Mayoral Election Research Articles

Implementation of Institutional Da'wah Values in the Political Communication Process at the Bandung City General Election Commission

This research finds different points of view in the political communication process carried out by the Bandung City KPU during the selection process for Bandung mayoral candidates. This research was conducted to analyze the good values within the KPU institution from an institutional da'wah perspective. By using a subjective interpretive approach, qualitative methods, and descriptive case study research, this research describes the problems that occurred at the 2018 Bandung Mayor candidate stage as material for improvement for the 2024 Bandung Mayor election as well as mapping political communication da'wah that can be developed by the City General Election Commission Bandung in the framework of finding solutions to problems at the nomination stage. The results of the research concluded that the nomination stage in the 2018 Bandung Mayor election had five issues, so genuine efforts and policies were needed from the Bandung City General Election Commission to improve the nomination stage for the 2024 Bandung Mayor election. One of the efforts that can be made to deal with problems at the nomination stage is developing two political communication da'wah activities, namely the application of the shura method exemplified by Rasulullah SAW in internal political communication, both horizontally and vertically organizational and external political communication between the Bandung City General Election Commission and the citizens of Bandung, especially the prospective candidates for Mayor of Bandung in various forms of da'wah political communication, both face to face and media political communication to realize honest and fair elections.

Philosophy of Expanding Substantive Justice in Disputes on The Results of The Election of Governors, Regents and Mayors in The Constitutional Court

Philosophy of Expanding Substantive Justice in Disputes on The Results of The Election of Governors, Regents and Mayors in The Constitutional Court

Peculiarities of the Legal Status of the Mayors of Lithuanian Municipalities and the Competencies (Abilities) Necessary for them in the Context of the Change of the Municipal Governance Model in 2023

The purpose of the article is to present some of the results of a research using a questionnaire survey method conducted in February 2023, which aimed to reveal the peculiarities of the legal status and roles (dominant and others) of mayors of Lithuanian municipalities and find out what necessary competences (abilities) municipal mayors must have and in what forms they must be developed, in the presence of two different municipal governance models (the model that was applied until April 2023 and the model that is applied from April 2023). The idea to conduct such research arose just a few months before the new Local Government Law (in its revised version) entered into force in June 2022, which introduced a new municipal governance model and changed the dominant role of the mayor in the municipality. This research also took place a few weeks before the regular municipal council and mayor elections (which took place on March 5, 2023). The particular target group was chosen for this research - the mayors of Lithuanian municipalities who had served in these positions for four or more terms (referred to as "experienced" mayors during the research). No similar research (in terms of purpose and respondents) has been conducted in Lithuania. The results of the research showed that "experienced" mayors have a good understanding of the specifics of the new municipal governance model to be applied from April 2023. They are essentially prepared to take on a new dominant role (the role of municipal executive institution), replacing the previous dominant role (the role of chairman of the municipal council). The results of the research also showed that "experienced" mayors understand well what necessary competencies (abilities) municipal mayors must have, as municipal governance model and the dominant role of the municipal mayor change in it. The results of the research can be useful for improving the legal regulation of the powers of municipal institutions (municipal council and municipal mayor) and the legal framework for their relationships as well as for organizing the the improvement of the competencies of municipal mayors.

AUKUS and its Aftermath

In this transcript of his talk presented at an ISFAR seminar in the series ‘After the Elections: Is a Reset possible in French-Australian Relations?’, the author comments on the political situation in France following the French elections in May 2022 and then examines the response to the AUKUS decision in France and the import of the AUKUS decision in terms of Indo-Pacific geopolitical relations. He then comments on the positive response to the visit to France by newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and surmises that a return to the relationship that flourished in the 1990s and early 2000s may evolve.

Polemik Hukum Penunjukan Penjabat (PJ) Kepala Daerah Berdasarkan Undang Undang Nomor 10 Tahun 2016 Tentang Pemilihan Gubernur, Bupati dan Walikota

The appointment of acting regional heads to fill the vacancy for definitive regional head officials caused by postponing regional elections in 271 regions in Indonesia has created problems in the administration of government in Indonesia. Regarding Article 201 of Law No. 10 of 2016 concerning the Election of Governors, Regents and Mayors which is the legal basis for the appointment of acting regional heads, a judicial review has been carried out resulting in MKRI Decision Number 67/PUU-XIX/2021 and MKRI Decision Number 15/PUUXX /2022. These legal materials were obtained through literature study and analyzed descriptively-qualitatively. The postponement of the 2022 and 2023 regional elections is still causing polemics. Based on data from the Ministry of Home Affairs in May 2022, the needs for filling regional head officials include 5 provinces, 6 cities and 37 districts. Meanwhile, there are as many as 101 regional heads whose leadership terms will end in 2022 and as many as 170 regional heads and deputy heads in 2023. This means that 271 regional head positions will end before the 2024 simultaneous elections.

The value of a party: Local politics and the allocation of intergovernmental transfers

This paper investigates how party connections affect the ability of local politicians to obtain central government funds for their municipality. Using a novel data set for mayoral elections in Germany spanning 2322 municipalities in eight states in the years 2000 to 2008 and regression discontinuity design, I find that party alignment between a local mayor and the state government increases transfers to a municipality by 20% per year. Such favoritism has been interpreted as a sign of partisanship and blamed on central governments which use public funds for partisan purposes. I show that local political conditions, such as reelection incentives and information transmission can partly account for the alignment effect. Taken together, the results provide alternative channels for the interpretation of alignment effects.

The Effect of Covid-19 on Voters in the Medan Tuntungan District Election in 2020

The Covid Sickness (Coronavirus) flare-up that happens in all nations in this present reality is progressively widespread. This instance of pneumonia of obscure etiology or Coronavirus was first recognized in Wuhan City, Hubei Area, China on December 31, 2019. Medan City is one of the regions that held regional elections for the mayoral election, In the 2020 Medan city election, Medan was included in the red zone area where one of the areas with a positive number of covid-19 reached 4,261 people with this number Medan city accounting for 75 percent of corona virus cases in North Sumatra. But in fact, with the large number of positive Covid-19 cases in the city of Medan, there is no decrease in public enthusiasm to come to the Polling Station (TPS) compared to previous elections in Medan. This study uses a type of quantitative research because this study seeks to analyze whether there is an influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on voter participation in Medan Tuntungan sub-district. This type of research is a type of descriptive research. Influence of Covid-19 on Voters in the Medan Tuntungan District Election in 2020 is as follows: Voter participation in Medan Tuntungan District is also influenced by other variables outside the Covid-19 pandemic variable, which is 83.8%, so it is appropriate if research related to voter participation is carried out again using other variables outside the Covid-19 pandemic variable.

How opposition parties unite in competitive authoritarian regimes: the role of an intermediary party

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the growing body of literature on opposition coordination within competitive authoritarian regimes (CARs). Defining oppositional unity as the ability of key opposition parties to select one joint candidate for elections, it introduces the concept of an intermediary party that facilitates such unity. An intermediary party is perceived less threatening by other opposition parties in their opportunistic and ideological conflicts and has the potential to offer a more agreeable joint candidate or a more conciliatory method of selecting the joint candidate within the opposition bloc. The article illustrates this argument by examining the Budapest and Istanbul mayoral elections held in 2019 in Hungary and Turkey. Drawing on data from 30 anonymized elite interviews and media statements of the opposition leaders in each country, the article demonstrates the significance of an intermediary party that facilitates oppositional unity in CARs, adding that the participation of intraparty actors with strong communication skills during the negotiations further reinforces this outcome.

Does local democratization improve societal outcomes? Effects of mayoral direct elections in Indonesia

Local democratization aims to improve the decentralized capacity of governance regimes to generate meaningful municipal spending geared towards realizing societal outcomes. In the late 1990s, following the Asian financial crisis, Indonesia initiated a significant institutional transition from centralistic and authoritarian rule towards decentralized and more democratic governance through the introduction of direct mayoral elections. Extant research analyzed the effects of the introduction of these elections on local public spending and local societal outcomes separately. This paper offers an integrated analysis of the impact of the introduction of direct mayoral elections on both local public spending and local societal outcomes in 456 Indonesian municipalities between 2002 and 2012. Analyses of growth models, using panel data on three domains (education, health, and infrastructure) provided by Indonesian Ministry of Finance, Indonesian Ministry of Home Affairs, and Statistics Indonesia, show that the introduction of direct mayoral elections in Indonesia resulted in an increased growth in educational expenditures. It also improved outcomes in health and infrastructure domains. However, the introduction of direct mayoral elections reversed a positive association between public spending and the attainment of societal outcomes or worsened a negative association between them. These results would support a view on local democratization in Indonesia asserting that the introduction of direct mayoral elections stimulated local clientelist practices rather than local accountability and policy responsiveness.

Objective conditions, political knowledge, and perceptions of electoral competition in U.S. mayoral elections

AbstractObjectiveThis article investigates the extent to which perceptions of the competitive context of mayoral elections reflect actual levels of competition and how that relationship is shaped by political expertise.MethodsWe use a unique survey data set of more than 6000 respondents interviewed in 40 separate mayoral elections.ResultsIn broad strokes, people living in competitive cities are more likely than others to predict competitive outcomes. However, in keeping with the knowledge gap hypothesis, the relationship between objective levels of competition and perceived levels of competition is much stronger among those with relatively high levels of political knowledge than those with low levels of political knowledge.ConclusionsThe connection between actual and perceived conditions does not hold evenly for all segments of society—the information‐rich respond to their political environment, while the information‐poor are relatively unmoved by that environment. This pattern of asymmetric information acquisition is a familiar one in American politics and provides further evidence of an important source of political inequality.

MATCHING AND RESEARCH FOR VOTER DATA UPDATE IN SURABAYA MAYORAL ELECTION IN 2020 FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF FIQH AL-SIYASAH

During Covid-19 Pandemic, the election in Indonesia was still carried out. However, there had previously been a withdrawal of the schedule. Among those who conducted the election was the Surabaya mayoral election. In this case, the KPU of Surabaya city is obliged to act on voter data collection. This article discusses the voter data for Surabaya mayoral elections during the Covid-19 pandemic from the fiqh al-siyasah perspective. The research is field research with qualitative data processing. Data is collected with observations, interviews, and documentation and then analyzed by fiqh al-siyasah. This study results in implementing the updated voter data of the Surabaya mayoral election in 2020; KPU of Surabaya city used conducting Voter Data Determination (DPT). It’s based on legislation Number 10 of 2016 concerning the election of Governors, Regents, and Mayors. Updating voter data on the Surabaya election by KPU of Surabaya City is according to the concept of fiqh al-siyasah. KPU of Surabaya city applies the principles of fiqh al-siyasah, honesty, transparency, and supervision, in the data collection of voters to achieve public benefit. This is according to the concept of tasharruf al-imam ‘ala al-ra’iyyah manuth bi al-mashlahah (the leader’s policy on people must align with the public interest).

Voting Against Autocracy

abstract: When and how do voters punish politicians for subverting democracy? To investigate the role of the public in democratic backsliding, I develop a conceptual framework that differentiates among three mechanisms: vote switching, backlash, and disengagement. The first mechanism entails defection by voters from a candidate who undermines democracy to one who does not; the latter two mechanisms entail transitions between voting and abstention. I estimate the magnitude of each mechanism by combining evidence from a series of original survey experiments, traditional surveys, and a quasi-experiment afforded by the rerun of the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election, in which the governing party, akp, attempted to overturn the result of an election that it had lost. I find that although vote switching and backlash contributed to the akp's eventual defeat the most, each of the three mechanisms served as a democratic check in some subset of the Istanbul electorate. Persuasion, mobilization, and even demobilization are all viable tools for curbing the authoritarian tendencies of elected politicians.

Election Results of Rural Akims in Kazakhstan: Political Analysis

The article tells about the electoral process of rural mayors, which was the first direct elections in the country. One of the priority directions of democratization of Kazakhstan's society is the reform of local public administration. 2021 year the elections of rural mayors will increase the political activity of the population and increase the electoral culture in rural areas. Most developed countries strive to improve local government and self-government models. This level of management is the closest to the population and solves the problems of satisfying the basic household needs of the population. With the rational construction of local public administration and self-government, local resources are not only optimally mastered, but also significantly increase the confidence of the population in the authorities. The election of rural mayors, which was held for the first time in the political system of the country, was undoubtedly a necessary step in the formation of the principles of political pluralism in the country, increasing the civil and social activity and political culture of the rural population.

Democracy Volunteer Strategy in Increasing Participation of People With Disabilities at the Mayor Election in Bandar Lampung 2020

Disabilities can occur either physically or mentally. This is often what undermines people with disabilities, while political participation is an important aspect in a democratic state. There was an increase in the participation of people with disabilities, based on PKPU No. 8 of 2017 through 10 existing socialization methods. This study looks at volunteer democracy strategies involving the planning, ideas, and execution of an activity, and the obstacles that affect socialization. Participation of persons with disabilities in the Mayoral Election in Bandar Lampung in 2020 reached 97% of the total DPT of 745 people, which was very different to the participation of people with disabilities in 2015. This figure was only 87% of the total number of DPT which is only 141 people. The method in this research is a qualitative descriptive research approach using the snowball sampling technique. The data collection process was done using observation, interview and documentation techniques. Analysis of the data used several stages, namely the data reduction stage, the data presentation and the data verification stage using a data triangulation method. The theory in this study employs theoretical indicators from Firmanzah which is a political strategy in which there is a strategy (message and media) that looks at the supporting and inhibiting factors of democratic volunteers in socialization. The results of this study indicate that the participation of persons with disabilities in the 2020 Bandar Lampung Mayoral Election experienced an increase, from the total number of DPT 745 people and 729 participating. Messaging and media strategies carried out by democracy volunteers using face-to-face communication socialization methods and social media is an effective strategy because it can reach people with disability in all aspects. The participation of persons with disabilities is also increasing, supported by two factors. Factor supporting facilities like supporting facilities, village officials support, organizers (KPPS), and many DPT (permanent voter lists) have been recorded. Inhibiting factors include the lack of sensitivity from the community housing for persons with disabilities, and persons with mental disabilities who have voting rights are mobilized. As there have been many records of persons with disabilities, this study can futher increase the participation of persons with disabilities in the next election to a 100%.
 Keywords: Political Participation, Persons with Disabilities and Political Strategy.

Electoral rule and public sector efficiency: Some evidence from Italian municipalities

AbstractWe study the effect of Law 81/1993, which introduced a different rule for the election of mayors, on the technical efficiency of Italian cities over the period 1998–2006. Since 1993, municipalities below 15,000 inhabitants vote with a single‐ballot system, whereas cities above 15,000 inhabitants are subject to a double ballot. We first estimate the output‐oriented technical efficiency of municipalities through data envelopment analysis, and then we perform a regression discontinuity design analysis by exploiting the exogenous change in the electoral scheme at the 15,000 inhabitants cut‐off. We find evidence that municipalities voting under a double‐ballot rule show lower levels of efficiency—in terms of provision of public goods—compared with cities voting under a single‐ballot scheme, by about 6.5%. This effect is driven by inefficiencies registered in specific sectors, that is, police, education, and maintenance of roads. Furthermore, the overall lower efficiency of municipalities voting under runoff is related to the different level of educational attainment of elected mayors, whereas it is not driven by the features of Law 81/1993 relating to the number of lists forming a coalition in support of mayoral candidates and to disjoint votes.

How Do Local Party Systems Change after the Direct Election of Mayors? Analysis of the Institutional Reform in Lithuania

ABSTRACT The Lithuanian parliament in 2015 amended the electoral system of local elections by introducing direct election of mayors. The reform was intended to increase the accountability of mayors, to stabilize mayoral terms, and to encourage higher turnouts in local elections. We find that these aims were achieved partially. First, we observe reduced electoral fragmentation, increase in the vote shares of independent candidates, and a higher number of independent politicians elected to mayoral posts. Second, although the reelection rates of mayors increased, stability of local coalitions did not change much. Finally, the reform did not increase turnouts significantly.

REVIEW: Disinformation and the end of democracy?

How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for our Future, By Maria Ressa. London: Penguin Random House, 2022. 301 pages. ISBN 978073559208.
 AS WE marched in our pink tee-shirts in solidarity with the diaspora supporting outgoing Vice-President and opposition leader Leni Robredo in Auckland’s Centennial Park in the lead up to the Philippine presidential election in May 2022, the thought weighed heavily on our minds: ‘Surely, Filipinos wouldn’t elect the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos just 38 years after his corrupt father had been ousted by People Power.’

How politics can influence the allocation of social program benefits: A case study of the Brazilian poverty reduction program Bolsa Família

We investigate the utilization of Bolsa Família, a Brazilian social program aimed at reducing poverty and social inequalities, for electoral purposes. The literature demonstrates that politicians often employ social programs to achieve their political and personal goals. Most of these studies focus on politicians offering benefits from social programs before elections in an attempt to capture votes in the upcoming election. In contrast, our research reveals that social programs can be used as post-election rewards for their voters. This strategy has the potential to be much more effective than the previous one, as it directs rewards only to those who actually produce favorable outcomes for politicians. We employ differences-in-differences models in our tests. Our results indicate that cities electing a ruling party candidate in the 2012 mayoral elections, where the previous mayor is not affiliated with that party, receive more benefits than cities that do not elect ruling party candidates. Similarly, cities with higher percentages of votes in favor of the ruling party in the 2006 presidential elections receive more benefits than cities with lower percentages.

Political Campaign Strategies in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic: Candidate Experiences in the 2020 Surabaya City Regional Election

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and being promoted only by minor political parties, it didn’t impede the mayoral pairing candidate Eri Cahyadi-Armuji from winning the 2020 Surabaya mayoral election. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explain the political campaign strategy carried out by Eri Cahyadi-Armuji using the perspective of the five functional stages of development theory. This study applied a qualitative method with a case study approach. The findings of this study showed that Eri Cahyadi-Armuji successfully implemented the five stages of political campaign, thus he could win the election. However, there was an interesting note at the identification stage where Eri Cahyadi-Armuji preferred to use the identity of a figure rather than slogans. This fact deviated from the theory, yet it was successfully implemented as a surefire strategy to attract voters. Thus, this notable finding may give a contribution in developing the theory of political campaign strategy.

Design history: Constructing a Korean identity in New Gwanghwamun Square

This study explores and critically discusses Korean “design history,” in terms of landscape designers' design strategies for constructing national identity using site history and memory. The achievements and limitations of the New Gwanghwamun Square (NGS) Project during 2016–2022 are scrutinized in this context. First, through a pilot case study, it examines the Seoul-specific socio-political contexts and categorizes the main approaches of design history, including imitation, materiality, form generation, and the function and principle of Korean tradition. Several strategies are observed in the main case of the NGS Project, such as the winning proposal of the NGS competition achieved to create a novel Korean identity through the restoration of a Korea-specific landscape, the reinterpretation of the structure and function of traditional Korean landscaping, form generation, and material exploration. The design history of the NGS Project included modifications during the post-design process for construction due to the opinions of different stakeholders, excavation and inspection of buried cultural heritage, and the election of a new Mayor of Seoul; thus, the initial design strategies were eventually not implemented. Instead, the constructed NGS renders the site's history as a static spectacle and does not embody the physical landscape design, thereby limiting visitors' experience to passive textual learning. Moreover, the picturesque visuals that represented the traditional Korean landscape in the proposal failed to be constructed and exclusively decorated long-existing statues with landscape elements, resulting in a Western-style indistinctive square. The present study can afford a case study for East Asian and international landscape and urban designers and administrators to construct their national and regional identities in open spaces.