG
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Transitions To Democracy ◽  
Institutional Legacies

Recent studies of democratization generally emphasize the role of elites and political pacts in transitions to democracy. They usually give little attention to the institutional conditions for elite's successful pact making. This article argues that although choices by elites are important, pact making does require certain institutional conditions. By examining the democratization experiences of Spain, Brazil, the Soviet Union, and China in 1989, this article argues that only some types of authoritarian regimes have the historical possibility of following a pacted transition. Specifically, the author argues that corporatist regimes have unique advantages in following such a path. On the other hand, the totalitarian institutional legacies of once-entrenched communist regimes left democratic oppositions as broadly based social movements and their leaders with strong populist tendencies. These, the author argues, create structural obstacles to democratization through elite's pactmaking for these regimes.

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