Communal Elections Research Articles

Empowering local citizens: assessing the inclusiveness of a digital democratic innovation for co-creating a Voting Advice Application

ABSTRACT Increasing citizen dissatisfaction with democracy leads governments and municipalities across the globe to seek new ways of including and empowering citizens. Little is known about whether ‘Digital Democratic Innovations’ (DDIs) could contribute to this goal. We developed a new DDI in a Swiss municipality, dubbed Demokratiefabrik, where 1,079 citizens co-created a questionnaire that served as an official Voting Advice Application for candidates and voters in communal elections. We find that while sophisticated and allegiant citizens and left-green voters participated more in the DDI, they did not dominate the process of creating the questionnaire. Intriguingly, citizens with lower political trust were particularly active on the platform, suggesting that DDIs might give disenchanted citizens a new voice in the political process. Overall, carefully designed DDIs can be a venue for inclusive citizen participation, involving and empowering local citizens in decision-making.

The Communal Elections from 1930: Case studies – Slimnic and Presaca Communes, Sibiu County

"The parliamentary elections play a special role in Romanian historiography, but we still need many studies on the local ones. The study aims to focus on how political life occurred in rural areas after the achievement of the administrative unification. Following that newly created context, we intend to capture how the electoral campaign is carried out at the local level. We analyse the changes in the Romanian electoral system, primarily focusing on the local elections in the rural area of Sibiu. From a methodological point of view, we studied the press of the period and archival documentary sources. We have focused on the communal electoral lists, which we analysed with the support of a database. Our approach, based on a quantitative statistic-sociological classification of the candidates, and of the voters from the communal elections in Sibiu County, reveals how involved the peasants were in political affairs. At the same time, this paper elucidates, through archival evidence, how authorities interfered in the mechanisms of the electoral process. Keywords: communal election, electoral system, candidates, political parties, propaganda, electoral results"

Parties courting Muslim voters in Belgium’s local elections: electoral incentives and ideological tensions

ABSTRACT This study examines how political parties in urban Europe are responding to the changing demographic landscape, by focusing on a growing population of immigrant origin voters from Muslim majority countries. The 2018 communal elections in Brussels provide an opportunity to examine how party ideology and commune-level demography interact to make Muslim candidate nominations, and ultimately their election, more or less likely. While generally true that parties of the Left nominate and elect more Muslims than do parties of the Right, by far the greatest difference in inclusiveness was identified within the Left, between the Socialists and the Greens. And while the Greens had a good result in these elections, they did so in communes where fewer Muslims concentrate. While this may not be as important at the national level, where voting rights are more restricted, it suggests the need to qualify claims that electoral incentives - and demography – trump ideology in competitive electoral contexts.

Utilization of a Local Coefficient for Immovable Property Tax in the Czech Republic

The paper deals with the issue of using a local coefficient as a tool to increase tax revenues of local government budgets in the Czech Republic. The local coefficient is defined as a corrective element increasing up to five times the immovable property tax that is 100% public budgets of local governments (municipalities) since 2009. As part of the paper, our own questionnaire survey was conducted across municipalities in the Czech Republic with the aim of identifying positive and negative consequences of application or non-application of this tax instrument at the level of local governments. Results of the research clearly demonstrate the use of the local coefficient, despite its potential high budget revenue is not high at all. In 2020, only 10.43% municipalities from all over the Czech Republic applied it. A research survey conducted among municipalities focused on obtaining information on the reasons for the low use of the local coefficient. To this end, two research questions were formulated “Do municipalities have sufficient information on local coefficient issues?” and “May the introduction of a local coefficient result in a loss in the communal elections?” The questionnaire survey showed that 91% municipalities know about their possibility to apply a local coefficient, but do not use it. Moreover, it was found that if the local coefficient is introduced at the right time or handling additional tax revenues of the municipality is transparent, its introduction does not affect the election result of the political party that declared it by a generally valid decree.

Politicising Platform, or Another Campaign Tool: Locality-Related Differences in the Perception of Facebook’s Role in Pre-Election Period

In recent years, Facebook has become a regular part of political campaigning and as such a subject of an extensive research. Yet relatively few studies have focused on audience perspective and the perception of Facebook in campaigns. The aim of this explorative study is to contribute to this area; it compares perceptions of Facebook’s role in a campaign held before communal elections in two localities in the Czech Republic. Based on qualitative data from diary research and semi-structured interviews, it discusses the role of communication context (especially the character and diversity of local information channels) in the perceived position and influence of Facebook in the pre-election period. The results show that both Facebook’s role and influence can be understood quite differently, depending on the character of communication platforms used in the campaign. The study also analyses people’s expectations of the social media site, which in turn may lead to certain disillusionment as to the character (especially interactivity) of the campaign and, consequently, politics in general.

Giuseppe Dossetti e le Officine bolognesi by Paolo Prodi

Reviewed by: Giuseppe Dossetti e le Officine bolognesi by Paolo Prodi Roy Domenico Giuseppe Dossetti e le Officine bolognesi. By Paolo Prodi. (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino. 2016. Pp. 281. €24,00 paperback. ISBN 978-88-15-26352-0.) Paolo Prodi died on December 16, 2016, at the age of eighty-four. He taught modern history, focusing mainly on the Counter-Reformation era, at universities in Italy and abroad and served as rector of the University of Trent. He also served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament’s eleventh legislature in the 1990s and was widely known beyond academia as the brother of Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Giuseppe Dossetti e le Officine bolognesi is something of a memoir or perhaps a personal history of a place and an era, Bologna, particularly scholarly Bologna, in the 1950s and 1960s, and heavily influenced by a man, Giuseppe Dossetti, the Christian Democratic politician-turned-priest. Prodi will not, he declares, engineer a “general reconstruction,” but rather only provide “a few plugs” to the story (p. 98). Prodi delivers a personal story about his scholarly development in postwar Italy, where he struggled to develop a viable dissertation subject and negotiate that decision with his supervisors, particularly Hubert Jedin and Delio Cantimori. Prodi needed to justify his choice of Reformation-era Italy, focusing on the diocese of Bologna. Most graduate students should recognize and appreciate this saga. Prodi weaves his personal account into politics and the foundation of what is now known as the John XXIII Foundation for Religious Studies. From its start in the early 1950s the institution reflected the personality of its founder, Dossetti, a scholar, World War II Resistance leader, Catholic politician, and, later, priest. Would this “workshop” (officina), called initially the Center for Documentation (Centro di documentazione), be a place of scholarship or one of prayer and reflection? To what extent would it be connected to the University of Bologna? Prodi attributes the spring of 1955 as the beginning of major changes at the Center. In May Bologna’s archbishop, Cardinal Giacomo [End Page 150] Lercaro, pushed Dossetti to launch a bid in upcoming communal elections, hoping to get a Christian Democrat on the city council and challenging the city’s popular Communist mayor, Giuseppe Dozza. Dossetti reluctantly acquiesced, an act of submission that Prodi bitterly condemns as “contrary to the freedom of the Christian layman” (p. 65). Predictably, when the elections occurred the following year Dossetti lost and he eventually abandoned politics and entered the priesthood, distancing himself more and more from the institute that he founded. Others, such as the historian Giuseppe Alberigo took up most of the task of running it. Prodi continues the story through the Second Vatican Council, which he remembers as an “adventure” and the most exciting time in the Center’s history. For young scholars it opened new terrain for study, particularly in the areas of Scripture and religious history. By the end of the Council, furthermore, Dossetti had returned to the field, and the organization morphed into the Center for Documentation – Institute for Religious Sciences. Although the Second Vatican Council ultimately disappointed Dossetti and Prodi, the subsequent years witnessed impressive scholastic accomplishments until 1972 which Prodi considers to have been the “apex” of the institute’s influence. The narrative largely ends at that point although Prodi goes on to conclude with a section devoted to passages from Dossetti or about him. Roy Domenico The University of Scranton Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press

Electoral Behaviour’s Conditionality of Young People in Communal Elections (The Example from Surveyed University Students in Constantine the Philosopher University)

Abstract The exploration of electoral behaviour’s conditionality of young people is based on the theoretical and empirical exploitation of their approach. Theoretical definitions of the communal politics’ knowledge are needed for their empirical analysis. Theoretical part of the present issue contents definitions of key words. Key words are connected with the communal politics’ area. Specifically, we need to define politics. It is also necessary to specify politics’ role in the contemporary society. This issue focusses on the communal politics. It also specifies the basic aim of the communal politics and it also defines communal politics’ objectives and specifications. At last, there is also described the participation of individuals on communal politics’ formation and development. Generally, the citizens are considered to be actors of the communal politics. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the conditions of the individuals’ participation on electoral process. Communal politics’ empirical exploration is characterised by the conditionality of the individuals’ participation on electoral process in their residence. In this context, it is important to deal with the impact of individual aspects on the voter decisions of individuals. In the society, there are various groups of people. Young people are one of the significant sociable groups. They gradually incorporate into decision processes. Decision processes affect young people’s existence of daily life. Their decisions are determined by the exposure of general factors of the socialization. Therefore, it is important to explore determinants of the young people’s participation on communal politics. According to this, 180 students on Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra attended the survey Received data were processed Statistical Software SPSS 20 by univariate, bivariate and multivariate data’s analysis.

Potential for the Development of Borderland Peripheries in Czechia in Terms of the Significance of Human Capital: the case of Volarsko

The article seeks to evaluate the development potential of the borderland peripheral territory of Volarsko on the basis of an analysis of selected characteristics concerning the level and quality of human capital possessed by representatives of municipal self-government bodies, and to identify the central development problems of this territory. Empirical field research (directed/semi-structured interviews with the mayors and written survey focusing on municipal council members) was conducted in the model territory, directed at three thematic sections: “personal” characteristics of respondents; evaluation of work and mutual cooperation of respondents; identification of central development problems. In terms of the selected characteristics of human capital, the model territory exhibits relatively positive values (level of education attained; length of time in office; for mayors, the manner in which they fulfil their duties and their willingness to candidate in the upcoming communal elections). The same applies to the evaluation of the work and mutual cooperation of representatives of municipal self-government bodies (activity level, nature of professional and inter-personal relationships). In terms of the subjective opinions of the mayors and council members concerning central development problems, a high degree of compliance was shown to exist among their answers. Both “groups” identify a lack of financial resources for pursuing the priorities of the municipal authority and the general lack of jobs as the two most serious problems in the model territory.

The micropolitics of reform: gender quota, grassroots associations and the renewal of local elites in Morocco

The aim of this article is to contribute to the unpacking of hybrid regimes such as Morocco, showing some of the micro-mechanisms and power dynamics that shape and organise them. To illustrate these processes, the article looks beyond approaches that dismiss the electoral process in authoritarian and hybrid regimes as a mere façade. Instead, attention is paid to the politics of the elections themselves. Through ethnographic material collected in suburban neighbourhoods of Casablanca before, during and after the electoral campaign of three female political candidates in Morocco's municipal and communal elections of 2009, two interconnected power relations are analysed: gender relations and representations, and the relationship between local associations and the partisan political sphere. This study shows that a number of recent reforms have contributed to the pluralisation of the political sphere in Morocco, opening up new channels through which outsiders such as women and, more generally, individuals with little political experience and capital have been able to enter the political sphere. The article also sheds light, however, on the direct and indirect ways in which this process of inclusion goes hand in hand with the reproduction of norms, representations and control mechanisms that reinforce former power hierarchies.

Small Town and Village in Bavaria: The Passing of a Way of Life

By late 1971, emotions in the county of Wasserburg, a beautiful backwater region on the Inn river located close to the Alps in rural south-eastern Bavaria, seemed to explode: peasants repeatedly blocked roads and central junctions with tractors and harvesters, thus bringing the traffic to a more or less complete standstill, while local fire brigades and even the police were not stopping but assisting them. On other occasions, citizens of all ages gathered at the market place of the town of Wasserburg by the ten thousands, forming the largest demonstrations in the long history of the town. Some carried straw puppets with the face of Bruno Merk, the Bavarian minister of the interior, hanging from gallows, while others waved posters that depicted other members of the government sitting on a bomb with a burning fuse. At the same time, the local branch of the CSU, Bavaria’s powerful ruling party, dissolved overnight and its former members formed a new political platform for the upcoming communal elections. As eye-witnesses remember, the situation was ‘civil war like’. What had happened?

Politics, identity, and Mexico's indigenous rights movements

1. Indians by choice?: traditional societies, indigenous rights movements, and the state in post-Zapatista southern Mexico 2. A tale of two movements: the salience of indigenous rights in Chiapas 1994 but not in Oaxaca 2006 3. Agrarian tenure institutions, conflict frames, and communitarian identities in indigenous southern Mexico 4. Agrarian conflicts, armed rebellion, and the individual versus collective rights tension in Chiapas' Lacandon jungle 5. Individual rights and communal elections in Oaxaca, Mexico: a challenge to multiculturalism and women's rights 6. From balaclavas to baseball caps: wearing many hats in the exercise of 'real world' identities 7. Reconciling individual rights, communal rights, and autonomy institutions: broader lessons from Chiapas and the 'Oaxaca experiment'.

City and Nation in Germany from the Middle Ages to the Present

Germany's reunification process beginning in 1989 raised the question of its national traditions. There was and is no easy answer. In Germany, nowadays, there is a broad agreement on the negative assets of German history especially of the 19th and 20th centuries. Against this negative balance there is one exception in the tradition of the German cities and the German municipal self-government. Cities had their origins in the Middle Ages in Germany and Europe as corporate institutions. Within the medieval cities are the origins of a civil society in Germany. Even the movement that led to the breakdown of the “DDR” and the reinvigoration of civil society had its origins in the cities, and it began with a protest against the manipulation of the communal elections. This article delivers a critical account of ten centuries of German urban history within the framework of national history.

The Impact of Election Outcome on the Display of Political Posters: A Field Study During Communal Elections in Flanders

The present field study was designed to test the relationship between the election outcomes of political parties and the post‐election display of posters in favor of those parties. Two days before the Flemish communal elections on 8 October 2000, addresses of private houses in the community of Zele were registered that displayed at least one poster in support of a political party (N = 388). On the day after the elections, two observers checked whether the registered houses still displayed their poster(s). A strongly and positively linear relation was found between the proportional win/loss of each political party (compared with the previous elections) and the percentage of houses that continued to exhibit poster(s) in support of that party: The better the election result, the higher the proportion of houses that still displayed their poster(s).

Do voters turn out more under proportional than majoritarian systems? The evidence from Swiss communal elections

What is the impact of the electoral system on voting turnout? Due to the restricted number of countries and their heterogeneity, cross-national studies do not allow for the required statistical analysis of this much-discussed question. Because they use different electoral systems and exercise important powers, the Swiss communities (communes) offer a useful set of comparable political entities using either a PR or a majority system. Our study of these communities reveals evidence supporting the thesis that participation is higher under PR systems. As expected, PR also goes in hand with more political parties, but only in the smaller communities. This is not the case in the larger communities, yet there is still a positive, though more modest association between PR and turnout in community elections. However, in those PR communities voting turnout is also higher for cantonal and national elections where there are no differences concerning the voting system. This leads us to suggest that there must be more behind PR voting than a simple “mechanical effect”.

Practical change in Europe

The German Democratic Republic is in very active transition, and corresponding changes are occurring in numerous European countries. The political changes initiated in November last year in the GDR led to a turn of events the full consequences of which have yet to be seen. Parliamentary elections earlier this year were followed by the formation of a new coalition government and communal elections have since been held. The prospect of German unity is an extremely complicated political, economic and cultural process which involves every aspect of social life in the country and affects every institution, every family, and every person. The health care system of the GDR is also undergoing substantial changes. The same can be said about social and medical administration. A gradual transition from planned economy to a market oriented economy is to be expected and will most certainly affect the financial provisions for the medical system. The present position is also markedly characterized by severe loss of medical manpower. Doctors, nurses and technicians left the country in the wake of mass emigration at a level which has created severe problems for all sectors concerned. The well-known main subjects of training in medicine are gaining increasing significance: training in team-work; training in interdisciplinary and multiprofessional cooperation; inculcation of an attitude of life-long learning; use of the problem-solving approach; active participation in community analysis and involvement; and active participation in intersectional projects. A shift of emphasis is particularly needed away from the present orientation of the ‘health system approach towards a more community-oriented approach, and a parallel shift of emphasis is urgently needed in the educational process from a teacher-centred approach towards a learner-centred approach. Essential subjects of further training will be: management in public health; judicial questions and problems involving insurance laws; ecological hygiene and industrial medicine; emergency and disaster medicine; social medicine; and expert monitoring and evaluation. Political changes in the GDR will offer the opportunity to intensify international cooperation in education, to develop continuing education and postgraduate training of doctors, and to introduce new health legislation and financing provisions. By developing closer cooperation through active membership of the World Federation for Medical Education, the Association for Medical Education in Europe and the Association of Medical Deans in Europe, a firm integration will be achieved into the European community of medical teachers.

De sociale struktuur en het politieke proces : Een vergelijkende studie in 147 Belgische Gemeenten

This paper is concerned with the question of how the social and economic structure of cities affects the degree of political competition and how in turn these factors affect the degree of a political stability. It isbased on a comparative empirical study of the outcomes of the communal elections of 1952, 1958 and 1964 in 147 Belgian cities that had a population size of 10.000 or more in 1947.In the first place the following generalizations are made with regard to the election outcomes in these cities during the 1952-1964 period. 1. A general proliferation of lists or parties participating in the elections from 1952 to 1964.2. A trend from one-party-control over the college (executive committee) of the city council toward coalition-control.3. A net increase in the number of catholic lists and a net decrease in the number of socialist and liberal lists participating in the colleges of these townships.4. An increase in the number of cities in which newer, smaller and nontraditional parties or lists participated in the college of the city council.Three measures of politica! competitions are employed :1. The average number of parties or lists, that entered the communal election of 1952, 1958 and 1964.2. The average number of lists that received at least ten per cent of the vote in these three elections, and3. The presence or absence of a coalition on the college of the city council in 1952.The two measures of politica! stability, which are also based on the results of the same elections, are :1. The degree of stability in the lists and parties participating in the college of the city council, and2. The degree of stability in the list or party controlling the college of the city council.In general, measures of structural differentiation, linguistic diversity, industrial diversity, and social heterogeneity (i.e. , the presence of a large middle class) are found to be positively related to the degree of competition in local politics. In turn, measures of each of these structural factors and the measures of political competition are found to be negatively related to measures of political stability. Regression analysis supports the interpretation that diversity and heterogeneity in the social structure of cities - specifically, population size, density, and the presence of many persons with high occupational status - contribute to greater politica! competition in local polities, but that it is the degree of political competition that most strongly affects the degree of political stability.The conclusion is drawn that cities with a high degree of social and economic heterogeneity have a greater amount of conflict and cleavage. This results in greater competition in the political arena whichin turn predisposes such cities to have a high degree of instability in the control of their city governments.

Les élections législatives du 17 avril 1977 : Analyse des résultats

The Parliamentary Elections of 17 April 1977 revealed a great stability of the body of electors and largely confirmed the result of the communal elections of 1976. On the 393 seats in Parliament (House of Representatives and Senate), only 38 went to another political family.Nevertheless, this stability does not exclude movements; in this context should be noted the severe set-back of the «Rassemblement Wallon» which looses nearly half of its voters. lts defeat principally benefits the Liberals and the Christian Democrats and, to a lesser extent, the Socialists. In the Flemish region, the Socialists strengthen their position, whereas the Christian Democrats gain ground. Unexpected is the Liberals's setback. The «Volksunie» slightly recedes.In Brussels, PDF is undeniably successful and even exceeds its 1971 result. Communists are losing ground all over the country.In these elections which have been characterized by rather limited vote variations, the «communal tickets» (i.e. those based upon a single cultural group) recede, on the whole, to the benefit of the traditional parties which received a serious blow in 1971, but showed signs of a recovery as soon as 1974.

Bureaukratisch patronage en etno-linguisme

The present investigation looks at the recent success of ethnolinguistic politics as, largerly, the outcome of friction betweèn the existing -pattern of political integration and a set of relatively new · socio-economic conditions. The development of the latter is part of what may be implied in the phrase «post-industrial society». The Belgian pattern of political integration is characterized by very low levels of differentiation between the parties, the administration and the voluntary organizations. It implies a mode of political participation in which the recent developments in the organization of labor, expansion of the tertiary sector, geographical mobility and urbanization lead to political marginality for the groupsconcerned. This marginality expresses itself in support for ethnolinguism which serves as an alternative route to political integration.This theory is evaluated and substantiated on the basis of an ecological analysis of the success of an ethnolinguistic party (the Front Démocratique des Francophones) in the 1970 and 1976 communal elections.

The New Political Parties of Germany

Recent reports on political events in Germany have frequently given the impression that the political parties organized there during the last few months are mass movements, based on the solid support of considerable numbers of citizens. Such a concept would, however, hardly fit the present picture. The lost war and its aftermath have left the German people stunned and discouraged. The presence of great armies of occupation and the obvious impotency of all native officials do not encourage political activities. Moreover, the German people have just passed through a period of twelve years during which every human endeavor—even of the most personal nature—was fraught with alleged or real political implications. A natural reaction set in, and even the word “politics,” once hallowed by generations of German intellectuals, is frequently met with revulsion. Only a few Germans understand that political life need not necessarily conform to the Nazi pattern. The vast majority, as far as can be ascertained, still see in “politics” only blatant, showy demonstrations, incessant harangues, and the complete negation of privacy. The memory of the Weimar Republic is dim, and where it exists an often exaggerated picture is retained of the multitude of parties and the squabbles in the Reichstag, but no memory of the fine and hopeful features of the ill-fated Republic. In this respect, the spirit of Goebbels is still very much alive. But, above all, the tremendous destruction, the insufficient diet, and the never-ending and never quite successful search for the most primitive means of existence leave the people exhausted and in the main without other interests. This state of apathy is furthered, too, by the well-known readiness, if not desire, of many Germans to submit to authority. Particularly when the occupation of their country was still new, most observers found the conviction among all classes of the population that the future of Germany was entirely an Allied matter and that the exclusion of Germans from all important decisions was a foregone conclusion. Few believed that political initiative by the Germans themselves would in any way ease the situation, and many considered that such action would end only in further confusion and consequently in a harder life for all. Since the unconditional surrender, this feeling of apathy has subsided only slowly and to but a slight extent. The majority of people went to the recent communal elections without much interest and in a spirit of obedience, rather than with the idea that they were performing an act of self-government.