Voided Ballots in the 2012 Parliamentary Election in Serbia

The “white ballots” campaign in the 2012 parliamentary election in Serbia‎was accompanied by a change in the portion of invalid ballots, but also in‎their correlation with socio-demographic variables. When the percentage of‎invalid votes in the three previous elections is analyzed using the generalized‎least squares (GLS) multiple regression analysis, the percentage of inhabitants‎with incomplete primary education represents the best predictor. The percentage‎of individuals with primary education is also statistically relevant, just in‎the opposite (negative) direction, and less predictive. When GLS is applied to‎invalid votes in the 2012 election, incomplete primary education is positively,‎and primary education is negatively correlated with the criterion. The percentage‎of illiterates, the share of people over 65 years of age and the degree‎of urbanization are significantly, but negatively related to the criterion. The‎consequences of the 2012 election outcome were considered in the light of the‎regression to competitive authoritarianism.‎

A Pit-bull in Lipstick: The Reciprocal Brand Rhetoric of Sarah Palin

This Major Research paper will focus on the Republican American politician Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a political figure who has played an interesting role in Republican politics over the last four years. As an unexpected candidate for John McCain’s 2008 Vice Presidential nomination, Palin garnered unprecedented media attention for a running mate. Sarah Palin is a media celebrity, a potential Republican candidate for the 2012 election, and an international household name. The purpose of this research is to explore Sarah Palin as a political actor and celebrity icon by analyzing her use of new media as a platform for her political rhetoric. Specifically, this study looks at the discourse used in Sarah Palin’s social media campaign, with a direct focus on the social media outlet of Facebook. Facebook is a non-traditional political media platform, which allows politicians contact with millions of users in a format that is social, personal and direct. Many politicians have been utilizing new media platforms in order to communicate their political messages to new and diverse audiences. This study analyzes how Sarah Palin is utilizing the medium of Facebook, and how the language she uses in communicating to her supporters affects their experience of current political events. This study aims to show the relationship between the rhetoric she chooses to employ, and the comment activity of her supporters on Facebook. Selections of Sarah Palin’s Facebook Note documents were chosen in order to narrow the scope of this research. The research questions that has directed this study is: Through the social media platform of Facebook, what function does Palin’s use of metaphor play in the reciprocal discourse of supporter comments? Do literary devices such as metaphor affect the nature of audience participation in political social media?

A Pit-bull in Lipstick: The Reciprocal Brand Rhetoric of Sarah Palin

This Major Research paper will focus on the Republican American politician Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a political figure who has played an interesting role in Republican politics over the last four years. As an unexpected candidate for John McCain’s 2008 Vice Presidential nomination, Palin garnered unprecedented media attention for a running mate. Sarah Palin is a media celebrity, a potential Republican candidate for the 2012 election, and an international household name. The purpose of this research is to explore Sarah Palin as a political actor and celebrity icon by analyzing her use of new media as a platform for her political rhetoric. Specifically, this study looks at the discourse used in Sarah Palin’s social media campaign, with a direct focus on the social media outlet of Facebook. Facebook is a non-traditional political media platform, which allows politicians contact with millions of users in a format that is social, personal and direct. Many politicians have been utilizing new media platforms in order to communicate their political messages to new and diverse audiences. This study analyzes how Sarah Palin is utilizing the medium of Facebook, and how the language she uses in communicating to her supporters affects their experience of current political events. This study aims to show the relationship between the rhetoric she chooses to employ, and the comment activity of her supporters on Facebook. Selections of Sarah Palin’s Facebook Note documents were chosen in order to narrow the scope of this research. The research questions that has directed this study is: Through the social media platform of Facebook, what function does Palin’s use of metaphor play in the reciprocal discourse of supporter comments? Do literary devices such as metaphor affect the nature of audience participation in political social media?

The Protracted Civil War in Libya: The Role of Outside Powers

The collapse of the Muammar Qaddafi regime was ostensibly the prelude to a democratic Libya. The 2012 election elicited much optimism. By 2014, the domestic situation had taken an unexpected turn for the worse, resulting in two governments, one in the east and one in the west, each supported by numerous militias. While the civil war has pitted Libyans against Libyans, foreign interventions on behalf of opposite side in the conflict have hindered the end of the civil war. Indisputably, foreign interference had begun well before the civil war; however, the military backing to the protagonists has become more pronounced since 2014. The foreign powers involved in the Libyan conflict aim to fulfill specific interests, some of which deriving from the rivalries between those countries. Unless those foreign powers have achieved their goals in Libya, an end to the civil war anytime soon remains unlikely, occasional ceasefires notwithstanding.

Party campaign strategies in Ghana: Rallies, canvassing and handouts

ABSTRACT Political parties use different methods—such as holding rallies, door-to-door canvassing, and distributing gifts—to mobilize voters during election campaigns across Africa. But how do parties choose which approach to use in each constituency? We propose that parties prefer to hold rallies in core constituencies, and to use targeted strategies—canvassing and handouts—in swing and opposition districts. However, opposition parties may not have sufficient resources to pursue such a strategy. Ruling parties have the dual advantage of being in a strong financial position, and having the ability to target core voters with state benefits between elections. Using post-election survey data from Ghana’s 2012 election, we show that the ruling party canvassed the most in districts where they were electorally weak and concentrated rallies in their home constituencies. In contrast, the opposition party focused all of its efforts in its home districts. The results highlight how incumbency status shapes parties’ campaign behaviour. They also suggest that ruling parties can combine core and swing voter targeting in different stages of the electoral cycle.

Shifting threats and rhetoric: how Republican governors framed Medicaid expansion

The 2012 Supreme Court decision in National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius gave states the option to adopt the Medicaid expansion as part of the Affordable Care Act. Many states, especially those under Republican control, have since grappled with their decision to implement the expansion. We conduct a comparative analysis of how Republican governors framed their stance on the Medicaid expansion. We analyze public statements on the Medicaid expansion published in two major in-state newspapers from all Republican governors from June 2012 through June 2018. In total we collected, coded and analyzed 3277 statements from 66 newspapers. Several key themes emerge from our analysis. While every Republican governor used oppositional framing as part of their rhetorical response to the Medicaid expansion, the policy had a destabilizing effect on the previously unified opposition to health reform. We find that Republican framing split after the results of the 2012 election and that overall Republican governors shifted towards more supportive framing prior to the 2016 presidential election. Republican governors transformed how they framed their stance towards Medicaid expansion after Donald Trump was elected in 2016, with both supportive and oppositional moral-based framing of expansion increasing. These findings inform how policymakers use rhetoric to support their stance on controversial policies in a hyper-partisan and polarized political environment.

Do Improving Conditions Harden Partisan Preferences? Lived Experiences, Imagined Communities, and Polarized Evaluations

Despite growing attention to an increasing partisan divide and populist voting, little attention has been directed at how social contexts might encourage greater or lesser political polarization. We address this gap by studying how county-level conditions—economic resilience, population change, and community health—intersect with individuals’ political orientations and communication patterns to shape partisan evaluations. Our context is Wisconsin around the 2012 election, with our focus on two prominent political figures: Governor Scott Walker and President Barack Obama. Multilevel modeling reveals that partisans living in counties with more affluent, less precarious conditions during 2009–2012 exhibited more polarized partisan attitudes toward Walker and Obama. Our analysis also finds a significant role for interpersonal communication and digital media in shaping polarized attitudes.

Persistent Bias Among Local Election Officials

Results of an audit study conducted during the 2016 election cycle demonstrate that bias toward Latinos observed during the 2012 election has persisted. In addition to replicating previous results, we show that Arab/Muslim Americans face an even greater barrier to communicating with local election officials, but we find no evidence of bias toward blacks. An innovation of our design allows us to measure whether e-mails were opened by recipients, which we argue provides a direct test of implicit discrimination. We find evidence of implicit bias toward Arab/Muslim senders only.

Do Fairer Elections Increase the Responsiveness of Politicians?

Leveraging novel experimental designs and 2,160 months of Constituency Development Fund (CDF) spending by legislators in Ghana, I examine whether and how fairer elections promote democratic responsiveness. The results show that incumbents elected from constituencies that were randomly assigned to intensive election-day monitoring during Ghana’s 2012 election spent 19 percentage points more of their CDFs during their terms in office compared with those elected from constituencies with fewer monitors. Legislators from all types of constituencies are equally present in parliament, suggesting that high levels of monitoring do not cause politicians to substitute constituency service for parliamentary work. Tests of causal mechanisms provide suggestive evidence that fairer elections motivate high performance through incumbents’ expectations of electoral sanction and not the selection of better candidates. The article provides causal evidence of the impact of election integrity on democratic accountability.

The Libyans Attitudes towards Democratic Transition

Libya has witnessed a democratic transition process since the early months of 17th February Revolution, 2011.However, aftereight years, there is still a gap in the literature about this topic. Thus, this study aims to fulfil a part of this gap by describing and analyzing the Libyan attitudes towards the democratic the transition process in Libya post Kaddafi era during the years, 2012-2014. Currently, the Libyans view themselves as participants in the democratic process that Libya is enjoying since August 2011, when the declaration of the liberating of Libyan was announced by the President ofthe Interim Transitional National Council “ITNC” in Benghazi. The findings of this study demonstrate that the Libyans are no longer view themselves as belonging to parochial or subjective political cultures; and therefore, the rate of registration on the 7thof July 2012 election reached 93%, whereas the ratio of the actual voting reached 65% of the total eligible voters. The negative attitudes towards Kaddafi’s regime have changed into positive patterns after the victory of 7thFebruary Revolution. These positive attitudes towards participation culture are spilled over towards the new political system as well as its internal and external policies. Nevertheless, negative attitudes towards issues that threat the national identity have been reported as the majority of the participants rejected federalism as a political system for the new Libya. The findings also indicate that issues related to Amazigh language, liberal democracy and forgiveness with Kaddafi’s supporters before the interim- justice takes place were also rejected by a large portion of the sample. Keywords: ITNC, NPC, the Interim Constitutional Declaration, system attitudes, process attitudes, policy attitudes.