Explaining Foreigners’ Political Rights in the Context of Direct Democracy:A Fuzzy-Set QCA of Swiss Cantonal Popular Votes

In the direct democratic arena, the consensus of voters is required to deliberate policies; without that consent policies are blocked. When bills that support cultural diversity or foreigners’ integration are put into referendums, voters may or may not exert their veto power over the proposed policies. In order to determine under which circumstances these types of bills are successful in referendum, I have undertaken a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 39 referendums about the extension of political rights to foreigners at the Swiss cantonal level. My analysis identified a total of five theoretically-informed conditions that explain citizenship liberalization and the success of popular votes. I then located these conditions within two configurational hypotheses which postulate how referendum proponents might overcome direct democratic hurdles. The analysis of the success of referendums reveals that the only sufficient path that leads to the popular vote’s success is to insert the sensitive issues into a multi-faceted bill. As demonstrated by a more in-depth case analysis, the sensitive object is successful because it is hidden from voters during the referendum campaign or because other priority objects inside the bill reduce its salience

Equilibrium States in Numerical Argumentation Networks

Given an argumentation network with initial values to the arguments, we look for algorithms which can yield extensions compatible with such initial values. We find that the best way of tackling this problem is to offer an iteration formula that takes the initial values and the attack relation and iterates a sequence of intermediate values that eventually converges leading to an extension. The properties surrounding the application of the iteration formula and its connection with other numerical and non-numerical techniques proposed by others are thoroughly investigated in this paper

A fuzzy logic model for evaluating the standard performance of a prototype online voting system

This paper described the major challenges associated with existing methods of voting; hence a prototype online voting system was developed and proposed for credible election in Edo state with a mind set to trash out the various problems identified with the existing system. In order to determine if the prototype online voting system developed is of standard performance a fuzzy clustering means (FCM) was designed to evaluate and ascertain its performance based on certain criteria gathered using questionnaire designed. The FCM model was simulated and tested for evaluation taking into consideration stakeholders of election that were drawn from twelve (12) local government areas, out of the Eighteen (18) local government areas of Edo state. Opinions of stakeholders of the election concerning the wished-for model were arbitrarily sampled and analyzed for the use of assessment in particular when compared to the present system of selection. In addition, other factors that can promise an open and just election were also discussed and place into consideration throughout the implementation of the developed prototype online voting system. The result from the evaluation revealed that the seven (7) local government areas which formed about (58.33%) of the beyond least standard cluster and the five (5) local government areas, which also formed about (41.66%) of the regular standard cluster of the entire population of (12) local government areas were both above the average acceptable benchmark for elections, which is a key indicator that the developed prototype online voting software meets more than the standard for a credible election process and it is therefore proficient as a verdict announcer for a transparent electoral process when fully implemented and deployed for usage

Systems of possibilistic regressions: a case study in ecological inference

This work introduces how possibilistic regression can be used in the case of non symmetrical triangular membership functions, building a system of regressions, so that suitable restrictions for each particular problem can be incorporated. We apply this methodology to the problem of ecological inference, in particular to the estimation of the electoral transition matrix. An experimentation with several examples shows the benefits of the new approach

The Decision to Go Negative: Election Types, Candidate Characteristics, and Electoral Competition

This study examined the conditions that motivate candidates to go negative during a parliamentary election campaign. We argue that by‐elections encourage candidates to engage in more negative campaigning. Three mechanisms might explain the alleged link: time pressure, media exposure, and voter turnout. Two main factors jointly determine which candidates rely heavily on negative campaigning during by‐elections: candidate characteristics and electoral competition. New data collected from press coverage of Taiwanese legislative elections (2008-2022), covering 318 campaigns in single‐member electoral districts, were analysed using the qualitative comparative analysis method. We modelled negative campaigning as a combination of a list of potential causal conditions. Thereafter, process‐tracing methods were applied to analyse a typical case to demonstrate the internal causal mechanism. The qualitative comparative analysis results and the case study indicate that increased electoral competition causes parachute candidates to criticise political opponents during a by‐election campaign, with less emphasis on their own policy proposals. These results suggest that researchers should pay close attention to important contextual factors that underlie candidates' strategic choices, particularly during by‐elections

Linguistic majorities with difference in support

The file attached to this record is the authors pre-print. The publishers final version of record can be found by following the DOI link

Mayorías basadas en diferencias: análisis de la consistencia y extensiones

En esta tesis se estudian las mayorías por diferencia de votos y por diferencia de apoyo. Los capítulos 1 y 2 se centran en el análisis de la transitividad y de la triple-aciclicidad de la relación de preferencia fuerte generada por las mayorías por diferencia de apoyo, al agregar relaciones de preferencia recíprocas individuales. En el capítulo 3 se estiman las probabilidades con las que se producen resultados colectivos consistentes, tanto en las mayorías por diferencia de apoyo como en las mayorías por diferencia de votos. En el capítulo 4 se extienden las mayorías por diferencia de votos al contexto de las preferencias lingüísticas, a través de conjuntos difusos y del modelo de las 2-tuplas; se justifica la equivalencia entre ambas modelizaciones bajo determinadas condiciones de regularidad y se estudian las propiedades que cumplen estas mayorías lingüísticasDepartamento de Economía Aplicad