Main body

Recently, misinformation has increasingly impacted public discourse and public safety. From the COVID-19 pandemic to national elections, society is increasingly examining the negative impact of misinformation. Exposure to misinformation has been linked to conflicting perceptions of social, economic, and political issues, which leads to polarization, radicalization, and even acts of violence. While research has examined the development and spreading of misinformation, little has been done to examine the processes of being exposed to, and influenced by, misinformation. This paper uses Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory to examine the effect of individual differences in personality traits related to the behavioral inhibition system on the behavioral and cognitive response to exposure to misinformation online. Trait BIS was related to how much individuals positively engaged with misinformation, as well as intentions for activism and radicalism. These findings suggest that high uncertainty/anxiety may increase engagement with and influence by misinformation.

Post-Islamism in Indonesia: Analysis of Islamic Political Party Programs in the 2019 National Elections

Although most Indonesia's population is Muslim, the Islamic parties' votes do not show a significant general election. This tendency encourages Islamic parties to develop post-Islamism to win the sympathy of majority Muslim voters in Indonesia. Ahead of the 2019 election, identity politics or sectarian politics had strengthened in the 2017 DKI Jakarta Regional Head Election, and even identity politics had long ago emerged with the proliferation of Sharia regulations in several regions, as well as the issuance of the MUI Fatwa regarding the illegitimacy of secularism, liberalism, and pluralism. This study aims to see whether Islamic parties maintain Post Islamism in political programs in the 2019 election. The research uses a library research method by collecting data from books, journals, national print, and online media. The study results explain that Islamic parties remain consistent in using the Post Islamism approach in the 2019 election, even though their vote acquisition is stagnant as a middle board party. Received: 4 September 2021 / Accepted: 15 November 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

On Secure E-Voting over Blockchain

This article discusses secure methods to conduct e-voting over a blockchain in three different settings: decentralized voting, centralized remote voting, and centralized polling station voting. These settings cover almost all voting scenarios that occur in practice. A proof-of-concept implementation for decentralized voting over Ethereum’s blockchain is presented. This work demonstrates the suitable use of a blockchain not just as a public bulletin board but, more importantly, as a trustworthy computing platform that enforces the correct execution of the voting protocol in a publicly verifiable manner. We also discuss scaling up a blockchain-based voting application for national elections. We show that for national-scale elections the major verifiability problems can be addressed without having to depend on any blockchain. However, a blockchain remains a viable option to realize a public bulletin board, which has the advantage of being a “preventive” measure to stop retrospective changes on previously published records as opposed to a “detective” measure like the use of mirror websites. CCS Concepts: • Security and privacy ;

Cancer Burden in Nigeria; Possibility of a New Hope in a New Political Dispensation

Nigeria looks forward to the emergence of another political dispensation. National elections are soon to take place with resultant political changes in ministerial leadership positions across the nation at federal, state, and local government levels’ including the ministry of health; however, in this article, the concern was with the general health care in Nigeria and with a focus on the prevailing situation of Cancer health care in Nigeria. Statistics showed that there is a rising global cancer epidemic in Nigeria. The level of Cancer incidence and mortality counts in Nigeria as of 2012 and still counting’ was severely high amongst women– 64709 (63%) and 40647(57%) compared to men 37370(36.6%) and 30924(43%), respectively. The emergence of a new political dispensation in 2023 ushers in a possibility and awakening of new hope in general health care. Therefore, this article highlighted the observed challenges and proffered solutions for the purpose of informed decisions. Based on staff and patient perspective interviews and discussion, the following major aspects, including a critical review of health governing boards, administration, technology, specialty expansion via partnership, quality assurance, health funding, were identified, addressed and solutions proffered.

The Populist Communication Strategy in Comparative Perspective

Populism has captured the world's attention, especially during election campaigns where the starkness of populist messages comes into sharper focus. While most research focuses either on the content that actors communicate or their delivery of that content, I situate my research among the few studies that do both. I refer to this combination as a communication strategy. I evaluate two research questions: how is the populist communication strategy used and how do the communication strategies of populist and non-populist actors differ? To assess these questions, I collect original data during five national elections that occurred between 2018 and 2019: Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Spain ( N = 1,577). I measure different elements of communication strategies, including both content and style, in the Tweets of national-level candidates. I find stark differences in communication styles in both what actors talk about and how they convey their messages. This finding suggests that how actors convey their ideas is critical to advancing our understanding of actors’ overall communication strategies.

Urgensi Pemisahan Penyelenggaraan Pemilihan Umum Serentak Nasional dan Lokal

This paper aims to evaluate the simultaneous elections and view the legal politics of separating the implementation of the simultaneous national and local elections for strengthening democracy in Indonesia. This study uses a normative juridical research method with a statutory and conceptual approaches. The results of the study show that the implementation of simultaneous elections in 2019 provided problems for organizers and voters. One of the suggestions for reforming the elections is to separate local and national elections. The the legal politics objectives of separating the elections consist of two, namely the level of organizers and voters as well as aspects of the election process and the quality of election results. This separation is expected to remove voter pragmatism, and focus more on the vision and mission of the candidates. Political parties will also carry out their functions optimally, be focused, and be able to carry out political education as they should.

After defeat: how governing parties respond to electoral loss

How do governing parties respond in terms of ideological positioning when voted out of office? We study both theoretically and empirically the factors that shape parties’ responses following a loss. Studying national elections in advanced industrialized democracies over the past 70 years, we show that parties tend to counter their pre-election shifts, and do so particularly strongly following defeat. The extent of these ideological shifts is more limited in parties with a larger selectorate voting on the party leadership. Moreover, we find that subsequent to loss, parties are less likely to run on a centrist platform. Notably, shifting away from the center is associated with a higher probability of returning to power. We then introduce a dynamic model of party leadership selection and platform positioning. The model produces patterns of ideological positions over time that are consistent with our empirical findings.

EEA IN THE BREXIT’ SHADOW

The article analyzes the Brexit’s impact on the functioning of the European Economic Area (EEA). Brexit renewed interest to EEA format, as one of the options for future relations between the United Kingdom and the EU. But so close cooperation under the control of the Union did not meet the interests of Britain, which chose the greatest distance from EU rules and regulations. For nonEU EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein) Brexit entailed a visible political and economic shake-up. First, the fact of the country’s exit from the EU and the tough position of the British government contributed to the growth of Eurosceptic rhetoric in the non-EU EEA countries. Secondly, in connection with the withdrawal of the UK from all structures of the European Union, these countries had a need to sign new trade and fisheries agreements. These processes were of the greatest impact for Norway, as the most significant player in the EEA, a non-EU member. Analyzing these processes, the author comes to the conclusion that Brexit did not have a significant impact on the functioning of the EEA, but increased interest in various external formats of integration. In addition, the domestic political discourse has become more acute regarding the possible revision of the format of relations with the EU, especially in Norway, which is largely due to national elections,