Around the Bloc: Around the Bloc - Controversial Local Election Held in Eastern Ukraine Amid International Criticism
Separatist regions tried to lure voters to polls using incentives such as lottery tickets.
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Separatist regions tried to lure voters to polls using incentives such as lottery tickets.
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The electoral silence institution operates in many countries around the world. In every country, regardless of its essence, it gains a particular dimension. In Poland, in polish electoral system, this institution has been operating since 1989. Since then, it has continued to pursue its basic goal of giving electoral time for a peaceful electoral decision. In this article the author analyzes the case law of the Supreme Court concerning the area and assesses it.
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Presidential RunnerA pro-Russian candidate could present a real challenge to Poroshenko, pundits say, if the squabbling opposition parties join forces.
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Orban offers demographic growth strategy as alternative to the ‘new internationalism’ and pro-migration policies of Brussels and ‘money men.’
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With an accent on the dominant theoretical viewpoints and results of extensive empirical research, the work analyses the mutual relationship of the perceived morality and competence of political protagonists in the motivational structure of voting at the 2001 elections for the City Council of Zagreb representatives. Also, the work examines these criteria with regard to the cognitive capacity of voters. The results confirm the initial hypothesis that, in general, judgements concerning the morality of political protagonists have a more important role in the motivational repertoire of voters than do impressions of their competence, as well as having an influence on the formation of global impressions on a more general theoretical level.
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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will resign in order to hold new elections that could cement his party’s rapid rise to power.
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208 The subject of this paper is an analysis of the financing of the 2017 presidential campaign in Serbia. The aim of the paper is to ex amine the effects of public funding introduced in 2011, which led to a great dependence of political subjects on public sources and a great misbalance in the financial capacities between the ruling party (or par ties) and opposition. The paper put an accent on a particular form of deviation that characterizes Serbia after 2011: the financial supremacy of the ruling party and the complete dependence of political subjects on public funding. We used theoretical framework of cartel parties devel oped by Katz and Mair but we applied this approach bearing in mind local circumstances. These approaches indicate that one of the impor tant consequences of public funding is the emergence of the status quo in which the largest subjects work together and use public resources to ensure their own collective survival. Cartelisation of the party system can lead to the growth of populist and antisystem parties, which di rectly communicate with citizens, correcting in that matter mistakes of mainstream parties. We put particular focus on the influence of public funding on the disappearance of political subjects and the possibility of creating new ones. Analysis of the last four electoral cycles in Serbia shows that political subjects reported from 40% to 50% of revenues from public funding. Loans consist about a quarter of revenue on average, while their own funds (funds from regular work of political subjects) are on the rise after the law changes in 2014. In fact, revenues from public sources are more than we noted above because all approved loans in Serbian campaigns came from banks with local ownership. In addition, conditions for approved loans were significantly better than other com mercial loans (for other companies or private persons). As a rule, ruling parties in average spend the most in Serbian campaigns and we are talk ing about significant funds for local circumstances – more than three millions of euros per subject. In 2012, there was a balance in a certain way between ruling subjects and opposition in spite of the fact that ruling subjects spent more funds. After 2014 parliamentary elections, “progressives” as a ruling party became an absolute leader in financial capacities. This period is overlapped with their history electoral results. In 2016 and 2017, they spent much more money than other subjects or candidates together. The best example is 2017 presidential campaign when Aleksandar Vucic spent more than six million euros and in ad dition he spent for political advertising slightly more than other candi dates for all activities during the campaign. The most important results we obtained in paper are: 1) the existence of great dependence of polit ical subjects on public funding in election campaigns, 2) deepening the gap between the financial capacities of the ruling subjects in relation to the opposition, 3) the survival of the largest number of political sub jects despite small financial resources and 4) the proliferation of “soft“ organisations, such as political movements based on online campaigns. We concluded that there was no political pluralism in last three elector al cycles as a consequence of significant financial disparities between ruling subjects and opposition. Political subjects have survived that period but in the real sense they have no capacities for serious political competition and presentation of their policies. Due to small capacities of opposition for management of election campaigns, citizens do not have an opportunity to see both sides. Party life in 2017 is significant ly worse than five years ago when the new financial framework was adopted. One of the recommendations is to continue the monitoring of these trends and modification in legal framework if such negative trends continue.
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Presidential elections in Belarus in 2015 did not follow democratic standards. Once again Aleksandr Lukashenko was elected a president. The political opposition was not able to develop a consistent election strategy. Attempts to consolidate the democratic circles and put forward one candidate also failed. The presidential elections were fully controlled by the regime and went according to the previously proved scheme. Contrary to the previous presidential elections in 2010, the regime did not decide to launch a campaign of mass post-election repressions. The quiet presidentialelections in 2015 facilitated for Belarus an initiation of a political dialogue with Western structures (EU, EC and OSCE).
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The way in which the members of soviets were elected in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had very little to do, aside from its name, with free elections which are the basic procedurę of each democratic political system. The voters would merely validate the decisions made within the committees of the communist party which carefully controlled the candidate selection. The candidate nomination was tantamount to being ‘elected’, as there was one candidate for each mandate. Each soviet was intended to reflect the structure of the society, yet the key posts were reserved by the communist activists. Each candidate before the nomination had to be verified, electoral campaigns were only directed in detail shows. In order to increase the voter turnout, and thus prove the socialist ‘unanimity’ of the society, the authorities made use of various pressure methods, propaganda as well as various manipulations. The article presents a historical-political analysis of the elections in the Soviet Union, focusing on the three basic issues: building of a new electoral system after the October Revolution 1917, legal regulations and electoral practices in the USSR in the period of stabilization of the ruling system.
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Spain is a very unique country. If it comes to the political system it is a unitary state, but with many elements of a federation. It results in a very complicated internal administrative structure, and equally complicated electoral system. In this article the Author deals only with the lowest level of the local self-governmental structures: communities and smaller entities. Beginning with active and passive suffrage, and the explanation of characteristics of the administrative divisions (with the micro communities, below 100 inhabitants, being the most distinctive fact here) the Author goes deeper into the electoral system. His analysis is presenting the complexity of electoral solutions in various types of communities and smaller entities, both to the collective bodies and one-man organs. The diversification in this case is enormous. Starting with the elements of direct democracy (neighbors’ assemblies), through majoritary elections to most common proportional system. The most surprising thing here is the popularity of the indirect elections. The Author is also indicating specific management resolutions for the big cities, which also affect the electoral process to certain extend. The reasons behind such complicated solutions will be also explained. the overall analysis will also cover the social perception of the voters to such a organization of the electoral process.
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The incumbent Poroshenko accepts Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s challenge to a drug- and alcohol-free contest.
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Objectives: Many explanations have been offered of Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency of the United States. Most focus on the candidates and events in or around their campaigns. This paper argues that a much-neglected part of the story lies in long-developing structural and historical trends in the U.S. political economy upon which the Trump campaign capitalized. Research Design & Methods: The paper provides an historical analysis of the structural changes in American political economy that contributed to Trump’s rise to power. Findings: Trump’s rise to power was premised on decades-long changes in the U.S. economy, race relations, ideology, party politics and Obama’s presidency. Implications/Recommendations: To understand Trump’s rise to power we need to understand the changes in American political and economic life that sowed the seeds for his election. Contribution/Value Added: Othe r accounts of Trump’s victory focus on short- or medium-term factors. This paper puts them all into longer historical perspective.
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Central and Eastern European nationals in the UK hoping for a pro-EU or “soft Brexit” outcome are likely to be disappointed.
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The article reveals the content of the category “electoral culture ” and the subordination between this concept and the category “political culture”. The authors describe the discrepancies between “electoral culture”: “culture of political elections”, “culture of voters”, “culture of electoral process”. Electoral culture is an important part of political culture that separates it with the passing of time, when political elections as a procedure gain the necessary weight. It is noted that during the conduct of election campaigns the meaning field of political culture is narrowed to its effective fragment - electoral culture. The article reveals the influence of electoral culture on the national political process. Authors define electoral culture as a set of typical, relatively consistent knowledge, representations, guides, beliefs, values, symbols, orientations, skills and patterns of behavior manifested in the electoral process and transmitted from generation to generation of a particular nation, having significant transformational potential and appearing in the activities of electoral subjects and in the functioning of democratic institutions.
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Far-right voters could hold the balance in the 30 March runoff.
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Over the last three decades, China’s participation in the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) and the IMF has gone through three stages of: initial participation; steady development; and partnership . Over this time China has definitely became more engaged in the international financial institutions; become a great player in international affairs, and changed its role from recipient to contributor; from receiving technical assistance to sharing experience; from borrowing loans to being co-lender;. Why China has changed its attitude and behavior towards the World Bank and the IMF and will China effectively influence reconstruction of the international financial system? This paper explores to answer these questions from the perspective of three international relations theories of: structural realism, neoliberal institutionalism, and constructivism. There will be three hypotheses tested in the process, which cover the whole process of China’s engagement in theinternational financial institution over more than 30 years. Thre will be two case studies conduceted to this end, the first of which regards China’s protest against the 2007 IMF surveillance. The second case is about votingpower reform of the IMF and the World Bank, which attracted attention around the globe. The overview of China’s engagement in the two organizations and the two cases shall fully test the three hypotheses. This paper argues that in the initial period, neoliberal institutionalism can better explain the interaction between China and the World Bank, and the IMF. In the last century, China’s proactive behavior can be better explained from structural realist and constructivist positions, focusing on China’s rising economic power, and redefined identity and interest. Nonetheless China will remain within the system, and will not attempt to to overthrow it. In the meantime, China will probably contribute to constructing other institutions to push for the reform of international financial institutions more effectively.
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Although elections and referenda are different in their character, the absence at the vote is promoted by many similar factors.Poles generally lack faith in democracy and the belief that their vote really counts. The turnout in only 35% of national elections held since 1989 till present day exceeded 50%. There are two types of absence ballot, “intentional” absences resulting from the voter’s inner conviction that this is what they want to do, and abstention forced by a random event (sudden illness, death of a loved one, an accident) or non-random event (disability, chronic illness).The main reasons for the planned non-participation in elections in principle do not change with each vote, but are accented with varying frequency.
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In spite of some hopes and expectations, the political configuration in Bosnia and Herzegovina remains unchanged after the election. The political options that firmly placed Bosnia and Herzegovina in the economical bottom of Europe and brought it onto the same level as some undeveloped African states, have even strengthened their position in these elections. In this way the rulingSNSD party in the Republika Srpska won a total victory over the opposition and strengthened their position with the election of Milorad Dodik into the BH presidency. The parties with most votes in the Federation are the two ruling parties: SDA on all levels of administration and in all cantons with a Bosniak majority (except the Tuzla canton), and HDZ in all cantons where Croats are the majority. However, the HDZ was unsuccessful in the election for the Croat presidency member. The victor was Željko Komšić, which is being denied the right to represent the Croats by the aforementioned party and people, which led to a new deepening of the crisis in Bosnia. Unlike the situation on the higher levels of administration, there was a change in the political framework in the Gračanica municipality. In contrast with the results of the last general election, the SDP and SDA exchanged their positions. Most voters voted for the SDP, which leads over the second placed SDA with approximately ten percent of the votes. The SDP victory in Gračanica was further enabled by a long and permanent crisis in the SDA leadership and the renegade wing in Banovići, which had a significant stronghold in Gračanica.
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The election of the President of the United States is one of the most complicated choices in the history of democracy. American electoral peculiarity is that it is paradoxically not the voters who have the final and decisive influence on election results, and electors who are obligated to loyalty to their voters only by moral law, because in most states the consequences of their possible „betrayal„ are strongly liberalized penalties in the form of a thousand-dollar mandate or dismissal from office. Another electoral specifics is that the result of elections is most influenced by states with the largest populations, as they are the ones with the largest number of electors. A brief analysis of the relations of the American colonies with England, France, Spain and other European powers shows the genesis of the contemporary electoral system in the USA, which, contrary to the popular opinions of hundreds of millions of people, is difficult to call ideal or perfect because of the „systemic electoral gap„. Also, the results of the analysis of American historical documents regarding the constitution may be a substantive basis for polemics about the still-promoted myth of the magnificent democracy created by the Founding Fathers, in which white women, white men without property and colorful people did not have the right to vote.
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