Electoral Competition Research Articles

Polish local democracy in crisis? Non-competitive elections and the supply of candidates for councillors

Competitive elections are the basis of democracy; without them there is no freedom of choice. Elections without competition are associated with the façade nature of elections in undemocratic systems. There are, however, exceptions to the belief that in a democratic system every election must be competitive. We can also observe them in Poland, particularly in small communes with up to 20,000 inhabitants. They take two forms: non-competitive elections of commune leaders and councillors. The latter case is known in the literature under the legal term of filling seats without voting. In 2018, as many as 8% of Polish councillors obtained their mandate without votes. In 2018 compared to 2014, the number of such cases increased by 77% and compared to 2010, the increase was nearly 300%. In extreme cases, local elections become a ritual with a known result, and the voter loses the ability to influence their representatives. At the same time, from 2002 to 2018, the number of candidates for municipal councils fell by 38%. Both phenomena may be a signal of problems that harm Polish local democracy. The article analyses them through the prism of the mechanisms for selecting candidates for councillors.

Гражданские свободы или политическая конкуренция: в чем преимущество демократии для развития технологических инноваций?

Today most researchers agree that democratic regimes are superior in producing technological innovations to authoritarian regimes, despite the fact that the question of the influence of the type of political regime on economic growth and its most important component, such as innovative activity, remains debatable. At the same time, there are several alternative, although not mutually exclusive, hypotheses about what causes this superiority. One hypothesis suggests institutions that ensure political competition, and above all, competitive elections, are of key importance. According to another hypothesis, the main prerequisite for innovative development lies in the provision for rights and freedoms of citizens. The article attempts to test these hypotheses empirically in order to determine which one of them possesses a greater explanatory power. To perform this task, the author employed a method of multi-level regression, which allows taking into account factors at the level of countries, as well as that of individual firms. The research conducted by the author shows that the presence of competitive elections is not a sufficient condition for innovative development. In contrast, the provision of civil freedoms is a statistically significant predictor. Thus, the liberal aspect of democracy is more important than its electoral aspect for producing technological innovations.

Savagery in right-wing populist leadership: between theatricality and political social engineering

Contemporary leadership practices in politics are full of emotions, which, on the one hand, may be a manifestation of various types of expressions or moods in the individual and collective dimension, and on the other hand, are an important source of political mobilization or an instrument enhancing effectiveness in the election competition. In this article inducing and politicizing savagery among followers – defined as an emotional social engineering strategy for articulating given goals and interests – will be treated as a populist manifestation and an expression of planned radicalization of political competition. The aim of the article is a meta theoretical reflection on the instrumentalisation of wildness in the leadership of the right-wing populist – Donald Trump. A practical rationale for discussing collective savagery in politics will be the attack on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. This event will serve as an example to explain the political exteriorization of the confrontational Trump followers, thanks to which the right-wing populist leader not only articulated his own goals, shaped public self-presentation or theatrical political presence, but also redefined and challenged the existing rules and principles of democratic political culture.

Clerical independence and the religious field in post-colonial Mauritania

Abstract Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘religious field’, this paper examines the roles available to Mauritanian clerics at different points in the country’s postcolonial history. The paper retraces the interaction between an imam, his students, and the postcolonial state. Buddāh Wuld al-Būṣayrī (1920–2009), the longtime official imam of Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott, had state backing for much of his career and was an interlocutor for heads of state. Yet he periodically wielded his symbolic capital to criticize state policies, and he acted as a mentor to Salafīs, Islamists, and other activists, all without facing repression. His students and successors, however, faced an environment that was increasingly hostile to clerical dissent from the 1990s onward. Fiercer electoral competition, fragmentation within the religious field, and the advent of the Mauritanian iteration of the ‘Global War on Terror’ all undercut possibilities for clerical independence, as the state became more concerned about the constituencies for which individual clerics were perceived to speak. This case study sheds light on global dynamics in the Muslim world in an era where clerical independence is often constrained by expanding state power—including forms of ‘official Islam’ that seek to co-opt certain clerics while branding others as dissidents and troublemakers.

Electoral Competition, the EU Issue and Far-right Success in Western Europe

We argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that to understand the electoral fortunes of far-right parties in Western Europe, we need to consider the advantages and disadvantages these parties encounter in the multidimensional political issue space. We argue that salience changes among the electorate benefit far-right parties more than shifting far-right parties’ policy positions. We further posit that changes in the public salience of European integration are more important for far-right success than other issues -- including immigration. Utilizing similar survey questions from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) about parties’ positions and the European Election Studies (EES) about voters’ policy preferences, we estimate multidimensional voting models in 12 West European countries. We then use mathematical simulations to show that the issue that matters most for far-right success is European integration. This research has important implications for the study of electoral competition, parties’ campaign strategies, and voting behavior.

The 2021 Portuguese Presidential Elections under extraordinary circumstances: Covid-19 and the rise of the radical right in Portugal

ABSTRACT Despite the low mobilization of citizenry, the lack of any strong electoral competition and consequently the expected re-election of the incumbent, the 2021 Portuguese Presidential elections gained particular interest for two main reasons. Firstly, this election took place in extraordinary circumstances amid the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, Portugal was experiencing the world’s highest number of new cases and deaths per million. Secondly, this election was noted for the support obtained by the far-right candidate, unprecedented in national elections in Portugal. Thus, this article attempts to provide an overview of the main features of the presidential elections of 2021 in Portugal, namely the measures introduced to mitigate the threat of the pandemic and assure voters’ safety, the impact of the pandemic and the lockdown in the electoral campaign, the electoral results, and the rise of the radical right in Portugal and its implications.

State preemption and affordable housing policy

Many affordable housing policies are the domain of local governments. While subnational housing policies can be used to increase racial and economic segregation, they can also protect renters, and thus are not without controversy. Local affordable housing policies include inclusionary zoning, rent control, short-term rental regulation and source of income discrimination. Starting in the 1980s, states began to preempt these local laws, preventing their cities from adopting affordable housing policies. We ask why states choose to preempt one or more of these four affordable housing policies. Using a cross-sectional, time-series dataset of preemptions, we find evidence that more conservative legislatures are more likely to adopt preemptions, while more professional legislatures and states with higher rental rates and previous preemptions are less likely to preempt. Contrary to expectations, interest group density, electoral competition and policy diffusion are not significant predictors of preemption. For advocates and policymakers concerned with increasing affordable housing in their jurisdictions, these results raise unease about the ability to further an affordable housing agenda at the local level, particularly in more conservative political environments, suggesting instead that affordable housing may need to return to the purview of the federal government.

Elections and Immigration Policy in Autocracy: Evidence from Russia and Kazakhstan

AbstractWhy do some authoritarian states adopt more restrictive immigration policies than others? Much of the existing literature focuses on the politics of immigration in democracies, despite the presence of large-scale immigration to autocracies. In this article, I argue that the level of electoral competition can be a key factor in immigration policymaking in electoral autocracies. Autocrats who face high levels of electoral competition tend to impose immigration restrictions as a way of mobilizing anti-outgroup sentiment and boosting their own popularity. I test this hypothesis by conducting comparative case studies on Russia and Kazakhstan, both of which are major immigrant-receiving autocracies. Based on the analysis of original data gathered from 11 months of fieldwork in the two countries, I find that the relatively high level of electoral competition in Russia in the 2010s facilitated increased immigration restrictions, while Kazakhstan depoliticized labour immigrants and enacted a de facto open immigration policy in the absence of electoral competition.

Political opposition and voter mobilization in an authoritarian state: The case of parliamentary elections in Iran

ABSTRACT Most autocratic leaders have confidence they can control election results by holding unfair and unfree competitive elections. They have many tools at their disposal to ensure they do not lose elections. Although electoral fraud and ballot box stuffing can secure an easy win, such tools may trigger mass protests and jeopardize the existence of the nondemocratic state. Nondemocratic leaders abuse the electoral system to prevent coordination among opponents and the masses. From changing election rules and banning political parties to eliminating effective candidates, the ‘menu of manipulation’ that nondemocratic leaders employ blocks creation of a focal point for collective action among the opposition. Moreover, the opposition rarely has an opportunity to solve collective action problems and deliver a unified message for change. When the opposition does capitalize on this opportunity, a segment of the electorate that opposes the nondemocratic leader responds to the opposition’s mobilization efforts. Based on original data gathered at the district level between 2000 and 2016, this study offers an original investigation into Iranian legislative elections. I argue that when opponents of an autocratic leader provide a unified request for change in the status quo, there is a surge in voter turnout.

Associative issue ownership in a highly fragmented multiparty context: The Netherlands (2021)

Associative issue ownership (AIO) has proven its value in describing issue competition and explaining voting behavior. Yet, it is unclear whether and to what extent AIO also differentiates parties and influences vote choice in highly fragmented, multiparty systems. In such a context, parties must differentiate from many electoral competitors, which makes AIO worth pursuing. At the same time, obtaining unequivocal ownership may be a very difficult endeavor in the face of so many rivals. This paper aims to assess these questions empirically by employing the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2021 on a system with 17 elected parties (ENPP = 8). At the aggregate level, we find unequivocal issue ownership for 4 of the 14 issues under study. AIO of most other issues is contested, either by parties with very similar policy positions (within-block competition) or by parties with opposing positions (between-block competition). A final set of issues remain unclaimed. At the individual level, perceptions of issue ownership explain the composition of voters’ party consideration sets (pre-elections) and their actual vote choice (post-elections). These impacts are stronger when voters associate the party with an issue they find important. We conclude that AIO perceptions are an important factor to consider when studying party dynamics and voting behavior in a context of highly fragmented multipartyism.

Negative Campaigns between Strategy and Political Opportunism in Romania. Case Study: Ion Iliescu’s Electoral Campaigns in the First Post-Communist Decade

Abstract In an electoral competition, campaign teams choose strategies that can most easily decide their own candidate’s victory. The present study aims at an incursion into the field of negative campaigns, having two components: the debates of specialists in political science on the subject and the way in which this direction was reflected in the electoral campaigns in Romania during 1990–2000. The article diachronically follows the evolution of Ion Iliescu during the four electoral rounds, highlighting the degree to which the negative campaign was imposed as the main strategy, against whom it was carried out, what topics were promoted, and to what extent it determined the success or failure of the candidate. In the analysis, the first part presents the views of sociologists, historians, and specialists in communication and political science, whereas the case study on the Romanian political environment is based on the written press of the period and the statements of politicians, reflected through the media.

Changing Prices in a Changing Climate: Electoral Competition and Fossil Fuel Taxation

When do governments adopt ambitious climate policy? Charting the theoretical territory between climate change politics and long-term policymaking, this paper highlights the role of electoral competition in shaping how politicians respond to the intertemporal tradeoff of one important climate change mitigation policy: fossil fuel taxation. The more secure the government is in office, the more insulated it is from the vagaries of political competition, and the more likely it is to impose costs on constituents today to generate a future stable climate. By influencing governments’ time preferences, competition structures the myopia of elected officials. I test the arguments using an original dataset of gasoline taxation across high-income democracies between 1988 and 2013. I find evidence that higher levels of electoral competition are associated with lower gasoline tax rates, and that the relationship is moderated by the level of costs imposed on voters, but not government partisanship. More generally, the analysis highlights when governments can increase consumer prices to address long-term challenges.

A few signatures matter: Barriers to entry in Italian local politics

Competition for public office is an essential feature of democracy but having many candidates competing for the same position might lead to voter confusion and be counterproductive. In current democracies, ballot access regulations limit citizens’ right to become candidates, seeking to balance this trade-off by discouraging frivolous contenders. This paper examines the causal effect of signature requirements – a widespread ballot access regulation – and finds that their impact goes beyond this goal. I use data on Italian local elections and apply a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to estimate the effects of these requirements on electoral competition, candidates’ selection, voter participation and administrative efficiency. I find that signature requirements reduce the number of candidates running for office, decrease electoral competition, lead to a more experienced pool of candidates, and reduce voter turnout. The positive effects of this policy are observed in municipalities with fragmented political systems, where signature requirements lead to fewer wasted votes and fewer spoiler candidates. The downside is observed in municipalities with concentrated political systems: signature requirements increase the frequency of uncontested races and reduce voter participation. Findings reveal how this barrier to entry impacts key dimensions of democracy and indicate that designing efficient electoral institutions requires a clear understanding of local political contexts.

There's (rarely) a new sheriff in town: The incumbency advantage for local law enforcement

Democratic accountability requires voters to select high-quality politicians or sanction incumbents. To what extent does local electoral politics meet this standard? I explore the electoral context of the county sheriff, typically tasked with corrections and policing. Using an original dataset of 5500 sheriff elections, I produce the first estimates of electoral competitiveness and incumbency advantage for sheriffs, including variation in the incumbency advantage by partisan election, timing, and agency size. The sheriff incumbency advantage estimated with a regression discontinuity design is about a 45 percentage point boost in the probability of winning the next election – far exceeding the advantages of other local offices. One consequence is a “delayed partisan realignment” with mismatch between national and county-level voting. Moreover, I show that sheriffs hold office for more than twice as long as appointed police chiefs, compared to whom sheriffs enjoy independence from elected officials without facing significant scrutiny by voters.

Electoral competition dynamics and Syrian refugee discourses and policies in Germany and France

ABSTRACT Among European countries, Germany has implemented the most generous policies toward Syrian refugees. Contrarily, its main partner within the EU, France, viewing the refugee crisis primarily as a matter of security, has avoided them. I argue that these divergent approaches are closely linked with electoral competition dynamics. Electoral competition dynamics have shaped the expected outcomes of adopting pro-Syrian refugee policies for ruling centrist parties in these countries. The risk posed by the centrist right-wing voters’ shift to the far-right due to the enactment of pro-refugee policies for CDU in Germany was eased to a great extent by a type of cordon sanitaire, other parties’ exclusion of Alternative for Germany (AfD) from coalitions. However, the electoral risk posed by the rise of a Populist Radical Right Party (PRRP), the National Rally (RN), against the Republic on the Move (LREM) has been higher in France. As a result, centrist French Presidents have been electorally more constrained or vulnerable in adopting generous refugee policies. By comparatively analyzing the Syrian refugee discourses and policies in Germany and France, this study permits us to better evaluate and understand the domestic sources of refugee politics in liberal democracies.

The Decision to Go Negative: Election Types, Candidate Characteristics, and Electoral Competition

This study examined the conditions that motivate candidates to go negative during a parliamentary election campaign. We argue that by-elections encourage candidates to engage in more negative campaigning. Three mechanisms might explain the alleged link: time pressure, media exposure, and voter turnout. Two main factors jointly determine which candidates rely heavily on negative campaigning during by-elections: candidate characteristics and electoral competition. New data collected from press coverage of Taiwanese legislative elections (2008–2022), covering 318 campaigns in single-member electoral districts, were analysed using the qualitative comparative analysis method. We modelled negative campaigning as a combination of a list of potential causal conditions. Thereafter, process-tracing methods were applied to analyse a typical case to demonstrate the internal causal mechanism. The qualitative comparative analysis results and the case study indicate that increased electoral competition causes parachute candidates to criticise political opponents during a by-election campaign, with less emphasis on their own policy proposals. These results suggest that researchers should pay close attention to important contextual factors that underlie candidates’ strategic choices, particularly during by-elections.

Religion, political parties, and Thailand’s 2019 election: Cosmopolitan royalism and its rivals

AbstractThe political salience of religious issues and identities has been rising in Thailand, and this is increasingly reflected in electoral politics. Thai political parties seek to position themselves in relation to struggles over the location of the ideological centre of gravity, which has pitted defenders of the religio-political status quo—a monarchy-centred civil-religious nationalism—against Buddhist nationalists, on the one hand, and proponents of greater secularization, on the other. In the 2019 general election, political entrepreneurs ‘particized’ these religio-political differences, which has far-reaching implications for majority-minority relations, to an extent that appears unprecedented in recent Thai political history. This argument is developed through an analysis of the platforms, policies, and rhetoric put forward by political parties contesting the election, which concluded an almost five-year period of direct military rule. This analysis suggests we need to pay greater attention to the role of political parties and electoral competition in maintaining and contesting the secular settlement in Thailand.

Running out of oxygen: the financial condition of Italian political parties

Electoral competition is quite expensive. The prevalent idea in Western countries is that public funding may contribute to and preserve the system’s fairness and pluralism, defending political parties from the influence of big money. However, the Italian reform of political funding approved in 2014 appears to move in an opposite direction, encouraging political players to extract private sources while discarding public support. Such a choice entails hazards associated with several current phenomena, including system transparency, financial appeals from competing players and the rising personalization of politics.
 This article describes the financial status of the major Italian political parties in 2013 and 2018, with an emphasis on the allocation of private funds. Unfortunately, political parties’ responses to the new regulation came late, resulting in significant variations and disparities. Private money needs regulation and restrictions before being established as the primary source of revenue for political competition. At present, Italian political parties are left with few guidelines and appear to be navigating by sight.

Elections in Kenya: When All Roads in East Africa Lead to Nairobi

Kenya went to the elections in August 2022. The increasing unpredictable and competitive elections have often down-graded general election trends in the East Africa region where predetermined outcomes and poll fixing are the often norm Kenya was not going to be an exception. However, the case in Kenya was different this time. The era of unquestionable linchpins in Kenyan politics seemed to no longer dictate the tone among Kenyan voters. The voting alliance usually set among ethnic lines appeared to have been a matter of the past. Leading candidates set tone by disowning violence and instead appealed for peace to their supporters during the process of elections. Independent monitoring via parallel vote tabulations and public access of data released by the electoral commission from polling stations kept the public informed of the contest. Before the elections, during and after, anxiety was on the rise within Kenya, among Kenya’s neighbors, the rest of Africa and elsewhere.
 This study examines the 2022 General Election in Kenya as to the maturity of the Kenya electorate against all the odds that has always beset the nation during such particular times. The example set is worth emulation by willing neighboring East African and African states in particular and the world at large. Literature on the elections from reliable daily and weekly tabloids, newsreels, interviews from the mass media, one- to- one debates with political analysts, active participation in panel discussions on the election and discussion groups furnished the necessary information to put something on paper. The general consensus in the discussion groups pitted Kenya to have made a leap forward.
 The conclusion can be drawn that a significant progress has been made in Kenya’s election process since 2007-2008. The process in 2022 has displayed a maturity of democracy worth rivalling.

Do Hegemonic-Party Regimes Reward or Punish Voters? A Tale of Distributive Politics in Tanzania

Does resource allocation by the central government to local governments in Tanzania favour opposition or the ruling party's strongholds? The literature advances two opposing theories – electoral competition and hegemonic party hypotheses. We use unique data on fiscal transfers and human resource allocations to investigate the effect of electoral support on government allocations. Contrary to the two hypotheses, we find no political bias in fiscal resources transferred to local governments. Similarly, we find no strong evidence to suggest any political bias in human resource allocation. On the whole, neither does the evidence confirm nor conclusively disconfirm the two hypotheses. The findings imply that hegemonic-parties do not necessarily opt for a discriminative strategy in intergovernmental resource allocations even after facing a threatening opposition. Flexibility in autocratic menu and the path dependence of government's social policy are likely to explain this kind of hegemonic party's allocative behaviour.