Political participation from a citizenship perspective

Conventional academic studies on political participation mostly focus on electoral politics including electoral systems, political party structures and their interaction with other governmental processes. These studies adopt an approach that presumes the existence of a pre-defined people (demos). Hence, existing literature on electoral politics and government structures take for granted a pre-defined demos and then survey participatory practices. Yet, there is another way to study political participation. It can be studied from the angle of citizenship. This involves an approach that does not rely on an ex post facto interest in the activities of a pre-defined demos but one that unravels the factors that go into its definition. Study of political participation from a citizenship perspective contains an effort to problematize the very notion of demos. Decoupling of national identity and participation empowers a vision of citizenship not as membership in a nation-state but as a set of rights that include multi-cultural rights. It is the contention of this article that European Union processes have the potential to contribute to the deepening of democratization by promoting diversity through introduction of denationalization of citizenship as well as processes of deliberation in member and candidate countries

Three predictions on July 2012 Federal Elections in Mexico based on past regularities

Electoral systems are subject of study for physicist and mathematicians in last years given place to a new area: sociophysics. Based on previous works of the author on the Mexican electoral processes in the new millennium, he found three characteristics appearing along the 2000 and 2006 preliminary dataset offered by the electoral authorities, named PREP: I) Error distributions are not Gaussian or Lorentzian, they are characterized for power laws at the center and asymmetric lobes at each side. II) The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) presented a change in the slope of the percentage of votes obtained when it go beyond the 70% of processed certificates; hence it have an improvement at the end of the electoral computation. III) The distribution of votes for the PRI is a smooth function well described by Daisy model distributions of rank $r$ in all the analyzed cases, presidential and congressional elections in 2000, 2003 and 2006. If all these characteristics are proper of the Mexican reality they should appear in the July 2012 process. Here I discuss some arguments on why such a behaviors could appear in the present processComment: 6 pages, one tabl

Electoral surveys influence on the voting processes: a cellular automata model

Nowadays, in societies threatened by atomization, selfishness, short-term thinking, and alienation from political life, there is a renewed debate about classical questions concerning the quality of democratic decision-making. In this work a cellular automata (CA) model for the dynamics of free elections based on the social impact theory is proposed. By using computer simulations, power law distributions for the size of electoral clusters and decision time have been obtained. The major role of broadcasted electoral surveys in guiding opinion formation and stabilizing the ``{\it status quo}'' was demonstrated. Furthermore, it was shown that in societies where these surveys are manipulated within the universally accepted statistical error bars, even a majoritary opposition could be hindered from reaching the power through the electoral path.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Corporate Governance: What about the workers?

To stimulate debates about the creation of corporate governance mechanisms and processes which would help to secure an equitable distribution of income and wealth for workers. Methodology/Approach: The paper builds on a political economy of income and wealth inequalities. It argues that corporate governance mechanisms and processes are rooted in particular politics and histories. The state is a key actor. It provides a brief history of the UK corporate governance debates relating to income distribution, industrial democracy and disclosures. It provides social data about the extent of income inequalities. Findings: The paper shows that the UK lacks institutional structures and processes and mechanisms to enable workers to secure a higher share of the firm?s income. Research limitations/implications (if applicable): The study primarily focuses on some aspects of the corporate governance structures, practices and income/wealth inequalities in the UK. Its implications could also be relevant to market-oriented liberal states with ?consensus? or ?majoritarian? electoral systems. Practical implications (if applicable): To encourage debates, the paper puts forward a number of suggestions for changing electoral and corporate governance practices together with disclosures that could give visibility to income and wealth inequalities. Originality/value of paper: The paper links corporate governance debates to broader political choices. Article Type: A research article that uses a variety of government and institutional data sources to highlight shortcomings of corporate governance practices

Book review: Taking our country back: the crafting ofnetworked politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama

Through a detailed history of new media and political campaigning, Taking Our Country Back contributes to an interdisciplinary body of scholarship from communication, sociology, and political science. The book theorizes processes of innovation in online electoral politics and aims to give readers a new understanding of how the internet and its use by the Howard Dean campaign have fundamentally changed the field of political campaigning. Reviewed by Paul Brighton

Electoral Corruption

Introduction and background Elections are the keystone of democracy as we know it, but the spectre of corruption and manipulation hangs over all electoral processes. For as long as elections have been held, they have been subject to efforts to corrupt them. Vote-buying and fraud were features of elections in ancient Athens and Sparta two and a half thousand years ago (Staveley, 1972: chap. 5) as well as in early modern elections across the world (Posada-Carbó, 1996; 2000), and the same problems haunt electoral conduct in virtually all contemporary states. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that electoral corruption may be growing as a problem. Not so many decades ago, many of the world‟s most authoritarian states refrained from holding elections at all, whereas in the post-Cold War world, changes in value systems and the forces of globalisation have made it increasingly difficult for states to resist the pressure at least to pay lip service to democracy. Consequently, many more states have begun to hold elections, though the quality of electoral conduct in a number of them leaves much to be desired. Before embarking on a review of the scholarly literature on this topic, it is necessary to provide a brief consideration of what is meant by the term „electoral corruption‟ and what types of activities are collected under this rubric. The phenomenon here termed „electoral corruption‟ goes by a number of names: electoral malpractice, electoral misconduct, electoral malfeasance, electoral fraud, and electoral manipulation. These terms will be used interchangeably in the present analysis. The defining feature of this activity is that it involves the abuse of electoral institutions for personal or political gain. Electoral corruption can be broken down for the sake of convenience into three types according to object: the manipulation of rules (the legal framework), the manipulation of voters (preference-formation and expression) and the manipulation of voting (electoral administration) (see also Birch, 2009). The manipulation of rules involves the distortion of electoral laws so as to benefit one party or contestant in an election. Electoral rules are manipulated to some extent in virtually all states, democratic or otherwise, but electoral rule manipulation can be classified as a form of electoral corruption when it seriously distorts the level playing field subtending elections, as, for example, when the rules governing candidacy prevent certain political forces from contesting elections, or when large sectors of the adult population are excluded from the franchise. This survey of electoral corruption provides an overview of the phenomenon, including a summary of the scholarly research on the topic and an assessment of the relevance of research findings for the practitioner community. The paper is grounded on the assumption that elections are the keystone of modern democracy, and that understanding electoral corruption and addressing its main causes can improve electoral integrity around the world

Exit, Voice, and Cyclicality: A Micro-Logic of Voting Behaviour in European Parliament Elections

Unlike other classics of political economy, “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” (EVL) has not sparked many innovations in the field of electoral studies. This paper aims to demonstrate that scholars miss out on a powerful theory of political behaviour by leaving Hirschman’s ideas to other disciplines. To change this, I resolve several theoretical complications that have hampered the application of EVL to democratic elections. On this basis, I construct a model of voting behaviour through the electoral cycle to explain typical “second-order” effects in elections to the European Parliament (EP). Building on the parameters of EVL allows to unite such diverse phenomena as anti-government swings, declining turnout, protest voting, conversion and alienation in one theoretical framework. Testing the model with survey data from the European Election Studies of 1999 and 2004 reveals novel insights into the dynamics at work in EP elections. The role of strategic voting in the form of voice appears to be limited. Instead, processes of de- and realignment in the form of exit dominate a picture of EP elections that undermines the widespread conception of second-order irrelevance

Some Reflections on the Relationship between Politicians and Politics in Latin America after Twenty Five Years of Democracy. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol.8 No.1, January 2008

Almost three decades after democratic transition numerous political reforms have appeared. No country in the region, with the obvious exception of Cuba, has been left out of this wave of political transformations. Profound constitutional reforms, decentralization processes, and changes in the relationships between the branches of government, in electoral laws and in rules regarding political participation are just some of the transformations experienced by Latin American polities. As of 2007, the agenda of political reforms is patently open in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and also important in Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Peru

Direct enrolment and direct update: the Australian experience

Australia has required all eligible electors to enrol (register) to vote now for one hundred years. In recent years, however, changing demographic patterns and citizen mobility have made it increasingly challenging to maintain the accuracy and currency of the federal electoral roll. These same social trends mean that strategies such as habitation reviews which have been successful in the past are no longer effective or feasible. Two of the state electoral commissions have responded to the declining enrolment rate by implementing systems in which administrative data from other agencies are used to add individuals to the roll and update their details without their intervention (direct enrolment and direct update). Recently passed Commonwealth legislation now allows the AEC to adopt similar processes. The current paper examines the processes by which the NSW and Victorian Electoral Commissions have implemented direct update and direct enrolment through previously published information and interviews with the commissions. The paper also reports on their progress so far, including the impact on the 2010 Victorian and 2011 NSW state elections. The implications of these reforms for electoral roll management in Australia generally are discussed