A model of conflict and leadership: Is there a hawkish drift in politics?

We analyze conflict between a citizenry and an insurgent group over a fixed resource such as land. The citizenry has an elected leader who proposes a division such that, the lower the land ceded to the insurgents, the higher the cost of conflict. Leaders differ in ability and ideology such that the higher the leader’s ability, the lower the cost of conflict, and the more hawkish the leader, the higher his utility from retaining land. We show that the conflict arises from the political process with re-election motives causing leaders to choose to cede too little land to signal their ability. We also show that when the rents of office are high, the political equilibrium and the second best diverge; in particular, the policy under the political equilibrium is more hawkish compared to the second best. When both ideology and ability are unknown, we provide a plausible condition under which the probability of re-election increases in the leader’s hawkishness, thereby providing an explanation for why hawkish politicians may have a natural advantage under the electoral process.

Philosophical and Historical Perspective of the Development of Electoral Technologies

The main purpose of the article is to characterise the philosophical and historical perspective of the de- velopment of electoral technologies. The methodological basis of the research is conditioned by the pecu- liarities of the research subject, its interdisciplinary nature and expediency of a combination of sociologi- cal, historical-philosophical, political science and other approaches. Philosophical and historical analysis showed that electoral technologies should be understood as a kind of political communication used to ma- nipulate public opinion. In turn, this makes it possible for politicians to have a monopoly on the manage- ment of the electorate in order to obtain its support in the elections. Considering electoral technologies, we must consider their connection and combination with the totality of electoral technologies. That is, it should be noted that the actual electoral process involves the passage of two mega stages: 1) the preparato- ry (pre-election) stage, at which pre-election technologies are applied, and 2) the official election cam- paign itself (purely electoral stage), in the process of which the actual electoral technologies are used.

Парламентские выборы в контексте развития избирательного законодательства в Республике Узбекистан

This article is devoted to the analysis of the evolution and current state of electoral legislation in Uzbekistan. The author examines the process of the electoral legislation’s formation and development after Uzbekistan gained independence, gives a description of its features, as well as the dynamics of the electoral policy’s development in the country. Much attention is paid to the reasons, development process of and adoption of the Electoral Code, as well as innovations included in it after testing at the last parliamentary elections. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the political parties’ role in the electoral process in the context of the multi-party system formation.

High-quality journalism in the face of Donald Trump’s theory of electoral fraud: the information strategy of the media in the 2020 US presidential election

The institutional political crisis is posited to be a great risk facing twenty-first-century societies. The instability of democracy, the increase in misinformation in electoral processes, and distrust by citizens are facts that are confirmed by studies such as The Economist Intelligence Unit (2018) or Freedom in the World (2018). In the context of the most recent US elections (3-Nov-2020), President Donald Trump initiated a dialog focused on an allegation of electoral fraud that mobilized the masses and culminated in an assault on the Capitol. In parallel, Twitter endorses the role of journalism (@ABC, @AP, @CBSNews, @CNN, @FoxNews, @NBCNews, and @Reuters) as a gatekeeper to lies on the Internet. The aim of this study is to determined how the media treated the electoral process on their Twitter accounts, analyze the strategies they followed to combat Trump’s fallacy, and verify the extent to which they contributed or not to the spread of the conspiracy theory. Using a general sample of tweets (n1 = 3,577), we applied a comparative content analysis methodology with a three-pronged approach (quantitative-qualitative-discursive) based on the use of keyword indicators (n2 = 34,430). The results confirm that the media offered verified content on the electoral process, using different sources and avoiding reproduction of Donald Trump’s delegitimization speech. In general, they engaged in a fight against the theory of electoral fraud, against disinformation, and against the polarization of citizens, which are factors that have marked a scenario of doubt about the future of democracy.

Topical Development Issues the State Automated System of the Russian Federation “Elections”

The article examined the role of the State Automated System of the Russian Federation «Elections» in ensuring the active citizen participation in the election process. We analyzed the prerequisites for the reengineering of the State Automated System of the Russian Federation «Elections». The research determined the main approaches to the construction of models of the information system that ensure the electoral process. The authors analyzed the problems that arise when using the centralized database model. The study demonstrated the importance of providing election commissions located in hard-to-reach settlements with reliable communication channels. Solutions are proposed to reduce the negative consequences of the transition to a centralized database model by using local data caching on the web client side. The mechanism of local caching using the Service Worker API is considered. Various scenarios for using the Service Worker in the context of the electoral process, taking into account the category and importance of the data, were studied and demonstrated. The study analyzed the software employed by election commissions — the Sputnik browser for the possibility of using the proposed concept of local caching in it.

ELECTION PHENOMENON I THE PROBLEM OF IMPROVING THE ELECTRIC CULTURE OF THE POPULATION

The article is devoted to the socio-political, legal and terminological analysis of the concept of electronic culture, which is the main subject of the electoral process. Electoral culture was studied from the point of view of political science as an integral part of the political and legal culture of society. Electoral culture as a part of political culture was analyzed as a political phenomenon, which is reflected in determining the attitude of citizens towards the electoral process. The term “electoral culture” was studied as a stable sign of the attitude of the population, voters to elections and the practice of their conduct, as the dominant method of relations between voters and the authorities.

Election delay will not solve Libya's problems

Significance This is expected to be followed by the first parliamentary election since 2014, at some point in early 2022. It now looks increasingly likely that both elections will be delayed. The electoral process lacks the elements it would need to be truly transformative, but it is prompting shifts in the political elite which will dictate developments for at least the next year. Impacts Khalifa Haftar will keep pushing for his armed group to form the core of Libya’s future army Seif al-Islam Qadhafi’s candidacy in the elections is unlikely to result in him becoming president. Aguileh Saleh looks set to stay on as House of Representatives speaker with no clear date for parliamentary elections.

Election Processes in Turkistan (Organization, Conduct and Violations of Elections)

This article highlights the incompatibility of the electoral process in Turkestan with legal documents, in particular the conduct of elections, in which the will of the local population is taken into account.

Elections as an Institution of Trust: Features of Functioning in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The article is devoted to identifying the features of the functioning of elections as a democratic institution in a pandemic. Based on the constructivist approach and the method of comparative analysis, the author attempts to conceptualize elections as an institution of trust and to characterize the electoral practices used by European countries in the electoral process. Based on the research of D. Coleman, N. Luhmann, R. Putnam, P. Roseanvallon, P. Shtompka, I. Krastev, F. Fukuyama, D. Gambetto, the author, despite the ambiguity of the concept of “trust”, concludes that it is essential role in the relationship between government and society. Mistrust means the alienation of society from the social sphere, lack of faith in justice, a feeling of uncertainty and a threat emanating from government institutions. Trust creates a moral environment in society that promotes development and effective problem solving. In an atmosphere of trust, various voting options are possible, which are not disputed by citizens, and elections become the most important indicator of this trust. Pandemic restrictions have left a significant imprint on electoral practices; nevertheless, there is an obvious trend towards the active introduction of remote electronic voting, which has not yet reached perfection, but is a strategically priority in the ongoing election campaigns. At the same time, increased requirements are imposed on the safety of the electoral process, its normative regulation, openness and publicity.

The Brasilian Electoral Justice

Introduction: electoral justice can be called the basis of a modern system of democratic elections based on the principles of protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens and equal access for all to the electoral process on the terms of transparency, impartiality, and justice. Purpose: the purpose of the paper is to consider electoral justice in Brazil and analyze its significance for the political and electoral competition in the country during the elections. Methods: when working on the paper, the author studied a large volume of scientific and legal materials, some of which were little known to the Russian scientific community or introduced into the scientific circulation for the first time. The methodological framework for the research is a complex of general scientific and special legal methods, in particular, the system method, analysis, synthesis, and generalization and forecasting. The formal legal method was also used to analyze the normative legal acts, as well as a comparative approach when analyzing the foreign and Russian sources. The historical and legal method allowed us to consider the origin, formation, and development of electoral law in chronological order, taking into account the modern features of Brazil. Results: the peculiarities of the modern Brazilian electoral justice system are that such a system, created as a necessary element of democratic elections, eventually became the basis for the democratic consolidation of Brazil, influencing not only the making and application of independent decisions but also the rule-making in the electoral process. This is due, firstly, to the fact that the Brazilian electoral justice is independent neither of the regulatory body that carries out electoral justice, nor of the party interests, nor of the interests of the majority in the matters of protecting society exercising its electoral right. Secondly, the electoral justice system has quite broad powers in terms of implementing the rule-making process on the issues of law enforcement of the constitutional regulations on the electoral process. Conclusions: such rule-making contributes to the creation of conditions for the effective judicial protection and political competition, and the institution of electoral justice itself objectively shows its efficiency and is recommended for the implementation in the Russian Federation in the form of an autonomous system of electoral courts, including the federal electoral court, the electoral courts of the subjects of the federation, the municipal electoral courts and the corps of electoral judges of polling stations.