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The purpose of the article is to present the aspects of demagoguery in Janusz Korwin-Mikke’s political appeal during presidential election campaign in 2015. The aim is to show how demagoguery is used by him to create the besieged fortress syndrome. The author stresses a broad spectrum of rhetorical manipulatory strategies, which includes providing demonic images of political opponents on the one side and idealized vision of Korwin-Mikke’s supporters on the other.
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This article analyzes the electoral campaign that led to the election of Nikos Christodoulidis as the eighth President of the Republic of Cyprus in February 2023. It contextualizes his election within the powerful role of the Greek Cypriot president in the country’s partially defunct political system. The article examines the main issues of the campaign and compares the positions of the candidates. It further explores the outcome of the elections and their immediate aftermath, followed by an assessment of the likely domestic and external consequences. The central finding of the article is that Christodoulidis begins his term as the weakest president in Cyprus’ history. This conclusion is based on a historical and contemporary analysis of the president’s position and the context of his election victory.
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Studies concerning the dynamics of party systems between parliamentary elections are usually based on legislative party switching analyses. This issue was considered and proved in some Western European case studies as well as in some comparative analyses dedicated to the parliaments in the consolidated democracies. But the personal structures of the parliaments in the East-Central European countries are impacted by more than just party switching processes. In this article we propose adopting a broader concept of intraparliamentary volatility, which includes both party switching and replacements of parliamentary mandates. Using data from a full term, 2011–2015, we reconstructed chronological changes in the personal structure of the lower house of the Polish parliament, placing them on a specially created timeline with the intervals marked for each month and distinguishing between change resulted from party switching and replacement of parliamentary mandate. During the period we analyzed the number of independent deputies and the number of parties in the parliament increase alongside with the approaching of the next election. We claim this indicates a stable level of intraparliamentary volatility – immanent for the party systems between parliamentary elections – but this could rise when some special occurrences (i.e. other types of elections or splits within the relevant political party) take place.
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Due to the complicated history of Poland, many Poles live outside the country. Th is state was infl uenced by many processes, such as: economic emigrations, refugees, the eff ects of deportations carried out by the invaders during World War II and the shift of national borders aft er it. Polish citizens retain voting rights without any restrictions related to living outside the country and the duration of their stay abroad. Th ese rights are enforced by the country government by creating voting wards in the countries where the Polish diaspora lives.In order to answer the question about its real infl uence on shaping the Polish government, the size of the Polish diaspora should be determined and also how much the Poles abroad are involved in domestic aff airs. One of the criteria for analyzing their involvement is their participation in the Polish presidential election (the analysis is based on data from the presidential elections taking place from 2000 to 2015).
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The aim of the article is to present the programme priorities in the field of security policy, announced by each candidate running for the office of President of Ukraine in 2019. In addition, it also attempts to show how they intended to: ensure state security, bring the war in the Donbass to an end, restore the territorial integrity – thus, to regain Kyiv’s control over the Donbass and Crimea, as well as where they were going to look for allies capable of providing support to Ukraine on the path to achieving the above-mentioned goals. An analysis of the elections programmes of each candidate will allow us to answer the questions. Attention was paid to the programme demands of those candidates who reeived at least a five per cent support in the presidential elections. Hence, the elections programmes of the participants of the second round of the elections, namely those of Volodymyr Zelensky, Petro Poroshenko, and also Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Boyko, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Ihor Smeshko as well as Oleh Lyashko, were subjected to analysis.
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The Polish Senate’s electoral system is based on the majority formula for 33 years. The Electoral Code introduced a new element – single-member constituencies, which, in combination with the relative majority, imply the danger of omitting significant part of votes and the threat of winning by candidates with no majority support. The postulate of an absolute majority with the possibility of a second round of voting seems to be a solution supporting chamber’s representativeness and accepted in doctrine. The author also examines the last three elections in terms of the influence of the required majority on their results. The conclusions confirm the legitimacy of the formulated postulate and indicate the need of comprehensive reform of the Senate’s electoral system.
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The article indicates the possibilities of developing an approach using the potential of cyberneticsfor modelling socio-economic and political processes in order for an interdisciplinary discussion oncontemporary crises in the context of social inequalities and economic growth. The interdisciplinaryachievements of political, social and economic sciences have been selected, which makes it possibleto undertake research on socio-economic phenomena and processes, and to obtain results that areperfectly consistent with reality while minimizing the impact of subjective interpretation.In an attempt to model reality, the processes of deformation of a democratic state havebeen abstracted, which has been an attractive topic of discussion and publication by successivegenerations since the times of Aristotle. Following N. Urbinati, it was assumed that the contemporary civilizational cognitive significance of these processes testifies to the respect for the social instinctof self-preservation, and consequently to the need to raise the rank of objectivism. N. Urbinati’sinspiring descriptive models are the basis for a systemic abstraction of the examined period of thecourse of democratic processes from the crises arising in the nineteenth century as a result of the firstindustrial revolution, through two world wars in the twentieth century in the context of internationalarrangements after their completion, through the return to democracy in Poland after the structuralchanges in the 1990s to the currently ongoing fourth industrial revolution, known as Industry 4.0.The article is not a systematic presentation of the detailed results obtained, as only themost spectacular phenomena are mentioned, which testify to various deformations, distortions ortransformations of democracy (in practice or theory) in the methodological context. Methodicalachievements of social cybernetics, economic cybernetics, as well as computer science andinformation economics were used. The pragmatic effectiveness of the conceptual perspective of anartificial intelligence (AI) system is adopted at the highest level of abstraction.
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This paper aims to find out the rhetoric of Lithuanian presidential candidates during the 2009, 2014 and 2019 election campaigns with respect to Russia and its threat to Lithuania’s national security, as well as how candidates’ rhetoric changed when comparing these three election campaigns. The 2009, 2014 and 2019 elections as the research object were chosen because the 2009 and 2014 elections were held just a few months after the beginning of the Russo-Georgian War in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in Donbas in 2014, while the 2019 Lithuanian presidential election took place amidst the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. In order to answer the research question, an analysis of candidates’ election programs and speeches during televised debates broadcasted by the Lithuanian National Broadcaster before all three elections, was performed. Comparative analysis of the election campaigns has shown that there was a significant shift in candidates’ rhetoric regarding Russia, Lithuania’s bilateral relations with Russia, and the assessment of the threat posed by Russia to Lithuania’s national security when comparing the 2009, 2014 and 2019 presidential elections. In 2014 and 2019, unlike in 2009, the majority of candidates began to refer to Russia as an aggressor country that posed a security threat to Lithuania.
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After 1989 the number of political parties in Romania increased considerably. The article questions the motivations for political association in Romania and the effects of this phenomenon. Using the framework of social construction, the study analyses the legal conditions, the social premises of party formation, the ideological foundations and the subsequent affirmation of the party as a political party. The common and specific characteristics of parties and their conventional power, expressed in terms of size, resources, legitimacy and electoral involvement, are captured. The social structure, diversity and programmatic offer of existing parties, radical populism, electoral system and short-term electoral mobilization are the main variables explaining the dynamics of political parties in Romania. Apart from parties resulting from splits as subtypes of new political parties, the commitment to democratic norms and processes and the exploration of the electoral potential of new parties is limited.
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Voter apathy is a subdivision of political apathy and has become one of the foremost democracy quandaries especially in developing polities. Participation in politics is an important part of decision making in a democratic setting. Therefore, when voters do not come out to participate in voting, it dsefinitely impacts negatively on the electoral process and sometimes undermines the outcome of an election. It may mean that the majority who did not vote indirectly empowered the minority who voted to make decision on their behalf. This paper argues that the increasing manifestation of voter apathy in the last two decades of Nigeria’s democracy leads to a poor democratization process and governance failures in the Nigerian project. It has promoted a condition in which individuals still remain more powerful than institutions. The paper employed documentary methods for data collection, while anchoring its discourses on the decision making theory as theoretical framework. The paper concludes that if the increasing level of voter apathy is not controlled in the country, it will continue to constitute a challenge to democratic consolidation in Nigeria. It recommends among other considerations that the Electoral Management Body (EMB) needs to critically inspire citizens through massive enlightenment and must restore trust and confidence in the electoral process by ensuring that people’s verdicts are not thwarted by any means.
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Purpose: to reveal the peculiarities of the formation of «ecological» (contextual,spatial) school of electoral research, characterization of its current state anddetermine the prospects for the development of this area of electoral studies.The results of the study: it was shown that the formation of the «ecologi-cal» school is associated with the expansion of the electoral corps in WesternEuropean countries in the second half of the nineteenth century in connectionwith the introduction of universal suffrage, as well as the strengthening of therole of elections in the political life of Western countries on the basis of rep-resentative democracy; determined that the predecessors of the «ecological»direction of electoral research were statistical scientists E. Engel and O. Fokardi,who studied electoral statistics through the prism of political and geographicalapproach; it is established that the founder of the «ecological» school of elec-toral research is A. Siegfried, who proposed a contextual («ecological») model ofvoting analysis, where the key factor determining the electoral position of thevoter and his electoral behavior is the environment in which the voter is; provedthat the institutionalization of the «ecological» school of electoral research isassociated with the activities of F. Gogel, who formulated the basic credo of«ecologicalists» – any research in the field of electoral behavior should be basedon comparing election results and factors that may explain these results; it istraced that the further development of the «ecological» school in the secondhalf of the twentieth century – the beginning of the twenty-first century carriedout by P. Bois, R. Aron, M. Dogan, R. Heberle, J. Sartori, G. Tingsten, and others.Conclusions: «ecological» (contextual, spatial) school of electoral researchis mainly applied; it focuses on the development of statistical methods for thestudy of aggregated quantitative data for prognostic purposes; political andgeographical approach to the analysis of voting results allows to identify spatialchanges in voter behavior; prospects of «ecological» approach to the study of electoral behavior are associated with a combination of classical methods of«ecologicalists» with various techniques of applied analysis (including qualita-tive).
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For the first time in the Ukrainian political science, considers the development of parliamentarism in the Czech Republic in a context of political transit in a comprehensive manner. It indicates the ambiguity and complexity of the process of parliamentary democracy’s functioning in the country. The main stages of the Czech parliamentary institutions’ establishment have been identified. The key tendencies and the peculiarities of the current Czech parliamentarism modernisation have been defined. The constitutional and legal status of the Parliament of the Czech Republic has been outlined and its place in the existing checks and balances system determined; the Czech Parliament party structuring characteristics have been determined and the most important factors of the coalition formation potential of parliamentary fractions have been revealed; based on the empirical indicators, the party system’s stability and efficiency in the Czech Republic have been investigated. The fundamental principles of the liberal parliamentarism concept (Ch.L.Montesquieu, John Locke, John Mill) have served as the theoretical and methodological basis for these article, which considers the power division to be the main principle of the state system, in which the executive power is accountable and subject to the legislative power. In order to achieve the tasks, the author used general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction) as well as special politilogical methods. The methods of induction and deduction have been used in formulating the concept of “political transit” and its constituent elements. The comparativehistorical method gave the defender of the thesis the opportunity to understand the main directions of parliamentary institutions’ development at different historical stages of the Czech statehood and identify the factors that influenced the change in their status. The system method allowed to assess the constitutional and legal status of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, primarily its place and role in the political system of society and the relationship with other bodies of state power. On the whole, we can assume that the experience of the parliamentarism functioning in the Czech Republic is of great practical significance for Ukraine and other post-communist states, since it gives a stimulus to the society and ruling elites of these countries to further improve and develop their political institutions.
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Electoral law, which is a sub-field of constitutional law, can be defined as a set of legal norms of decisive importance for the system due to their shaping of the electoral process, as a result of which bodies exercising power on behalf of citizens are formed. These norms are therefore characterized by their systemic significance for the state system. This means that the legislative process of electoral norms should be resistant to attempts to change them instrumentally, introduced for specific elections or a specific political option, in a hurry, incidentally or bypassing public opinion. The provisions of the electoral law should provide the citizen with an objective opportunity to decide whether to exercise the active or passive electoral right, implement the idea of the impact of each vote on the outcome of the election, create a clear, equal and fair framework for the conduct of the election campaign. Such shaping of norms requires the existence of guarantees of stability in the creation of electoral law coming directly from the constitution. Securing the electoral law against the use of the urgency procedure and the principle of legislative silence are of fundamental importance, but these guarantees are not without flaws.
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This article aims at presenting the standards developed and used at the international level regarding voting by persons with disabilities. The analysis focuses on the legal regulations and their application at the United Nations and, at the regional level, the Council of Europe. Since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there has been a clear trend at the universal level to ensure a full participation in public life of all the citizens, including through voting. Meanwhile, in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights some limitations of that right are still accepted.
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The author discusses two methods of voting by proxy and voting by correspondence, pointing out the changes regarding the circle of addressees who may use alternative forms of voting under the applicable Electoral Code. The article presents and compares the extent to which voters in Częstochowa use two methods of alternative voting on the example of elections to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland and the Senate of the Republic of Poland in 2011, 2015 and 2019, local elections in 2014 and 2018, and members of the EU Parliament in 2014 and 2019 as well as the elections of the President of the Republic of Poland in 2015 and 2020. The analysis of voting by proxy and postal voting has been given in relation to legal regulations and, above all, the circle of addressees who can use these methods. The author indicates which method, in particular elections, the voters chose more often and whether it had an impact on the activation of the electorate and voter turnout from the point of view of the principle of universality of elections.
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The article analyzes the conditions related to the introduction of electronic forms of voting with the use of the Internet (e-voting) in relation to possible crimes against elections. The aim is analyzes in two fields: (1) possible abuses in relation to the principles of electoral law, which could be based on the introduction of electronic forms of voting and (2) popularization of i-voting as a new ground for committing electoral crimes. The result of the analysis will be the identification of the basic correlations of i- voting to the principles of electoral law and an attempt to identify the basic threats related to the introduction of an alternative form of voting.
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The subject of this article is the methods of verifying the correctness of collecting and spending funds by political parties. First, political parties’ goals and their assets’ forms were analyzed. Then, the methods of verifying the correctness of financing political parties were discussed. Control powers in this respect have been granted to the National Electoral Commission, which decides on the acceptance or rejection of financial information for a given calendar year submitted by political parties and reports on the sources of obtaining funds.An essential element of the considerations is the legal consequences of rejecting information and reports, which may lead to the loss of the right to receive subsidies from the state budget for a certain period – which in turn, threatens the ability of a political party to continue its statutory activities. Against this background, there are doubts as to the compliance of the existing solutions with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.Based on the conducted research, including in particular the analysis of the National Electoral Commission resolutions, issues requiring, according to the authors, legislative changes were presented, together with the formulation of de lege ferenda postulates.
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Age markers in the study of political preferences in Poland are a source of very interesting dependencies. The age of the voter can largely determine his attitude during the vote. The article aims to show these relationships through a critical analysis of the literature, in relation to the data obtained in exit polls of subsequent parliamentary elections, in comparison with the research carried out by the author after the elections to the Sejm in 2019. Various theoretical approaches, known in the literature on the subject, are presented about the reasons for the change of political views or the lack thereof with the age of the voter. The analysis conducted in this way is to answer the question: what electoral preferences of specific age groups of voters will dominate in Poland in the near future?
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The article presents the rules of acquiring active and passive suffrage in the Kingdom of Hawaii in the years 1864–1893, after the entry into force of the third constitution of the country, when the parliament became unicameral. The subject of the analysis are the rules of allowing to participate in the election of representatives and nobles (the last ones since 1887, when the monarch lost the right to appoint them). The qualifications of voters and candidates are discussed, in particular the property qualification and education qualification. They had especial importance in Hawaii, becoming an instrument to limit the political rights of indigenous inhabitants of the islands. The rules for registering voters and candidates are also presented, becoming more and more detailed over time.
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