New Political Parties as Innovators - Formation and Success

This cumulative dissertation investigates the formation and success of new political parties in developed democracies from the perspective of the programmatic competition between parties (see. introduction in chapter 1). It starts by arguing that the current state of the programmatic supply by existing parties is a central determinant for the likelihood of new party formation (chapter 2). A low programmatic diversity of existing parties creates scope for programmatic innovations by new parties. The dissertation establishes a connection between the literature on new parties and niche parties by analyzing the latter as typical cases of innovating new parties (chapter 3). For this purpose, the author combines two concepts with corresponding measures in order to capture the programmatic profiles of parties. Nicheness refers to differences in the emphasis of topics between a given party and its counterparts while programmatic concentration shows the narrowness of a given policy profile. Chapter 4 investigates how the variation in the programmatic profiles of niche parties affect their long-term electoral performance. Previous studies on niche parties have not fully taken into account the evolutionary aspect of the programmatic profiles of these parties. Acknowledging the variation in programmatic profiles between niche parties and over time, the article argues that the electoral effects of nicheness and programmatic concentration as programmatic features of niche parties vary over their lifecycle. The literature on new parties assumes that they can benefit from the poor representation of parts of the electorate by existing parties. This strand of research provides plausible results, but it operates on the macro level, which is problematic for theoretical and methodological reasons. The study in chapter 5 overcomes these problems through a multilevel analysis of the vote choice between new parties, existing parties and abstention.

Cidadania e educação física : matrizes históricas e políticas, contradições e perspectivas = Citizenship and physical education : historical and political matrices, perspectives and contradictions

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Testes de desempenho aeróbio relacionados a intensidades de corrida em treinamento e competição para fundistas de alto rendimento = : Aerobic performance tests related to training and competition running intensities for high performance distance runners

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Educação fisica e hegemonia

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Energy absorbed by electronic body protectors from kicks in a taekwondo competition

Objective: Although some scientific information on electronic body protectors in taekwondo is available, no research has been done to assess the impact of kicks in a competitive situation. The purpose of this study, then, was to assess the energy absorbed by these protectors from kicks performed in an actual taekwondo competition. Methods: Subjects consisted of junior (14-17 years) and senior (>= 18 years) male taekwondo-in, who participated in an open tournament. Data on the energy imparted by valid kicks in Joules (1) were collected from a public visual electronic monitor. Results: Energy was higher for the seniors: 264.31 +/- 56.63 J versus 224.38 +/- 48.23 J for the juniors (eta(2) = 0.121). The seniors scored lower in percent impact but the effect was trivial: 123.46 +/- 24.77% versus 136.70 +/- 26.33% (eta(2) = 0.087). Conclusions: The difference between senior and junior taekwondo-in in absolute energy generated was small, while the difference in relative energy impact was trivial in favour of the junior taekwondo athletes.

Particle competition for complex network community detection

In many real situations, randomness is considered to be uncertainty or even confusion which impedes human beings from making a correct decision. Here we study the combined role of randomness and determinism in particle dynamics for complex network community detection. In the proposed model, particles walk in the network and compete with each other in such a way that each of them tries to possess as many nodes as possible. Moreover, we introduce a rule to adjust the level of randomness of particle walking in the network, and we have found that a portion of randomness can largely improve the community detection rate. Computer simulations show that the model has good community detection performance and at the same time presents low computational complexity. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

A PHASE TRANSITION FOR COMPETITION INTERFACES

We study the competition interface between two growing clusters in a growth model associated to last-passage percolation. When the initial unoccupied set is approximately a cone, we show that this interface has an asymptotic direction with probability 1. The behavior of this direction depends on the angle theta of the cone: for theta >= 180 degrees, the direction is deterministic, while for theta < 180 degrees, it is random, and its distribution can be given explicitly in certain cases. We also obtain partial results on the fluctuations of the interface around its asymptotic direction. The evolution of the competition interface in the growth model can be mapped onto the path of a second-class particle in the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process; from the existence of the limiting direction for the interface, we obtain a new and rather natural proof of the strong law of large numbers (with perhaps a random limit) for the position of the second-class particle at large times.

Definindo a arena política local: sistemas partidários municipais na federação brasileira

This article analyzes the Brazilian political system from the local perspective. Following Cox (1997), we review the problems with electoral coordination that emerge from a given institutional framework. Due to the characteristics of the Brazilian Federal system and its electoral rules, linkage between the three levels of government is not guaranteed a priori, but demands a coordinating effort by the parties' leadership. According to our hypothesis, the parties are capable of coordinating their election strategies at different levels in the party system. Regression models based on two-stage least squares (2SLS) and TOBIT, analyzing a panel of Brazilian municipalities with data from the 1994 and 2000 elections, show that the proportion of votes received by a party in a given election correlates closely with its previous votes in majoritarian elections. Despite institutional incentives, the Brazilian party system shows evidence that it is organized nationally to the extent that it links the competition for votes at the three levels of government (National, State, and Municipal).

Organized Crime and Terrorism: From the Cells Towards Political Communication, A Case Study

During the first half of 2006 the city of Sao Paulo suffered three series of violent attacks against the security forces, civilians, and the government. The violent campaign also included a massive rebellion in prisons and culminated in the kidnapping of a journalist and the broadcast of a manifesto from the criminal organization PCC threatening the police and the government. Right after, the main device used to contain organized crime in the prisons was declared unconstitutional. This episode represents a prototypical example of the use of media-focused terrorism by organized crime for projection into the political communication arena.

Political Systems and the Perspective on Nursing Education during the Spanish Transition (from the Franco Regime to Democracy). A Contribution based on Nursing History

The aim of this study is to describe the changes in nursing education during the process prior to and after the establishment of democracy in Spain. It begins with the hypothesis that differences in social and political organization influenced the way the system of nursing education evolved, keeping it in line with neopositivistic schemes and exclusively technical approaches up until the advent of democracy. The evolution of a specific profile for nursing within the educational system has been shaped by the relationship between the systems of social and political organization in Spain. To examine the insertion of subjects such as the anthropology of healthcare into education programs for Spanish nursing, one must consider the cultural, intercultural and transcultural factors that are key to understanding the changes in nursing education that allowed for the adoption of a holistic approach in the curricula. Until the arrival of democracy in 1977, Spanish nursing education was solely technical in nature and the role of nurses was limited to the tasks and procedures defined by the bureaucratic thinking characteristic of the rational-technological paradigm. Consequently, during the long period prior to democracy, nursing in Spain was under the influence of neopositivistic and technical thinking, which had its effect on educational curricula. The addition of humanities and anthropology to the curricula, which facilitated a holistic approach, occurred once nursing became a field of study at the university level in 1977, a period that coincided with the beginnings of democracy in Spain.

COMPETITION AMONG EUCALYPTUS TREES DEPENDS ON GENETIC VARIATION AND RESOURCE SUPPLY

Genetic variation and environmental heterogeneity fundamentally shape the interactions between plants of the same species. According to the resource partitioning hypothesis, competition between neighbors intensifies as their similarity increases. Such competition may change in response to increasing supplies of limiting resources. We tested the resource partitioning hypothesis in stands of genetically identical (clone-origin) and genetically diverse (seed-origin) Eucalyptus trees with different water and nutrient supplies, using individual-based tree growth models. We found that genetic variation greatly reduced competitive interactions between neighboring trees, supporting the resource partitioning hypothesis. The importance of genetic variation for Eucalyptus growth patterns depended strongly on local stand structure and focal tree size. This suggests that spatial and temporal variation in the strength of species interactions leads to reversals in the growth rank of seed-origin and clone-origin trees. This study is one of the first to experimentally test the resource partitioning hypothesis for intergenotypic vs. intragenotypic interactions in trees. We provide evidence that variation at the level of genes, and not just species, is functionally important for driving individual and community-level processes in forested ecosystems.

Biopolitics meets Terrapolitics: Political Ontologies and Governance in Settler-Colonial Australia

Crises persist in Australian Indigenous affairs because current policy approaches do not address the intersection of Indigenous and European political worlds. This paper responds to this challenge by providing a heuristic device for delineating Settler and Indigenous Australian political ontologies and considering their interaction. It first evokes Settler and Aboriginal ontologies as respectively biopolitical (focused through life) and terrapolitical (focused through land). These ideal types help to identify important differences that inform current governance challenges. The paper discusses the entwinement of these traditions as a story of biopolitical dominance wherein Aboriginal people are governed as an “included-exclusion” within the Australian political community. Despite the overall pattern of dominance, this same entwinement offers possibilities for exchange between biopolitics and terrapolitics, and hence for breaking the recurrent crises of Indigenous affairs.

Australian political discourse: Pronominal choice in campaign speeches

The intention behind language used by candidates during an election campaign is to persuade voters to vote for a particular political party. Fundamental to the political arena is construction of identity, group membership and ways of talking about self, others, and the polarizing categories of 'us' and 'them'. This paper will investigate the pragmatics of pronominal choice and the way in which politicians construct and convey their own identities and those of their political opponents within political speeches. Taking six speeches by John Howard and Mark Latham across the course of the 2004 federal election campaign, I look at the ways in which pronominal choice indicates a shifting scope of reference to creat pragmatic effects and serve political functions.

Parliament House Competition Model, Canberra

View of model for competition entry.

Parliament House Competition Drawings, Darwin

View of presentation drawings for competition entry.