The Democratic Cost of Consecutive Re-election and Presidential Term-Limit Evasion in Latin America

Despite theoretical arguments suggesting the strong effects of presidential term limits and re-election on democracy, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence to evaluate them. We test both the effect on democracy of the existence of a consecutive re-election rule and of reforms introducing it for incumbent presidents. Using evidence from Latin American countries between 1945 and 2018, we test their relationship to both vertical and horizontal accountability. A synthetic control method is employed to account for the effect of term-limit reforms, and time-series cross-section models for modelling the association with the re-election rule. Both vertical and horizontal accountability as well as the quality of democracy are eroded by term-limit evasion reforms in most countries and strengthened in none between 1990 and 2018. Allowing presidents to run for re-election – relative to term-limited ones – is consistently associated with weak democratic outcomes.

D DEMOCRACY, DEMOCRATISATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: AN OVERVIEW

ABSTRACT Democracy and development are key concepts in the developmental discourse, and they are considered crucial to a sustainable developmental strategy. This study thus appraised the nexus between democracy and development in Nigeria. The study utilized content analysis and descriptive method to actualize the objectives of the research. This study revealed that absence of democratic paraphernalia like free and fair election, rule of law, constitutionalism among others, have constituted series of misunderstandings in the tenets and principles of liberal democracy, especially in Nigeria. The study further ascertained that factors such as: poor state of economy, high level of unemployment, illiteracy, ignorance, ethnicity, tribalism, ethno-religious crises, and poverty have coalesced to constitute impediments to the smooth and effective operation of democracy in Nigeria, with serious implications for democratization and sustainable development. Among others, the study recommends political, structural and institutional reforms of the Nigerian state in a manner that promote and deepen democracy and national development.

Urgency of Socialization Regarding Regulation of Village Head Election in Prasung Village, Buduran District, Sidoarjo

The rule of law and democracy carries the consequence that the actions of the government in administering the government system must be in accordance with or limited to laws and regulations and include the community as well as in the village government system. Democracy is manifested in the implementation of village head elections. Election of Village Heads is different from general elections (in general) this is seen from several things. In addition there is the dynamics of legislation related to the election of village heads so the government and the community are bound and obey the laws and regulations. Therefore it is important if the village government and the village community understand the regulation, so socialization is needed so that the same understanding occurs. Likewise with the election of village heads inVillage Prasung, Buduran District, Sidoarjo Regency, East Java Province should be in accordance with the laws and regulations that have been enacted. However, there is a dispute related to the statutory provisions governing the election of village heads, namely the prohibition of candidates who are sentenced to imprisonment based on a court decision that has the legal force fixed for a minimum of 5 (five) years or more to nominate as a candidate for village head. However, there are exceptions when completed and announced in connection with the conviction. Therefore, there are several results of the analysis that then arise, among others, it is correct that the organizer of the election of the village head if the implementation of compliance with applicable regulations, there is less explicit meaning of the exclusion in the terms of the prohibition of the convicted or after serving a crime. Keywords: Socialization, Village Head Election, Rule of Law, Democracy, Village

Research Design and Quantitative Analysis

The chapter describes the dataset: the independent variables (presidential-election rule—runoff versus plurality—as well as years of runoff and years of plurality) and the dependent variables: levels of democracy, as measured in the Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) indices as well as voter turnout. The chapter discusses the countries in the dataset (all Latin American countries except Bolivia) and the years in the dataset (1990–2016, with the exception of a few countries in which the beginning of the third wave was subsequent to 1990). The chapter graphs trends in Freedom House scores, V-Dem scores, and voter turnout between 1990 and 2016. It reports the regression analysis; runoff was positively related to Freedom House and V-Dem scores at the .05 level. Years of plurality was significant to Freedom House scores at the .01 level and to V-Dem almost at the .01 level.

Efficient election campaign optimization using integer programming

Purpose: Political parties spend significant amounts of resources during their election campaigns, which are usually designed in a sub-optimal and informal way. This study aims to provide a mathematical framework for political parties to optimize their election campaigns, so that they can maximize their performance in the elections.Design/methodology/approach: In this work, we provide certain mathematical relations to determine the minimum necessary number of votes to gain additional seats in an election region under the D’hondt election rule. Also we develop a convenient mathematical model that optimizes the resource allocation scheme of a political party to maximize the potential seats won. We test our models on Turkish Parliamentary elections dataFindings: Our results show that with various basic assumptions, which are suitable for real life cases, one can obtain significant gains in the election outcomes even with small budgets. We also provide the relations among swing vote rates, unit vote costs and budget with the number seats won in a parliament.Originality/value: This study provides useful insights for both political party management teams as well as researchers. Political parties need to conduct more market research to collect and work on election data to increase their performances. From the research perspective, to the best of our knowledge, this is one of first studies that approaches to the election campaigns for the D’hondt system with mathematical optimization tools.