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The emergence of the political party Sinn Féin as an electoral force, and its gradual displacement of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as the primary vehicle for Provisional Irish republicanism, was an indispensable precondition for the peace process that brought an end to the long-running Northern Irish 'Troubles'. Unsurprisingly, this process has been a subject of close academic scrutiny, with much attention focusing on the dramatic, early breakthroughs made by Sinn Féin, particularly in the years 1981–1983. By contrast, the mid-to-late 1980s are often represented as something of a fallow period for the party, when its initial, seemingly meteoric rise stalled. Within this narrative, the 1985 local elections are typically passed over relatively quickly. Yet this article makes the case for revisiting those elections, seeing them as marking a somewhat under-appreciated political earthquake in Northern Ireland. It does so on the basis that first, the elections laid bare the ambiguities and tensions arising from the Irish republican movement's 'Armalite and Ballot box' strategy. And second, the consequences of the 1985 elections proved decisive in reshaping both Irish republicanism and the wider political landscape of Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the short-lived reform experiment on grassroot democracy by the District Councils of Hong Kong in 2020–2021, following the landslide victory of candidates who supported the 2019 Anti-Extradition Movement of Hong Kong. It argues that the institutional positions and resources of local elections can serve as movement resources to support social and political movements, promote civic participation and community-building, and strengthen civil society. By a study of meeting documents and in-depth interviews with 50 pro-movement councillors, this paper recounted how movement activists made use of the local councils to support the movement, change funding allocation to counter clientelism, encourage grassroot participation and network with civil society. The window of political opportunity was quickly shut down with the imposition of the National Security Law for Hong Kong, but it showed the possibility of using local councils to further movement causes and grassroot democracy in a much-constrained non-democratic institutional setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's under-representation, particularly in political leadership, remains an important issue globally. Tunisia's 2018 municipal elections included the adoption of strict gender quotas that resulted in near-parity of male and female elected councilors. Despite this achievement for descriptive representation, fewer than 20% of mayors—selected from among elected list-heads—were women. We argue that this gender gap in council leadership is the result of parties' strategic engagement with the quota laws. Using election data, an original survey of candidates, and interviews, we demonstrate that parties systematically placed female-headed lists in their weakest districts, placing female candidates at a disadvantage during the mayoral selection process. We provide evidence that these behaviors were motivated by a strategy to avoid "displacing" men in established political networks. This research highlights the role that party elites play in maintaining the existing political bargain at the expense of underrepresented groups, even where strict quotas are adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incumbents often make unpopular policy decisions. But can they remedy their negative electoral consequences? We extend the wide literature concerning retrospective voting to the case of unpopular policies and examine whether voters reward a responsive withdrawal of an unpopular policy proposal or punish the disclosed policy intention despite the withdrawal. To test this, we use granular data on Swedish local election results from 2002 to 2018 and the case of widely unpopular school closure proposals, some of which were implemented and others not. We exploit within municipality variation in voting over time to causally estimate the consequences for incumbents in the neighborhood surrounding the schools. Our results confirm that even if a school remains open, voters punish the incumbent and consider the initial proposal as informative for their vote. Our findings have implications for the understanding of democratic accountability and which information voters take into account when casting their vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Invalid votes are pervasive in many democracies and can threaten the legitimacy of elections. While often associated with factors such as choice complexity and disengagement, especially under compulsory voting rules, intentional ballot spoiling can also signal a political protest. We examine the argument that spoiling ballots as protest should occur under compulsory voting where voters perceive limited legitimacy to the electoral process and a lack of viable options. Using municipal elections in Ecuador, a context featuring both compulsory voting and a period of democratic erosion, we examine subnational variation in both spoiled and blank ballots. While factors related to sophistication and choice complexity explain variation in both forms of invalid voting, our results also reveal patterns consistent with the expectation that spoiled ballots reflect a protest of a lack of competition in the political system. Specifically, we find that areas opposed to Rafael Correa's dominant party had a higher rate of spoiled ballots in the 2014 mayoral elections, a period when party dominance was consolidated and competition weak. This pattern declined in 2019 when the system's competitiveness increased. A separate analysis of the 2019 elections for the Correa-era participatory governance body suggests continued use of spoiled ballots as protest by opposition voters, but primarily in higher connectivity areas where the online coordination on use of this tactic may have had greater influence. Overall, our study sheds light on factors shaping invalid vote patterns in compulsory systems and highlights spoiled ballots' potential as a means to signal protest under conditions where some voters would perceive a decline in the legitimacy of democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The year 2023 was marked by two national elections during the summer months, as well as regional and municipal elections in October. New Democracy dominated electorally in both. Another key political change was the resignation of the head of the Coalition of the Radical Left, Alexis Tsipras, following his party's devastating defeats in national elections. He was replaced in internal elections later that year by Stefanos Kasselakis—a political newcomer with no prior experience. The deadly Tempi train crash, wildfires across the country, hooligan violence, and the devastating floods caused by Storm Daniel in Thessaly raised issues about the effectiveness of the government and added to the general mistrust of politics and politicians. In October, Greece regained investment grade in its credit rating from Standard & Poor's Global Ratings. Inflation, at 3.5 per cent in December, continued to be top of mind for most citizens. The devastating consequences of gender‐based violence persisted this year, with a staggering 15 femicides recorded in total. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luxembourg politics in 2023 was dominated by the local election in June followed by the national election in October. Local elections were characterized by a limited participation of foreigners and a certain stability of the political forces. Christian‐Social People's Party/Chrëschtlech‐Sozial Vollekspartei (CSV) remained by far the first party despite a slight drop in seats, and The Greens/Déi Gréng experienced proportionally the most significant drop in seats. As for the local elections, the national elections have been marked by the maintaining of the CSV as the first party, and the massive loss of the Green party. The significant drop of the Green party made the existing three coalition parties (DP‐LSAP‐Gréng) arithmetically impossible, positioning the leader of the CSV and new Prime Minister, Luc Frieden, in an ideal position to lead a coalition government. As expected, Luc Frieden and his party formed a coalition with the DP, which is closer to its political program and guarantees a comfortable majority in the Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unusually large number of political scandals left their mark on Norwegian politics in 2023. Most of the scandals involved conflicts of interest for current and former government ministers, and they led to several Cabinet resignations and dismissals. The local elections in September were a big win for the two main parties on the right of Norwegian politics. The two centre‐left parties that constitute the national governing coalition fared poorly in the elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, the NATO Vilnius Summit was the major political event in Lithuania that attracted significant global media attention. In addition, Lithuania underwent local elections and faced a municipal expenses scandal that nearly brought down the government. Nevertheless, the Cabinet remained stable with only one minister being replaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both material and symbolic issues were on the national political agenda in 2023. While education, the economy and health care were the most contested policy areas, the Fidesz government continued its campaigns against LGBTQ rights, migration and liberal values. Crucially, the government and its left‐liberal opposition vehemently criticised each other for their uncritical pro‐Eastern and pro‐Western stance, respectively. Fidesz maintained its massive lead in polls, the share of undecided voters rapidly increased, while three new parties appeared in the political arena. The Hungarian government reached an agreement with the European Commission to release the largest part of the funds (€10 billion) blocked due to rule of law concerns. Additionally, the government successfully blocked the Finnish and Swedish NATO membership for the better part of the year, inviting fierce international criticism. New local election rules further accentuated the major weakness of the Hungarian opposition ahead of the 2024 local elections—fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although most local elections are officially nonpartisan, a debate exists regarding how much ideology matters in local politics. I test the effects of national polarization toward policing at the local level using a conjoint survey experiment and novel observational data. I find that police union endorsements send clear ideological signals about mayoral candidates to voters and voters respond accordingly: liberal (conservative) respondents are significantly less (more) likely to vote for police union‐endorsed candidates. I create a new dataset of police union endorsements in every mayoral election in American cities with populations above 180,000 between 2011 and 2022. I find police union endorsements have significant negative effects on incumbent vote share in liberal cities at the same time as polarization occurs nationally. This evidence suggests that when national politics polarize on a local issue, ideology becomes an important component in local politics and that police union endorsements now inform about local candidate ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article examines and compares the diverse online electoral advertising strategies employed by the Socialist Party (PS) and the Democratic Party (PD) in Albania's national and municipal elections. The purpose of this study is to analyze the themes, communication techniques, and tones used in campaign advertising and to evaluate how these components vary depending on the type of election and the political party participating. It focuses on discrepancies in tone, themes, and the priority placed on candidate image versus policy issues. This research uses content analysis methods to reveal significant differences in the content and strategies of electoral advertisements across various election types and political parties. The study highlights clear disparities in the political communication tactics used in national and municipal elections, as well as between the Socialist and Democratic Parties. This study's findings reveal differences in advertising content and strategies across national and municipal elections for Democratic and Socialist parties. This has significant implications for political groups, advertising, and lawmakers, particularly given the increasing impact of social media on citizen participation in the democratization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the complex relationship between campaign spending and electoral outcomes in local elections. We focus on (1) how spending influences the distribution of votes across candidates; (2) its impact on voter turnout; and (3) the differential effects of different types of campaign spending. Using the case of Chile’s 2016 mayoral elections, a candidate-level dataset, and linear regression techniques, we estimate the impact of campaign spending on the share and dynamics of votes obtained. The study reveals that an additional investment of 50 cents per voter correlates with an average 5% increase in vote share as a proportion of elegible voters. This increase is attributed to a double effect: mobilizing new voters and attracting support from competitors. The disaggregated analysis shows that radio advertising is especially impactful for campaign dissemination. These results enrich the literature on electoral strategies, campaign finance dynamics and financing regulations in multi-party systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper examines blank and null voting in Brazilian mayoral elections using a large dataset covering 5570 municipalities between 2000 and 2020. The study finds that more competitive elections reduce blank and null percentages, with re‐election scenarios leading to more valid votes. Blank and particularly null voting are found to be more prevalent in municipalities where a second round is possible. Economic factors and age categories also contribute to determine unconventional voting patterns. The results also highlight important differences between blank and null voting patterns and between urban and rural areas, the later suggesting that more sophisticated voters tend to be less prone to invalidate the vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how the timing of local elections affects the success of minority candidates, who remain woefully underrepresented in public office. We build on research showing that concurrent elections narrow racial gaps in voter turnout and leverage changes in the timing of local elections in California. Our analysis shows that filling local offices in November of even years increases minority officeholding, at least for some groups. The results demonstrate how, when, and for whom election timing matters. Latinos gain most, potentially at the expense of White and, to a lesser degree, Black representation. An investigation of potential mechanisms suggests that these effects depend on group population size and the magnitude of the turnout changes. An increase in the number of co‐ethnic candidates running also appears to contribute to the representational benefits of on‐cycle elections. Finally, the effects are most pronounced during presidential elections, when turnout improvements are largest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The personalization of politics includes electoral reforms that give voters more opportunity to select individual representatives as well as behavioural personalization among voters and politicians. Institutional research suggests that the latter is a function of the former, but it remains unclear whether the association between the two types of personalization is actually causal. In order to get empirical leverage on this question, we analyze local elections in Denmark, which feature within‐district and within‐party variation in the openness of party lists. Using detailed information on the behaviour of politicians and voters, we find that, once we take differences between districts and parties into account, the personalization of electoral rules has a negligible effect on behavioural personalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What explains women's underrepresentation in first-past-the-post compared to at-large elections? While existing studies emphasize candidate experience or party nomination to competitive districts, we argue that local party selectors are more likely to desire women to have a type of political experience that signals their connection to the national party. To test our argument, we use a novel dataset of over 10,000 local candidates nominated by South Africa's African National Congress party. In South Africa's Mixed Member Proportional system, we find that compared to men, women are more likely to be nominated in FPTP elections after having previous experience as PR councillors. Previous PR experience is distinct from other forms of experience such as incumbency, and contextual factors such as pre-electoral intra-party violence do not explain women's nomination to FPTP seats. These findings contribute to our understanding of how electoral systems impact parties' nomination of female candidates at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this article is to analyze spatial disparities in local electoral participation in Slovakia between 1994 and 2018 on a very detailed spatial structure of all (almost 3000) municipalities. To achieve this goal, methods of global and local spatial autocorrelation and spatial regression are used. Municipality‐level analysis, then, provides three main results. First, cartographic presentations provide spatial evidence of highly stable patterns of electoral participation in Slovak municipalities. In the long term, there was no substantial inter‐electoral change in the clustering of voter turnout in the different municipalities, except for an overall significant decline in the homogeneity of the clusters with low or high electoral turnout. Second, while there was some positive spatial autocorrelation of turnout between a concrete municipality and its surroundings, suggesting the existence of a contagion effect, this effect was not too strong and quickly waned with growing distance. Third, as especially the local elections in 2018 suggested that local political environment has its own dynamics that are increasingly independent of municipality size, a more detailed analysis of the local political context combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques should be a priority in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do voters react to local candidates who share their policy views but not their party identification, and vice versa? This paper presents findings from a survey experiment that cross-pressured respondents to choose between a co-partisan candidate who does not share their policy views (on housing and homelessness) and an opposing party candidate with some ideological affinity. The majority of respondents chose party over policy, indicating they would vote for co-partisans even if the candidate from the opposing party is closer to their policy positions. However, significant minorities defected and in some circumstances most did. Weak partisans, those with stronger policy views, and those who viewed the issues as highly salient were more likely to defect from their party when cross-pressured. Our findings support revising the expectation that partisanship always takes precedence over policy views and reinforces the view that partisanship may operate differently at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing corpus of literature analyzes the effect of populist attitudes on voting behavior with a special focus on support for populist radical-right parties. In this paper, we argue that high levels of populist attitudes also affect the probability to support non-partisan actors that present themselves as an alternative to party-centered representation. We provide empirical evidence for this claim based on observational and experimental data in the context of German local elections. We first show that populist attitudes positively affect the probability to vote for non-partisan actors. We then use a choice experiment to demonstrate that populist voters are more likely than non-populist voters to support a non-partisan over a party representative in elections. Our findings have important implications for understanding the success of non-partisan actors in elections as well as the political preferences of populist citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School board candidates supported by local teachers' unions overwhelmingly win, and we examine the causes and consequences of the “teachers' union premium” in these elections. First, we show that union endorsement information increases voter support. Although the magnitude of this effect varies across ideological and partisan subgroups, an endorsement rarely hurts a candidate's prospects with the electorate. Second, we benchmark the size of the endorsement premium to other well‐known determinants of vote choice in local elections. Perhaps surprisingly, we show the effect can be as large as the impact of shared partisanship, and substantially larger than the boost from endorsements provided by other stakeholders. Finally, examining real‐world endorsement decisions, we find that union support for incumbents hinges on self‐interested pecuniary considerations and is unaffected by performance in improving student academic outcomes. The divergence between what endorsements mean and how voters interpret them has troubling normative democratic implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a setting with agents that have preferences over alternatives and are partitioned into disjoint districts. The goal is to choose one alternative as the winner using a mechanism which first decides a representative alternative for each district based on a local election with the agents therein as participants, and then chooses one of the district representatives as the winner. Previous work showed bounds on the distortion of a specific class of deterministic plurality-based mechanisms depending on the available information about the preferences of the agents in the districts. In this paper, we first consider the whole class of deterministic mechanisms and show asymptotically tight bounds on their distortion. We then initiate the study of the distortion of randomized mechanisms in distributed voting and show bounds based on several informational assumptions, which in many cases turn out to be tight. Finally, we also experimentally compare the distortion of many different mechanisms of interest using synthetic and real-world data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background and contextual meaning of the discourse used, especially in political messages and news content, shape how audiences perceive it. Particularly due to its influential power over the masses, the language used by the media is highly significant. How news is presented with what kind of headline, content, and surrounding context plays a crucial role in constructing the conveyed meaning. In this regard, the 31 March 2024 elections in Turkey, which have had long-lasting implications, and the language used by the media provide an excellent subject for analysis. Therefore, in this study, a critical discourse analysis was conducted on visual and written news texts published on 1 April 2024 in the national-level newspapers in Turkey, including Akşam, Cumhuriyet, Korkusuz, Milliyet, Posta, Sabah, Sözcü, Takvim and Yeni Şafak, regarding the 31 March 2024 Local Elections. News related to the topic was analyzed using Teun Van Dijk's critical discourse analysis model, leading to conclusions about the biased behavior of the newspapers and how they presented the news in that direction to the readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of language reflects different sociocognitive processes which are crucial in political psychology. In political communication in elections and governance, the manipulation of language to mobilize actions may be imperceptible by citizens, especially in the vast volumes of news posted on digital platforms like Twitter (now X). For this reason, we set out to analyse the differences in the linguistic style and content of the messages of 18 mayors of large cities in Colombia during the electoral campaign and the start of the period of governance through a two-stage design. We found that the politicians' language during the electoral campaign had a persuasive function focused on promoting inclusive identities and generating empathy using prosocial topics. In contrast, the linguistic style during the term of office was more formal and complex, highlighting the legitimacy of the acts of governance. Differences were also found in the candidates on the left and right related to how they discuss economic issues during the electoral campaign. These findings show the need to take a multidisciplinary approach to address the effects of language and technology on the understanding and explanation of the psycho-political processes involved in elections and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender quota policies have the ability to alleviate the scarcity of women in politics. However, opponents of quotas argue that such policies may constitute, in the long term, a “glass ceiling.” In Portugal, although there is still a long way to go in terms of gender equality, some municipalities have been successful in electing many women. Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate, through the lenses of historical institutionalism and contagion theory, the factors that help women break out of the glass ceiling trap at local level. The study is based on a dataset from the last local elections and uses a panel data regression to calculate the probabilities of electing more women to municipal councils. The results underline that left‐wing parties that have adopted voluntary quotas, municipal experience with women mayors, and competitive environments increase the likelihood of electing more women. Gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dados - Revista de Ciências Sociais is the property of DADOS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article aims to contribute to the debate on the rise of independents in local politics and the underlying factors driving this trend in Europe by investigating the situation in Czechia, a post-communist country with a highly fragmented local government system. This study uses statistical analyses of electoral data from the 2010, 2014 and 2018 local elections to test the relevance of supply-side and demand-side explanations of the rise of independents. The analysis results show that the political strength of independents in Czech local elections has steadily increased during the last decade. Both tested theoretical models are valid but the effects of supply-side and demand-side factors are highly conditioned by municipalities' population sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional transaction costs profoundly reflect the relationship between the government and the market, and play an important role in the economic development of a country or region. This study uses grounded theory to explore its theoretical connotation and essential reasons, confirms the core elements from the three dimensions of subject, behaviour and environment, and then builds its theoretical framework. The results show that, under the influence of bounded rationality and opportunism, institutional transaction cost is a kind of cost generated by market players in the process of complying with government economic policies. Therefore, this study attempts to provide a reference path for institutional transaction cost reforms in other countries or regions from three aspects: improving the efficiency of government agencies, regulating government regulatory behaviour, and improving the institutional environment of the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates when party selectors prefer ethnic minority female over male candidates on their lists. We argue that the two competing strategies parties can follow (gaining the ethnic vote ('ethnic community' argument) versus not scaring ethnic majority voters ('deterrence' argument)) are dependent upon party ideology, district diversity and ethnic minorities' visibility. Focusing on the 2018 local elections in Flanders (Belgium), we find that female Turkish/Maghrebi (i.e., visible ethnic minority) candidates outnumber their male counterparts in less diverse districts and rightist parties, whereas an opposite picture emerges in more diverse districts and leftist parties. Surprisingly, however, female candidates with less visible minority backgrounds outnumber their male counterparts in all contexts. These results imply a confirmation of the 'ethnic community argument', while casting doubts on the 'deterrence' argument. Taken together, our findings clearly highlight the conditionality of the selection of ethnic minority male versus female candidates in Proportional Representation list-systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the dissonance between the values of the democracy of local communities and the liberal democracy of the Minangkabau community in West Sumatra, Indonesia. A direct election system is adopted to elect the leader of the Minangkabau community. However, a qualitative study shows that, culturally, the Minangkabau community chooses its leader through a clan-based deliberation system, relying on communal rather than individual representation. Adopting direct election with the one-person-onevote principle to elect the community leader has instead been a source of conflict. The ambiguous understanding of the community members regarding the principles of individual and collective representation has given rise to the conflict. The institutionalisation of a clan-based deliberation system in the community is a solution to solve the conflict. This scholarly inquiry underscores that the Minangkabau ethnic group's democratic ethos fosters an environment conducive to communal deliberations, thereby sustaining their social cohesion and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that the Mexican war on drugs pushed drug cartels into large-scale oil theft. We propose a simple model in which government crackdowns on one criminal sector induce criminal organisations to invest in a new sector. When entering the new sector, challenger organisations with a residual share of the market in the traditional sector may leapfrog incumbent organisations. We bring the model to the data using detailed information on drug cartel presence, oil pipelines and illegal oil taps across Mexican municipalities. In line with the model predictions, municipalities with oil pipelines witnessed a greater increase in cartel presence than municipalities without pipelines after the crackdown on drugs, and the effect is driven by challenger criminal groups. Within the subset of municipalities with oil pipelines, we observe more illegal oil taps where the political party in favour of anti-drug trafficking policy won local elections by a small margin. Because of specialisation in different criminal sectors, municipalities with pipelines did not witness a surge in violence, but they did experience a decline in socioeconomic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many democracies, unemployed and low‐income citizens are less willing to vote. Can social policies weaken the link between income and turnout? We study policy feedback leveraging a unique experiment in Finland, which randomly assigned a sizable group of unemployed to receiving an unconditional basic income (BI) for 2 years (2017–19). Combining individual‐level registry and survey data, we show that the intervention has large positive effects on voter turnout. Unconditional BI increases turnout in municipal elections by about 3 percentage points (p.p.), on average, an effect that is concentrated among marginal voters (+ 6–8 p.p.) and persists in national elections after the end of the experiment. Exploring possible mechanisms, our analysis highlights the role of the interpretive effects that follow from unconditionality in the bureaucratic process, including higher levels of political trust and efficacy. We discuss implications for theories of voter turnout and policy feedback, and the design of BI policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study sought to explore the nature of community empowerment in holding local councils accountable. The study adopted both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Three Zones, namely Central Gondar, Wag Hemra, and South Wollo, were selected as study areas. From these three Zones, five woredas were selected. Two kebeles were selected purposively from each sample Woreda. Accordingly, 10 study kebeles were selected. A total of 269 samples from the community have been incorporated into the survey. Primary data were collected through survey, key informant interview, fgd, and in-depth interview techniques. The study used thematic analysis technique for the qualitative data and descriptive analysis for the quantitative data. The results show that the level of community empowerment in holding council members accountable for their needs and priorities is low. Local people have little say in their local affairs. Currently, the council members are serving their second term without local elections. Hence, Some Kebeles and Woredas do not have representatives in the local councils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the implementation of a ranked choice voting (RCV) system increase the number, diversity, and quality of candidates competing in local elections? Using original data from 273 cities across three decades and employing a preregistered difference‐in‐differences design with matching, I find that the size of the candidate pool increases following implementation. However, this effect dissipates in later election cycles, indicating that RCV has no long‐term effect on candidate entry. Indeed, the short‐term increase in the candidate pool mostly reflects increased entry by low‐quality candidates with little chance of winning. Additionally, I find that RCV has no effect on the proportion of female and non‐white candidates running for office. These results call into question several purported benefits of RCV and suggest that RCV, by itself, might not be sufficient to influence candidate entry at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the ethnic media promote the political engagement of minority ethnic immigrants? This is a salient question in Western democracies, where the political incorporation of immigrants is a continuous challenge. Prevailing accounts place the media as a primary cause of growing public disengagement. In contrast, this article argues that the entry of community‐centered ethnic media can increase immigrants' political engagement by changing their informational environment and their representation in media and state institutions. In 2004, the UK Parliament enacted the Community Radio Order to allow the licensing of community radio stations. Leveraging the introduction of this law and geographical variation in the distribution of licenses with a difference‐in‐differences approach, this article shows that the exposure of minority ethnic immigrants to radio programming targeted at their community substantively increases their turnout in local elections. The results suggest that immigrants' participation in politics is stimulated by accommodating diversity within common institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many large cities after the success of opposition in local elections are becoming ‘democratic enclaves’ in the de-democratising countries. It is worth posing a question about the effectiveness of this role in the face of further autocratisation at the national level. It requires investigating if taking over the power by these democratic forces as well as characteristics of major cities, favourable in many aspects for democratisation (they have often a ‘democratic potential’) enable the cities to play a role of effective democratisers. The author of this paper takes this task and analyses the cases of Warsaw and Istanbul. He verifies the hypothesis that the combination of long-term democratic deficits, including the local level, impact of the de-democratisation present at the national level and the current centralisation or re-centralisation process undermines the role of both cities as democratic enclaves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools quickly became a salient issue nationally and in local elections despite CRT's origins as an academic theory. In this paper, we argue that elite asymmetries regarding the importance of CRT spillover to the electorate. We show that Republican legislators and conservative media's use of the term "critical race theory" dwarfed that of Democratic legislators and liberal media, respectively. A spike in general interest in the term happened concurrently with this elite push. We then hypothesize that in part due to this asymmetry in exposure to the term "critical race theory" itself in elite messaging, CRT policy may have an asymmetric effect on political mobilization, favoring Republicans, who tend to oppose the teaching of CRT in schools. To test this hypothesis, we conduct a survey experiment and find that Republicans presented with a pro-CRT policy change are politically mobilized, while Democrats presented with an anti-CRT policy change are not. In particular, Republicans exposed to the pro-CRT policy reported a higher likelihood of voting, encouraging others to vote, and contacting their local politicians. Thus, the case of CRT helps to illustrate the conditions under which issues can asymmetrically mobilize citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disasters are likely to increase in the near future. How does the emergence of such events influence voting behavior? While the literature has focused on the electoral repercussions after disaster has already struck, we investigate whether imminent disaster influences vote choice. We study the effect of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic on electoral choice in a setting that allows for causal identification: the local elections in Germany's southern state Bavaria in March 2020, where, at the time of the elections, only an as-if random sample of localities had recorded cases of COVID-19. We find that initial local outbreaks favored the political party governing at the state level and hurt the far right. These findings are most likely driven by a 'strategic alignment' mechanism, whereby voters choose the party or candidate they believe is best placed to help them through the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article "The 2024 Election: Sir Ed Davey's Gamble Pays Off," Professor Sir John Curtice analyzes the Liberal Democrats' success in the 2024 general election. The party's strategy to capitalize on voter dissatisfaction with the Conservative government resulted in the election of 72 Liberal Democrat MPs, the highest number in a century. However, the party only made minimal progress in terms of votes, winning 12.5% of the vote in Great Britain. The article explores the reasons behind the party's success and discusses the implications for its future prospects now that Labour is in power. The Liberal Democrats focused on concentrating their vote geographically, which led to gains in seats where they were second to the Conservatives. However, they struggled to make gains in seats where they were competing with Labour. The party also made gains in Scotland, winning four seats from the SNP. Overall, while the Liberal Democrats were successful in the 2024 election, their chances of making significant gains in the future seem limited. [Extracted from the article]

The 2023 Spanish general election was a snap election called unexpectedly by the PM Pedro Sánchez the day after the local and regional elections in May 2023. Turnout was higher than expected (66.6%) and the result confirmed the high degree of multi-dimensional polarisation in Spanish society. Right-wing parties improved their position: the mainstream conservative PP increased its support mainly at the expense of Ciudadanos and the far-right VOX. Yet, parties on the left, especially the incumbent PSOE, performed better than predicted by polls and, together with the seats won by regional parties, were able to keep a dominant position in Congress. A left-wing minority coalition cabinet was ultimately formed with two parties in government (PSOE and Sumar) and the parliamentary support of several regional parties. Parliamentary support was reached after an agreement that includes decentralisation measures and an amnesty to repair the judiciary consequences of the 2017 independence referendum in Catalonia, which showcases the multilevel and multidimensional complexity of Spanish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do young politicians prioritize other types of municipal spending than old politicians? We study this question using hand-collected candidate-level data on municipal elections (1996–2020), along with detailed administrative data on municipal spending in Bavaria. Our identification strategy makes use of within-party candidate-level races for marginal seats. Our findings indicate that municipalities with a higher proportion of young councilors allocate more resources to social spending. Further analysis reveals that this social spending increase is primarily driven by the expansion of public child care. Exploring mechanisms, we find evidence suggesting that young councilors affect policy choices indirectly through between- and within-party bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The province of Ontario, Canada, has a longstanding history of non-partisanship in municipal elections. In this distinctive context, we report results on citizen attitudes toward municipal partisanship using a survey of eligible voters in Canada's most populous province. Using a mixed-methods approach, we focus on three interrelated research questions. First, how much does citizen support for municipal parties depend on the type of party under consideration? Second, what reasons do citizens provide for their preference for either municipal political parties or independents? Finally, what are the correlates of support for municipal parties? We find little support for municipal political parties, and that many voters have sophisticated reasons for preferring either independents or parties. We also identify several factors associated with support for parties. These results provide an in-depth picture of attitudes on municipal partisanship in Ontario, and suggest that public opinion may provide an overlooked mechanism that maintains Ontario's non-partisanship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent are local races across the country being increasingly driven by politics at the national level? In this article, we examine the nationalization of elections for state executive branches' primary front line legal actors in the criminal courts—local prosecutors. We seek to better understand the factors influencing prosecutor election outcomes and why these types of elections have become more nationalized in recent years. More specifically, we aim to evaluate what effect this greater nationalization has had on the electoral fates of incumbent prosecutors seeking re-election. To date, there is a paucity of scholarship on prosecutor election outcomes within political science despite their importance historically and in light of recent events. This article seeks to fill an important gap in our understanding of what drives prosecutor elections in the United States. More broadly, we believe this research helps us better understand how even these local elections can be impacted by national events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gumushane Universty Electronic Journal of the Faculty of Communication / Gümüshane Üniversitesi Iletisim Fakültesi Elektronik Dergisi is the property of Gumushane Universitesi Iletisim Fakultesi Elektronik Dergisi (e-GIFDER) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Policy & Internet is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the past few years, political killings have become a recurring phenomenon in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. These killings have significantly impacted the region's political landscape and people, rendering its political climate volatile and fraught with tension. This explores the impact these political killings have had in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). One of the province's most significant consequences of political killings is the loss of human life. These senseless killings have resulted in the deaths of many individuals, including citizens who are not actively involved in politics. Hence creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity the province has never experienced. Families have lost their loved ones, with many communities thrown into mourning, leading to a loss of trust among people. This article discusses how political violence affected innocent people through the killings before and after the 2016 Local Government Elections (LGE) in KZN. The study employed a qualitative research method, thus engaging with published work on the impact of political killing in KwaZulu Natal. The author consulted E-books, Moerane commission documents, online news articles, and other internet sources. The political leaders and activists have expressed their grievances, especially when disgruntled about the election results or the selection of candidates. There are concerns that some political factions may not accept the outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politische Vierteljahresschrift is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)