A Critical Assessment of Political Party Performance in the Elections for European Parliament in Dolj County Romania on May 25, 2014

Author(s): Mihaela Bărbieru / Language(s): English / Issue: 44/2014

This study aims, in addition to an analysis of the elections for European Parliament members in Romania on 2014 and focus on the research of this phenomenon in Dolj County. Recent years have been for Romania charged of electoral events and social transformation, political change happening in the context of premieres, surprises and twists. EP elections were characterized, both at European and national level, by the low turnout of voters, the stake being the lowest for the Romanian public opinion since the themes of European interest are perceived as not having a direct impact on life daily. The election campaign was hard, and personal attacks belonged to a radical speech in which there was no central theme, dominant political figures were those of politicians who were to stand for president election in November 2014, they practically creating a preamble for the last ones. Elections in Dolj County made not discordant note perfectly enrolling in the limits imposed by the rest of the country, with a low turnout and results aligned with national results.

A European Democracy: Why and How?

Author(s): Phillipe C. Schmitter / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

While democracy in Europe took a very long time to emerge and consolidate itself, the democratization of Europe has only just begun and remains a rather remote prospect. The competing national states that composed this part of the world were originally autocratic – with the historical exception of Switzerland, which somehow continuously managed to practice its peculiar form of democracy. Indeed, Western Europe became uniformly democratic only in the mid-1970s with the regime changes in Portugal, Spain, and Greece. And parts of the former Soviet Union have still to institutionalize the accountability of its rulers by way of competitive processes of representation.

A Historical Overview of the Emergence of Certain Electoral Systems

Author(s): Csaba CSERVÁK / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

Around the world we can face with a big diversity in the voting systems. Within certain limits governments have the right to determine how many votes a single citizen is allowed to cast, and how. Therefore we can also find majority-, proportional- and preferenital electoral systems even only in Europe. Single- and multiple-vote systems are neither unfamiliar. While the vote-transfer system is currently employed in Malata and Ireland, until then Germany applies the personalised PR-system. Electoral system in Hungary have changed over time. According to Act XXXIV of 1989, until 2010, the electoral system was an archetype of mixed voting systems: in it, it is possible to gain a mandate both in a single district and through party lists. The Parliament operates with 386 representatives. In 2010 the system was changed under the Act CCIII of 2011. It is still a mixed system, but there are only 199 mandates can be won: 106 in relative majority single constituencies and 93 on a national list. Since it provides compensation after the votes cast in single districts, it is also, essentially, a compensational system.

A közigazgatási térfelosztás és a kisebbségi kérdés kapcsolata az 1968. évi román megyereform tükrében

Author(s): László Gulyás / Language(s): Hungarian / Publication Year: 0

A közös indulás

Author(s): László Öllös / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2019

The joint run of the Most–Híd and the SMK–MKP party at the next parliamentary elections is an issue of concern not only to a significant part of the Hungarian public in Slovakia, but, beyond doubt, to many Slovaks too. The main obstacle to the joint run is the hostility between large groups within the two parties. So they see each other not only as opponents but enemies that must be eradicated.

A magyar kisebbséget képviselő pártok választási sikeressége (1990–2004)

Author(s): Alpár Zoltán Szász / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1-2/2006

The main goal of this paper is to examine how the institutional distribution of political power within the party system of a country affects the share of power that can be captured by a minority on national level. (Such an approach relies on the empirical observation that in most parts of the world ethnic/national minorities compete for /political/ resources through the parties that claim to represent them.) To accomplish its task, the paper draws on theories of comparative government and party system theory, while targeting–as sample–post-Communist countries bordering Hungary and featuring Hungarian minorities, i.e., Croatia, Romania, Serbia–Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Parties representing Hungarian minorities are analysed in order to provide a tentative institutional(ist) explanation of the electoral success of ethnoregionalist parties. The account focuses on systemic variables making up the participation dimension of political systems, more precisely, the nature of the electoral system (used for electing the lower chamber of national legislatures) and party system format. Apart from delineating a theoretical framework that helps to disentangle the relationship between the three variables, the paper offers a (new) definition of ethnoregionalist parties, too, as a means for delimiting their larger―for instance, all-European―universe. Moreover, it presents the theoretical basis of a triple test designed for (dis)proving the ethnoregionalist character of political organisations and performs it on twenty-eight Hungarian political organisations to show that only twenty-one qualify as ethnoregionalist (parties). Finally, the paper concludes that party system fragmentation is indeed a salient factor of ethnoregionalist electoral success. However, the quantitative method employed herein failed to confirm the strong, expected theoretical relationship between electoral system proportionality and the dependent variable. Hence, the paper hints, as directions for future research, to other possibilities for exploring the latter relationship.

A Make or Break Moment: Afghanistan Prepares for Key Elections This Fall

Author(s): Patryk Kugiel / Language(s): English

The date of the long overdue parliamentary elections in Afghanistan has been set for 20 October. If they go ahead as planned, the effects of years of international efforts to stabilise the country and build democracy will be visible. An efficient, safe vote will testify to the strength of state institutions and strengthen the legitimacy of the government. On the other hand, the disruption of the elections or undermining the results can cause political chaos and serve the Taliban, seeking to seize power. If requested by the government in Kabul, the U.S., NATO, and the EU should stand ready to support the electoral process, especially in ensuring security.

A meglepetések éjszakája – A 2017-es szlovákiai megyei választások

Author(s): Szabolcs Mózes / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 4/2017

The aim of this paper is to introduce and analyse the results of the 2017 county-level local elections. The election produced many surprises. For example, the participation of voters was much higher than expected, the winner of the elections became the right-wing opposition, the Smer party lost many important positions, and the radical Marian Kotleba was not able to hold his post as the head of the self-governing Banská Bystrica region. The election reflected the ongoing tendency of strengthening independent candidates. The struggle between Hungarian political forces was won by the Party of the Hungarian Community (MKP-SMK), which earned almost four times more seats than the Most- Híd party. However, the Hungarian candidates were mainly successful in the regions with Hungarian ethnic majorities, and in the ethnically mixed regions the level of Hungarian political representation decreased.

A megyei választások kérdése és az 1843. évi követutasítások

Author(s): Ádám Dombovári / Language(s): Hungarian / Publication Year: 0

A nagy menetelés a kispadig – A 2020-as szlovákiai választás magyar vonatkozásairól

Author(s): Gábor Harrach / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2020

A New Populist Divide? Correspondences of Supply and Demand in the 2015 Polish Parliamentary Elections

Author(s): Ben Stanley / Language(s): English / Issue: 01/2019

This paper uses a new set of questions to analyse the impact of populist attitudes on party preferences and voting behaviour in the 2015 Polish parliamentary elections. At these elections, voters faced a choice between two broad blocs: parties that accepted the “liberal-orthodox” model of post-communist politics, and those that rejected this model and the political elites associated with its implementation. I find that there is a coherent set of populist attitudes among the Polish electorate, and that it correlates with economic and cultural attitudes in ways consistent with the supply-side divide between liberal and anti-liberal parties. Analysis of the individual and combined impact of these attitudes on voting behaviour reveals that populism plays a significant role both in structuring the sentiments of voters towards particular kinds of political parties and in determining how they cast their vote.

A parlamenti választási rendszerek nemzeti kisebbségi vonatkozásai a Nyugat-Balkánon – harminc éve a demokrácia árnyékában?

Author(s): László Horváth / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2020

As of the 1990s not only Central and Eastern Europe, but also the countries of the Western Balkans were transformed from one party to multi-party democracies. Besides the political representation of the majority, the national minorities have also demonstrated political ambition and have sought visibility. At the same time the rights of national minorities, their participation in political life – especially due to the tragic events in the Balkans – have gradually shifted to the centre of attention from a marginal position. Among alternative solutions there are various methods for separate parliamentary representation of national minorities. These solutions have been put into practice in many of the above mentioned states. The aim of this paper is to review these alternative solutions of the past 30 years and the difficulties they have faced. The objective has been to provide a comprehensive exposition of the evolution of parliamentary representation of national minorities in the Western Balkans.

A particular electoral system

Author(s): Alexandru Radu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 201-202/2019

The parliamentary elections of November 2-9, 1919, were the first collective experience of democracy in the Romanian political space. It was based, after more than five decades of census electoral practice, on the mechanism of universal (male) voting, enshrined in the Constitution in 1917. The use of proportional representation for the election of 60% of deputies was a real electoral revolution. In November 1919, the first election in the history of the country was organized, attended by the inhabitants of all Romanian provinces. The texts below analyze the electoral mechanisms and procedures used, as well as their political effects.

A Peculiar Interpretation of the Constitutional Principle of “One Person, One Vote” in Poland: Voter (In)equality in the Elections to 1,200 Local Legislatures

Author(s): Michał Pierzgalski,Paweł Stępień / Language(s): English / Issue: 04/2017

The adoption of new redistricting plans for the 2014 elections to local legislatures in Poland resulted in significant violations of the “one person, one vote” principle. This article shows the results of the first comparative study measuring within-country variation of voter inequality, using data from the 2014 Polish local elections to 1,200 commune or municipal councils, that is, local legislatures. Voter inequality is usually examined at the country or state level, while studies that take into account withincountry variation of malapportionment, using local election data, are neglected by scholars. To put our research in a broader context, we compared levels of malapportionment in Poland with internationally recognized standards (contained, e.g., in the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters issued by the Venice Commission) as to the acceptable levels of deviations from the “ideal” population, and also with empirical findings on the levels of voter inequality in other countries. We argue that the significant vote–value disparities in elections to commune councils in Poland result primarily from the disadvantages of the Polish 2011 Election Code. When it comes to local legislature elections in the vast majority of communes that are not the so-called countystatus towns, the legally permitted deviation from the ideal district population ranges from +50 percent to −50 percent. Even considering the standards of redistricting for local elections, the interpretation of the “one person, one vote” principle is rather peculiar in Polish commune elections.

A politikai rendszerintegrációt befolyásoló tényezők

Author(s): Andrea Szabó,Dániel Oross / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2016

In this paper we wish to offer an image of the operation of the integrative mechanisms of the Hungarian society. Specifically we concentrate on systems integration, in other words to those political processes and interactions that reproduce the mechanisms of coexistence within the society. Systems integration is approached from the dimension of action (Kiss 2015a). Testing three hypotheses on the data base of the OTKA-research entitled ’Processes of Integration and Disintegration in the Hungarian Society’ we present which explanatory factors influence intentions of choice and the traditional or direct democratic forms of political activity. We separately dwell upon relations between cohort generations and participation, life events and participation as well as clients and participation.

A prayer for peace in Belarus

Author(s): Iris Kempe / Language(s): English / Issue: 01+02 (45)/2021

Since the elections in Belarus on August 9th 2020, both the image of this country once portrayed as “the most severe dictatorship in Europe” and its people have significantly changed. International audiences can now see that every weekend – sometimes even on weekdays – large crowds come to the streets of Belarusian cities to express their discontent with the forged election results. The people have been demanding freedom and fair elections, thereby showing their attachment to common European values. Citizens in Belarus have finally awakened and are working towards change.

A Spanish “yes, we can!” against the two-party system

Author(s): Guillermo López García / Language(s): English / Issue: 13/2016

This article develops an analysis of the internal functioning of the Spanish party Podemos and its structural make-up. The used methodology consists of: 1) a descriptive analysis of the development of Podemos, based on the available information in the media; 2) an analysis centered on the presence of Podemos in social networks and the mainstream media, in addition to electoral results and polls. The analysis attempts to determine the following: the party’s decision- making process, along with the type of relationships established between leaders and supporters; to what extent the Internet is used as a primary tool for organization, mobilization and political propaganda; and the extent of the clash or harmony within the interparty’s dynamics: on one hand, the bottom-up structure of the citizen assemblies and, on the other, the top-down structure inferred from Pablo Iglesias’s hyper-leadership and the media presence of the party’s principal leaders.

A spatial perspective on political group formation in Turkey after the 1971 coup: The Kurdistan Workers Party of Turkey (PKK)

Author(s): Joost Jongerden / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

The five years preceding the 1978 founding congress of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partîya Karkêren Kurdistan, PKK) are referred to by its members as the party’s “existential period”. In the PKK’s “existential period” public spaces, such as university dormitories and canteens and student associations played an important role as meeting places, yet political formation occurred mainly in private spaces, especially private apartments and houses. This article considers this early history of the PKK from a spatial perspective. The main question addressed is how the Kurdistan Revolutionaries, as the group was known before its formal establishment, sustained itself spatially at a time when political life had been paralysed as a result of martial law and became subject to securitisation politics. Data for this article has been collected by means of interviews and the study of (auto)biographical texts.

A STRANGE LAW IN COMPLICATED TIMES: RETRACING THE POLITICAL CONTEXT OF THE ROMANIAN ELECTORAL REFORM OF MARCH 1926

Author(s): Adrian Alexandru Herţa / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2021

The Romanian Electoral Law of March 1926 embodied a surprising, uncanny, revolutionary, and controversial juridical innovation with a spectacular procedural trajectory. It was not designed to accurately detect and process the voters’ will, but to artificially produce comfortable monochrome parliamentary majorities in the Assembly of Deputies. Thus, it had a profoundly inequitable apportionment method. In a broad theoretical landscape, the particular perspective proposed by the present paper is that of reform as a product of its epoch. Therefore, we will try to reconstruct the complex political context of mid-1920s Romania as an essential puzzle piece for understanding some of the elements that determined the emergence of an unprecedented electoral algorithm. Both domestic and foreign policy issues will be discussed from a historical approach that starts with the fundamentals and goes to provide a more in-depth overview of the matter. Herewith, some areas of analysis somewhat undervalued by previous research endeavors will be addressed: the Romanian political thinking in the mid-1920s, the party system internal dynamics, the tumultuous events within the Royal House of Romania, the international relations, as well as the post-World War I evolution of the European political regimes.

A stratégiai szavazás arcai

Author(s): Ádám Máté Harkányi / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1/2018

Strategic voting is one of the concepts of political science which is widely used by the media, and has changed significantly over the past two decades. Research into strategic voting – with the increase in the number of proportional and mixed electoral systems through democratization processes and numerous electoral reforms – is less and less focused on the plurality-majority systems. Of course, growing researcher interest was associated with expanding the concept and exploring the wider range of institutional incentives and voter motivations behind it. We have come to know many new faces of strategic voting. The aim of this study is to present the conceptual changes, the relevance of some of the features of the electoral systems, and the various possible motives for strategic voting, in other words, the different faces of strategic voting. Due to the growing domestic interest in this topic, it is important to review the context of ticket splitting and strategic voting, as well as to present some of the most important findings of previous research.