Capitalism,Inequality and Ideology in Singapore: New Challenges for the Ruling Party

Amidst popular concerns about rising inequalities and living costs, reduced social mobility and inadequate public infrastructure, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) suffered significant declines in electoral support in the 2006 and 2011 general elections before regaining support at the 2015 polls. Importantly, these concerns reflect the intensification of contradictions inherent to Singapore’s model of capitalist development. This juncture in the city-state’s political economy has been conducive to greater scrutiny of core PAP ideological notions about the perils of “Western” social welfare and the moral and functional advantages of non-democratic institutions of political accountability and representation. The PAP has responded with creative new defences of its core ideologies in conjunction with social spending boosts, a strategy that will be further tested following the 2015 election.     

Dilemmas in the Construction of a Socialist Law-based State in Vietnam: Electoral Integrity and Reform

Abstract

The Vietnamese party-state has been seeking to develop the concept of a socialist law-based state in an effort to provide a legal-rational justification for its rule. One of the key pillars in the construction of a socialist law-based state has been electoral governance. Unlike the popular understanding proliferated by the Western media about the meaning of elections in authoritarian countries, I argue that elections are of significance to the political life of the Vietnamese party-state even without pressure from any political opposition. This is because there is a growing need for the party-state to make the elections work more effectively to bolster its legitimacy. Along with the process of promoting the concept of a Vietnamese socialist law-based state, continuous reforms of the electoral integrity system have been considered and cautiously implemented. An important aspect of the reform is to ensure the values, purposes and duties for which power is entrusted to or held by electoral institutions are honoured. It is argued that the process of building a more integrated national system of rules and values has been set in motion but many setbacks have occurred from time to time, making it a dynamic process.     

How electoral integrity affects voter turnout in democracies

Does electoral integrity affect turnout? And if so, how? We analysed some variables that are closely related to electoral integrity – government actions, opposition actions, and the context in which the election is held – and find significant impact on turnout. We argue that higher turnout is often found in elections with higher electoral integrity. We tested our claims using data for over 700 elections covering 85 democracies for the 1950–2008 period. Results reveal that both boycott and election-related violence decrease turnout, but the effect of the former is substantially higher. We also find that, contrary to initial expectations, governments’ harassment of the opposition and the occasional banning of parties actually increases turnout.     

Positional issues, valence issues and the economic geography of voting in British elections

A body of research has built up in recent years linking thechanging geography of party support in British elections tovariations in the country's economic geography. Consistent withthe economic vote model, government support has been shown tobe higher than average in affluent areas and lower than averagein poorer areas. However, the great majority of such studieshave concentrated on elections between 1979 and 1997, a prolongedperiod of one-party rule. This article argues that this meansexisting research cannot differentiate between the very differentpredictions of positional and valence approaches to economicvoting since both suggest identical outcomes during Conservativeadministrations. By contrasting a period of Conservative rulewith a period of Labour rule, however, the article providesa test of the competing claims of the positional and valencearguments for an understanding of Britain's electoral geography.     

The Dynamics of the Electoral Geography of the Five Star Movement: The Role of Territorial Area and Municipality Size

ABSTRACT

The aim of the article is to trace the evolution of the Movimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement [M.5.S.]) over the last four national elections (the 2013 and 2018 general elections and the 2014 and 2019 European elections). In particular, our goal is to understand how the electoral support for the party changed, in the context of the broad transformations of the Italian electoral geography. In order to accomplish this goal, we investigate the explanatory role of the spatial dimension on electoral support, specifically in terms of geographical zone and municipality size. The M.5.S. is also compared with the two parties that reported the best results in the last European elections: the Lega (League) and the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party [P.D.]). Our results show that the recent European elections do not represent a turning point in the (electoral and geographical) history of the M.5.S.: its territorial rooting in the south of the country and in medium-sized municipalities are present from the 2014 European elections onwards. Interpretations and implications of these findings are discussed in the conclusions.     

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.     

The Political Importance of Provincial Newspapers, 1903-1945: The Rowntrees and the Liberal Press

This article argues that the political importance of provincialnewspapers run by the Rowntree family in the Liberal cause declinedbetween 1903 and 1945. This decline is identified in changingattitudes to the funding of newspapers, and in the reasons forthose changes. Before the Second World War the Rowntrees consideredsubsidies to provincial newspapers vital, to keep the pressat the forefront of partisan campaigning, until at last it beganto pay its way. Yet such newspapers' eventually strong financescontrasted with their political weakness, as they appeared helplessto prevent the Liberal Party's electoral decline. After 1945the Rowntrees, in contrast to their earlier strategy, no longerconsidered the funding of newspapers a priority. Instead, theytargeted money directly at the strengthening of the LiberalParty, both in Parliament and in the party organization, insteadof at the press. This switch of strategy was the earliest exampleof a wider Liberal emphasis, from the 1940s, on improving parliamentaryrecruitment and party organization. The fading political importanceof the Rowntrees' newspapers and of the wider Liberal presswould lead to loss-making Liberal papers closing, while survivingones ceased to support the Liberal Party. Instead, the Liberalscame to depend on television and community politics.     

A Tale of Two Poll Books – Wareham 1702 and Dorchester 1705

The politics of Queen Anne's reign are characterised as the rage of party; Whigs and Tories contended over religion, the constitution and the succession, and foreign policy. This struggle was taken to the electorate in five elections during Anne's reign, and these raise a question concerning electors’ motivations, the answer to which remains elusive: were they acting according to principle, or reflecting the electoral interests to which they were subject? This article analyses the two surviving poll books for Dorset elections in the age of Anne, those at Wareham in 1702 and at Dorchester in 1705. It focuses principally on the voting behaviour of those engaged in the towns’ governance structures: corporation members, councils of freemen and local parishes. However, it also considers the behaviour of other categories of voter: politicians, the clergy and non-conformists. The analysis shows how electoral interest was mediated through the towns’ governing institutions and suggests that (at least in these two cases) negotiation between the parties had a greater role in the outcome than has sometimes been suggested. It also demonstrates the limits of the electoral influence of the boroughs’ elites: significant numbers of voters were simply not prepared to be led.     

Choosing What to Remember in Neoliberal Singapore: The Singapore Story,State Censorship and State-Sponsored Nostalgia

This article interrogates the persistence of heavy-handed censorship of political films in Singapore at a time of cultural liberalisation when the state has generally shown greater tolerance for alternative political expression in theatre, the literary arts, academia and public events. Part of this has to do with the focus of these films on political dissidents and their greater capacity to present a fundamental challenge to The Singapore Story, which is the regime-legitimising official account of Singapore’s history. It also has to do with the power and outreach of relatively low-budget independent films and the documentary genre in particular to evoke alternative histories vividly, give voice to the silenced, and channel these voices digitally into the collective cinematic and social media experience of the present. With the jubilee celebrations of 2015, the ruling party has been working hard to regain hegemony after experiencing its worst electoral losses in the 2011 general elections. Its main approach for achieving this has been to sponsor widespread national nostalgia coupled with highly selective censorship of political films that challenge the dominant official discourse in ways that can erode the government’s electoral dominance and political authority.     

Change and Continuity in Irish Politics: The General Election of 2007

Bertie Ahern, the incumbent Taoiseach or Prime Minister of Ireland, was elected to a third term in the general election of 24 May 2007. While Ahern's party, Fianna Fáil, was able to retain its governing coalition, the level of support of some of the other parties changed dramatically. Fine Gael, the principal opposition party, saw its number of seats in the parliament, Dáil Éireann, increase by nineteen. Some of the minor parties did less well than expected or compared to previous elections. Only the Greens maintained their six representatives. As a result, they were rewarded with a share in the new government. This election suggests that, while Irish society is changing rapidly, the political system is changing more slowly and subtly. This article examines the election results in terms of the fate of the political parties and focuses on one constituency, Tipperary South, to illustrate trends in Irish electoral politics.     

Electing the European Parliament: Some Historiographical Notes

Despite the growing literature on the history of European integration, scholars have not reached a general consensus on the rationale for the introduction of direct elections to the European Parliament. This review article analyses representative books and articles through three levels of analysis: the evolution of the European Community institutional framework; the role of national governments; and the contribution of European federalist movements. In doing that, the article highlights the lack of a clear synthesis and the need to investigate the role and perception of the European Parliament before its direct elections. Indeed, the controversy over direct elections demonstrates that, far from being a useless talking shop, the European Parliament was a creative institution and a target for both federalists' hopes and national governments' fears. The former considered the introduction of elections as a trigger to democratise and federalise Europe; the latter suspected to lose their power as the only depositaries of national sovereignty.     

Race-based districting: does it help or hinder legislative representation?

This paper assesses the impact of using race-based districts on membership diversity of the US Congress and state legislative chambers as well as on electoral competition and voter participation in US Congressional and state legislative elections. In the 1990s membership diversity has increased in the US House of Representatives and state legislative chambers due to increased reliance on the use of race and ethnicity in drawing Congressional and legislative districts. But anecdotal evidence suggests that the creation of more homogeneous districts may lead to a decline in electoral competition, and thus a decline in voter participation in elections held within those districts. Uncompetitive Congressional or state legislative districts are posited to reduce the incentives for candidates or parties to mobilize voters and to restrict the electorate to habitual voters only. A lack of incentives to vote in district elections may diminish overall participation and have consequences in elections for statewide offices. I examine electoral competition and voter participation in recent Congressional and state legislative elections to determine whether electoral competition and voter participation have decreased, and whether that decrease can be linked to changes in the homogeneity of districts. I conclude by suggesting that bodies who adopt districting plans as well as those charged with a review of such plans take into account how line drawing affects electoral competition and voter participation as well as membership diversity.     

Electoral and Partisan Forces in the Roosevelt Era: The U.S. Congressional Elections of 1938

Since nearly all studies of U.S. congressional elections test competing theories with data from the postwar era, we know very little about the applicability of contemporary theories to elections in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper takes a first step in exploring theories of electoral politics in the historical context of the 1938 elections. I believe a closer look at this particular election is valuable for a variety of reasons. First, turnover among incumbents in 1938 was extremely high by contemporary standards, yet no systematic explanation for the record number of losses exists. Additionally, this political era was characterized by intense polarization between Congress and the president even though the Democrats controlled both institutions. An extended analysis of this historical era can also explore the role strategic challengers played in the electoral arena before the emergence of candidate-centered elections. By exploring these significant events, I shed light on an otherwise neglected aspect of American political development.     

Controverted Elections,Electoral Controversy and the Scottish Privy Council, 1689–1708*

Both the privy council and elections in early modern Scotland are understudied. The council itself has largely been described as a tool for crown management of elections. But it was fundamentally a court and standing committee charged with government administration, which was often supplicated to deal with cases of electoral impropriety and controversy. As elections became increasingly contested throughout the later 17th century, so the council's role developed into a form of elections committee which adjudicated over controverted elections. This, in some ways, reflected the business conducted by parliament's own elections committee, although the council was largely concerned with elections in the royal burghs while it also dealt with other electoral issues. This article explores the privy council's engagement in a complex range of electoral business between the Revolution of 1689 and its abolition in 1708.     

Scotland’s Electoral Geography Differed from the Rest of Britain’s in 2017 (and 2015) – Exploring its Contours

The rapid expansion in support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) between the 2010 and 2015 general elections substantially changed the country’s electoral geography, as again did its relative decline at the next election in 2017. At that last contest, however, the SNP won many seats with fewer than 40% of the votes cast, a situation very different from that in the rest of Great Britain. That difference – which had a considerable impact on the formation of a government in June 2017 – came about because of the nature of the competition in individual seats.     

“The Old Man is Dead”: Hip Hop and the Arts of Citizenship of Senegalese Youth

The 2012 Senegalese presidential elections engulfed the country in unprecedented controversy, violence, and protest. Urban youth in Dakar animated the massive opposition movement that eventually led to the incumbent's defeat through voter registration, public critique, and mass mobilization. Two prominent factors fomenting youth action were the direct engagement of a host of well known rappers and the pervasive power of hip hop culture. This article probes the valence of the globalized art form of hip hop as a medium of political identity formation and a language of resistance in these elections through considering the spatial practices and imaginaries of rappers and their followers. It argues that hip hop fosters new geographies of citizenship inspiring urban youth to transgress prescribed boundaries in allowed speech and political behavior to make new claims on their city and nation. Insight is drawn for understanding youth politics, the power of music, and questions of urban citizenship.     

Local voting at local elections revisited: ‘Friends and neighbors voting’ at mayoral elections in rural Poland

Voters' tendency to support local candidates, often referred to as ‘friends and neighbors voting’, is a spatial-political phenomenon studied for over 70 years. The last decade has seen a revival of interest in this issue. Relevant studies typically focus on large-scale national electoral contests, such as national parliamentary elections. The research efforts targeting local elections are, by contrast, scarce, in most cases dating back to the 1970s. In this article, we address this relative gap in the electoral geography literature and study ‘friends and neighbors voting’ at the most recent set of mayoral elections in Poland, held in 2018. Based on a rich dataset, covering elections in over 700 rural municipalities, we demonstrate strong local candidate effects in both voter choice and voter turnout. The results point to the potential relevance of both geographic distance and a place (locality) attachment; voters tend to prefer candidates living close to them and candidates enjoy an additional surplus of votes in their home localities. Our results also tend to echo the sparse previous findings emphasizing the possibility that the presence of a local candidate boosts voter turnout in a given area. While the limitations of our data do not allow unequivocal conclusions about the exact mechanisms driving the aforementioned effects, we put forward a number of plausible, grounded conjectures as to how such effects may operate.     

Swings and Roundabouts? Patterns of Voting for the Australian Labor Party at State and Commonwealth Lower House Elections, 1901-96

Federation for Australia in 1901 was closely followed by the rise of the mass party, an organisation with the potential to reduce the regional differentiation that federalism is designed to protect. Loyalty to party can submerge local issues in nationally based partisanship, and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) may have performed precisely this role, particularly if voters have not differentiated between voting for the ALP at state and Commonwealth elections. This article examines the pattern of electoral support for the ALP at state and Commonwealth elections since 1901 and finds that an apparent similarity in long-term voting support masks important variations both within and between states. The potential for mass party loyalty to create uniform voting responses across the federation has been strongly moderated by the diversity inherent in the federal system.     

Democracy,decentralization, and district proliferation: The case of Ghana

In many developing countries, a rhetorical commitment to decentralization often superficially manifests through the creation of new or smaller administrative units at the sub-national level. In democracies in particular, this raises the question of whether sub-national unit proliferation is intended for winning popular support in elections or addressing the concerns of local citizens. This paper analyzes the motivations for district creation by focusing on Ghana, which is oft-considered one of Africa's more committed countries to decentralization. At the same time, successive governments repeatedly have divided the country into more districts in an espoused effort to more effectively bring services closer to citizens. With an in-depth focus on the most recent increase from 170 to 216 districts between 2008 and 2012, this paper employs national and district census, socioeconomic, and electoral data to examine which districts were split and why. Instead of representing a source of patronage to swing voters or a divide-and-rule strategy in opposition strongholds, the study finds that the incumbent party at the time, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), used re-districting as a tactic of malapportionment and predominantly targeted non-competitive districts where gaining an additional legislative seat in subsequent elections was more likely. Evidence suggests that this pattern is not specific to the NDC and that previous district splitting under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) also focused disproportionately on that party's safe seats. Overall, the paper emphasizes the need for according greater consideration to underlying institutional aspects, particularly electoral rules and executive-legislative relations, when analyzing the motivations for territorial reforms.     

Party Interests,Public Opinion and Institutional Preferences: Electoral System Change in New Zealand

Explanations of the origins of electoral systems tend to rely heavily on rational choice assumptions: essentially the common sense inference that political parties prefer electoral arrangements that promote their interests. Accounts of electoral system change in New Zealand support either a partisan interest interpretation on the basis of survey evidence from voters, or point to other deeper causes in historical, institutional and cultural phenomena. Using survey data from the 1993 referendum, covering both voters and political party elites, we seek to reconcile these approaches by establishing the limits of the party interest approach. We construct an argument which also stresses the effects of cultural and institutional variables-most notably, many New Zealanders' frustrated expectations that governments be accountable between elections as well as on election day, and their hopes that multi-party government may facilitate such accountability.