Citizen Choice Research Articles

Insecurity and political apathy in Nigeria’s elections: a study of Kano State elections (2011 - 2019)

This paper explores insecurity as a cause of political apathy that hinders political participation in Nigeria, taking Kano State as the context of the research. It adopts qualitative approach, simultaneously using both primary and secondary sources; in-depth interviews, scholarly articles and journals. Interviewees were purposively sampled. Rational Choice Theory is used as the theoretical pedestal to elucidate that partaking in political activity though an element of liberal democracy happens based on the choice and volition of citizens. Such a right could be taken away when citizens are disenfranchised as a result of insecurity; political violence, hooliganism etc. The study finds out among other things that violence emanates from the misconduct of thugs, sponsored or hired by politicians to rig elections, intimidate voters and scare off opponents at polling units. Also, belief of politicians that elections must be won by hook or crook and at all cost scares voters from falling victims at the hands of politicians and their political soldiers. Accordingly, the study recommends adequate civic education and political sensitization to citizens at early age through conventional schools and otherwise. Also, the electoral body should sanitize the system by employing stringent rules in the electoral process to ensure safe and violent-free environment before, during and after elections. Vetting and screening to-be political officers should also be rigorous, entailing character, records, use of drugs and association with political hooligans.

Motivasi Calon Pekerja Migran Indonesia Bekerja ke Luar Negeri dan Kontribusinya Bagi Negara Indonesia

Fulfilment of the needs of a decent life and the desire to change their fate are the main highlights in the choice of Indonesian citizens to decide to work abroad. In line with this, there is a positive response from the employer country regarding the demand for Indonesian labour. The research method used is narrative qualitative by conducting a data collection process carried out twice when prospective Indonesian migrant workers (CPMI) carry out OPP (Pre-departure Orientation) activities before heading to South Korea. The first data collection was conducted on 27 January-1 February 2023 which took place in Surabaya which was a mixture of new CPMIs and CPMIs who had previously left. The research findings are that there are stages that must be passed by CPMI before leaving for South Korea, one of these stages is OPP. During the implementation, 89 participants were interviewed with questions about the underlying motivation to work abroad. The answer was 73% answering money as the main reason as well as motivation to be able to live decently. Another impact apart from a decent living felt by CPMI is the contribution to the country. In the second quarter of 2023, the contribution to the country reached IDR 77.35 trillion. This is certainly a positive achievement whose impact can be felt both by citizens and the Indonesian state. Migrant workers make investments from the income saved to build businesses, renovate houses, pay debts, buy assets in the form of land, to the education of migrant workers' families. Some also actively empower the surrounding community in running their business, so that it automatically has a major contribution to poverty reduction in Indonesia by encouraging economic growth.

The Russian war in Ukraine increased Ukrainian language use on social media

The use of language is innately political, often a vehicle of cultural identity and the basis for nation building. Here, we examine language choice and tweeting activity of Ukrainian citizens based on 4,453,341 geo-tagged tweets from 62,712 users before and during the Russian war in Ukraine, from January 2020 to October 2022. Using statistical models, we disentangle sample effects, arising from the in- and outflux of users on Twitter (now X), from behavioural effects, arising from behavioural changes of the users. We observe a steady shift from the Russian language towards Ukrainian already before the war, which drastically speeds up with its outbreak. We attribute these shifts in large part to users’ behavioural changes. Notably, our analysis shows that more than half of the Russian-tweeting users switch towards Ukrainian with the Russian invasion. We interpret these findings as users’ conscious choice towards a more Ukrainian (online) identity and self-definition of being Ukrainian.

Government Spending and Voting Behavior

abstract: Does government spending on public goods affect the vote choice of citizens? On one hand, prior research has characterized voters as fiscal conservatives who may turn toward conservative parties when government spending goes up. On the other hand, increased spending may signal that the economy is doing well, which makes progressive parties a more viable option. To adjudicate between both hypotheses, this article draws on a natural experiment, which created exogenous variation in government spending. A discontinuity in the 2011 German census meant that some municipalities saw an unforeseen increase in budgets. Using a regression discontinuity design, the authors show that the increase in budgets and subsequent spending on public goods benefited left-leaning parties but had no detectable effect on incumbent support. To parse out the causal channel, the authors rely on panel evidence and demonstrate that treated residents viewed their economic situation more favorably than did untreated residents, which led the former to espouse progressive parties.

The choice of citizens or the regime? Local (self-) government in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1929-1941. A case study of the Slavonski Brod district

During the period of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, urban and rural municipalities were the lowest administrative units and closest to the needs of the ordinary population. The aim of this paper is to determine the level of self-government, whether the leadership of municipal administrations was an expression of the political will of the majority of the population or an instrument of the regime that ensured loyalty through various restrictions, pressures and direct nominations. This case study is spatially limited to the area of the Brod district, which was composed of one city and 18 municipalities. It is limited in period from the proclamation of the dictatorship of King Alexander in 1929 until the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. During the 1920s, central government limited local self-government in various ways, and immediately after the proclamation of the dictatorship, it was legally abolished. However, it should be recognised that the Law on Municipalities was adopted in 1933 and the Law on City Municipalities a year later in which the regime proclaimed self-government in the municipalities, but in reality, it limited it to a great extent. The situation in cities and rural municipalities is very different. Elections for the rural municipalities were held three times (1933, 1936, 1940), while in the cities, despite announcements, these were not held until the collapse of the state. The appointment procedure adopted during the dictatorship period was retained, although the parliamentary elections of 1935 and 1938 showed that the imposed concepts did not have significant support from the electoral base.

Information provision by non‐government actors in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme: A key market stewardship function in social care quasi‐markets

AbstractThe use of quasi‐markets for the delivery of social care continues to grow internationally. This has presented considerable challenges regarding governance and stewardship of these markets, to ensure they meet policy goals. To date, both scholarship and practice on quasi‐market stewardship have mainly focused on the role of government. However, non‐government actors can also play important stewardship roles. For effective stewardship, there needs to be integration between government and non‐government actors in the system, not just a top‐down approach. This paper explores the stewardship role of non‐government actors in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) with a focus on the role of information provision as a key market stewardship function. Findings show non‐government information providers play important stewardship roles that increase choice and control for citizens, enhance market sufficiency, diversity, and innovation, and support other actors in the system. We argue for a shift in the conception of market stewardship as primarily a government activity and recommend the market stewardship actions of non‐government actors be better acknowledged, funded, and ‘joined up’ with the market stewardship role of government to enable social care quasi‐markets to operate more effectively.Points for practitioners Information provision by non‐government actors is a key market stewardship function in social care quasi‐markets. Market stewardship needs to be the responsibility of a much greater range of actors than government alone. A framework for ‘distributed stewardship’ can help join up the stewardship actions of non‐government actors with those of government to support information flows for more effective stewardship.

The problem of freedom in the philosophy of John Locke: semiotic interpretation

The article shows the connection between the social constructions of political liberalism and its ontological justification in the system of J. Locke. With the help of semiotics and comparative philosophical analysis of the views of modern philosophers B. Spinoza, T. Hobbes, J. Locke, R. Filmer, J.-J. Rousseau, I. Kant, such problems as the nature of state power, the concept of freedom, natural law, social contract, the right of the people to revolution are analyzed. The semiotic context of natural law is revealed, and it is concluded that happiness, as the goal of New Age individual’s quest, according to Locke, is thought to be a rational and, therefore, a free being. Linking the natural need to be a free being not only with the organization of state power, but also with religious need, Locke concludes that political participation itself can be considered not just as a way to achieve freedom, but also as the purpose for a person to improve themselves morally and politically. For Locke, state power turns out to be an integral part of society, and the balance between them always shifts towards society as the source of the social contract. At the same time, the negative meaning of freedom in Locke prevails over the positive, saving the latter from sliding into totalitarianism of the Jacobin type, as in Rousseau. The conclusion is drawn about the relevance of ideas about the need for free choice of citizens to build a rule of lawful state and develop democracy.

Evaluating the relevance, credibility and legitimacy of a novel participatory online tool

Given the immense pressure on politicians across the globe to implement efficient yet socially-accepted climate policies, research on policy acceptance becomes increasingly important. Several studies could contribute to the understanding of what affects policy acceptance, but their methodological approaches usually assess isolated solutions instead of policy mixes and do not display the various impacts of presented policies. Most often, these studies lack a critical self-evaluation of such methodological drawbacks. In this paper we present and evaluate an innovative citizen choice experiment tool (called Participatory Value Evaluation, PVE), in which people are asked to select intensity levels for eleven transport policies, while simultaneously seeing the environmental, social and financial impacts of their choices. We evaluate the PVE and its contents and features regarding its (scientific) Credibility, (political & societal) RElevance and (societal) LEgitimacy (subsumed as CRELE framework) as a prerequisite for supporting socially-accepted policy-making. For this purpose, 601 open text survey answers regarding the strengths and potential improvements of the tool are analyzed by means of a qualitative content analysis. Descriptive statistics of the survey participants are used to further enrich the analysis. Based on this evidence, we can conclude that the PVE is indeed a credible, relevant and legitimate tool for assessing policy options. Participants positively highlighted the tool’s ability to credibly visualize the impacts of selected policies, thereby raising awareness for the severity of climate change and the required policy response. Ambivalent answers were received regarding the social fairness of included measures and the preferred complexity of the tool.

The Problem of the Legitimacy of the Political Elite

The object of this study is the problem of the legitimacy of the political elite. The subject of the study is the views of a number of Western and domestic researchers on the political elite. The study aims to generalize the views of theorists from different countries and periods of time regarding the qualities of the political elite as a legitimizing foundation. The dialectical method, which was used in the analysis of the categories of "political elite" and "legitimacy," their essence and interrelation, played a decisive role in achieving the goal of this study. This method has become key in understanding the texts of the works under study. The method of system-structural analysis allowed us to explore the views of the philosophers in question holistically—when the authors' positions complement each other and create a general picture of the understanding of the legitimacy of the political elite. The conclusion of the study is as follows: in the modern world, the main method of legitimizing the political elite is a democratic election procedure, but the choice of citizens should be based on a clear idea of the qualities of a political leader, confidence that the candidate has serious professional competencies, as well as deep moral convictions and moral principles. This will help to avoid falling under the power of amateurs who put their incompetence and lack of values, stability, and security in society at risk. The result of the study of the ideas of domestic and Western philosophers is the confirmation of the judgment that the legitimate political elite should be considered people with high moral and spiritual values acquired or consolidated as a result of traditional upbringing, classical education, military service, and long-term work experience in the social and political sphere.

The citizen choice architect in an ultra-processed world

AbstractTwo concepts shaped and continue to shape the discussion on the limits of a liberal and democratic state. First, Mill's harm principle, according to which the fundamental justification for a state exercising power over individuals is to prevent harm being done to others. Second, the distinction between the public sphere, where liberal democracies can intervene, and the private sphere, where individuals are, in principle, free to do as they like. I argue that both concepts have to be revisited in the context of today's ‘ultra-processed’ world, in which sophisticated technologies and highly engineered products reach deep into the private sphere, exploiting human psychology and jeopardizing citizens’ health and welfare in the interest of maximizing profit. In this ultra-processed world, where the distinction between the public and the private spheres is blurred, systemic interventions such as regulation and taxation, often criticized as paternalistic, are necessary to minimize harm. However, they must be complemented by interventions informed by behavioural science that modify and guide individual behaviours. Beyond the soft paternalism of nudging, people can be empowered to self-nudge – a non-paternalistic approach that enables them to design and structure their own decision environments and choice architectures as they see fit.

Taxation and citizen choice: The effect of a county charter on property taxes

AbstractAs saliency of the tax burden increases, the preference for a lower burden increases, but most counties are restricted by the state from adopting new taxes or changing the existing rates. Some states allow counties to adopt a charter, freeing them from state control. Using a panel of Florida counties from 1980 to 2017, we explore whether citizens act to reduce their property tax once a charter is passed. Citizens act against their preferences not by lowering burden but rather by increasing it in the case of debt service, suggesting citizens are maximizing their optimal tax burden in exchange for services.

Moral immunity test: COVID- 19 pandemic challenges (Part II)

The article examines the moral side of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic at a scientific and practical level. The author draws attention to the importance of the moral choice of citizens in relation to vaccination as a means of overcoming the disease. Attention is drawn to the fact that the Republic of Moldova lags behind a number of countries in terms of vaccination rates. The author analyzed the conditions favorable to the vaccination process. The conditions of totalitarianism in China, the state religion in the United Arab Emirates as conditions for promoting successful immunization of the population are not attractive for the Republic of Moldova, which has taken a course towards democracy and European integration. The example of Western European countries with their high rates of vaccination is more preferable for Moldova. In order to successfully pass the test for moral choice - to join immunization, the citizens of Moldova will have to work to enrich the traditional (religious) public moral code with European liberal values. This is prompted by the path of integration into the European Union chosen by Moldova. Роговая Галина

The Problem of Legitimacy of the Political Elite.

The object of this study is the problem of the legitimacy of the political elite. The subject of the study is the views of a number of Western and domestic researchers of the political elite. The aim of the study is to generalize the views of theorists from different countries, different periods of time regarding the qualities of the political elite as a legitimizing foundation. The dialectical method, which was used in the analysis of the categories of "political elite" and "legitimacy", their essence and interrelation, played a decisive role in achieving the goal of this study. This method has become a key one in understanding the texts of the works under study. The method of system-structural analysis allowed us to explore the views of the philosophers in question holistically - when the positions of the authors complement each other and create a general picture of the understanding of the legitimacy of the political elite. The conclusion of the study is as follows: in the modern world, the main method of legitimizing the political elite is a democratic election procedure, but the choice of citizens should be based on a clear idea of the qualities of a political leader, confidence that the candidate has serious professional competencies, as well as deep moral convictions and moral principles. This will help to avoid falling into the power of amateurs who put their incompetence and lack of values, stability and security in society at risk. The result of the study of the ideas of domestic and Western philosophers is the confirmation of the judgment that the legitimate political elite should be considered persons with high moral and spiritual values acquired or consolidated as a result of traditional upbringing, classical education, military service, long-term work experience in the social and political sphere.

The electoral behaviour of voters with migration backgrounds and natives at the 2015 and 2019 Swiss National Elections. Two completely different stories?

AbstractThere is emerging understanding in the literature that voters who have a migration background across Western countries tend to vote for left leaning parties. Yet little is known about whether this implies different drivers of vote choice for citizens with migration background in comparison to natives. This article intends to respond to this question by studying the impact of specific policy issue considerations on the vote of citizens with both migration and non‐migration background. To do so, we focus on the 2015 and 2019 Swiss National elections, relying on data from the SELECTS post‐electoral studies. Our analyses show that, while Swiss natives' voting choices are consistently affected by key political issues (i.e., foreigners' job market integration and the environment respectively), non‐native voters are generally less driven by the main topics discussed at each election, although relevant differences emerge across different migrant backgrounds.

Moral immunity test: Covid- 19 pandemic challenges (I)

The article examines the moral side of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic at a scientififi c and practical level. The author draws attention to the importance of the moral choice of citizens in relation to vaccination as a means of overcoming the disease. Attention is drawn to the fact that the Republic of Moldova lags behind a number of countries in terms of vaccination rates. The author analyzed the conditions favorable to the vaccination process. The conditions of totalitarianism in China, the state religion in the United Arab Emirates as conditions for promoting successful immunization of the population are not attractive for the Republic of Moldova, which has taken a course towards democracy and European integration. The example of Western European countries with their high rates of vaccination is more preferable for Moldova. In order to successfully pass the test for moral choice - to join immunization, the citizens of Moldova will have to work to enrich the traditional (religious) public moral code with European liberal values. This is prompted by the path of integration into the European Union chosen by Moldova.

Restrictive anti-Covid-19 government measures and the choice of citizens of the European Union at the end of 2020 between health benefits and economic relaxation - Statistical study

This exposure is based on the responses of the European Union to the MEDEC question in a common questionnaire. More specifically, the MEDEC question has the following concrete wording: “What is your opinion on the consequences generated by two aspects imposed in Romania by the Covid-19 pandemic? Use for the answer a scale with six answer possibilities where the value 1 means that the health benefits are greater than the economic damage, and by score 6 you appreciate the situation of some economic damage greater than the health benefits. Response scores 2-5 indicate opinions between these two extreme positions”. From a statistical point of view, the answer to the MEDEC question is regarded as an observation from an ordinal categorical variable. The sample was completed in October 2020 and includes 24812 individuals interviewed in European Union between September 25 and October 7, 2020. Taking into account the answers received to the MEDEC question, the relations between the EU countries are specified. Practically is obtained the dendrogram resulting from an agglomerative hierarchical classification procedure. For the statistical analysis we have built the MVE indicator expressing Europeans' confidence in anti-Covid economic restrictions. MVE values ​​bring new clarification of the hierarchical classification. We mention here that the initial database attached to the survey was subsequently weighted taking into account the real proportions into the European populations of the interviewed persons in relation to their country, age category, gender or place of residence.

ОБЩЕСТВЕННАЯ ЛЕГИТИМАЦИЯ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ВЛАСТИ В КОНТЕКСТЕ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИИ ГРАЖДАНСКОГО ОБЩЕСТВА В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ

The issues of legitimizing the political regime are of particular importance in the conditions of transitional societies, when the preservation of the sustainable development trend becomes the most important condition and basis for the preservation of national security. The subject of the article is the legitimization of political power due to the level of trust and loyalty of the Russian population to a number of socio-political institutions at the present stage. The analysis of the data of monitoring studies conducted at the ISPR of the Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences allowed the author to state That in society there remains a significant gap between trust in the institution of presidential and parliamentary power, and that a high level of distancing from government institutions and moderate loyalty associated with the need to maintain formal “order” are reproduced at a low level of trust. Given that the public legitimacy of the Russian political system is based on the president’s ratings, which retain a high potential, it can be assumed that the pseudoalternative election model will be preserved in the near future. At the same time, the dynamics of the level of trust and sympathy for a number of political institutions suggests the limit of opportunities for growth in the existing conditions of a system with a limited role of parties, what both reduces the space of free political discourse and limits the possibility of choice for citizens, which will threaten the legitimacy of the political regime.

What is holding farmers back? Endowments and mobility choice of rural citizens in China

For the roughly 300 million rural migrant workers in China, migrating to urban destinations offers the primary opportunities for poverty alleviation and upward social mobility. However, studies on migration in China, mostly through the lens of the push-pull theory, have left immobile rural residents unexamined. This paper explores how the mobility choices of rural citizens are determined by individual and familial endowments at the sending end, including their physical wellbeing, basic education, family livelihoods and landholdings. Drawing on the China Household Finance Survey data, our analyses suggest that good health, adequate educational attainment and non-local family livelihoods increase the propensities of out-migration while a lack of these endowments likely bars rural citizens from migration. The possession of rural land and other local resources, in contrast, tends to deter migration to urban destinations. The requisition of rural land, however, encourages migration to a local town while deterring longer-distance migration. These findings add to the literature of migration in China by unraveling the sorting mechanism of endowments that shapes the (im)mobility and divergent life outcomes of China's rural population.

The Importance of Choosing a Health Insurance Policy and the Ability to Comprehend That Choice for Citizens in the Netherlands.

Background:In a health insurance system based on managed competition, such as in the Netherlands, it is important that all citizens can make well-informed decisions on which policy fits their needs and preferences best. However, partly due to the large variety of health insurance policies, there are indications that a significant group of citizens do not make rational decisions when choosing a policy.Objective:This study aimed to provide more insight into (1) how important it is for citizens in the Netherlands to choose a health insurance policy and (2) how easy it is for them to comprehend the information they receive.Methods:Data were collected by sending a survey to members of the Nivel Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel in February 2017. The response rate was 44% (N = 659).Key Results:Our results indicate that citizens in the Netherlands acknowledge the importance of choosing a health insurance policy, but they also point out that it is difficult to comprehend health insurance information.Conclusion:Our findings suggest that a section of the citizens do not have the appropriate skills to decide which insurance policy best fits their needs and preferences. Having better insight into their level of health insurance literacy is an important step in the process of evaluating the extent to which citizens can fulfill their role in the health insurance system. Our results suggest that it is important to better tailor information on health insurances to the specific needs and skills of the individual. By doing this, citizens will be better supported in making well-informed decisions regarding health insurance policies, which should have a positive effect on the functioning of the Dutch health insurance system. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2021;5(4):e287–e294.]Plain Language Summary:The number of health insurance policy options to choose from is extensive in the Netherlands. This study explored to what extent citizens in the Netherlands find it important to choose a health insurance policy, and to what extent they comprehend the information they receive. The data were collected in 2017 using the Nivel Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel.

Gatekeepers of toxicity: Reconceptualizing Twitter's abuse and hate speech policies

Twitter has become the platform of choice for journalists, politicians, and citizens because of the ways that it encourages expression, participation, and debate. In recent years, however, Twitter's “zeal for free speech” has turned the platform into a breeding ground for abuse, harassment, and hate speech. Through a discourse analysis of Twitter's policies, rules, and enforcement guidelines, this project asks (1) What role do Twitter's policies, rules, and terms of service play in instances where Twitter does not successfully address online abuse, hate speech, and harassment? and (2) What role does Twitter's technological architecture play in both propagating or preventing online hate speech and abuse? By invoking traditional and contemporary gatekeeping theories, theories of deterrence, and responsibilization, this paper will demonstrate that Twitter's policies perpetuate abuse and hateful conduct by splitting the gatekeeping role between the platform and its users. The study sheds light on the blind spots in Twitter's policies, such as their permissive free speech rhetoric and their nondeterrent enforcement options, to provide an empirical basis for how Twitter can detoxify user experience through revisions to the platform's policy framework.