Strategic Incentives in Unconventional Electoral Systems: Introduction to the Special Issue

The study of strategic behaviour and the impact of institutions on elections has mainly focused on simple and conventional electoral systems: list-proportional electoral systems (PR) and the plurality vote. Less conventional systems are not on the agenda of comparative studies, even though no less than 30% of countries use unconventional electoral systems for their national parliamentary elections, such as the Single Transferable Vote, PR with majority bonuses, or mixed electoral systems. Often, they provide for unusual combinations of different institutional incentives, and hence to particular actor strategies.

Electoral and Financial Bookkeeping: A Comparison of Pre-Electoral Pledges on Public Spending and the Outcome of Post-Electoral Budget Debates

In the wake of the financial crisis, budgetary discipline has taken centre stage in politics. More than ever a country's budget mirrors the true policy preferences of the legislative majority beyond all political discourse and cheap talk. The paper sheds light on mandate fulfilment in the field of public spending and fiscal policy in general. Based on previous work on pledge fulfilment in Switzerland the paper compares publicised pre-electoral statements of MPs on public spending and the development of the public finances with their post-electoral legislative behaviour during budget debates and votes. The findings of the paper confirm the results of the aforementioned earlier studies and point to the potential of budgetary statements for future mandate fulfilment research.

The Role of Corruption in Explaining the Electoral Success of New Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe

More than 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the electoral volatility in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is still remarkably high. A considerable part of the volatility derives from the votes for new political parties, since they are very often on the winning side of elections. This paper examines corruption as potential determinant of their electoral success. It argues that the effect of corruption is twofold: On the onehand, the historically-grown corruption level reduces the electoral success of new political parties due to strong clientelist structures that bind the electorate to the established parties. On the other hand, an increase of the perceived corruption above the traditional corruption level leads to a loss of trust in the political elite and therefore boosts the electoral success of new competitors. A statistical analysis of all democratic elections in CEE between 1996 and 2011 confirms these two counteracting effects.

Corruption and the Electoral Support of New Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe

More than 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the electoral volatility in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is still remarkably high. A considerable part of the volatility derives from the votes for new political parties, since they are very often on the winning side of elections. This article examines corruption as a potential determinant of their electoral support. It argues that the effect of corruption is twofold: on the one hand, the historically derived corruption level reduces the electoral support for new political parties due to strong clientelist structures that bind the electorate to the established parties. On the other hand, an increase in perceived corruption above the traditional corruption level leads to a loss of trust in the political elite and therefore boosts the electoral support for new competitors. A statistical analysis of all democratic elections in CEE between 1996 and 2013 confirms these two counteracting effects.

The Moderating Role of Electoral Pressure on Congressional Ideological Polarization: A Cross-Sectional Time-Series Analysis

Reelection and self-interest are recurring themes in the study of our congressional leaders. To date, many studies have already been done on the trends between elections, party affiliation, and voting behavior in Congress. However, because a plethora of data has been collected on both elections and congressional voting, the ability to draw a connection between the two provides a very reasonable prospect. This project analyzes whether voting shifts in congressional elections have an effect on congressional voting. Will a congressman become ideologically more polarized when his electoral margins increase? Essentially, this paper assumes that all congressmen are ideologically polarized, and it is elections which serve to reel congressmen back toward the ideological middle. The election and ideological data for this study, which spans from the 56th to the 107th Congress, finds statistically significant relationships between these two variables. In fact, congressman pay attention to election returns when voting in Congress. When broken down by party, Democrats are more exhibitive of this phenomenon, which suggest that Democrats may be more likely to intrinsically follow the popular model of representation. Meanwhile, it can be hypothesized that insignificant results for Republicans indicate that Republicans may follow a trustee model of representation.

Argentina 1989 : análisis del comportamiento electoral

Fil: Bistué de García, Susana . Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales

La representación política y la publicidad electoral

Fil: Repetto, Julio C..

El régimen municipal de Mendoza : la función administrativa y el sistema electoral : un análisis y propuesta de reforma a la ley 1079/34

Fil: Repetto, Julio C..

La Nueva Ley Electoral y las representaciones sobre la juventud

Fil: Bonaparte, Adrián. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

Participación electoral de los argentinos residentes en el exterior

Históricamente la Argentina ha sido caracterizada como un país de recepción de migrantes de todo el mundo. No obstante, en las últimas décadas, los cambios políticos y económicos en el interior del país y las facilidades para la movilidad internacional, han hecho de la emigración una alternativa cierta en búsqueda del mejoramiento de las condiciones de vida y desarrollo profesional para la población argentina. En dicho marco, el presente trabajo aborda la problemática de la ciudadanía transnacional, centrándose en la participación electoral de los argentinos residiendo en el exterior y prestando especial atención a los factores que la dificultan. Los principales ejes de análisis son: a- el estudio de los datos cuantitativos referidos a la participación electoral, b- el posicionamiento de las instituciones del Estado encargadas de ejecutar el voto en el exterior y la clase política, respecto al tema y c- el papel desempeñado por las asociaciones de argentinos residentes en el exterior

Opinión pública y comportamiento electoral : De las opiniones al voto

¿Los ciudadanos votan igual a como opinan? Este trabajo parte de observar que, tanto las teorizaciones acerca de la opinión pública, como los estudios del comportamiento electoral, generalmente suponen una igualdad o linealidad en la relación entre opinión y voto, lo que equivale a sostener que las personas se comportan tal cual a como opinan. En este sentido, las diferentes corrientes dentro del campo de estudios de la opinión pública y de las teorías que procuran comprender el comportamiento de voto, han tendido a equiparar ambos conceptos. Con el objetivo de explorar y cuestionar este supuesto, este trabajo se propone describir la relación opinión pública ? comportamiento electoral a través del desarrollo conceptual de la opinión pública y en el campo teórico de la investigación del voto, presentando las diferentes formas en que se fue dando la vinculación opinión-voto e indagando sobre los avances en perspectivas analíticas que logran poner de manifiesto que ambos conceptos no necesariamente se corresponden

Microsociología de la(s) significacio(nes) política(s) : El discurso político mediático y la estrategia electoral. Un estudio de caso

Fil: Lacchini, Ana Julia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

Participación electoral de los argentinos residentes en el exterior

Históricamente la Argentina ha sido caracterizada como un país de recepción de migrantes de todo el mundo. No obstante, en las últimas décadas, los cambios políticos y económicos en el interior del país y las facilidades para la movilidad internacional, han hecho de la emigración una alternativa cierta en búsqueda del mejoramiento de las condiciones de vida y desarrollo profesional para la población argentina. En dicho marco, el presente trabajo aborda la problemática de la ciudadanía transnacional, centrándose en la participación electoral de los argentinos residiendo en el exterior y prestando especial atención a los factores que la dificultan. Los principales ejes de análisis son: a- el estudio de los datos cuantitativos referidos a la participación electoral, b- el posicionamiento de las instituciones del Estado encargadas de ejecutar el voto en el exterior y la clase política, respecto al tema y c- el papel desempeñado por las asociaciones de argentinos residentes en el exterior