Scottish Shire Elections: Preliminary Findings in Sheriff Court Books

Historians of the Scottish parliament have paid little attention to shire elections because of an apparent lack of local source material. This article explores some of the reasons for this perception and argues that sheriff court records contain considerably more evidence than has been appreciated hitherto. It demonstrates that these records provide details of the electoral process, the regularity of elections, the numbers of electors, external interference in elections and internal divisions within the electorate, local responses to national political events, and attitudes to representation through such things as levying taxes locally to reimburse representatives’ expenses. It challenges the once widely‐held view that the lesser nobility, who comprised the electorate, were uninterested in parliamentary participation, suggesting instead that the statute of 1587, by which shire representation was established, was reasonably successful. Finally, it considers the potential for further research in these and other records which, it is argued, will provide a much deeper understanding of 17th‐century Scotland's parliamentary history in particular and political history in general.     

An unlikely alliance: the 1907 Ukrainian–Jewish electoral coalition

This paper contextualises a political alliance between Ukrainian and Jewish national activists in Austrian Galicia during the 1907 parliamentary elections, Austria's first elections with universal manhood suffrage. This alliance represented a milestone in the making of a new paradigm of Ukrainian–Jewish relations. Ironically, the Ukrainian and Jewish nationalists, portrayed elsewhere as staunch enemies, were uniquely able to overcome the profound social, religious, political, and cultural barriers separating the two communities. Ukrainian nationalists recognised the potential of a nationalised Jewish community to undermine Polish hegemony in Galicia, while some Zionists saw the potential to elect Jewish parliamentary representatives in rural Ukrainian districts where Poles and Jews competed for the districts' second mandate. The alliance mobilised the Ukrainian and Jewish electorate around shared slogans and goals. It was a qualified success, leading to a more powerful national Ukrainian faction as well as the first Zionist faction in any European parliament. Although the two sides failed to repeat the alliance in the subsequent elections in 1911, the coalition sparked a new sense of history for both communities. It created a pro‐Ukrainian discourse in Jewish politics, and a pro‐Zionist one in Ukrainian politics. The alliance also exposes Zionism as a response to the European‐wide nationalist revivalism rather than a reaction to rampant turn‐of‐the‐century racial anti‐Semitism.     

The challenges to democracy and citizenship surrounding the vote to Italians overseas

In 2003, a presidential decree enacted legislation guaranteeing Italian voters overseas the right to postal voting as well as parliamentary representation within their respective electoral constituency. The electoral weight of the overseas-based constituent had a remarkable effect on the 2006 election results. In the tightest vote in the Republic's history, the vote of overseas Italians, which was one of the decisive features of the election, helped provide the winning centre-left coalition with a slender majority in the Senate. Election results notwithstanding, the question of whether to grant the vote to Italians overseas has faced challenges of a procedural, normative and political nature. What may have been initially seen as a democratic right may well be cast aside as it poses challenges to overseas electoral relationships with the Italian national polity, Italian citizenship and multinational allegiances, diasporic identity, electoral participation and political representation in homeland political institutions. The overseas vote for Italians may be contested further in the near future, which could translate into a radical rethink of its validity and democratic global extension.     

Challenging the Australian Government Approach Towards Expatriate Voting: The Case of Italy

In 1999 the Australian government dropped its objections to the Italian legislation that contemplated postal voting and parliamentary representation for its Italian citizens resident abroad. This was a significant turning point for the Australian government approach on the question of voting rights for expatriate communities in Australia voting in their homeland elections. Based on undisclosed government sources and interviews with former Australian diplomatic and government officials, this paper will recall and examine the Australian government's reaction to the Italian political debates leading up to, and eventual passage of, the Italian expatriate vote legislation.     

Voting and Not Voting in Early 18th-Century English Parliamentary Elections

This article uses data from 28 poll books to explore voter behaviour over time in early 18th-century English parliamentary elections (from 1710 to 1735). Voters in this period exhibited a high degree of partisan loyalty from one election to the next. But voters were also quite likely to drop out of the electorate between elections. As a case study of Sussex elections in 1734 shows, even among voters who made a definite promise to vote for a given candidate or set of candidates, there was a significant proportion who did not vote. While some non-voting can be explained as an attempt to avoid disobliging powerful patrons, this article argues that voters needed to be motivated to appear at the polls. The electoral culture of the early 18th century – treats, balls, public appearances by the candidates, etc. – should be understood as attempts to mobilise rather than to persuade potential voters.     

European democracy deferred: de Gaulle and the Dehousse Plan, 1960

Abstract

This article examines the first debate within the European Economic Community (EEC) over democracy following the Treaty of Rome. The treaty called for the newly created European Parliament to draw up a proposal for direct, transnational parliamentary elections. A plan in 1960 led by Fernand Dehousse emerged as the consensus choice. Charles de Gaulle, however, opposed the plan and succeeded in defeating it. We see during the1960 debate over the Dehousse Plan competing interpretations of democracy in European unity that still frame the issue today. At stake was the democratic character of the new EEC as well as the proper role of the public in the uniting of Europe. Should the public vote on matters of European integration via transnational parliamentary elections, national referendums or neither? By analytically reconstructing the key participants’ democratic worldviews, the article contributes to developing a deeper understanding of the debate over direct elections to the European Parliament, a fuller comprehension of the early life of the Treaty of Rome and a sharper realisation of the essential interconnectedness of the development of the EEC and the resumption of national democracy in post-WWII Western Europe.     

Electoral salience and the costs of voting at national, sub-national and supra-national elections in the UK: a case study of Brent, UK

This paper considers the impact of distance to polling station upon electoral turnout. Using polling station level data from a London borough, it examines three types of election – parliamentary, European and local elections – over a twenty year period. The UK is notable among western liberal democracies for its relatively large turnout gap – the percentage point difference between turnout at elections for the Westminster parliament compared to that for other institutions, including local councils and the supra-national European parliament. This research considers the hypothesis that in high information, high salience elections for the national parliament the costs of voting associated with travelling to a polling station to vote in person are perceived as either low or insignificant but that in low information, low salience elections, those costs are perceived as higher and may act as a deterrent upon voting. A series of multi-level models consider the relationships between the dependent variable, percentage turnout, and a range of independent variables, including socio-economic characteristics, marginality as well as the spatial context. We show that there is indeed a relationship between distance and voter turnout, and other spatial and contextual variables, which are stronger for the lower salience European and local elections than for the higher salience national elections. Hence we conclude that the local geography of the polling station can have a significant impact on voter turnout and that there should be a more strategic approach to the siting of polling stations.     

Interpreting the Syria vote: parliament and British foreign policy

This article presents three distinct interpretations of how parliamentary war powers affect British foreign policy more generally, based on a detailed analysis of the debate preceding the vote in parliament in August 2013 on whether Britain should intervene in the Syrian civil war. The first interpretation treats parliament as a site for domestic role contestation. From this perspective, parliamentary war powers matter because they raise the significance of MPs' doubts about Britain's proper global ‘role’. The second interpretation treats parliament as a forum for policy debate. There is nothing new about MPs discussing international initiatives. But now they do more than debate, they decide, at least where military action is involved. From this perspective, parliamentary war powers matter because they make British foreign policy more cautious and less consistent, even if they also make it more transparent and (potentially) more democratic in turn. The final interpretation treats parliament as an arena for political competition. From this perspective, parliamentary involvement exposes major foreign policy decisions to the vagaries of partisan politicking, a potent development in an era of weak or coalition governments, and a recipe for unpredictability. Together these developments made parliament's war powers highly significant, not just where military action is concerned, but for British foreign policy overall.     

An Alternative Approach to Canadian House of Commons Reform

Empowering backbench Members of Parliament in order to restore the effectiveness of the House of Commons has been a central theme in Canadian parliamentary reform for at least fifty years, but results are widely seen as disappointing. This article argues that unrealistic expectations, fostered by adherence to a traditional conception of the Westminster model of representative and responsible government, are part of the problem. A modernized conception of parliamentary government, recognizing the House as a forum for competing political parties between elections, could help us to better understand the House and improve its contribution to democratic governance. The proposed approach suggests innovative procedural options for legislative debate, Question Period, and other activities. It also offers a consistent basis for addressing issues such as floor-crossing, coalitions, and prorogations. More broadly, it points to the need for an integrated approach to the House, elections, political parties, public education, and citizen engagement in order to respond to contemporary democratic challenges.     

Party registration choices as a function of the geographic distribution of partisanship: a model of `hidden partisanship' and an illustrative test

The Public Choice literature has identified conditions in which voters in multi-candidate contests would have an incentive to vote strategically rather than vote for the most preferred candidate or candidates. In the US, where party registration and party primaries play a critical role in the electoral process—especially in states with closed primaries—the existence of multiple layers of elections across constituencies can induce strategic falsification of party registration that is tied to the geographic distribution of electoral strength. Following V. O. Key, we should expect that a long history of one party dominance in local elections should encourage voters to register in the party whose elections are most determinative of electoral choices, even if that is not the party with which they most identify. However, in many states, while politics may be dominated by one party locally, there may be real two-party competition for at least some offices at the state level and for the presidency.We use a `natural experiment' to view the link between party registration and voting for president and obscure judicial offices in order to test the hypothesis that, for whichever party is the minority party in the local unit, party registration will understate the voting support in presidential or other statewide elections, where that party's candidates have a realistic chance to win. In the modern South this hypothesis can be shown to imply that the relationship between Republican party registration and vote shares for Republican candidates for president or statewide office ought to be curvilinear. To test this and other related hypotheses, we examine data on political units (e.g. counties) with considerable variation in party registration and concomitant variation in the extent of one-party dominance of local politics by looking at county level data from North Carolina for the presidential elections and obscure judicial elections in 1984 and 1996. As hypothesized, for the North Carolina data the relationship between party registration and voting can best be fit by a quadratic function, but the strength of the quadratic term is much less for the 1996 data, reflecting the increase in Republican registration and the success of local GOP candidates in the 1990s.     

Timor-Leste and the discourse of state failure

The disorder in Timor-Leste in 2006, the collapse of the Alkatiri government, and the political crisis following the 2007 parliamentary elections have all fuelled speculation that the country is a potential ‘failing state’. After outlining the history of the latter concept, this paper examines the Timor-Leste case in relation to the phenomena associated with social and political instability. It has exhibited tensions between the civil regime and the military, apparently deepening ethnic/regional differences, weakness in governance institutions and a dependence upon state office as a means to wealth/power; all of these factors are associated with instability. In addition, some policy choices have fostered particular grievances. Timor-Leste's situation with reference specifically to the comparative literatures on ‘state failure’ and on ‘Africanisation’ is then reviewed. State failure literature suggests that regime type and executive recruitment and participation practices are crucial; as a new democracy hitherto dominated by a distinct political faction and facing vital electoral contests, the political system was bound to exhibit turbulence. However, Timor-Leste should be seen in a broader comparative context; accordingly though clearly at risk some caveats should be entered on the prospects for ‘failure’ of the Timor-Leste state. Timor Leste never having been the site of a fully functioning state, its politics more resemble Melanesia than Africa.     

Do reluctant voters vote less accurately? The effect of compulsory voting on party–voter congruence in Australia and Belgium

We know compulsory voting is associated with higher levels of electoral turnout. It has been suggested that this leads to a trade-off with the quality of the vote, i.e. the ideological congruence between voters and the party they vote for. In this study, this claim is investigated using data from the 2007, 2010, and 2013 elections in Australia. We also include a comparison with two recent elections in Belgium, another country with compulsory voting. The results show that reluctant voters vote less ideologically congruent, but that this effect is mediated by political knowledge and political interest. However, this does not lead to less ideologically congruent election results at the aggregate level and compulsory voting does not have an impact on electoral results. We speculate that in future studies, it is important to make a distinction between reluctant voters, and those who take a strong hostile stand on the electoral process.     

Free and Fair? Rhodesians Reflect on the Elections of 1979 and 1980

The elections of April 1979 and February 1980 were the first in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe's history to permit universal adult suffrage, allowing for black majority rule. In the first election, Bishop Abel Muzorewa's United African National Council (UANC) won an overwhelming victory, while in the second, British-supervised election, Muzorewa's party was soundly defeated and Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) won over 60% of the vote. By interviewing present and former white Rhodesians, located via Facebook and the print magazine Rhodesians Worldwide, who were witnesses to these two critical elections, this study aims to shed light on which of them was more representative of the will of the people of Zimbabwe, at least in the eyes of the country's white minority.     

Women running for neighborhood offices in a Turkish city: Motivations and resources for electoral candidacy

This study is about how gender and local urban scales interact with each other to influence individuals' motivations and resources for political recruitment. The data came from interviews with twenty women who ran for and lost the 2004 local elections for their neighborhood office, muhtarlik, in Eskisehir, Turkey. Considering both individual and institutional factors and the neighborhood scale as important for women's candidacy for local offices, this paper relies on a “relational” view of citizenship while examining the mediating roles of the local scale for citizenship. My findings overall disagreed with the arguments that “women's interests” drive women to enter politics and that the local offices provide more opportunities for women's political recruitment. As women's roles and responsibilities had been changing across multiple spaces, they ran for elections to search for ways to practice their capacities in public arenas. Yet to the electorates, first, even women with high qualities for the office did not appear as the most qualified candidates. Second, most electorates tended to evaluate candidacy qualities in relation to the neighborhood office's weak status in Turkish political system and as an unskilled job. Third, they seemed to associate this “job” positively with men's traditional domestic role as the main breadwinner, consider women's charity and communal works as women's traditional care responsibilities, and to vote mostly for over-middle-aged male incumbents with locally embedded relations. Finally, women missed an opportunity for their candidacy by not transforming their local network-based assets into resources for candidacy.     

(Un)Informed Voting? A Test of Compulsory Voting Feedback Effects

Compulsory voting is known to increase turnout and produce a more representative electorate, but there is considerable debate about whether it stimulates political learning. Analyses of political knowledge using cross‐national and intranational observational data arrive at mixed conclusions. Experimental research is similarly inconclusive. We attempt to reconcile these disparate results by employing a novel experiment that tracks political learning during real elections and randomly assigns some people to receive a punitive threat for failure to cast an in‐person vote. We demonstrate that compelled voter participation can increase voter participation and political learning, but also prompts anger.     

The 2019 European Elections: a ‘second-order’ vote with ‘first-order’ effects

ABSTRACT

In this article we provide a general interpretation of the results of the 2019 elections of the European Parliament in Italy. The Italian case contains several elements that are, at the same time, ambivalent and interesting, especially if observed in a larger, European-wide comparative perspective. Besides a general interpretation of the vote for the European Parliament, the article discuss also the consequences of the elections results for the transformations of the Italian party system and the patterns of government formation in a context characterized by an increasing process of political integration in a multilevel political system. Finally, we discuss the trend of Euroscepticism in the Italian public opinion and the role played by radical or ‘sovranist’ parties in promoting a feeling of distrust or detachment towards the European Union.     

The Role of Efficacy,Optimism, and Political Networks in Legislative Elections: The Case of United Arab Emirates

The purpose of the present study on political participation in United Arab Emirates is to examine the factors that motivated people to cast their vote in the legislative elections of 2011. To this end, a special questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1,800 citizens and univariate and multivariate methods were used to analyze their responses. Findings reveal that three factors motivated people to cast their vote, namely 1) their political efficacy about the legislative body, 2) their optimism about the prospects of a newly elected legislature to improve their daily lives and to aid the government's effort to enhance public services, and 3) having political networks. The study recommends further research to find out factors behind the dwindling level of electoral participation in spite of a high level of political optimism and efficacy.     

Mungiki,Vernacular Organization and Political Society in Kenya

This article uses the concept of ‘political society’ as unfolded by the ‘subaltern studies’ in India to shed new light on present‐day political actors and democratic transitions in Africa. It discusses the political practices and discursive terrains of organizations within ‘really existing’ civil society that are based on identities and regarded as outside legitimate civil society. It looks at politics from below, taking the example of the 2007 elections in Kenya, and the role of Mungiki, an organization characterized by the intersection of class, generation, religion and ethnicity. Mungiki builds on Kenya's history and rich archive of indigenous popular culture. It originated in the early 1990s’ turmoil of ‘ethnic clashes’ and population displacement and now operates in rural and poor urban areas, providing income opportunities, service delivery and extortion/protection. During elections, sections of Mungiki have been recruited by political leaders and functioned as violent militia; concurrently, it seeks representation in formal and parliamentary politics. The organization is distinct from ‘respectable’ segments of Kenya's civil society who participate in NGO activities and mainstream churches. The article ends by calling for an inclusive and non‐normative approach to the study of state–civil society engagement that recognizes culturally based discourses and organizations when analysing the transitions to and the broadening of democracy in post‐colonial societies.     

Fighting over friends and neighbors: The effect of inter-candidate geographic distance on intra-party competition

Previous studies on intra-party competition have largely neglected the role played by geographic distance between co-partisan candidates. In this study, we argue that candidates who live further away from intra-party competitors on the same party list benefit electorally from their remoteness. Moreover, we contend that the electoral effectiveness of exhibiting local personal vote attributes – a theoretically and empirically well-established candidate strategy to cultivate personal votes – also depends on the geographical proximity of localized co-partisan candidates. Using a unique and untapped dataset of more than 5,000 Finnish election candidates' home address coordinates over four consecutive parliamentary elections (1999–2011), we run beta regression models to examine the effects of candidate remoteness and nearest candidates' local characteristics on intra-party vote shares. To measure the remoteness of a particular candidate, we develop a novel index based on the distribution of co-partisans over concentric circles around that candidate. The empirical analyses show that the effect of geographic remoteness depends on local party strength and the degree of urbanization: candidates particularly benefit from more distant co-partisans in party strongholds and rural and suburban municipalities. Moreover, all models confirm that nearby located localized co-partisans decrease a candidate's own vote share. These findings have important implications for politicians' careers, party nomination strategies and future empirical research on intra-party competition.