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The Curfews period of December 2015 to February 2016 in south-eastern Turkey was a time of collective violence in multiple forms, among which the Cizre Basement Massacres are the most known. The period of the general elections in June 2015, until the later and most recent attempt to carry out a military coup in July 2016, covers multiple curfews and military operations in the south-eastern regions of Turkey, and some social media material shared from the region caught international attention and provoked artistic as well as political responses. Zehra Doğan, a Kurdish journalist and artist, modified and re-shared some footage that was first posted in social media accounts of the special forces in Nusaybin and as a result was sentenced to three years in prison. She continued to produce artworks in prison, even though it was 'prohibited' for her to draw. She started to use her own body fluids, hair, newspaper, toilet paper, and any other available daily material in the prison to produce works of art. She also produced a series of work with her menstrual blood. For this article, I conducted two thematic one-to-one discussions with Zehra Doğan and studied her series of works produced with menstrual blood within the scope of mimesis and embodiment theories. Further sections of the article discuss: the function of these series of works for her acting out and working through processes of the collective political violence of which she became both a witness and a victim; methods of artistic transmission of political violence both for the artist and for the audience; and the possible ritualistic functions of using blood while producing work of arts in relation to collective political killings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Donald Trump's political campaign, Americans have appeared increasingly divided over public opinion issues and U.S. policies with the media seemingly reflecting these divisions. One of Trump's early initiatives was the "Muslim ban," which restricted visitors from seven Muslim‐majority countries. Focusing on the portrayal of Muslims in over 900 hand‐coded articles, our study uses multilevel modeling techniques to examine how newspapers changed their frames and claimsmakers in discussions about Muslims before and after Trump was elected. After the election, newspapers were more likely to include government claimsmakers and an immigration frame and were less likely to mention a radical terrorist leader or portray Muslims as violent. Trump's election and the ban may have ushered in a more sympathetic view of Muslims with more articles focused on them as victims of violence and negative expressions. Across counties, states, and newspapers and between the national versus local presses, we find almost no significant differences in how Muslims were portrayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provincial Liberal government, then led by McCullagh's good friend Premier Mitchell Hepburn, quickly moved to oppose the action and the I Globe and Mail i soon became a gramophone strongly supporting Hepburn's attack on the UAW. The McCullagh-King relationship Bourrie describes was not positive, with the wily King thinking McCullagh hopelessly naïve and the restless McCullagh convinced that King was too cautious and yesterday's man. [Extracted from the article]

The 15th Malaysian General Election (GE-15) took place on 19 November 2022 successfully. This time the general election was held a year earlier than the 5-year maturity period on 16 July 2023, which is the date of the swearing-in of members of Parliament for the 14th term. The GE-15 results show that there is a pattern of voter support based on a specific geographic location. Therefore, the purpose of writing this article is to analyze voter support patterns based on regional factors. Based on data analysis of the GE 2022 results, observations in the field and analysis of secondary sources such as journal articles and conference papers, the findings of the study show that PH continues to dominate the West Coast region of Peninsular Malaysia as well as in Sabah and Sarawak in urban and semi-urban areas with ethnic mix and Chinese majority, PN controls the East and North Coast regions as well as a small part in the West and South of Peninsular Malaysia in the rural areas of the Malay majority, namely in the East Coast Peninsular zone, namely Kelantan, Terengganu and East Pahang and Central Pahang; North of the peninsula, which is Perlis and Kedah and Penang Seberang Prai North and Central, North Perak, Central Perak; the western part of Peninsular namely North Selangor and West Selangor as well as West Melaka and South Melaka while BN remains in power in the rural areas of central Peninsular Malaysia but with a shrinking number of seats. Therefore, regional influence also affects the voting pattern and needs to be taken into account by the relevant parties to implement campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores politics and political participation from the voices and perspectives of migrant slum dwellers in Agbogbloshie, the most populous migrant slum in Accra. Using in-depth interviews, the paper found that residents' conception of politics is couched in a pejorative sense as they view politics as a "dirty and deceitful game." While most migrants see politics as contested elections in which political elites struggle for power, they participate in politics mainly by voting in periodic elections. The main driver of migrants' political participation is the need to vote for political parties and governments that protect them against forced eviction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What drives partisan competition over the pursuit of legislative majorities in contemporary congressional elections? While conventional wisdom suggests that the chances of a legislative majority is largely predicated on the public's ideological policy preferences or national standing of the president, there is little work assessing the dynamics of partisan competition over the course of the electoral cycle. Leveraging over 60 years of new generic congressional ballot data measuring the monthly preference of the mass public's partisan presence for the congressional majority, this paper finds that partisan competition for the majority largely centers on the national policy mood and the public perception of presidential performance rather than partisan conflict. This paper validates the importance of these findings relating to partisan competition for the legislative majority by showing that this electoral competition plays a significant role in predicting the national normal popular vote and partisan seat turnover from 1960 to 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper attempts to look at the factors leading to the victory of the Aam Aadmi Party which have not been taken up by the traditional political analysis. Making an ethnography of the Punjab assembly elections 2022 in the Malwa belt of Punjab, it chronicles the social and cultural impact of the farmer’s movement, particularly its far-reaching impact on changing the mood of the electorate. The paper also focuses on the novel digital election campaign which resulted in new election outcomes from the past trends and a massive victory for the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elections are devices, through which the abstract concept of representation gains its specified institutional form, therefore they are highly relevant for populists. The paper examines the illiberal-populist project of redesigning the legal framework of elections in Hungary after 2010, focusing on the role of the Hungarian Constitutional Court (HCC) in reviewing electoral law as well as interacting with the ordinary courts through electoral adjudication. It is argued that although a distinct 'populist imagination' (Müller) of elections is discernible, there is no special populist electoral politics, rather the 'inherent authoritarianism of democracy' (Pildes) is exacerbated. In Hungary the electoral legislation was shrewdly tailored to the governmental parties' needs, and electoral politics is constantly subjected to instrumental changes. It is argued that although apex courts could be key players in checking electoral manipulation, the HCC did not protect effectively the integrity of electoral law, and at a later stage it even intervened in an arbitrary and arguably politically biased manner. The paper argues that the Hungarian example underscores the need for enhanced court activism in terms of electoral law, especially when populists already came to power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public opinion polls have become vital and increasingly visible parts of election campaigns. Previous research has frequently demonstrated that polls can influence both citizens' voting intentions and political parties' campaign strategies. However, they are also fraught with uncertainty. Margins of error can reflect (parts of) this uncertainty. This paper investigates how citizens' voting intentions change due to whether polling estimates are presented with or without margins of error. Using a vignette experiment (N=3224), we examine this question based on a real‐world example in which different election polls were shown to nationally representative respondents ahead of the 2021 federal election in Germany. We manipulated the display of the margins of error, the interpretation of polls and the closeness of the electoral race. The results indicate that margins of error can influence citizens' voting intentions. This effect is dependent on the actual closeness of the race and additional interpretative guidance provided to voters. More concretely, the results consistently show that margins of error increase citizens' inclination to vote for one of the two largest contesting parties if the polling gap between these parties is small, and an interpretation underlines this closeness. The findings of this study are important for three reasons. First, they help to determine whether margins of error can assist citizens in making more informed (strategic) vote decisions. They shed light on whether depicting opinion‐poll uncertainty affects the key features of representative democracy, such as democratic accountability. Second, the results stress the responsibility of the media. The way polls are interpreted and contextualized influences the effect of margins of error on voting behaviour. Third, the findings of this paper underscore the significance of including methodological details when communicating scientific research findings to the broader public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relating electoral laws to electoral integrity has long been a focus of academic research. Using the strategic-relational approach, as outlined in this special issue, it is possible to better understand how electoral laws shape the voter experience and electoral outcomes. This paper contributes to this understanding by looking at Voter Identification (ID) laws. With no consolidated dataset of voter ID laws existing outside the U.S.A. it is difficult to answer research questions put forward in this special issue, especially the second. This paper begins to address this shortfall by presenting the Comparative Voter ID Law (CVIL) index. Which has collected data on 246 individual electoral jurisdictions. Data presented show how voter ID laws are distributed globally, regionally, by regime type and level of democracy. The second part of the analysis goes on to describe voter ID laws by whether a jurisdiction has compulsory ID laws, how many different types of ID are accepted and the minimum number of ID documents that must be shown. Thirdly, other variables within the dataset are described. The CVIL will provide opportunities to understand how Voter ID laws are part of institutional design, are used by actors, shape the voter experience and electoral out-comes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marked by the killing of a senior ICT professional working for the Electoral Commission and the invalidation of the presidential election by the Supreme Court, the 2017 Kenyan elections make for a good case through which to study how digital technologies shape contemporary electoral practice. This article examines the practice of electoral transparency through technology and argues that it can be conceived as a socio-technical device based both on distancing people from knowledge of the electoral infrastructure and on staging a simplified discourse on public access to the electoral infrastructure. Drawing on interviews with key actors in election technology implementation and ethnographic observations of public events around it, the article argues that digital technology has had three sets of implications for elections. First, it has shaped the electoral infrastructure and the nature of the final result (now a paper and digital hybrid). Second, it has shaped the distribution of knowledge among electoral professionals, giving a central role to ICT actors, objects, and knowledge in the definition of electoral transparency. Third, the centrality of ICTs in elections and the order of knowledge they bring are highly controversial and criticized by other electoral actors who demand for material proof for understanding the inner workings of elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Candidate debates are increasingly organized during elections in democracies and electoral autocracies. How do debates impact partisan divisions and preferences in these contexts? One theoretical perspective suggests that debates should amplify these preferences and divisions, while another implies debates should attenuate them. This paper evaluates these expectations by studying presidential debates organized during Malawi's May 2019 elections. With an experiment and national panel survey, the paper provides evidence consistent with attenuation: debate watchers were substantially more likely to vote across partisan lines (cross-party voting), became more favorable toward out-partisan candidates, and became less favorable toward co-partisans. Suggestive evidence on causal mechanisms shows that these effects were driven by policy persuasion and debates' impact on perceptions of the candidates' policies and qualities. Results advance debates about information processing, campaign effects, and voting behavior in new democracies and electoral autocracies, and have implications for electoral institutions' impact on partisan divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a special issue focusing on the intricacies of Turkey's party system and the evolution of Turkish party competition amid democratic challenges. The introduction provides a brief overview of each paper in this special issue, which delves into the relationship between economic factors and voter behavior, offering insights into the continued dominance of the ruling party. While doing so, the special issue specifically examines the 2023 Turkish General elections, presenting alternative perspectives on how the incumbent party maintains its electoral success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: In 2019, promoted by President Martín Vizcarra, the Congress of the Republic of Peru sanctioned a law on mandatory primary elections for voters and political parties. However, the regulation was not implemented, given that it was suspended by the Legislative Branch for the general elections in 2021 and the regional elections in 2022. Methodology: This paper studies the reform process of mandatory, simultaneous, and open primaries (PASO, for its acronym in Spanish) in Peru and its counter-reform based on its suspension on two occasions (2021 and 2022). Twenty-three key actors were interviewed for this research, including congresspersons, ministers, electoral officials, and researchers, in addition to the revision of secondary sources and newspapers of legislative sessions. Conclusions: The paper concludes that PASO were a "decorative" reform, i.e., a law passed without the intention of implementing it. Its sanction was the product of a reformist coalition between civil society and the President of the nation, where the objectives of increasing popular support for President Vizcarra and the need to improve the legitimacy of the political system converged. The reform was resisted by congresspersons who formed two counter-reformist coalitions that suspended the PASO on two occasions. Originality: The research shows that these counterreform coalitions are intrinsically linked to the atomization and personalization of the Peruvian party system, characterized by hyper-personalism and a lack of party structures. In addition, it generates theoretical contributions to studying the processes of reforms and counter-reforms in the context of institutional weakness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is known about the topic? Little is known about the state of mental health reform in Australia. This article describes the struggle to develop the systems of accountability necessary to assess national progress. What does this paper add? We provide some historical context regarding mental health reform and consider recent efforts in particular, before then describing current key opportunities. What are the implications for practitioners? Many people working in mental health are struggling to deliver quality services to Australians. This paper considers the broad policy issues which have led to this situation. This is useful for practitioners who can then better respond and participate in processes of systemic reform. Opportunities to engage now in key policy formulation are identified in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second I electoral continuity path i , transitions are initiated by stable ruling parties confident of their ability to thrive under democracy. Were these stable ruling parties created by a violent shock and an unsuccessful push toward democracy? For instance, protests, civil society forces, and sanctions can expedite the process of democratization but are more likely to do so after a violent shock or in the presence of a stable ruling party.[2] A structural factor such as economic development reduces the chances of shocks but enhances the probability of democratization if a shock occurs. [Extracted from the article]

• We study cooperation in a social dilemma experiment: the governance game. • Our between subjects' factorial design compares three institutions (Random replacement of rules, Referendum, and Voting) to a Baseline condition in which the ruler is never replaced. • Contribution levels are not significantly different across conditions, but voters retain a larger proportion of the surplus generated by the game in democratic regimes (Voting and Referendum). • Voters tolerate the electoral uncertainty associated with Referendum as rulers strategically learned to use transfers to stay in power. In this paper we study electoral systems in an experimental governance game in which citizens contribute to a public good and policymakers decide how to distribute it. In the Voting condition, citizens receive information about the policymaker performance (how much she shared of the public good with individual participants), her skills and her altruism, and vote directly for a policymaker for the next election cycle. In the Referendum condition voters receive information about the policymaker's performance before deciding whether to remove her from office in a simpler binary choice (in or out). If they decide to remove the incumbent, a new policymaker is chosen randomly from the remaining group members, in the spirit of referendums like Brexit or the plebiscite about the peace agreements in Colombia. We compare these two electoral mechanisms with two baselines in which the policymaker is never replaced (Baseline) and another one (Random) in which the policymaker is always randomly replaced by another participant. Our results show that both electoral mechanisms are largely effective in improving citizens' earnings by generating more equitable sharing rules. Citizens in Voting and Referendum extract greater surplus from policymakers than in the other conditions and voting against a candidate (Referendum) is more effective in increasing surplus than voting for a candidate (Voting). Contributions to the public good and conditional cooperation patterns remain strikingly similar in democratic (Referendum and Voting) and non-democratic (Baseline and Random) conditions. Empirical expectations about contributions of other citizens are similar as well. However, we show that policymakers distribute the public good differently in democratic institutions, and more effectively in Referendum than in Voting , as policymakers use clientelist transfers to avoid being replaced. Overall, both democratic institutions are effective in improving citizens' payoffs by indirectly limiting policymakers' surplus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On August 2nd, 2022, Kansas held a vote to lift state constitutional protections for abortion access. The vote gained national attention, as it was the first statewide plebiscite on the subject since the U.S. Supreme Court had issued its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which had overturned the remaining U.S. Constitutional blocks on restricting abortion that had been in place since Roe v. Wade. The turnout for the election was unprecedented for a primary in the state, and to the surprise of many, the amendment failed by a large margin in deep red Kansas. In this paper, we use both precinct-level election results and individual-level voter registration and history data to explore who was mobilized to vote in the August 2022 primary and their behavior in the November 2022 general election. We find that the primary mobilized an electorate that had more women and young people, fewer Republicans, and more first-time voters than a normal primary, but that these demographics were also more likely to then abstain in the general election. Thus, the engagement of young people, especially young women, on the abortion issue remains, but preliminary findings suggest the future of this groups' electoral participation separate from abortion activism is unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many U.S. states require election workers to check signatures on ballots returned by mail, causing tens of thousands of ballots to be rejected at each general election. This paper applies Bayes' theorem, along with findings from prior research, to show how rejection rates are likely to vary under plausible assumptions about signature checker accuracy and the prevalence of invalid signatures. This approach yields a pair of predictions. On the one hand, given findings from research on handwriting forensics, the Bayesian analysis implies election workers are more likely to wrongly reject valid ballots for purported signature mismatch than to correctly reject invalidly signed returns. On the other hand, research on election workers as problem-solvers suggests they may try to minimize the wrongful rejection of ballots. I find empirical support for each prediction, including signs that election workers learn from past errors to calibrate signature rejection rates downwards. This suggests election worker discretion may be an unexpected source of resilience against laws otherwise liable to disenfranchise eligible voters, although I also discuss conditions under which such discretion may conflict with democratic norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do democratization processes affect voter turnout in new democracies? Existing work points to an expected boost in electoral turnout after democratization as newly democratic citizens are euphoric to exert newly democratic freedoms or because they developed new political attitudes and behaviours by mobilizing for democracy. While intuitive and normatively appealing, these explanations have not been theoretically nor empirically scrutinized within the literature. This paper develops and tests novel theoretical expectations on the processes and legacies of democratization that impact voter turnout in new democracies. Using electoral turnout data from 1086 national elections between 1946 and 2015, and turnout survey data of over 1 million respondents between 1982 and 2015, we find that the boost in voter turnout (1) exists only for the first election after transition, (2) its effect depends on the life cycle during which individuals experienced the transition and (3) it is less dependent on transition type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of online campaigning have consistently demonstrated a positive impact on electoral success, but it remains unclear how this occurs. Some find the content and style of post matter, while others have pointed to overall activity as the key driver, promoting a “broadcast” effect model. Still, others have argued for indirect effects whereby candidates rely on followers to share content within their networks. This paper develops a “joined-up” model to test these arguments that includes new measures to capture the responsiveness of candidate tweets and the extent of user engagement. We apply the model to the 2017 UK General Election Twitter campaign. Our findings confirm a digital campaign effect, but in a two-step rather than direct manner. Specifically, candidates that attract more engagement with their tweets (likes and retweets) enjoy more electoral success. We expand on our findings to argue for a “network” rather than “broadcast” model of digital campaign effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do electoral institutions matter for subnational legislators' career choices in a multi‐level polity? The paper considers this question by analyzing candidacies of sitting German State MPs for the Federal parliament ("level‐hopping attempts"), leveraging cross‐ and within‐legislature variation in electoral rules (due to the widespread adoption of mixed‐member systems in Germany's subnational parliaments). State MPs elected via list PR can be expected to be more likely to attempt level‐hopping than those elected in the single‐member districts (SMD) tier, as the former face lower re‐election rates and the latter are more directly accountable to their constituency's voters. Empirical evidence from a novel dataset of over 8000 State legislators spanning 10 Federal elections (1987–2021) confirms this hypothesis. It is also shown that the difference in behavior across tiers is more marked when State MPs run for insecure Federal candidacies than when they are offered secure candidacies. The findings suggest that subnational electoral institutions play a role in enabling or constraining legislators' progressive ambition. Moreover, they highlight a previously overlooked dimension of the "mandate divide" between MPs belonging to different electoral tiers of mixed‐member systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties are considered the basic institutions in a representative democratic system. It engaged the party members through internal and external party activities. The members of established political parties have gained more power to select candidates and party leadership in developed democracies. Pakistan is a developing democratic country; Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf announced an intra-party election in 2012 to elect candidates for the general election 2013 in Pakistan. However, it is a fact that intra-party participation promotes equality and increased vote bank, party membership and turnout in general elections. The main aim of this paper is to examine the consequences of the intra-party election of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf held in 2012. Hence, this study concludes that the membership and vote bank of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has increased, grass-roots members promoted through proper channels and many candidates elected first time as members of parliament, as well as impacted the turnout in general elections of Pakistan. This study is an attempt to examine the impact of intra-party elections on the party membership, vote bank and turnout in general elections held in Pakistan before and after this intra-party election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of women parliamentarians in Myanmar increased during the last decade of democratization before the February 2021 coup d'état yet remained extremely low at about 15% of parliament in the 2020 election. This paper uses the concept of political pathway to explore barriers and opportunities that women parliamentarians experienced along their life course. It does so through in-depth interviews conducted in early 2020 with 20 women and 10 men parliamentarians elected in the 2015 general election. Results suggest that women tend to take distinct pathways from men and face specific opportunities and barriers through supply-driven factors such as parental socialization, experience of national crises, available peer networks, acquired professional experiences, and available family support, and through a main demand-driven factor in party recruitment and politics. This informs recommendations in the conclusion in terms of increasing resources and support available to women and addressing discrimination by political parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and policymakers widely view identity as a key driver of African citizens' political engagement. In doing so, however, they have emphasized ethnicity and largely sidelined other identities, including gender, local origin, shared residency, and partisanship. In this paper, we explore which identities drive political engagement and why they do so. We employ an original survey experiment that includes various identities and other incentives that may drive citizens' participation around Zambia's 2021 national elections. We find that partisanship most influences individuals' stated willingness to campaign for a candidate or meet with an MP, while ethnicity and social incentives play less significant roles. Finally, we explore the mechanisms underpinning these results and find that citizens anticipate sanctions if they fail to support a co-partisan but not a co-ethnic candidate. These findings have important implications for understanding political engagement and democratic development throughout the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of political elections on public policies during the Covid pandemic, distinguishing between economic (supportive) and noneconomic (restrictive) policies in a panel of countries that held political elections during 3 years of pandemic, 2020–2022. An event study, controlling for the evolution of the pandemic in terms of Covid cases and deaths, as well as country and time fixed effects, reveals significant adjustments in the Covid‐related restrictive, lockdown‐type, policies but not in the Covid‐related economic support policies before political elections during the first half of the pandemic. The pre‐election policy adjustments included a gradual easing of the restrictions before elections and were driven by the changes in the restrictions that were more likely to directly affect the electorate, such as the restrictions on workplace closing, gatherings, and public events. The presence of the pre‐election restrictions adjustment is conditional on the economic and political characteristics of the country, such as the state of democracy, the degree of political competition, the overall restrictions stringency, and the income level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay thoroughly examines the OTPOR! movement's strategic and tactical endeavors from 1998 to 2000, when it played a pivotal role in challenging and eventually overthrowing Slobodan Milošević's autocratic regime. The paper critically dissects the movement's strategic and tactical frameworks, elucidating their interconnectedness within nonviolent struggle. Central to OTPOR!'s effectiveness was its deliberate avoidance of overt political ambitions and alignment with the youth demographic. The movement projected itself as singularly committed to unseating an autocratic leader, countering regime propaganda by foregrounding the nation's welfare above narrow political interests. The trajectory of the OTPOR! movement underscores the intricate interplay between strategy and tactics in successful nonviolent movements. By orchestrating a meticulously constructed long-term strategy alongside various innovative tactical maneuvers, OTPOR! effectively harnessed public sentiment, countered regime dominance and decisively contributed to Serbia's democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Redistricting is constantly accompanied by political conflicts as well as academic arguments in countries with majoritarian or mixed electoral system, as a result of the process could potentially influence the outcome of elections. In the international scientific discourse and legal processes, this conflict is managed by different approaches. So far, Hungary didn't implement such methodologies by the executive branches, therefore such anomalies as malapportionment, are not taken care of, as the electoral reform of 2011 has not been advanced by any kind of social or scientific disputes. Having reviewed existing processes of redistricting in the US, UK, and Canada, a procedure was created in this paper for revising district boundaries, that would fulfill the requirement of proportionality in respect of Hungary as well. To achieve that, at the first place, proportionality among counties must be assured. Secondly, if a given county will have modified number of constituencies, district borders must be redrawn to gain proportional representation of voters. The results show, that the proposed subdivision would provide proportional allocation for the forthcoming 10 years at least. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holding multiple elections simultaneously, also known as concurrent elections, is well known to benefit electoral systems by increasing the rate of voter turnout. Essentially, the public becomes more willing to participate in voting because they can vote for more offices, and more prominent offices, at once and thus have a greater influence upon the functioning of government in a more efficient manner. However, very little is known about what happens with the electorate outside of the simple increase in voting. Just because citizens choose to vote, it does not mean that they actually pay attention to all the campaigns or feel that their participation is valuable. Using 20 years of American National Election Study survey data, and focusing primarily on the relatively low-salience House of Representatives, this paper examines the psychological effects of concurrent elections in the United States. It concludes that, while concurrent elections do boost turnout, lower-salience candidates receive less attention during concurrent elections, leading the public to rate them more negatively and know less about them. Higher-salience office candidates avoid these negative consequences. Thus there is a trade-off with concurrent elections – more people tend to vote when multiple offices are contested simultaneously but those voters also tend to focus on the higher offices and ignore the bottom of the ballot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper projects that the figures and characteristics of leaders are needed in the power of political parties, especially in contesting simultaneous regional elections in Indonesia. In the 2014 and 2019 elections, Jokowi and Prabowo Subianto, respectively, were two central figures in each party. Analysis of survey data for eight Indonesian elections shows that party leadership and identity are the most important determinants of party votes in legislative and presidential elections. Political parties must correctly place a central figure in their respective parties. The central figure serves as a booster, navigator, and inspiration for party cadres. In addition, figures can also be public reference material to choose one political party, when it is difficult for people to distinguish ideology between one party and another. Nevertheless, the system, traditions, and regeneration process must run as it should. Because only systems, traditions, and regeneration will be the foundation of the future. Political parties as a large organization are certainly not enough to rely on only one individual. There must be a regeneration of leadership within the party. So, if the central figure is no longer in the party, the party can still survive to maintain its existence in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracies are under attack from various sides. In recent years AI-powered techniques such as profiling, targeting, election manipulation, and massive disinformation campaigns via social bots and troll farms challenge the very foundations of democratic systems. Against this background, demands for regulating AI have gotten louder. In this paper, we focus on the European Union (EU) as the actor that has gone the furthest in terms of regulating AI. We therefore ask: What kind of instruments does the EU envision in their binding and non-binding documents to prevent AI harm to democracy? And what critique can be formulated regarding these instruments? To address these questions, the article makes two contributions. First, by building on a systematic understanding of deliberative democracy, we introduce the distinction between two types of harm that can arise from the widespread use of AI: rights-based harm and systemic harm. Second, by analysing a number of EU documents, including the GDPR, the AI Act, the TTAP, and the DSA, we argue that the EU envisions four primary instruments for safeguarding democracy from the harmful use of AI: prohibition, transparency, risk management, and digital education. While these instruments provide a relatively high level of protection for rights-based AI harm, there is still ample space for these technologies to produce systemic harm to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wartime violence and authoritarian repression against civilians take various forms. Past research has explored the causes and consequences of violence, but no previous work simultaneously assessed the long-term effects of different types of violence on political identities. This paper contends that indiscriminate attacks can reinforce ingroup identity, whereas the role of civilian agency in selective violence may have a detrimental impact. Equipped with original data capturing municipality-level exposure to both selective and indiscriminate violence during the Spanish civil war (1936–1939) in Biscay (Basque Country), this study examines its legacy on voting behavior (1983–2015). Results indicate that fascist airstrikes increased Basque nationalism while selective violence diminished the popularity of Basque parties. Individual and community-level evidence suggests that airstrikes fostered the intergenerational transmission of political attitudes. Violence can boost national identities, but it can also erode them: it depends on the type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geography has long played a significant role in American electoral politics. Candidates engage in "retail politics" by visiting fairs, festivals, schools, churches, and businesses, to meet and greet potential voters. However, systematically understanding where candidates are actually going has plagued prior work due to small sample sizes and lack of data availability. Presidential elections have been used with success in previous scholarship, but there are few viable candidates to compare within a single cycle. Utilizing competitive gubernatorial elections, this work attempts to address these deficiencies by utilizing social media posts to track multiple candidates in real-time across the 2018 campaign cycle at the state level. The paper tests competing theories of candidate engagement regarding travel decisions: do candidates (1) focus their attention on their partisan base or (2) try to attract independent or "swing" voters? Following an original and intensive data collection effort, we identified location-specific information for over 4700 campaign stops made by major-party candidates across seventeen states. Our results lend support to candidates spending time with their respective bases of partisan support, with Republicans going to rural areas with non-college educated individuals while Democrats travel to urban counties with a more diverse electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political representation of ethnic minorities in a liberal democratic system is a crucial step towards having the interests of ethnic minority groups heard. The under-representation of ethnic minorities in a political institution can exacerbate inequality between majority and minority populations and increase feelings of alienation among minority groups. As a country observing increasing ethnic diversity, Australia saw record-level ethnic minority candidates elected in the 2022 federal election. However, the shares of candidates and elected Members of Parliaments with ethnic minority backgrounds are still much lower than their relative shares in the population. In this regard, Australia has lagged behind other major settler countries. In this paper, we examine the political representation of ethnic minorities in Australia's federal election. Drawing on data from the 2022 federal election and 2021 population census, we find a positive association between ethnic minority concentration and ethnic representation. However, for the two major parties, ethnic minority candidates are less likely to be in safe seats, even when the seat observes high ethnic minority concentration. Findings suggest that ethnic voting is evident but it is perhaps too early to celebrate higher levels of ethnic representation in Australian politics as political parties act as gatekeepers in safe seats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates a systematic geographic bias in the German mixed-member electoral system. This bias concerns the composition of the individual party groups, and, by extension, the composition of the parliament: The Bundestag is much more urban than it would be under equal geographic representation. The bias is caused by the distribution of list seats across districts: since parties have incentives to give the best list positions to candidates from their strongest districts, regions where the vote is more fragmented systematically get more representatives. Since the vote is more fragmented in urban districts, these districts have more MPs than rural districts. The paper empirically analyses Bundestag elections between 1994 and 2017 and demonstrates that geographic disproportionality has increased strongly with the growing fragmentation of the German party system. This affects substantive representation in terms of leadership positions and voting behaviour in the Bundestag. Unequal representation in the German political system therefore also has a geographic component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unifying setup for opinion models originating in statistical physics and stochastic opinion dynamics are developed and used to analyze election data. The results are interpreted in the light of political theory. We investigate the connection between Potts (Curie–Weiss) models and stochastic opinion models in the view of the Boltzmann distribution and stochastic Glauber dynamics. We particularly find that the q-voter model can be considered as a natural extension of the Zealot model, which is adapted by Lagrangian parameters. We also discuss weak and strong effects (also called extensive and nonextensive) continuum limits for the models. The results are used to compare the Curie–Weiss model, two q-voter models (weak and strong effects), and a reinforcement model (weak effects) in explaining electoral outcomes in four western democracies (United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany). We find that particularly the weak effects models are able to fit the data (Kolmogorov–Smirnov test) where the weak effects reinforcement model performs best (AIC). Additionally, we show how the institutional structure shapes the process of opinion formation. By focusing on the dynamics of opinion formation preceding the act of voting, the models discussed in this paper give insights both into the empirical explanation of elections as such, as well as important aspects of the theory of democracy. Therefore, this paper shows the usefulness of an interdisciplinary approach in studying real world political outcomes by using mathematical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has instrumentalised the Turkish army by conducting military operations in the run-up to elections. Although ending military tutelage has been interpreted in other countries as a sign of the professionalisation of the army, in Turkey it has done the opposite: the civilianisation discourse and civilian hegemony over military institutions have led to the instrumentalisation of the army. I demonstrate that the number of military operations significantly increased in the lead-up to elections, which strongly indicates the extent of instrumentalisation. Previous studies have primarily focused on the army’s praetorian role, neglecting the instrumentalisation process in which the military is engaged. This paper analyses the operational aspect of the army and introduces the concept of instrumentalisation. I contend that the cessation of military tutelage in Turkey has resulted in the securitisation of both society and politics. The failed coup in 2016, the double elections of 2015, and the heightened interest in the defence sector during election periods provide strong grounds for examining the instrumentalisation hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper discusses the reality of electoral governance in Algeria, after the issuance of law No. 21-01 regulating elections, which was issued on March 10, 2021, and the subsequent legislative and local elections in the same year. The paper questions the extent to which governance indicators are applied in the electoral affairs in Algeria through the aforementioned past election entitlements, and the extent to which they are free from aspects of corruption or fraud. The integrity and credibility of elections is considered essential in the democratic process of any country, given that it produces future elites capable of managing people's concerns and hopes, and formulate development strategies that are in the interest of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The victory of the Blank Column in the Regional Elections has an impact on the appointment of the Acting Regional Head to run the regional government until the election of the Regional Head in the next Regional Election. The Acting Regional Head is given the task of replacing the definitive Regional Head but there are differences in its application. In this paper, the scope of authority of the Acting Regional Head is discussed using normative juridical research with a statutory approach or statute approach and a conceptual or conceptual approach or conceptual or conceptual approach or conceptual acceptal acpproach. The results of this study show that juridically assigning tasks to the Acting Regional Head is inconsistent and hinders the course of regional autonomy. This paper also discusses alternative arrangements for the Acting Regional Head to be in line with the principle of regional autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party system institutionalization (PSI) is regarded as a critical underpinning of democracies, but its role in non‐democratic systems has been understudied. In this paper, we evaluate whether the concept has meaningful and perhaps unique implications for the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes. We argue that a modified version of electoral volatility – the most common measure of PSI in democracies – conveys useful information about PSI in competitive authoritarian contexts by signalling the ability of the ruling party to manage the opposition. To this end, we construct an original data set that disaggregates electoral volatility into ruling party seat change and opposition party seat volatility and further divides opposition party volatility into Type‐A and Type‐B volatility. We find robust results that democratization becomes more likely when decreases in the ruling party's seat share coincide with an increase in opposition party Type‐B volatility. This paper demonstrates that the concept of PSI has utility for understanding regime dynamics in competitive authoritarian contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William King's De Origine Mali has recently started to attract some attention in early modern scholarship. In a recent paper devoted to King's theory of free will, Kenneth Pearce identifies a "lacuna" in his text, namely the fact that King "never explicitly describes the process whereby election leads to action" (Pearce, "William King on Free Will", 4). In this paper, I analyse King's theory of 'election' (roughly, free choice) and Pearce's interpretation of it. I discuss his claim that there is a lacuna in King's account and argue that the text provides us with important suggestions on how election generates action. Therefore, no speculative proposal to fill the lacuna is needed. This, in turn, allows me to develop a reading of King's text that avoids a textual puzzle unsolved in Pearce's interpretation: while he maintained that every election is "with reason", my account can take King's text at face value and explain how some elections are reasonable while others are not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical-right populist parties will often try to exploit and ride a wave of popular discontent for their own electoral gain. This paper studies the online populist communication of the leaders of the Rassemblement National (RN) in France in the context of the Gilets Jaunes (GJ) protests and the 2019 European election. It analyses the Twitter activity of these leaders to determine whether they temporarily softened their nativist and exclusionary stances to align their communications with the anti-elitist discourse of the protest movement. We explored this question by employing a quantitative text analysis using R Studio tools of their tweets over a 12-month period in combination with a more qualitative analysis of their output on this social media platform. We carried out tests on bigram frequency, network structure, as well as qualitative analysis of posts on the GJ protests and then compared this data with existing works on the GJ, to identify whether and how the RN adapted its social media discourse at strategic times in the election cycle to better suit the Gilets Jaunes' demands and themes. The results provide support for the expectation of a strategic modification and moderation of exclusionary populist discourse online with both politicians returning to nativist themes after the European election campaign was over and the GJ mobilisation lost momentum. We therefore suggest that the change in output is part of a strategic moderation or 'de-demonisation' in order to gain a wider pool of potential voters and in particular those sympathetic to the protest movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains how Modi's government aligned its offensive military actions (targeting Pakistan) in the wake of the Pulwama incident with the ruling party's ideological stance of right-wing populism. The net outcome of this adroit strategy saw the BJP bolster its electoral strength amidst its initially dwindling electoral position in 2019. The author draws inspiration from literature that connects right-wing populism and Hindu nationalism in relation to the shifting political dynamics in India. The core hypothesis of the study posits that Modi's aggressive military response during the Pulwama/Balakot crisis significantly influenced voter perceptions and contributed to the BJP's electoral success in 2019. The ensuing analysis probes the publicly reported instances wherein strategic use of national security rhetoric and military achievements was made to galvanise nationalist sentiments. This study highlights the broader implications of right-wing populism and Hindu nationalism on India's political and societal dynamics, raising concerns about the possibility of employment of military instrument for political advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas scholarship has not focused on Botswana-Commonwealth relations, at least two Batswana have served in top leadership positions of the Commonwealth. Botswana's Foreign Affairs minister, General Mompati Merafhe (1994–2008), became the longest serving chairperson of Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG). Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba served two-terms as Deputy Secretary-General from 2008 to 2014. She went on to contest the Secretary-General position in 2015 against a British candidate, and while she agonisingly lost by just two votes, the odds were stacked against her. This paper unravels the dynamics of the campaign and election held in Malta in 2015 and concludes that had President Ian Khama of Botswana not been aloof and engaged more with international organisations, Masire-Mwamba might have triumphed. Khama could have evoked Botswana's historical links with the Caribbean, and capitalised on the sharp division and rivalry in the Caribbean Commonwealth community to get the critical votes Masire-Mwamba needed. Such an analysis accords with some Caribbean perspectives. Interestingly, Botswana was ingloriously linked to the Caribbean when Khama's government was accused of having plagiarised Jamaica's 50th anniversary independence logo for Botswana's golden jubilee celebration in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do religious citizens' election projections influence voter turnout? While previous studies have demonstrated the significant impact of religious orientation on individuals' general future outlook, little is known about the influence of religion on voters' electoral expectations and how these expectations affect voter turnout. In this paper, we employ a nuanced conceptual framework of election projections and examine the impact of religion on both the affective and probabilistic aspects of citizens' expectations regarding election outcomes. Our analysis draws upon original panel survey data collected in two countries, focusing on the 2021 Israeli general elections and the 2022 French presidential elections. The findings reveal a mobilizing effect of religious citizens' election projections in both Israel and France. Specifically, religious voters tend to have more positive affective forecasts about their projected election outcomes, consequently resulting in increased voter turnout. While affective forecasting plays a significant role in religious citizens' turnout, probabilistic certitude does not have a similar effect. We discuss the contribution and implications of these findings for research on religion and political behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the dynamics of ideological party competition within the context of the 2023 Turkish elections. Focusing on the role and appeal of ideology, it provides insights into the changing landscape of ideological competition during this pivotal electoral period. The study examines whether ideology operates as a guiding principle for Turkish voters grappling with intricate economic and social issues. Despite acknowledging that economic concerns may not singularly determine ideological positions, the paper highlights the enduring significance of ideology in shaping perceptions. The transformative nature of the 2023 elections, marked by the emergence of new parties and electoral alliances, further underscores the relevance of ideology. Additionally, the article assesses the appeal of ideological competition by investigating voters who cannot position parties or themselves on the ideology scale. This analysis reveals that factors such as media consumption, education, gender, and political efficacy significantly influence the ideological appeal in the 2023 elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]