French Centrism after the 2022 Elections: Strategy and Prospects

Holding regular elections is an essential feature of democratic practices. The case for postponing elections is often made during emergency situations, however. Despite the critical nature of the i...

The paper discusses the grounds required for the dissolution of the parliament in the political practice of the French Fifth Republic. The Constitution of October 4, 1958 adopted a model of strengthened political power of the head of state, granting them instruments of executive influence on the functioning of other state organs. Paragraph 12 of the Constitution gives the President practically unlimited power to dissolve the National Assembly – the lower chamber of French parliament. The conditions for applying this paragraph are not stipulated in the legal regulations. It is not necessary for the President to respond to a motion of another body, or even to obtain a countersignature. These constitutional factors have led to various political practices. The author of the paper puts forward the thesis that giving freedom to the head of state as regards the application of paragraph 12 on the one hand provides the necessary foundations to exercise a power model with a considerable degree of decisiveness, but on the other may lead to a situation where the dissolution of the National Assembly no longer has a power function in its conventional sense, but serves the purpose of providing the head of state with an instrument for considerably strengthening his own political position. Since the present Constitution of the Fifth Republic has been in force, the National Assembly has been dissolved five times. The author identifies three basic grounds for applying paragraph 12: to defuse a political or social conflict (1962 and 1968), to restore a politically homogenous executive power (1981 and 1988), and to maintain a given political configuration (1997). Since the 1980s the dissolution of parliament has become a tool for the president to avoid cohabitation and, by this token, to provide a political system where the role of the leader of the executive is in the hands of the head of state. On account of the defeat of the formation supporting the president in 1997 this strategy failed to produce the expected outcome. The dissolution of the National Assembly has not taken place since. In 2000, the length of the mandate of the head of state was shortened to five years, which makes it more likely for parliamentary elections to occur directly after presidential elections. This may for a long time to come eliminate the main grounds for the dissolution of the lower chamber, which in the 1980s and 1990s stemmed from the desire to ensure a political system favorable for the head of state. This reason alone may mean that the significance of paragraph 12 in the political practice of the Fifth Republic will continue to be limited.

. In the practice of democratic state administration, the presidential election and regional head elections are certainly one of the country's focuses in the future to find leaders who will take care of this nation, of course it is hoped that the elected leaders are leaders who really carry out this great mandate as well as possible. Based on the choice of the community, this leader will be elected through the democratic system of elections, but there are still many problems that often occur in its implementation. The purpose of this research is to analyze the law of democracy in the implementation of presidential and regional elections in a presidential system country. This research method is normative juridical research with the basis of research using a statutory approach. The results of this study are that the Presidential System, especially in Indonesia, is still often weakened by the provisions of public office and the constitution on the powers of the head of state and the law, supervision in the general election system must certainly be carried out as cleanly as possible in order to create leaders who really have high integrity.

The greatest achievement of the 5-year term presidency under the 1987 Constitution, which was the product of the June Democracy Movement, was breaking the cycle of dictatorship that had persisted since the enactment of the 1948 Constitution. The isolation from the era of dictatorship became an important foundation for abolishing the legacy of authoritarianism that had taken root throughout Korean society. The 1987 Constitution has had a profound impact on the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres. Since 1987, South Korea has experienced four regime changes, and democracy has matured. Transparency in society as a whole has improved through systems such as disclosure of public officials' assets, real-name financial transaction system, and confirmation hearings for public appointments. The elimination of authoritarianism has also had a positive impact on the economy and culture, leading to economic development and the growth of the cultural industry. As the era of state capitalism comes to an end, global companies are emerging in South Korea, and the era of censorship comes to an end, South Korea's cultural industry has begun to gain global influence.
 Despite the clear achievements of the 5-year term presidency under the 1987 Constitution, there are also significant issues that need to be addressed. These include corruption and malfeasance among the President's inner circle, the damage caused by excessive concentration of power in the hands of the President, the incompetence of the President, problems in the relationship between the President and the National Assembly due to issues in election cycles, and political polarization caused by factional leadership conflicts.
 I would like to propose a Korean-style presidentialism as a constitutional amendment to solve these problems. Specifically, the term of office of the president elected by a runoff vote shall be changed to a four-year mid-term system, but the election cycle shall be adjusted to elect members in half in the early general elections and mid-term elections, respectively. This would give citizens the opportunity to evaluate the President and the National Assembly through two parliamentary elections. Introducing a vice-presidential system could lead to new problems, so it is preferable to maintain the Prime Ministerial system, but if the National Assembly has the power to recommend the Prime Minister, they could play an active role in the appointment of the Prime Minister every two years, in the event of an opposition party victory in a parliamentary election. This could also enable the formation of a coalition government between the ruling and opposition parties. In addition, it is necessary to reduce the President's authority to appoint constitutional officials and to expand the influence of the National Assembly.

This study aims to examine the legal politics of postponing the regional elections from 2022 to 2024, and to analyze the implications of postponing the regional elections in Aceh in connection with Aceh's special status. The legal politics in Aceh in the implementation of the regional elections, which were supposed to be held in 2022 but have been moved to 2024, were previously considered a special authority of Aceh as regulated in the Regional Autonomy Law (UUPA), but in its development, it must comply with and follow the rules of the national regional elections. This research is a normative legal research with a legislative approach, case approach, and concept approach, data is obtained through primary, secondary, and tertiary data and will be analyzed, then the research results will be systematically arranged to obtain clarity from the problems being studied. Based on the research results, the legal politics of postponing the Aceh regional elections is the implementation of Article 201 paragraph (8) and Article 199 of Law No. 10/2016, as well as the KPU Circular Letter, viewed from the political configuration can be categorized as an orthodox political configuration, the implication of the postponement of the regional elections is due to the presence of Article 199 of the Regional Election Law and in the Constitutional Court's decision to cancel the implementation of the Aceh Regional Elections regulated in the UUPA.

The functioning of a modern democratic state is impossible without observing certain electoral cycles, holding free elections, maintaining carefully thought-out electoral procedures, and sending new messages to voters that affect the formation of public electoral moods. The most important trend in this process is the search for electoral systems that fully take into account the will of citizens and ensure adequate representation of their interests in state bodies. The author proves that during the recent presidential and parliamentary election campaigns that took place in the Republic of Bulgaria, new electoral preferences were quite unexpected for the state. The Bulgarian Parliament quickly shifted to a new paradigm of political rhetoric without changing its structure. “Pro-Euro-Atlantic” parties (the Reformist Bloc, DOST) did not enter the Parliament, and those that are represented in the National Assembly (GERB, BSP, DPS) quite painlessly reoriented to “patriotic” or “state-oriented” messages. The nationalist parties with their new messages that most correspond to the desired new situation, managed to understand the situation in time: they united and were able to get seats in the Government in a new form. They said goodbye to their previous role in Bulgarian politics and became a part of the respectable participants in the political process.

This article compiles information on multi-level electoral politics in nine countries, starting with multi-level election cycles: horizontal concurrence and vertical concurrence. In addition to the cycle of federal and regional elections, this report looks at election rules for federal and regional elections: fixed election date, possibility of vertical concurrence, dissolution of regional assemblies, length of term after dissolution and the electoral systems for state-wide and regional elections. These election rules and the cycle of state-wide and regional elections contribute to either encouraging the symmetry between the state-wide and regional party systems or, on the contrary, facilitating the divergence between state-wide and regional political arenas and electoral cycles.

Introduction: in the 2000s, political centralization and political space unification trends prevailed in Russia. Under these conditions, dissimilarity of the party-electoral landscape in the Russian regions is manifested in different voting for the main parties in federal and regional elections. Objectives: to identify how stable the dissimilarity of the partyelectoral landscape is reproduced in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, as well as to determine what factors affect the degree of the party-electoral landscape dissimilarity. Methods: quantitative analysis of votes for the main political parties in federal and regional elections in 2007–2021; calculation of dissimilarity index; correlation analysis of dissimilarity index values between different electoral cycles; regression analysis of factors (socio-cultural, historical, geographical and socio-economic specifics of the region) influencing the dissimilarity index values, i.e., the specifics of the party-electoral landscape of the regions. Results: in general, the regions reveal an average degree of correlation in the index of dissimilarity values between electoral cycles. Regression models account for about half of the variations in the values of dissimilarity index. Conclusions: in most regions, the degree of dissimilarity of the party-electoral landscape is reproduced relatively stable throughout the entire period under review. The analysis of the factors influencing the variability of the degree of the partyelectoral landscape dissimilarity in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation allows to conclude that the socio-cultural specificity of the region has a key impact. In addition, historical and geographical specifics are of significant importance.

This article analyzes the processes of electoral consolidation around incumbents, as well as around opposition candidates, in Russian presidential elections. On the basis of a comparative analysis of the parliamentary and presidential campaigns over six electoral cycles, the author identifies shifts in the turnout and voting patterns for candidates in presidential elections in comparison to the previous State Duma elections. His research shows that almost all viable candidates in presidential elections rely on the electorate of a certain party—usually the one that nominates the candidate (the only important exception to this rule was the vote for P. Grudinin in the 2018 election). The study also shows that an increase in turnout in presidential elections plays into the hands of the incumbent (except for B. Yeltsin in 1996), although in some cases it can boost support for a strong opposition candidate (G. Zyuganov in 1996) or an entirely new candidate (M. Prokhorov in 2012). Having compared voting patterns between parliamentary and presidential elections, the author comes to the conclusion that an incumbent is usually able to win over ambivalent voters and, depending on the political context, voters from various party clusters; for example, supporters of A Just Russia, LDPR, liberal parties, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (at the level of certain regions). Opposition candidates possess much more limited opportunities for this kind of consolidation or lack them altogether. The author interprets these trends as a manifestation of strategic voting based on voters’ rational choice in favor of the incumbent.

This article analyzes the processes of electoral consolidation around incumbents, as well as around opposition candidates, in Russian presidential elections. On the basis of a comparative analysis of the parliamentary and presidential campaigns over six electoral cycles, the author identifies shifts in the turnout and voting patterns for candidates in presidential elections in comparison to the previous State Duma elections. His research shows that almost all viable candidates in presidential elections rely on the electorate of a certain party—usually the one that nominates the candidate (the only important exception to this rule was the vote for P. Grudinin in the 2018 election). The study also shows that an increase in turnout in presidential elections plays into the hands of the incumbent (except for B. Yeltsin in 1996), although in some cases it can boost support for a strong opposition candidate (G. Zyuganov in 1996) or an entirely new candidate (M. Prokhorov in 2012). Having compared voting patterns between parliamentary and presidential elections, the author comes to the conclusion that an incumbent is usually able to win over ambivalent voters and, depending on the political context, voters from various party clusters; for example, supporters of A Just Russia, LDPR, liberal parties, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (at the level of certain regions). Opposition candidates possess much more limited opportunities for this kind of consolidation or lack them altogether. The author interprets these trends as a manifestation of strategic voting based on voters’ rational choice in favor of the incumbent. English translation © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text © 2018 “Politiia.” “Prezidentskie vybory v Rossii: Vozmozhnosti i predely elektoral’noi konsolidatsii,” Politiia, 2018, no. 2(89), pp. 23-50. Rostislav Feliksovich Turovsky is a doctor of political science and a professor in the School of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Translated by Lucy Gunderson. Translation reprinted from Russian Politics and Law, vol. 56, nos. 3-6. DOI:10.1080/10611940.2019.1784629.

This study looks at firms’ investment spending in fixed and intangible assets around three types of national elections: presidential, joint presidential, and legislative and parliamentary elections. Investments in fixed assets decline by up to 2% during presidential elections, and 4.44% in joint presidential, and legislative elections. On the other hand, intangible investments decrease by 4.36% in parliamentary election years. Moreover, investment responses to electoral shocks differ markedly within political systems and countries’ institutional settings. Investment levels shift significantly downward in pre- and resume in post-election years. The electoral effect results in a net loss in investment over the election cycle.

Political regimes, investment and electoral uncertainty

Democratic theory generally regards political parties as central to democracy and therefore views a more responsible U.S. party system as desirable. While a number of factors inhibit party responsibility in the United States, the decline of parties from the late 1880s into the 1970s and the subsequent rebound illustrates that parties nevertheless wax and wane over time. Within long‐term trends, however, shorter‐term patterns may also be evident. I examine the effects of the four‐year cycle of presidential and midterm elections on parties in the U.S. House of Representatives using roll‐call voting data from 1857 to 2000. The principal finding is that parties do not appear systematically stronger following presidential elections than following midterm elections. Instead, indicators of partisanship in successive Congresses reveal that changes in party strength vary in magnitude and direction. This casts some doubts on calls for elimination of midterm elections as a means to promote party responsibility.

ABSTRACTIn recent election cycles, especially during the 2020 US presidential election cycle, individuals displayed a renewed and heightened sense of civic, social, and political involvement. Voter turnout was high in the 2020 presidential election, the highest for any other presidential election since 1900. I submit that the psychological influences of populism and psychological involvement foster this high turnout. Using the 2020 American National Election Study, this article examines their influences on political behavior. It places greater focus on populism because scholars of American elections rarely test it as an individual‐level force in presidential elections and because scholars do not examine it with psychological involvement simultaneously. I find that populism and psychological involvement are distinct concepts, both boost voter turnout, and they shape vote choice and candidate affect.Related ArticlesAguado, N. A. 2022. “When Charismatic Leadership Trumps Social Networking: Searching for the Effects of Social Media on Beliefs of Electoral Legitimacy.” Politics & Policy 50, no. 5: 942–951. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12494Craig, S. C., and J. Gainous. 2024. “To Vote or Not to Vote? Fake News, Voter Fraud, and Support for Postponing the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.” Politics & Policy 52, no. 1: 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12577Deegan‐Krause, K., and T. Haughton. 2009. “Toward a More Useful Conceptualization of Populism: Types and Degrees of Populist Appeals in the Case of Slovakia.” Politics & Policy 37, no. 4: 821–841. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00200.x

Namibia’s National Assembly and Presidential Elections in November 2019 documented for the first time a decline in the hegemonic status of the former liberation movement, SWAPO. This culminated since then in an unforeseen loss of support in the Regional and Local Authorities Elections of November 2020. Most municipalities and towns are now under the control of new political alliances. These include agencies with social movement elements. The urban middle class deserves in this context some special attention: Has it influenced voting patterns? Can an urban middle class be of sufficient political influence to play a significant role in changes of political governance? The dramatic political shifts in Windhoek are explored: if and to what extent might a focus on urban middle-class political behaviours help to analyse current political dynamics unfolding?