Fédéralisme et vote régional

Éditorial du 29 octobre 2015

Compositional data analysis of vote shares in the 2001 Australian Federal election

First application of compositional data analysis techniques to Australian election data

Push button parliament–why India needs a non-partisan, recorded vote system

Decisions of national importance are made by Parliamentary voting. Yet Indian Members of Parliament (MPs) vote with a remarkable lack of freedom and accountability. The introduction of the Tenth Schedule in the Constitution has crippled free expression, since it provides that MPs voting against ‘any direction’ of their Party are liable to disqualification from the legislature  In addition, except for Constitutional amendments, Indian Parliamentary Procedure Rules do not require votes of MPs to be recorded unless the Speaker’s decision is contested in the House. The result is that voting in the House has become mechanical, controlled by Party politics and devoid of responsibility. This paper comments on a general theory of democratic accountability through the lens of Parliamentary voting. It suggests that the voting system adopted in the Parliament is an effective indicator to measure the level of accountability of its Members. In the context of India, this paper argues that the level of accountability will increase to a desirable extent only when there is adoption of a recorded system for every important House vote. Upon examination of India’s record thus far (through the sample of the 14th Lok Sabha) it becomes evident that the level of divisions (recorded votes) is substantially lower than other countries. This leads the paper to probe, as to why that might be the case. Part II of the paper answers that question by examining the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution. The paper scrutinizes the disproportionate influence of the Party in decision making in the Parliament. Apart from dealing with the inherent problem of the Tenth Schedule, this paper suggests two procedural changes to make parliamentary expression more meaningful. Firstly, the recording of all important votes within the Parliament and secondly, registering Party whips with the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs so that the voter knows the clear stand of every Parliamentary continuum. The focus of the paper is thus to bring back the attention of the legislators to their central function, which is deliberation on and the passage of legislation.

Dying for the vote : how ordinary people won the right to vote.

Estudia los movimientos sociales para conquistar y extender el derecho al voto entre todos los hombres y mujeres, denominados cartismo y sufragistas. Cumple con los requisitos del currículo nacional inglés para la etapa de 3 de secundaria (key stage 3). Este texto esta preparado para el Schools History Project creado en 1972 para mejorar el estudio de la historia entre estudiantes de trece a dieciséis años. Reconsidera las formas en que la historia contribuye a las necesidades educativas de los jóvenes, y por ello idea nuevos objetivos, nuevos criterios para la planificación y desarrollo del curso, así como de nuevos materiales de apoyo. Requiere nuevos criterios de evaluación y, por tanto nuevos exámenes y, adquirió mayor expansión con la introducción del General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) en 1987.

«A majority of one already» : two notes on imagination and politics

This review considers two books on political philosophy not published in English language, Diogo Pires Aurélio's Imaginação e Poder (Imagination and Power, referred as IP) and Viriato Soromenho Marques' A Revolução Federal (The Federal Revolution, RF). All quotations of the books result from translations of my own initiative.

Feminismos estéticos y antiestéticos en el Ecuador de principios del siglo XX: un análisis de género y generaciones (Estudios)

El ensayo analiza los cambios jurídicos y sociales que experimentaron las mujeres durante los años posteriores a la Revolución Liberal de 1895. La mayoría de las mujeres pioneras en la vida pública del Ecuador provinieron de las clases sociales media y alta. El estudio se concentra en los casos de María Luisa Gómez de la Torre, profesora y la única mujer participante en la fundación del Partido Socialista del Ecuador, y Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel, primera mujer graduada de médico, primera en sufragar en una elección y en obtener un escaño en el Congreso. El artículo indaga si estos cambios institucionales fueron el resultado de una concesión del poder o de una lucha social desde abajo.

A theoretical adaptive model of thermal comfort – Adaptive Predicted Mean Vote (aPMV)

This paper presents in detail a theoretical adaptive model of thermal comfort based on the “Black Box” theory, taking into account factors such as culture, climate, social, psychological and behavioural adaptations, which have an impact on the senses used to detect thermal comfort. The model is called the Adaptive Predicted Mean Vote (aPMV) model. The aPMV model explains, by applying the cybernetics concept, the phenomena that the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) is greater than the Actual Mean Vote (AMV) in free-running buildings, which has been revealed by many researchers in field studies. An Adaptive coefficient (λ) representing the adaptive factors that affect the sense of thermal comfort has been proposed. The empirical coefficients in warm and cool conditions for the Chongqing area in China have been derived by applying the least square method to the monitored onsite environmental data and the thermal comfort survey results.

If the British left: agricultural policy outside the CAP?

If the Conservative party wins Britain’s General Election in 2015 the incoming Government intends to negotiate a new settlement with the EU, and then hold an in-out referendum. Opinion polls suggest a narrow majority would vote to leave. To exercise an informed choice the electorate would need to know what feasible alternatives are available, so that these can be assessed and debated. Furthermore, in the event of a no vote the Government must be ready to implement its alternative strategy: Plan B. This implies that both a new EU settlement, and Plan B, need to be negotiated concurrently. There has been no serious attempt to explain what Plan B would mean for UK farm policy. Would, for example, British farmers continue to receive the level of support that they currently enjoy; would support be more focussed on environmental objectives? WTO rules on most-favoured-nation treatment and regional trade agreements would apply. Could a WTO compatible agri-food trade agreement be negotiated with its former EU partners, or would Irish and Brazilian beef face the same tariff barriers on imports into the British market? For the EU, the loss of a major net contributor to EU finances could result in a re-examination of the CAP budget.

Independence referendums: who should vote and who should be offered citizenship?

In this EUDO CITIZENSHIP Forum Debate, several authors consider the interrelations between eligibility criteria for participation in independence referendum (that may result in the creation of a new independent state) and the determination of putative citizenship ab initio (on day one) of such a state. The kick-off contribution argues for resemblance of an independence referendum franchise and of the initial determination of the citizenry, critically appraising the incongruence between the franchise for the 18 September 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and the blueprint for Scottish citizenship ab initio put forward by the Scottish Government in its 'Scotland's Future' White Paper. Contributors to this debate come from divergent disciplines (law, political science, sociology, philosophy). They reflect on and contest the above claims, both generally and in relation to regional settings including (in addition to Scotland) Catalonia/Spain, Flanders/Belgium, Quebec/Canada, Post-Yugoslavia and Puerto-Rico/USA.

Att bli, att vara och att ha varit - om ingångar i och utgångar ur Jehovas vittnen i Sverige

Summary To become, to be and to have been: about the  Jehovah’s Witnesses The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, in the following text referred to as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or “the organisation”, is a worldwide Christian organisation with about 6.7 million members. The organisation has many times, without any success so far, proclaimed Armageddon when they expect Jehovah to return to Earth. They interpret the Bible in their own, often very literal way, and require their members to live according to these interpretations. Among the consequences of this, members are forbidden to vote, to do military service or to receive blood transfusions. Apart from attending the three weekly meetings, members are expected to be active in missionary work, known as “publishing”. If a member fails to do a certain number of hours’ publishing, he or she risks being deprived of active membership status Sweden in general is considered to be a society where the population is not very religious. The formerly state-governed Lutheran church has lost its influence and the vast majority of ordinary Swedes do not visit church on other occasions than weddings, funerals or christenings. Expressing one’s own religious values has become somewhat of a private matter where publicity is seldom appreciated, which is contrary to the practice of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is one of the reasons why the Jehovah’s Witnesses are commonly perceived by average Swedes as a “suspicious” religious organisation. The aim and methods of the study This dissertation seeks to describe and investigate the entering and leaving of a highly structured and hierarchical religious community, exemplified in this case by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. What are the thoughts and aspirations of someone who is considering becoming a Jehovah’s Witness? What are the priorities and what experiences seem important when a person is going through such a process? And when this person has finally reached his or her goal of becoming a member, is it the same motivation that makes him or her stay in the organisation for longer periods of time, possibly for the rest of their lives, or does it change during the process of entering, or does this motivation change its character during the transition from entering to being a regular member? Why do some of the members change their attitude to the Jehovah’s Witnesses from rejoicing to bitterness? And how does this process of exit manifest itself? In what way is it different from the process of entry? The respondents in this study were chosen from both active members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sweden and those who have left the organisation for personal reasons. Repeated interviews with ten active members of the organisation have been conducted in the course of the study and compared to equal numbers of former members. The interviews have been semi-structured to deal with questions of how a person has come into contact with the organisation; how they retrospectively experienced the process of entry; the reasons for becoming a member. Questions have also been asked about life in the organisation. The group of “exiters” have also been asked about the experience of leaving, why they wanted to leave, and how this process was started and carried out. In addition to this I have analysed a four-year diary describing the time inside and the process of leaving the organisation. This has given me an extra psychological insight into the inner experience of someone who has gone through the whole process. The analysis has been done by categorising the content of the transcribed interviews. An attempt to outline a model of an entry and exit process has been made, based on ideas and interpretations presented in the interviews. The analysis of the diary has involved thorough reading, resulting in a division of it into four different parts, where each part has been given a certain key-word, signifying the author’s emotional state when writing it. A great deal of the information about the Jehovah’s Witnesses has been collected through discussion boards on the Internet, informal talks with members and ex-members, interviews with representatives of the organisations during visits to its different offices (Bethels), such as St. Petersburg, Russia, and Brooklyn, New York, USA. The context Each organisation evolves in its own context with its own norms, roles and stories that would not survive outside it. With this as a starting point, there is a chapter dedicated to the description of the organisation’s history, structure and activities. It has been stated that the organisation’s treatment of its critical members and the strategies for recruiting new members have evolved over the years of its history. At the beginning there was an openness allowing members to be critical. As the structure of the organisation has become more rigid and formalised, the treatment of internal critics has become much less tolerated and exclusion has become a frequent option. As a rule many new members have been attracted to the organisation when (1) the day of Armageddon has been pronounced to be approaching; (2) the members of the organisation have been persecuted or threatened with persecution; and (3) the organisation has discovered a “new market”. The processes for entering and exiting How the entering processes manifest themselves depends on whether the person has been brought up in the organisation or not. A person converting as an adult has to pass six phases before being considered a Jehovah’s Witness by the organisation. These are:  Contact with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Studying the bible with members of the organisation, Questioning, Accepting, Being active as publisher (spreading the belief), Being baptised.  For a person brought up in the organisation, the process to full membership is much shorter:   Upbringing in the organisation, Taking a stand on the belief, Being baptised. The exit process contains of seven phases:   Different levels of doubts, Testing of doubts, Turning points, Different kinds of decisions, Different steps in executing the decisions, Floating, a period of emotional and cognitive consideration of membership and its experiences, Realtive neutrality.   The process in and the process out are both slow and are accompanied with anguish and doubts. When a person is going through the process in or out of the organisation he or she experiences criticism. This is when people around the adept question the decision to continue in the process. The result of the criticism depends on where in the process the person is. If he or she is at the beginning of the process, the criticism will probably make the person insecure and the process will slow down or stop. If the criticism is pronounced in a later phase, the process will probably speed up. The norms of the organisation affect the behaviour of the members. There are techniques for inclusion that both bind members to the organisation and shield them off from the surrounding society. Examples of techniques for inclusion are the “work situation” and “closed doors”. The work situation signifies that members who do as the organisation recommends – doing simple work – often end up in the same branch of industry as many other Jehovah’s Witnesses. This often means that the person has other witnesses as workmates. If the person is unemployed or moves to another town it is easy to find a new job through connections in the organisation. Doubts and exclusions can lead to problems since they entail a risk of losing one’s job. This can also result in problems getting a new job. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not supposed to talk to excluded members, which of course mean difficulties working together. “Closed doors” means that members who do as the organisation recommends – not pursuing higher education, not engaging in civil society, working with a manual or in other way simple job, putting much time into the organisation – will, after a long life in the organisation, have problems starting a new life outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The language used in the organisation shows the community among the members, thus the language is one of the most important symbols. A special way of thinking is created through the language. It binds members to the organisation and sometimes it can work as a way to get back into the normative world of the organisation. Randall Collins’s (1990, 2004) thoughts about “emotional energy” have enabled an understanding of the solidarity and unity in the organisation. This also gives an understanding of the way the members treat doubting and critical members. The members who want to exit have to open up the binding/screening off. A possible way to do that is through language, to become aware of the effect the language might have. Another way is to search for emotional energy in another situation. During the exit process, shame might be of some importance. When members become aware of the shame they feel, because they perceive they are “acting a belief”, the exit process might accelerate.

Single transferable vote with Borda elimination: proportional representation, moderation, quasi-chaos and stability

Modifying single transferable vote (STV) by removing candidates according to their Borda scores creates a new vote counting system (STV-B) that is not quasi-chaotic, results in proportional representation, and promotes the election of moderate candidates. Dummett, M.A.E. [1997. Principles of Electoral Reform. Oxford University, New York] noted quasi-chaos in STV and proposed the “Quota/Borda system” (QBS) as a solution. STV-B and QBS retain proportional representation from STV, permit some influence on candidate selection to occur between voting blocks thereby promoting moderate results, and are much more stable than STV when subjected to small changes in voter preferences. Under STV-B, and not QBS, a minority that shares some preferences may elect a candidate even if the minority is not a solid coalition.

Removal of directors of public companies takes centre stage in Australia : an exploration of the corporate law and governance issues

Increasing attention is being given to the legal and governance issues relating to the removal of directors in Australian public companies. This has been due mainly to the difficulties experienced by the board of National Australia Bank in attempting to remove one of its fellow directors, and the subsequent development of public companies entering into so-called 'prenuptial agreements' with new directors, requiring that the director 'resign' if the board pass a vote of no-confidence in the director. In this article, the author revisits the area of director removal in Australian public companies for two reasons. The first reason, which covers the majority of the article, is to engage in a detailed analysis of whether the pre-nuptial agreements which some public companies have indicated that they support using to remove directors, are in fact enforceable under Australia's Corporations Act The second reason is to outline a law reform proposal to enable public companies to remove directors without requiring the vote of shareholders at a general meeting. The proposal involves providing Australia' corporate  regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) with the power to grant relief from the statutory removal provisions to public companies, but in a way which balances the competing objectives of commercial efficiency and shareholder participation and, very importantly, encourages good corporate governance practices by companies in relation to the performance assessment  of directors.

It is in the interests of both shareholders and directors to agree on a set of ground rules for the effective supervision of companies that reconciles the rights of the owners to overall control with the much tougher demands on modern directors