The Greening of the Queensland electorate?

The Greens at the 2004 Queensland State election almost trebled their primary vote from 2001, an increase suggesting the party has already filled the vacuum left by the declining Australian Democrats as the State's principal Left-of-Centre minor party. This article argues, first, that much of this growth in support can be attributed to the substantial interstate migration to the State's southeast, a pattern that has contributed to a partial transformation of Queensland's traditional political culture to one more disposed to Green support. Second, given that this growth is set to continue, it is argued that the Queensland Greens are yet to maximise their vote. This article analyses the 2004 Queensland State election results to determine the impact of Green preferences under the State's Optional Preferential Voting (OPV) system, and to locate where geographically, and among whom demographically, Green support was strongest. A rudimentary profile of the ‘typical’ Queensland Greens voter is also offered.     

Split parties finish last: Preferences,pluralities and the 1957 Queensland election

The 1957 election is a watershed in Queensland politics. Coming after the Labor split, the election saw the end of over 40 years of almost uninterrupted Labor rule in Queensland. Often overlooked in discussions of this key period is that the 1957 election was conducted under plurality rule, or as it is more commonly known, ‘first‐past‐the‐post’. Had the 1957 election been held under preferential voting, preferences would have been distributed in 46 of the 71 contested seats. Through simulations of distributions of hypothetical second preferences I assess the effects of the Labor split on the fates of the respective parties. Contrary to some interpretations of the 1957 election I find that plurality rule saved Labor from even greater electoral losses than those they would have sustained under preferential voting. Single‐member constituency electoral systems deal harsh punishment to small parties, or, as in 1957, split parties: a point well known by astute political leaders. Preferential voting may have given Labor leaders even more powerful incentives to heal the split of 1957, and perhaps even avoid it in the first place.     

Electoral redistribution and the 1986 Queensland state election: Confirming 1983

The 1986 Queensland state election, though uncommonly noisy, did not take place in as dramatic circumstances as that of 1983. Nevertheless, its significance may be as potentially enduring. For years the Nationals had struggled for a metropolitan base, and had long coveted the opportunity of governing the state without the Liberals. Those achievements, secured in the special circumstances prevailing in 1983, were on trial in 1986, as was the record of the National party government The 1986 election provided an opportunity to confirm a political realignment amongst the state's conservative voters. Significantly, too, that election took place following a redistribution of seats and accompanying enlargement of the parliament.     

Political Dynasties in Thailand: The Recent Picture after the 2011 General Election

This article seeks to understand the patterns of family-based politics in Thailand’s 2011 House of Representatives election. The key question is whether the political dynasty, a sequence of political leaders who are considered members of the same family, is still a determining factor in Thai elections, and if so, to what extent compared to the past. Drawing on a rich set of data collected from election results between 1979 and 2011, this article argues that the political roles and influences of many political dynasties have become more complicated and have tended to increase, although some have experienced defeat in elections. The article finds that while belonging to a political dynasty could give new dynastic faces a better chance of winning a House election in their constituency than their non-dynastic counterparts, the most influential factor for electoral candidates in winning a House of Representatives election is belonging to the Pheu Thai Party or the Democrat Party. This article thus suggests that one of the best ways to avoid the monopoly of one or a few political families in Thai politics is to empower and support party members and eligible voters to meaningfully engage in political parties’ affairs and activities.     

奉天省第一届国会议员选举析论

民初国会议员的选举是国家权力机关的选举,是真正具有资产阶级民主制度意义的选举,因此,它具有开创性的意义。从奉天省的选举来看,虽然有各种问题存在,但基本上是按照法定程序进行的。在选举过程中出现的问题,被揭示出来后,有的经过协调,重新举行选举,有的进入诉讼程序,具备了一定的公开性。通过国会议员选举这个平台,各个政党进行了多种多样的竞选活动,使民初政坛首次出现了多样的政治声音。从奉天省第一届国会议员选举的实际过程来看,基本上体现了现代选举制度的法制化、公开化、规范化原则。但我们也看到,这次选举中所表现出来的选民占人口比例过低、选民漏登记、选举管理疏漏、竞选失范等等问题,都说明中国的选举制度还仅仅是一个开始,还有很长的路要走。     

民初第一次国会选举竞选活动研究

民初国会选举是中国历史上第一次非暴力方式的政权角逐.以国民党、共和党为代表的各个政党采取了各种各样的竞选方式和竞选策略,其中有暴力、行政作弊等恶性的方式,有舆论斗争、金钱作用等中性的方式,也有公开演说、政党组织、法律诉讼等良性的方式,虽然有很多缺点,但总体来说这是一次具有合法性的选举.民主制度需要深层的现代政治文化为依托,从传统"一元文化"到现代"多元文化"需要一个长期的转化过程,竞选中暴露出的政治文化缺陷预示了在中国建立民主制度的道路必定曲折艰辛.     

The Queensland Election of 21 March, 2009: Labor's Swim Against the Tide

This article explores the events before and during the 2009 Queensland election which saw the Bligh Labor Government returned far more easily than commentators and opinion polls had indicated. This election remains especially noteworthy for its groundbreaking firsts, including the first election of a woman state premier, and the first election for Queensland's single, merged Liberal-National Party. The article concludes that Anna Bligh's then-popular leadership, Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg's alleged poor grasp of economic realities, and fears of job losses during the global financial crisis were the prime motivators of swinging electors' vote choice.     

Pauline Hanson,the Mainstream,and Political Elites: The Place of Race in Australian Political Ideology

Pauline Hanson is well known for claiming that Australia's major political parties are out of touch with 'mainstream' Australia on issues related to race. Parallel surveys of the electorate and candidates in the 1996 federal election allow this claim to be tested, with items tapping general ideological dispositions, but including questions about Aboriginal Australians, immigration, and links with Asia. I make three critical findings: the electorate holds quite conservative opinions on these issues relative to the candidates, and is quite distant from ALP candidates in particular; attitudes on racial issues are a powerful component of the electorate's political ideology, so much so that any categorisation of Australian political ideology ignoring race must be considered incomplete; racial attitudes cut across other components of the electorate's ideology, placing all the parties under internal ideological strains, but the ALP appears particularly vulnerable on this score. The data show the coalition parties to be the net beneficiaries of the ideological tensions posed by race. Racial issues thus resemble a realigning ideological dimension, with possibly far-reaching consequences for the conduct of Australian electoral politics. Racism is as Australian as lamingtons and sausage rolls but the real political leader is the man or woman who can appeal to what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature'. Robert Hughes (Lamont 1996)     

The 1949 federal election: A reinterpretation

The 1949 federal election in Australia is widely regarded as one of Australia's most significant elections. This election ended eight years of ALP government and began a long period of unbroken rule by Liberal‐Country Party governments. Surprisingly, very little has been written about the 1949 election although various authors have addressed themselves to the question of why the Chifley government lost in December 1949. The orthodox interpretation is that Chifley's defeat in 1949 was to do with the issues of ‘bank nationalisation’ and ‘communism’. In this article, I offer a reinterpretation of the connection between political issues and voting behaviour in the 1949 election. Following the theory of Fiorina that voters tend to make their decision on the basis of how a party fares in handling problems in the past, I argue that the Australian electorate in 1949 responded negatively to Chifley's handling of the general economy and his policies on two crises in 1949 — the national coal strike and the dollar crisis.     

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.     

The Impact of Proportional Representation on Turnout: Evidence from New Zealand

Theories of voter turnout assume that institutional arrangements can alter incentives for participation. Countries with proportional representation (PR) are assumed to increase the incentives to participate because they reduce the proportion of votes that are wasted, giving voters a stronger incentive to participate and parties a stronger incentive to mobilise voters. This paper departs from previous cross-national studies by employing individual-level data during a transition between electoral systems in one country. We used survey data collected before and after electoral reform in New Zealand to examine patterns of participation among political minorities. As a direct test of individual change, the analysis was supplemented with survey data from the last election held under first past the post (FPP) merged with validated participation data from the following election held under PR. We found that the adoption of PR in New Zealand has succeeded initially in fostering more positive attitudes about the efficacy of voting. In New Zealand's first election held under PR, voters who were on the extreme left were significantly more likely to participate than previously, leading to an overall increase in turnout.     

Political information among first‐year Australian politics students: Queensland

This paper is a preliminary investigation into the process of acquiring political information. Data are derived from a survey of students enrolling in the introductory Australian politics course at the University of Queensland in 1980 and compared with similar data from earlier surveys at two NSW Universities. Two types of political information are distinguished—information about political institutions and recognition of political figures. The effects of ten independent variables are shown to be different for the two types of political information. It is hypothesized that information about political institutions is dependent primarily on attitudes towards politics, while recognition of political figures is dependent primarily on exposure to information about them. Sex of the respondents is found to have a powerful and independent effect on both types of political information.     

The man who never was? The Italian transition and 2008 election

Abstract

The implications for the co-called Italian transition of the 2008 election initially seemed significant – but have since become increasingly uncertain as Berlusconi's conflict of interests has risen higher up the political agenda. This underscores the pertinence of asking about the sense in which the notion of ‘transition’ is actually applicable to the Italian case at all – bearing in mind that it describes a process now supposedly underway for some 17 years; and bearing in mind that its end point can seemingly not be identified (though by definition ‘transition’ implies movement between two points). Discovering if the term applies to the Italian case and if so whether 2008 has brought its conclusion nearer requires exploring if the political protagonists that have emerged from the election as the most significant players – the Popolo della Libertà and the Partito Democratico – have sufficient commonality of view, sufficient desire and sufficient power to complete a process of constitutional overhaul. The evidence suggests that while they have the view and the desire, there are significant limitations on their power. The election might potentially have been a watershed in the so-called Italian transition in the broader sense of system performance, aside from formal constitutional change. Here too, however, the evidence points away from the idea that 2008 represents a real sea change – though the chances seem good that it will come to be perceived as such.     

'Ladies are often very good scaffoldings': Women and Politics in the Age of Anne

The age of Anne saw unprecedented politicisation of society, the expansion of patronage and the election of ten parliaments between 1695 and 1715. If, as has been argued for the second half of the 18th century, such factors facilitated women's political participation, then the prerequisites for women's political involvement, at least at the level of the political elite, existed in the age of Anne. Yet we still know surprisingly little about the shape and extent of women's political participation beyond the dynamics of the Augustan court. This article encourages historians of women and politics to return to the age of Anne and consider women's political participation writ large. Was this period, which has often been seen as a political watershed, also a watershed for women's political involvement? Through an examination of Elizabeth Coke's involvement in the Derbyshire election of 1710, where she served as her brother's political agent, this article calls historians' attention to the activities of one group of politically-active Augustan women – those who served as intermediaries and agents. It argues that politics could be one aspect of a broader familial agency, one which saw women step in and out of family, household, estate and political management, as necessary. Nor, it argues, should these women be seen as mere Swiftian 'scaffoldings'– as means to an end for politically-ambitious men. As agents and intermediaries, women as well as men played recognized political roles, in similar ways, in campaigns across the country; their involvement requires closer examination.     

Recruiting,Grooming, and Reaping the Rewards: The Case of GOPAC in the 1992 Congressional Elections

Candidate selection is an important avenue for parties to influence elections, yet political scientists know little about which candidates are recruited to run and groomed to win. We hypothesize that parties focus their pre-general election activities on ideologically compatible candidates with high qualifications in competitive districts, but opt for more moderate candidates in districts with weak party support. We exploit a unique data source: FEC records indicating which candidates received instructional audiotapes from GOPAC, a political organization run by future House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Using these tapes as indicators of recruitment and grooming, we find that the party behaved pragmatically, recruiting conservatives in Republican districts, but setting aside ideological considerations elsewhere. We also find that personal qualifications of candidates played an inconsistent role, bolstering the likelihood of recruitment, but having no effect on GOPAC's support once the filing deadline had passed. Finally, we show that GOPAC's intervention was beneficial to the leader: candidates aided by GOPAC demonstrated greater loyalty to Gingrich while in office.     

Local Politics,Economic Structure,and Performance: The Case of Sakhalin

Two geographers assess the results of the State Duma elections in Sakhalin Oblast and relate the regional pattern of voting to varying socio-economic conditions of the region. The research is structured to test a working hypothesis that voting patterns in large part can be explained by regional variations in economic structure and performance. More specifically, it explores whether, at the rayon level, there is any relationship between: (1) economic specialization and election results; (2) economic trends and election results; and (3) long-term socioeconomic indicators and election results. The case study is presented as a caveat against the uncritical use of national party preferences as a measure of the political climate in Russia's regions. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: J60, O18, R12. 2 figures, 7 tables, 36 references.     

Political Equality and the Regulation of Election Spending by Parallel Campaigners

The regulation of political finance, including the funding of political parties and election campaigns, remains contentious in many democracies. A particular focus of debate has been the regulation of ‘parallel campaigners’– that is, non-candidate and non-party political actors – wanting to influence the election outcome by bringing to bear their economic resources. Drawing on both recent unsuccessful and current attempts at reforming the regulation of election spending by parallel campaigners in New Zealand, this paper explores the conflict between the democratic right to freedom of expression and the idea that all citizens should have a fair opportunity for effective political influence. It is argued that Joshua Cohen's principle of political equality, which entails the balancing of these two values, provides a justifiable framework for regulating political finance, including parallel campaign expenditures, in liberal democracies.     

马来西亚国阵政府的华人政策走向

本文认为 ,由于华人选票对国阵的重要作用 ,1999年大选后继续执政的国阵政府将继续实施较宽松的华人政策。事实上 ,政府在大选前后已推出不少宽松的华人政策。然而 ,在涉及马来人特权等重大问题上 ,马来人政党巫统为首的国阵政府绝不会让步。因为占人口多数的马来人 ,始终是巫统保有强势政治地位的社会基础。马华两族的地位差别还会继续存在。     

Examining Implementation of the National Voter Registration Act by Nonprofit Organizations: An Institutional Explanation

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act authorizes nonprofit social service organizations to conduct nonpartisan voter registration drives, with the aim of making the process more accessible for low‐income citizens and segments of the population historically underrepresented in the political process. Although more than 15 years have elapsed since this important reform was enacted, very little is known about the extent to which nonprofits have embraced this practice, and what factors explain their decision to do so. Drawing upon institutional theory, this article examines the propensity of nonprofit social service organizations to carry out nonpartisan voter registration and voter mobilization campaigns in a national election year. A series of hypotheses are tested using data from a random sample of several hundred nonprofit service organizations in the United States that were surveyed prior to the 2008 election. Findings suggest that institutional factors, especially state laws, are highly influential in shaping the decision of local level nonprofits to register voters. The article concludes with a discussion of policy implications of this study.     

Popular culture,post-truth and emotional framings of world politics

ABSTRACT

With the election of US President Donald Trump, the separation between high and low politics and the line between fiction and reality has become fundamentally blurred. Yet popular culture offers an important vector through which we might make sense of this political turmoil. The purpose of this essay is two-fold: conceptually, I examine how television provides opportunities for the insight into the visual and emotional registers of the post-truth era. I illustrate this empirically by examining two popular television series – Homeland and The Good Fight. I argue that the power of popular culture is derived from its visuality as the intersection of image and sound, through which emotional registers related to anxiety and outrage can be elicited and visually narrated. Even more so, the visual nature of popular culture has a strong affective component that shapes how we experience representations of reality and reveals the power and political significance of popular culture.