El futur de les democràcies a Bolívia i Equador

Segons L'índex de Desenvolupament Democràtic d'Amèrica Llatina (IDD-Lat 2004) tot i que a la zona hi ha símbols democràtics com eleccions periòdiques, alternança en el poder per part dels partits polítics, divisió de poders, en alguns dels països llatinoamericans també s'hi ha trobat signes de debilitat del sistema democràtic.

The Strategic Adaptation of Party Organizations to New Information and Communication Technologies : A Study of Catalan and Spanish Parties

Aquest document se centra en els casos dels dos principals partits espanyols (PP i PSOE) i catalans (PSC i CDC) en el període immediatament després de les eleccions generals espanyoles de maig de 2008, quan aquests celebraren els seus congressos. En general, es poden distingir tres tipus d'actors: en primer lloc, els ciberactivistes que tracten d'obtenir el reconeixement formal de la seva activitat en els seus partits. Així com, els líders del partit que poden intentar promoure la presència del partit en el ciberespai, però que també poden romandre indecisos perquè no és clar l'impacte electoral a la xarxa del ciberactivisme. Finalment, alguns militants tradicionals (off-line) solen ser reticents al reconeixement del ciberactivisme perquè amenaça les recompenses previstes dins del partit. Aquest article mostra com els nostres partits varen respondre al desafiament del ciberactivisme i arriba a la conclusió que la seva situació electoral, mediada per la seva ideologia, estructura organitzativa i el tipus de militància, poden ajudar-nos a comprendre el grau diferent d'institucionalització en l'organització del partit.

Les últimes eleccions del franquisme: la minielecció d'alcaldes de 1976

Article sobre les últimes eleccions del franquisme a la província de Girona

Disseny i implementació de la base de dades: Sistema de votació ciutadana a nivell Europeu a través d'Internet

La Unió Europea necessita i per tant ens encarrega, un disseny de base de dades per tald'emmagatzemar la informació de futures eleccions ciutadanes a través d'Internet.

An Inquiry into the use of illegal electoral practices and effects of political violence

This article investigates whether vote-buying and the instigation of violence in the disputed 2007 Kenyan elections were strategically motivated, and whether those affected by electoral violence changed their views towards ethno-politics and the use of violence. To answer these questions, a panel survey conducted before and after the elections is combined with external indicators of electoral violence. We find that political parties targeted vote-buying towards specific groups to weaken the support of their political rivals and to mobilize their own supporters. Furthermore, parties instigated violence strategically in areas where they were less likely to win. Although the victims of violence would prefer that parties are no longer allowed to organize in ethnic or religious lines, they are more likely to identify in ethnic terms, support the use of violence and avoid relying on the police to resolve disputes. The overall findings suggest an increased risk of electoral-violence reoccurring.

Uncertainty, electoral Incentives and political myopia

In this paper, we study the determinants of political myopia in a rational model of electoral accountability where the key elements are informational frictions and uncertainty. We build a framework where political ability is ex-ante unknown and policy choices are not perfectly observable. On the one hand, elections improve accountability and allow to keep well-performing incumbents. On the other, politicians invest too little in costly policies with future returns in an attempt to signal high ability and increase their reelection probability. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, uncertainty reduces political myopia and may, under some conditions, increase social welfare. We use the model to study how political rewards can be set so as to maximise social welfare and the desirability of imposing a one-term limit to governments. The predictions of our theory are consistent with a number of stylised facts and with a new empirical observation documented in this paper: aggregate uncertainty, measured by economic volatility, is associated to better ...scal discipline in a panel of 20 OECD countries.

Spain in Europe 2004-2008

In March of 2004, the Observatory of European Foreign Policy published a special monograph about Spain in Europe (1996-2004) in digital format. The objective of the monograph was to analyse Spain’s foreign policy agenda and strategy during the period of José María Aznar’s presidency. As the title suggests, one of the initial suppositions of the analysis is the Europeanization of Spanish foreign activities. Is that how it was? Did Aznar’s Spain see the world and relate to it through Brussels? The publication was well received, considering the number of visits received and above all the institutions which asked to link the publication to their web pages. Among these, the EUobserver published the introduction to the piece in English titled Aznar: thinking locally, acting in Europe (described by the EUobserver as a paper of utmost importance). The fact that the elections were held three days after the tragic events of the 11th of March dramatically increased interest in Spain and the implications for Europe. This publication is the second of its type, in this case analysing the period of the Zapatero government (2004-2008). Once again the starting premise (the Europeanization of the agenda and the methods employed) has been considered by the analysts. And once again the articles collected in this publication serve to “triangulate” the analysis. Spain and Europe are two vertices (more or less distant, in essence and in form) which the authors handle in their analysis of the case (third vertex).

España en Europa 1996-2004

Pensar globalmente, actuar localmente” es un slogan imprescindible en el discurso político de nuestros días. Pues bien, la práctica política, en materia de Unión Europea, de los dos gobiernos del Partido Popular, presididos por José María Aznar (1996-2004), nos permite acuñar un slogan de signo bien diferente: “pensar localmente, actuar en Europa”. En efecto, si algo caracteriza a estos ocho años de práctica política de José María Aznar es haber convertido sus preocupaciones domésticas en factor exclusivo de su estrategia europea, con independencia del contexto de cada momento y de la necesidad de encajar objetivos nacionales con objetivos europeos. De ahí que sea lógico que la campaña electoral que ha precedido a las elecciones generales del 14 de marzo no haya recogido ninguno de los temas que dominan en la agenda de la UE en el momento actual. Ni la ampliación, ni la Constitución, ni tampoco el proceso de conformación de un núcleo duro tienen cabida en el debate político españo

Spain in Europe 1996-2004

“Thinking globally, acting locally" is an essential slogan in the current political discourse. Yet, in view of the policies on the European Union carried out by the two governments of the People’s Party (PP) headed by José María Aznar between 1996 and 2004, we could coin a quite different slogan: "thinking locally, acting in Europe". Indeed, José María Aznar’s policy-making during the last eight years has been characterised by turning his domestic concerns into the ‘exclusive factor’ of his European strategy, regardless of the context and the need for fitting in national objectives with Europeans’. Hence, it was natural that the electoral campaign preceding the general elections held on Sunday, 14 March, did not deal with any of the topics prevailing in the EU’s current agenda. Neither enlargement nor the Constitution, nor the process of shaping a core group within the EU, seem to have room in Spain’s political debate...

An electronic voting platform with elliptic curve cryptography

The future of elections seems to be electronic voting systems du to its advantatges over the traditional voting. Nowadays, there are some different paradigms to ensure the security and reliability of e-voting. This document is part of a wider project which presents an e-Voting platform based on elliptic curve cryptography. It uses an hybrid combination of two of the main e-Voting paradigms to guarantee privacy and security in the counting phase, these are precisely, the mixnets and the homomorphic protocols. This document is focused in the description of the system and the maths and programming needed to solve the homomorphic part of it. In later chapters, there is a comparison between a simple mixing system and our system proposal.

The “Death of environmentalism” debates: forging links between SEA and civil society discourses

Social and environmental accounting (SEA) is currently going through a period of critical selfanalysis.Challenging questions are being raised about how SEA should be defined, who should be doing the defining, and what the agenda should be. We attempt to engage and enrich these debates from both a process and content perspective by drawing on the political philosophy of agonistic pluralism and a set of debates within the environmental movement – “the death of environmentalism” debates. The contribution of the paper is twofold: to set forth the death of environmentalism debates in the accounting literature and, in doing so, to contextualize and theorize the contested nature of SEA using agonistic pluralism. In contrast to consensually oriented approaches to SEA, the desired outcome is not necessarily resolution of ideological differences but to imagine, develop, and support democratic processes wherein these differences can be recognized and engaged. We construe the “Death” debates as illustrative of the contestable practical and political issues facing both SEA and progressive social movements generally, demonstrating the context and content of the deliberations necessary in contemplating effective programs of engagement. The SEA community, and civil society groups, can benefit from the more overtly political perspective provided by agonistic pluralism. By surfacing and engaging with various antagonisms in this wider contested civic sphere, SEA can more effectively respond to, and move beyond, traditional politically conservative, managerialist approaches to sustainability.

Do welfare benefits affect womens' choices of adult care giving?

The efficacy of social care, publicly and universally provided, has been contested from two different points of view. First, advocates of targeting social policy criticized the Matthew’s effect of universal provision and; second, theories arguing in favour of heterogeneous rationalities between men and women and, even different preferences among women, predict that universal provision of services is limiting women’s choices more than home allowances. The author tests both hypotheses and concludes that, at least in the case of adult care, women’s choices are significantly affected by women’s social positions and by the availability of public services. Furthermore, targeting through means-test eligibility criteria has no significant effect on inequality but, confirming the redistributive paradox, reduces women’s options.

Social capital, government expenditures, and growth

Countries with greater social capital have higher economic growth. We show that socialcapital is also highly positively correlated across countries with government expenditureon education. We develop an infinite-horizon model of public spending and endogenousstochastic growth that explains both facts through frictions in political agency whenvoters have imperfect information. In our model, the government provides servicesthat yield immediate utility, and investment that raises future productivity. Voters aremore likely to observe public services, so politicians have electoral incentives to underprovidepublic investment. Social capital increases voters' awareness of all governmentactivity. As a consequence, both politicians' incentives and their selection improve.In the dynamic equilibrium, both the amount and the efficiency of public investmentincrease, permanently raising the growth rate.

The political cost of reforms

This paper formalizes in a fully-rational model the popular idea that politiciansperceive an electoral cost in adopting costly reforms with future benefits and reconciles it with the evidence that reformist governments are not punished by voters.To do so, it proposes a model of elections where political ability is ex-ante unknownand investment in reforms is unobservable. On the one hand, elections improve accountability and allow to keep well-performing incumbents. On the other, politiciansmake too little reforms in an attempt to signal high ability and increase their reappointment probability. Although in a rational expectation equilibrium voters cannotbe fooled and hence reelection does not depend on reforms, the strategy of underinvesting in reforms is nonetheless sustained by out-of-equilibrium beliefs. Contrary tothe conventional wisdom, uncertainty makes reforms more politically viable and may,under some conditions, increase social welfare. The model is then used to study howpolitical rewards can be set so as to maximize social welfare and the desirability of imposing a one-term limit to governments. The predictions of this theory are consistentwith a number of empirical regularities on the determinants of reforms and reelection.They are also consistent with a new stylized fact documented in this paper: economicuncertainty is associated to more reforms in a panel of 20 OECD countries.

An agenda-setting model of electoral competition

This paper presents a model of electoral competition focusing on the formation of thepublic agenda. An incumbent government and a challenger party in opposition competein elections by choosing the issues that will key out their campaigns. Giving salience toan issue implies proposing an innovative policy proposal, alternative to the status-quo.Parties trade off the issues with high salience in voters concerns and those with broadagreement on some alternative policy proposal. Each party expects a higher probabilityof victory if the issue it chooses becomes salient in the voters decision. But remarkably,the issues which are considered the most important ones by a majority of votes may notbe given salience during the electoral campaign. An incumbent government may survivein spite of its bad policy performance if there is no sufficiently broad agreement on apolicy alternative. We illustrate the analytical potential of the model with the case of theUnited States presidential election in 2004.