Elections Of June Research Articles

Distant thunder at a picnic: The Sicilian regional elections of June 1991

This article analyses the outcome of the Sicilian regional elections of June 1991 which, it is argued, were a harbinger of the dramatic changes that would occur in the Italian general election nearly a year later, and which would mark the biggest upheaval in Italian politics since the founding of the Republic.

Problems of Postcommunism: From Solidarity to Fragmentation

Problems of PostcommunismFrom Solidarity to Fragmentation Krzysztof Jasiewicz (bio) "The complex political situation in Poland stems from a misguided and ill-designed electoral law." This diagnosis of Poland's political problems came from Zbigniew Brzezinski a few days before the parliamentary elections of 27 October 1991. According to Gazeta wyborcza, Brzezinski told President Lech Walesa that Poland's legislators had made a fundamental error by adopting a system based on proportional representation (PR) for elections to the Sejm (the lower house of Parliament). "This electoral law will disperse the will of the people and will not provide a basis for the emergence of a democratic majority [in the Sejm]," he added.1 Subsequent events seemed to reveal the accuracy of Brzezinski's warnings, as Polish voters elected candidates from some 30 different political parties or groupings to the Sejm; the strongest party controls a mere 62 out of the 460 total seats, and no majority coalition of fewer than five parties is possible. Given these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that it took two months to form a weak, three-party minority government. The crowning irony was that this happened just two years after Solidarity-seemingly a unified, if not homogeneous, political movement-swept the communists virtually out of power in the historic elections of June 1989. Of course, a bad electoral law alone could never explain such a striking turn of events, as Brzezinski well knew. As early as 1990, a deep split had begun to appear in Solidarity, which had never been perfectly united in the first place. From its sudden emergence in the summer of 1980, Solidarity was a multidimensional phenomenon: a trade [End Page 55] union struggling to protect the interests of all employees (not merely manual workers); a social movement striving to vindicate civil and human rights; and a political movement seeking democracy and national independence. As such, Solidarity attracted individuals of an enormously wide range of social, economic, and political persuasions. They had almost nothing in common except their belief that Poland's government should be made accountable to the Polish people and a commitment to pursuing this goal by nonviolent means only. As early as the fall of 1981, even this minimal consensus seemed as if it might fade away. Solidarity's first congress yielded no agreement on economic issues, while "fundamentalists" quarreled with "pragmatists" and the public began to show the first signs of disillusionment. Diverse political groupings were starting to develop their own distinct identities and agendas under Solidarity's protective umbrella when the regime struck back with its declaration of martial law on 13 December 1981. Paradoxically, martial law saved Solidarity. Most Poles, too hobbled by passivity or conformism to undertake clandestine activities, looked to Solidarity throughout the 1980s as the symbol of all those hopes that the regime was trying to crush. Meanwhile, the Solidarity underground managed to achieve a remarkable unity, sustained by the constant threat of being wiped away by the regime, by memories of the 1980-81 glory days, and by the leadership of Lech Walesa. Thus Solidarity was able to enter the Roundtable talks of 1989 as a cohesive group with nothing to lose and everything to win. At the Roundtable it secured the regime's agreement to a "contract" calling for semi-free parliamentary elections in June 1989 in which Solidarity candidates could run for 35 percent of the seats in the Sejm and all 100 seats in the newly reestablished Senate. Solidarity won all but one of the seats it contested. It ran an official "all-Solidarity team," with a small committee of Walesa's associates handpicking a candidate or slate of candidates for each contested constituency. This strategy alienated some prominent Solidarity leaders, who saw it as the sort of undemocratic maneuver best left to the communists. Some dissenters even decided to run against official Solidarity candidates, but none were successful. Although people voted in droves for the Solidarity candidates, it is important to remember that these were mainly protest votes, ballots cast less for Solidarity than against communist rule. Moreover, neither in this election nor in any subsequent election did Solidarity gain the support of a majority of the Polish...

Les problèmes institutionnels de la transition en Tchécoslovaquie

Institutional problems of transition in Czechoslovakia. In this three-part study, the author first of all looks at the problems attending the transition of the institutions, the political, economic and social structures of a totalitarian Czechoslovakia to a regime of parliamentary democracy and a market economy, after the fall of the communist regime in Novembrer 1989. He then goes on to study the development of discussions on the future of the upper tier of Czechoslovak federal institutions and the form they will take in the new Constitution : the function and powers of the President of the Republic, of parliament and the government, and their respective relationships within a democratic state. Despite the parliamentary elections of June 1992, which set the seal on the division of the Czechoslovak federation into two independent states, many of the conclusions of these discussions on the institutional future of the federation have been used in the working-out of the Constitution of the Czech Republic, which was adopted at the end of 1992, and came into force on the 1st January, 1993.

Solidarność: Reluctant Vanguard or Makeshift Coalition?

We analyze the election data from the first “almost free” political contest in the Eastern bloc, the Polish election of June 1989. Voting data for state socialist societies provide a novel source of information on the political transitions in process in East Central Europe; the source of electoral support for opposition candidates in Poland affords a glimpse of the emerging political groups that must deal with continuing economic crises while attempting to reconstruct or consolidate democratic procedures. Data on turnout and on the ecological patterning of votes for Solidarność and for the government coalition are reviewed. Electoral victory has transformed Solidarność from an opposition movement with strong trade union roots to a political coalition with a rather different constituency: the strongest relative support for Solidarność candidates was found in rural areas, particularly in the southeast, rather than in the urban, industrial centers where the movement was born.

About voting and non‐voting in the European elections of June 1989

Abstract: This article reviews conventional wisdom about determinants of electoral participation in general, and of participation in European elections in particular. A model of European electoral participation is proposed which relates indicators of general political involvement, European attitudes and orientations and social‐structural background characteristics to both intended and reported participation. In contrast to the findings of earlier research, it appears that the participation of EC citizens in the European elections of June 1989 ‐ as reported in the post‐electoral surveys of the European Elections Study 1989 ‐ was primarily the result of ‘habitual voting’. Irrespective of their EC related attitudes and more general political involvement, those who participated went to the polls just because they are used to doing so on election day.

Politics of Resentment: Right-Wing Radicalism in West Germany

During the past several years, a number of West European countries have expenenced a serious challenge from right-wing populist parties. The French National Front, the Vlaams Blok in Belgium, the Swiss Vigilants, Action National, and the Autopartei, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), and the various progressive parties in Scandinavia are among the most prominent examples of a rising tide of often radical right-wing populism which has raised concern among politicians and political commentators alike.' Referring to themselves as national-conservative or right-conservative parties they pursue a range of similar objectives: a tightening of strict law and order to combat rising crime rates associated with drugs; a return to traditional moral values in the face of a growing number of abortions and the AIDS threat; and, most important of all, the protection of national and cultural identity allegedly threatened by third world immigrants, foreign workers, and refugees. The latest addition to the list of right-wing parties has been the West German Republikaner. Founded in 1983 by Franz Sch6nhuber and disgruntled former members of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), the Republikaner became the focus of attention in the wake of the 1989 elections in West Berlin, where they came literally out of nowhere to gain more than 90,000 votes (7.5 percent of the vote) and eleven seats in the city parliament. Despite attempts by political observers to play down the extent of support for the radical right, the Republikaner repeated their earlier local success on the federal level in the European elections in June 1989: capturing 7.1 percent of the popular vote, they were the main cause for the painful losses of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and particularly their Bavarian sister party, the CSU. In addition, the German People's Party (DVU), an extremist neo-Nazi party, received 1.6 percent of the vote, increasing the total vote for the far right to 9 percent. Successes in subsequent local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Wiirttemberg in the fall and a respectable 3.3 percent in the state elections in the Saarland in the spring of 1990 against a highly popular minister president, Oskar Lafontaine (Social Democratic Party, SPD), who embarked on a populist course of his own, were indications that the Republikaner might stand a chance to overcome the five percent hurdle in the federal elections at the end of the year. The fact that a right-wing party could rise almost over night to command national and international attention points to serious deficits in West German democracy. After the establishment of the left-libertarian Greens in the early 1980s the gains of radical parties on both sides of the political spectrum largely at the expense of the established catch-all parties expose above all the declining ability of the large parties to bind their respective electorates. As in other West European countries, the number of floating voters has increased considerably during the last decade, from 24 percent in 1980 to more than a third in 1989.2

The Greek parliamentary election of November 1989

On 5 November 1989, the Greeks went to the polls to elect the 300 deputies of their uni-cameral Parliament for the second time in 1989. The first time was on 18 June 1989, held concurrently with the election of the 24 Greek representatives to the European Parliament: the inconclusive results of the June election and the parties' reaction to them made the November election unavoidable, just as, for identical reasons, the November election led to a new election on 8 April 1990.

THE CABINET OFFICE AND COORDINATION 1979–87

This chapter examines the role and work of the Cabinet Office (CO) during the first two terms of the Conservative government, from 1979 to 1987. As the study ends at the general election in June 1987, the past tense will be used throughout, although inevitably many of the procedures and bodies described below continue. The title of the chapter speaks of the ‘Cabinet Office’, but most of it will focus on the work of just one part of that Office, namely the cabinet secretariat. In addition, the CO contained (in 1979) the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and a small historical section.

The Comparative Political History of Two Tribal Governments

The recent history of two American Indian tribal governments, the Navajo Nation, and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, provide background for the examination of the paths followed by two tribal governments in seeking to establish and maintain legitimated self-rule within the federal governmental structure of the United States. The Navajo Nation has its capitol at Window Rock, on a reservation of 25,000 square miles, in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and a small area of southeastern Utah. The Navajo population is estimated between 160,000 and 170,000 people. It is the largest American Indian tribe in the United States. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona has the Pascua Pueblo Reservation, with a land area of 892 acres, near Tucson, Arizona, and off-reservation membership in four major villages, Yoem Pueblo in Marana, Guadalupe near Tempe, Barrio Libre in South Tucson, and Old Pascua in Tucson. All of the communities are in southern Arizona. The tribal enrollment was 8,200 at the time of the first election in June, 1988. These two Indian nations are unalike in many ways, but, then, no two tribes are alike, and each tribal government has its own unique history of how it came to be. Both tribes trace their ultimate origins to mythological events in the pre-columbian past. Both have been, in more recent history, included within the political boundaries of the Spanish colonial empire, the Mexican national state, and now the United States. The Navajo Nation retains a part of its ancestral homeland within the boundaries of its present reservation. The Pascua Yaqui communities are separated from their homeland in the Mexican state of Sonora by the United States/Mexican border. Each of these governments, whatever their historical origin, share the commonalities of having passed through the process of receiving federal recognition as a tribal entity (sovereign) from the federal government. These tribes, as all other tribes, have been forced to spend much of their time and energy either resisting negative federal policy or trying to obtain the benefits of favorable policy. Under recent policy as formalized in the Indian Self-Determination Act, P.L. 93-638, tribal governments have moved from being toy governments totally controlled by the federal government, to official establishment as parts of the American governmental structure of states, under the supremacy of the federal government (Wilkinson:1987,86). Some tribal goverments have used this status in some pragmatic ways to develop as governments utilizing the concept of tribal sovereignty of P.L. 93-638 policy to gain control over their own internal affairs. The Navajo Nation is one of those tribal governments which has developed in its particu56

Further Europeanisation? The Irish general election of June 1989

Further Europeanisation? The Irish general election of June 1989

The European elections of June 1989

The European elections of June 1989

PARTY ATTACHMENT AND PARTY CHOICE IN THE EUROPEAN ELECTIONS OF JUNE 1989: A cross-national comparative analysis of the post-electoral surveys of the European Voters Study 1989

PARTY ATTACHMENT AND PARTY CHOICE IN THE EUROPEAN ELECTIONS OF JUNE 1989: A cross-national comparative analysis of the post-electoral surveys of the European Voters Study 1989

Luxembourg: The European parliament and national elections of June 1989

Luxembourg: The European parliament and national elections of June 1989

Polish Local Government in Transition

Poland is undergoing important political changes. The evolution of legal, political, and financial resources of local government since 1950 is discussed in this paper. In the last section are presented the Solidarity programme and governmental response at the historic ‘Round Table’ talks between the ruling Communist Party and the Polish opposition, which opened the way to the opposition's magnificent victory in the parliamentary elections in June 1989. In 1950 a very centralized organization of the state was imposed. But the postwar history shows expansions and limitations of local government power. These shifts and their causation are analyzed. The poor quality of the urban fabric, the need of social support for the ruling party, and important economic tasks of local government call for decentralization. Its implementation requires overcoming the barriers, which result from resistance by political and bureaucratic structures, bad economic situation, and lack of public interest in local democracy. Recently a decentralization policy is being implemented. Many legal openings have been made, but the political organization is still very centralized. It is argued that a deconcentration of tasks and means cannot be effective without changes in political structures. Therefore Solidarity asks for full self-government at the communal level, but the ruling Party has strong reservations against this.

The Italian communist party and the European parliament elections of June 1989

The Italian communist party and the European parliament elections of June 1989

Popular Conservatism in Britain: Continuity and Change, 1880–1987

During the century that has elapsed since Gladstone's famous Midlothian Campaigns of 1879–80, the British political parties have had to adjust to a series of major changes and developments in both the structure and the substance of politics: the extension of the parliamentary vote to all men and women over the age of eighteen; the move toward the direct taxation of incomes; the rise of a “welfare state”; the steady, if unspectacular, decline of British industry; two debilitating world wars; the retreat from empire; and the loss of major-power status. At first sight every one of these changes represents a problem for British Conservatives: they appear to have been perpetually working against the grain of history. Yet in the general election of 1885 the Conservatives achieved a 43.5 percent share of the popular vote, while in the election of June 1987 they won just 43 percent. Far from being pushed to the margins by more adaptable or more popular parties, they appear to be as strong and as central in the British political system as they ever were.Of course, Conservative support has not been quite as stable as a comparison between 1885 and 1987 suggests. Their vote has indeed fluctuated, though within a fairly narrow range; the minimum is usually 38 percent to 39 percent, and the maximum around 48 percent (table 1).

THE END OF THE CRAXI ERA? THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS OF JUNE 1987

THE END OF THE CRAXI ERA? THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS OF JUNE 1987 Philip A. Daniels Philip A. Daniels Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 41, Issue 2, April 1988, Pages 258–286, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052146 Published: 01 April 1988

Scotland and the Anglo‐Irish agreement

Abstract In Scotland as in Northern Ireland the Orange Order has traditionally played an important, though somewhat different, role in social and political life. The article shows how the Scottish Order became increasingly distanced from the Conservative Party during the post‐war period, a process which culminated when members of the Order established the Scottish Unionist Party in 1986 to oppose the Conservative government's commitment to the Anglo‐Irish Agreement Rather than fielding independent candidates in the General Election of June 1987, the SUP used the mechanism of tactical voting to wreak maximum destruction upon Tory candidates. It is suggested that the Orange Order will continue to exert a strong, if subterranean, influence upon Scottish political life in the future.; The reaction of the orange order

The British general election of June 1987: Have we been here before?

(1988). The British general election of June 1987: Have we been here before? West European Politics: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 116-121.

Sex in Schools: Back to the Future

Education proved to be a major issue in the last election and the 'industrial' action by teachers over the past three years has contributed to a general sense of unease and concern, particularly amongst parents. Prior to the general election in June 1987, the Minister of Education, Mr Kenneth Baker, initiated a debate on school education. A draft Bill was considered in 1986 and the final Bill is scheduled for an early reading in the third term of the Tory government. One of the changes being proposed by Mr Baker is a core curriculum for the whole country. This will not include sex education, although he was reported as saying that 'teachers must find time for sex education' (Guardian, 9 April 1987). However important the provision of sex education may be, it would not be mandatory. There is no doubt that sex education is a vital area of all children's education. Knowledge about sex is crucial, not least because of its obvious connexion with the development of individual sexuality, gender identity and its relation to family formation and systems of control. Closely connected to this knowledge is the adoption and internalization of what is deemed to constitute appropriate sexual behaviour. This is particularly significant for girls, given the intimate links between 'proper' sexual behaviour, the ideals of motherhood and family life and the 'proper' way for girls to behave. It cannot be assumed that parents provide adequate sex education for their children. And it is known that children often transmit distorted