Self-presentation strategies and the visual framing of political leaders on Instagram: evidence from the eventful 2019 Istanbul mayoral elections

This study aims to explore how political leaders used Instagram to execute self-presentation strategies in mayoral elections, including the dominant use of personalized tactics. The article reports findings of a visual framing analysis of 2,776 images featuring 2019 Istanbul mayoral election candidates Ekrem İmamoğlu (the Republican People’s Party, CHP) and Binali Yıldırım (the Justice and Development Party, AKP). The case is unusual because the initial election, which had resulted in İmamoğlu’s victory, was cancelled and a re-run was subsequently held. After many events, İmamoğlu succeeded again, becoming the first opposition politician to take control of Istanbul from the ruling AKP. In this study, we adapt Grabe and Bucy’s (2009) quantitative visual framing analysis to examine Instagram posts, from candidacy announcements until the election re-run. The results show that both candidates used the Ideal Candidate frame, with occasional increases in the frequency of the application of the Populist Campaigner frame. Self-frames in different time periods during this election are discussed, as well the frames that voters engaged with most frequently.

Race and Resources in Brazilian Mayoral Elections

Elected officials routinely do not reflect the racial diversity of the citizenry. In Latin America, these descriptive gaps are particularly pronounced. A growing number of studies investigate the causes of racial disparities in representation, however, extant research largely focuses on national assemblies. In this paper, I extend this well-trod line of research to an understudied context, local elections. Using a dataset that covers mayoral elections in Brazil, I demonstrate that multiple factors hinder Afro-Brazilians, who comprise a majority of the Brazilian population, from winning public office. I show that barriers to candidate entry, resource disparities between white and Afro-Brazilian candidates, and race-based preferences among voters contribute to racial inequality in political representation. These results indicate that members of marginalized racial groups often must overcome multiple barriers to achieve electoral success.

Local-Level Democratic Backsliding? The Consolidation of Aspiring Dominant-Party Regimes in Hungary and Poland

Aspiring dominant-party regimes often institute major institutional and political reforms at the national level to ensure they retain control. However, subnational politics is an important, under-studied, component of regime consolidation. This study uses mayoral races in Hungary and Poland from 2006 to 2018 to examine two factors that may inhibit dominant-party regime consolidation in local politics: the use of two-round, i.e. runoff, electoral systems and strategic coordination among opposition parties. While we find little evidence that strategic coordination can lead to widespread opposition success in single-round systems, we do find that increasing the number of candidates decreases the likelihood of the nationally dominant party winning in the first round while not affecting the second round. As such, two-round mayoral elections may be an important buffer to dominant-party regime consolidation and may provide a training ground for the future opposition.

Inference and influence of network structure using snapshot social behavior without network data

Population behavior, like voting and vaccination, depends on the structure of social networks. This structure can differ depending on behavior type and is typically hidden. However, we do often have behavioral data, albeit only snapshots taken at one time point. We present a method jointly inferring a model for both network structure and human behavior using only snapshot population-level behavioral data. This exploits the simplicity of a few parameter model, geometric sociodemographic network model, and a spin-based model of behavior. We illustrate, for the European Union referendum and two London mayoral elections, how the model offers both prediction and the interpretation of the homophilic inclinations of the population. Beyond extracting behavior-specific network structure from behavioral datasets, our approach yields a framework linking inequalities and social preferences to behavioral outcomes. We illustrate potential network-sensitive policies: How changes to income inequality, social temperature, and homophilic preferences might have reduced polarization in a recent election.