Frequent Elections Research Articles

Issue of ‘One Nation, One Election’ in Indian Perspective

This research examines the potential impacts—both positive and negative—of introducing simultaneous elections across India, known as "One Nation, One Election." This proposed change aims to synchronise national, state, and local election timings to reduce frequent election cycles. The analysis shows that synchronised elections could save significant costs for state and central governments by reducing expenses related to election administration, security, and disruptions in governance. Estimated annual savings could exceed ₹45 billion. The effect on state governments varies; while national issues might overshadow local concerns, state administrations could benefit from more governance-focused time rather than electioneering. This might decrease voter fatigue but could limit expressing dissatisfaction with state governments at different times. From an industry standpoint, synchronised elections offer more stable policies and less political uncertainty. Overall, simultaneous elections promote better governance focus and enhance political and economic stability. The paper provides a comprehensive evaluation based on evidence of the expected pros, cons, costs, and benefits.

Policy experimentation with repeated elections

When is an incumbent incentivized to experiment with risky reform policy in the presence of future elections? We study a dynamic game between two political parties with heterogeneous preferences and a voter. The voter elects a party that then chooses a policy from a status quo and two risky reform policies. Under infrequent elections, the incumbent party experiments with its preferred reform policy even if its outlook is not promising. In contrast, with overly frequent elections, the incumbent prematurely stops experimentation because an imminent election increases the danger of losing power. While infrequent elections are suboptimal, inefficiency from overly frequent elections is severe enough that voter is worse than under a dictatorship. We also show that the voter's ‘incumbent advantage’ behavior could lead to an efficient outcome in the frequent elections limit. Our results suggest that leaders engage in risky reform when the surrounding political environment allows them to fail.

The Place of the Local Government in Nigeria’s Federal Arrangement

Multi-level government arrangements-federal, state/provincial and local government-are common to all federal systems. However, the place and role of local government in those systems vary markedly. In some, local government is a constitutionally recognised sphere of government, while in others it is merely a competence of the state/provincial government, or an administrative unit of a higher order of government. In some federal systems where it is recognised, like Nigeria, the local governments are principally established for socio-economic and political development at the grassroots. Thus, local governance is the prerogative of the local governments in Nigeria. This tier of government established by Section 7 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) has some of its functions detailed in the fourth schedule of the same constitution. The overall objective of this paper is the analysis of the current status of the local government within the Nigerian federal system, and a critical examination of what the future holds for the third tier of government in Nigeria. Using essentially secondary documentary method, with content and thematic analysis, the paper recommends incremental constitutional review (as against mega constitutional renewal), the need to enhance political and economic autonomy of local government through frequent elections, and adopting new strategies for generating internal revenues for the local government in Nigeria.

A Critical Analysis of Democratic Elections as a Dimension of Peace and Legitimacy: A Case Study of the Liberian Electoral System (2005 - 2014)

The purpose of the research was to do an in-depth analysis of elections with a focus on providing a clear understanding of democratic elections as a dimension of peace and legitimacy. The emphasis of the research was on the electoral system of Liberia and the measure of its contribution to the promotion of peace and legitimacy in the country from 2005 to 2014. The researcher used the qualitative research method, descriptive design, and questionnaires as data collection tools. The population of the research was five hundred fifty-five (555) representing the population of the workforce of the National Elections Commission of Liberia and the leaders of registered political parties. The sample size of the research was fifty-five (55) based on Purposive Sampling Techniques (Patton, 1990). The research showed that in spite of frequent elections conducted from 2005 to 2014, not many Liberians understand elections within the framework of the concept of democracy. Many are yet to understand or come to the full realization that there are roles, rights, and responsibilities of the individual citizen in democracy beyond ballot casting. The research further showed that 34.5% of respondents of the total of 55 respondents said the extent to which Liberians understand democracy as a model of governance is very little. This finding has implications for the attainment of genuine peace and legitimacy in Liberia. The researcher concluded that there is an urgent need for government to establish a national mechanism for a rolling public or civic education program that will deepen the understanding of the people on elections and democracy-related issues on a regular basis. In his conclusion, the researcher furthered that this gap is responsible for the reported limited understanding of the citizenry and if the principle of participation must be realized, then efforts have to be made to educate the citizenry on democratic values and principles.

Corruption and politicians’ horizon

This paper presents cross-country evidence about the relationship between politicians’ horizon and their rent-seeking behavior. Using information from CIA’s World Factbook and from the National Elections across Democracy and Autocracy dataset, we construct variables of term limits, term length and political turnover at the top executive level. We simultaneously estimate the correlations between these three variables and corruption—measured using a corruption index—from pooled cross-sections of 137 developed and developing countries observed from 2000 to 2015. We find a positive correlation between corruption and: (i) term limits at low level of term length, (ii) term length in the absence of term limits, and (iii) political turnover. Results suggest that politicians behave best if there are no term limits and frequent elections. We also provide evidence that the downward sloping part of a U-shape relationship between political turnover and corruption previously found in empirical papers can be explained by accountability and observability technologies. Theoretical mechanisms that can explain these findings are discussed.

Disengaging elections? Political interest, number of elections, and turnout in elections to the European Parliament

Since direct elections to the European Parliament began in 1979, variations in voting behavior in European Parliament elections from national elections have raised interesting questions about political behavior. I add to a growing literature that explores turnout in European Parliament elections by focusing on the count of national elections between European Parliament elections. Through a cross-national study of elections, I find that turnout decreases in the European Parliament contest following cycles with numerous national contests. Then, using data from the European Election Study, I argue that this is the result of frequent elections decreasing turnout particularly among already low interest voters who stay home. My findings have implications for how formal rules of multi-level elections shape political behavior more generally and voter fatigue in particular.

Simultaneous elections and flexible legislative terms: a constitutionally preferable approach

ABSTRACT Simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies have been proposed by the NITI Aayog and other government institutions to minimize the disruptions caused by frequent elections which include enormous expenditure, administrative burden, communal violence, policy manipulation, etc. These institutions endeavour to introduce and sustain simultaneous elections with the aid of mechanisms like constructive vote of no-confidence, fixed-term legislatures, and executive rule in case of premature dissolutions. Such proposals are based on the misplaced assumption of the dependence of simultaneity on these mechanisms. We find that simultaneity can be introduced without incurring accountability costs. In a bid to achieve stability in governance, they make the system rigid, attack the principles of democracy and federalism, and erode executive accountability towards the legislature, implicating an important tenet of parliamentary democracy. We suggest alternative models which introduce simultaneity without the aid of these mechanisms through flexible legislative terms and phased elections.

Electing Successive Committees: Complexity and Algorithms

We introduce successive committees elections. The point is that our new model additionally takes into account that “committee members” shall have a short term of office possibly over a consecutive time period (e.g., to limit the influence of elitist power cartels or to keep the social costs of overloading committees as small as possible) but at the same time overly frequent elections are to be avoided (e.g., for the sake of long-term planning). Thus, given voter preferences over a set of candidates, a desired committee size, a number of committees to be elected, and an upper bound on the number of committees that each candidate can participate in, the goal is to find a “best possible” series of committees representing the electorate. We show a sharp complexity dichotomy between computing series of committees of size at most two (mostly in polynomial time) and of committees of size at least three (mostly NP-hard). Depending on the voting rule, however, even for larger committee sizes we can spot some tractable cases.

Partisanship and Popular Politics in a Cornish ‘Pocket’ Borough, 1660–1714†

AbstractHistorians have rarely considered the political views of electorates in small constituencies with strong proprietorial interests, or ‘pocket’ boroughs. However, through a detailed case study of the Cornish borough of Mitchell, this article reveals a rural settlement with a multifaceted and divided community, which experienced a high degree of partisan conflict during the later Stuart period as its inhabitants engaged in an ongoing struggle over the nature of the franchise. A group of often‐disenfranchised inhabitants launched a sustained and independent assault on the lord of the borough's limited franchise, in favour of an inhabitant‐based vote; they were opposed by a group which oscillated between loyalty to the borough's patron and attempts to secure its own influence. Party allegiances and political ideologies can occasionally be identified on both sides, but the franchise dispute did not always align with these divisions. The article argues that while partisan conflict occurred in ‘pocket’ boroughs, it took extraordinary circumstances for this to boil over and facilitate change – in Mitchell's case, these circumstances were the frequent elections to the Exclusion Parliaments, and the patron's self‐imposed exile in France. Yet even once a popular inhabitant‐based vote was established, the widened electorate still found it difficult to determine the outcome of elections, as the borough's patron and local gentry families soon reasserted their authority. Therefore, while the electorates of boroughs such as Mitchell were not supine or monolithic, their ability to actively participate in the electoral process was ultimately fragile.

Experimentation with Repeated Elections

When does an incentive exist for an incumbent to experiment with a risky reform policy in the presence of future elections? To address this question, we study a dynamic game between two political parties with heterogeneous preferences and a voter. The voter elects a party that then chooses a policy from among a safe alternative with known payoffs and two risky ones with initially unknown expected payoffs. We show that under infrequent elections, the incumbent party experiments with its preferred reform policy even if its outlook is not promising, whereas with overly frequent elections, the incumbent stops experimentation prematurely because an imminent election increases the potential to lose power if he undertakes risky reform. While infrequent elections are not ideal for the voter, the degree of inefficiency from overly frequent elections is large enough that voters are worse than under a dictatorship. Efficiency can be restored by combining frequent elections with a voter’s strategy that advantages the incumbent party.

DEMOCRACIA ROMANTIZADA, FRAGMENTAÇÃO POLÍTICA E O DECLÍNIO DO GOVERNO NORTE-AMERICANO

A romantização democrática norte-americana contribui para a disfuncionalidade das instituições de seu governo, ou, ao menos, é o que alega este artigo. Três linhas de pensamentos que modelam esse argumento são desenvolvidas. Primeiro, para entender a paralisia do atual governo norte-americano, é tão importante focar o problema da “fragmentação política”, quanto a extrema polarização dos partidos políticos. Por fragmentação, compreendo a difusão interna do poder político que se distancia das lideranças partidárias e se aproxima das mãos de seus membros individualmente, mas também a difusão externa do poder, distanciando-se dos partidos em direção a organizações não-partidárias. A polarização política de hoje é um produto de um processo histórico de longo prazo e possivelmente duradouro; como resultado, acordos que atravessam linhas partidárias são mais prováveis de vir de líderes de partidos, que possuem o forte incentivo de manter a legenda partidária atraente ao maior eleitorado possível. Mas líderes de partidos só conseguem fazer isso se puderem pressionar seus membros recalcitrantes a se juntar ao acordo; a fragmentação política torna isso mais difícil de se alcançar. Além disso, a revolução das comunicações e a captação de fundos online agora permite que os representantes funcionem mais como empresários independentes do que no passado. Segundo, a ímpar cultura democrática e o desenho institucional norte-americanos contribuem para a fragmentação política. Nosso sistema é muito mais individualista e populista, em sua estrutura, do que o de outras democracias maduras. Leis de financiamento de campanhas, por exemplo, são mais baseadas na ideia de um sistema de eleições individualista e centrado no candidato, do que naquela em que as organizações centrais da política – os partidos políticos – desempenham um papel central. Na particular versão norte-americana da “responsabilidade democrática”, nossos mandatários estão sujeitos a eleições mais frequentes, contemplando-se as primárias, do que representantes eleitos em qualquer outro lugar; nós elegemos muito mais agentes, incluindo-se juízes e promotores, do que qualquer outro país; muitos de nossos esforços para reformas políticas perseguem um maior papel participativo de cidadãos individualmente. Grande parte das atuais propostas para mudar o financiamento de campanhas eleitorais, por exemplo, busca fortalecer “pequenos doadores” ou conceder vouchers a cidadãos, individualmente, que eles podem usar para financiar candidatos. Porém, há motivos para temer que tais práticas alimentarão a fragmentação política e dificultarão a governança efetiva, à medida que doações individuais tendem a desaguar em candidatos ideologicamente mais extremos e polarizados. Terceiro, uma direção distinta para reforma buscaria fortalecer as forças do centrismo e focar mais o poder de organizações do que o poder de indivíduos. Para resistir à fragmentação política, esforços para reforma podem procurar fortificar o papel de partidos políticos e líderes de partidos, de modo que membros individualmente terão menos do que um efetivo poder de veto. Este artigo sugere várias políticas específicas diferentes na área do financiamento de campanhas eleitorais que podem fazer isso ao conferir um papel mais relevante aos partidos políticos no sistema de financiamento de campanhas.

The Electoral Dynamics of Human Development

This paper analyses the impact of elections, partisan and political support effects on the dynamics of human development in a panel of 82 countries over the period 1980–2013. A Generalised Method of Moments(GMM) estimator is employed and the results point out to the presence of an electoral cycle in the growth rate of human development. Majority governments also influence it, but no evidence is found regarding partisan effects. The electoral cycles have proved to be stronger in non-OECD countries, in countries with less frequent elections, with lower levels of income and human development, in presidential and non-plurality systems and in proportional representation regimes.

Election frequency, choice fatigue, and voter turnout

Influential scholars have argued that frequent elections lead to voter fatigue and can therefore be directly responsible for low turnout in countries characterized by frequent contests. However, other theories predict that frequent elections can even increase turnout. The existing empirical evidence is problematic as it simply correlates election frequency with turnout. By contrast, I exploit a natural experiment in the German state of Hesse, where voters from different municipalities faced the same electoral contest but experienced different election frequency, due to the staggered timing of some local elections. I find that when two elections are scheduled within a relatively short period of time, voter turnout at the later election is significantly reduced. This effect is stronger when the election is deemed less important in the eyes of the voters. Election frequency thus might also partly explain the wide turnout gap between first- and second-order elections, as suggested by Lijphart (1997).

Political System In The Republic Of Macedonia And EU - NATO Membership Challenges

The basic functioning of institutions in a country depends on the forms of governance. This is defined on the Constitution of the respective state as the highest legal act. It also depends on the practice functioning of the fundamental institutions in a political system. Macedonia has set parliamentary democracy as a form of governance. However, the functioning of the legal system displays different features, because we are dealing with a multiethnic State, the status of candidate country for membership in EU, and NATO – at the same time, faced with the terms of meeting the criteria for euro – Atlantic membership. Although Macedonia is determined to have representative democracy as a form of governance, institutions are functioning with very special specifications. They constantly create new practices, such as frequent elections and early parliamentary Self-dissolution of parliament which was aimed at overcoming the political crisis. There was also an annulment of the decision of the assembly and practices of the practical operation of institutions. However, this makes parliamentary life in Macedonia to be specific from other democratic standards. Specific issue involving the constitutional and legal position of the communities, at various times, has been regulated in different forms. Furthermore, it is more advanced after the signing of the Ohrid Framework Agreement in 2001. At the same time, it presents a challenge in itself and provides an act of harmonized internal legislation to the European Union. This is with genuine parliamentarian debates because the harmonization of legislation requires the implementation of the same laws. Also, it does not just adopt them without been harmonized with the reality in the country.

An Opportunity for Backing Down: Looking for an Electoral Connection to Audience Costs

AbstractThis paper explores the time-inconsistency problem of audience costs in international disputes. The nature of democracy makes it difficult for leaders to back down from earlier diplomatic positions in an international dispute, out of fear of domestic political costs. Few studies have addressed the temporal aspect of such costs. This study argues that election timing impinges on the extent to which the audience cost mechanism works, and consequently, on state conflict behavior. While competitive elections are central to the political accountability inherent in a democracy, voters typically lack enough opportunities to punish unsatisfactory leaders in a timely way, because of fixed election timing, and also may disregard foreign policy missteps that occurred in the distant past. Democratic leaders therefore have an incentive to choose strategically, with the electoral calendar in mind, when selecting a form of conflict behavior. Leaders can retreat from their demands without paying high audience costs when the upcoming election is in the distant future. To test this argument, the authors conduct a natural experiment featuring territorial disputes between Russia and two Baltic republics – Estonia and Latvia. Despite the commonalities in the disputes, as well as in their political systems and socioeconomic backgrounds, the governments of the two Baltic countries showed a sharp contrast in their diplomatic decisions. This paper argues that only the temporal gap in electoral timing can explain this variation, imparting the ironical implication that frequent democratic elections can obstruct peaceful conflict resolutions, and that excessive democratization may well hinder the very goal of peace.

Transitional Justice in Iraq: Learning the Hard Way

The relationship between transitional justice and democracy is fraught and complex, and nowhere more so than in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Iraq has experienced a range of transitional justice initiatives, including the trial and execution of its former leader, purges of the civil service and the military, and a series of reconciliation conferences. Yet democracy has not fully taken root and violence continues to plague many parts of the nation on a regular basis. This article argues that initiatives aimed at changing the structure of society – including but not limited to constitutionalism, frequent elections and the development of an independent judiciary – are more likely than purely symbolic efforts to contribute to the consolidation of democracy in the long term. It is these structural developments that have the greatest potential to transform society into a true democracy under the rule of law.

Making big decisions for the future

The Treasury’s long-term fiscal projections are designed to inform present-day policy. They draw attention to existing trends and potential future global and national developments in society, demography, politics, technology and the economy, and the fiscal implications of continuing existing policy unchanged through those changes over the next 40 years and beyond. They highlight that the later action is taken to offset an anticipated impact, the greater the policy change may have to be and also potentially the cost, not just in money but also in social cohesion if unusual intergenerational tensions develop as a consequence. But if large adjustments have to be made, even if over time, how might that be done in a representative democracy in which the ultimate decisionmakers, the politicians, are subject to frequent elections in which political folklore tells us the determinant issues are proximate and ‘courageous’ leaders are sacrificed to short-term voter self-interest?

Research on the algorithm of Load-balanced Hierarchical Topology Control for WSN

In terms of the characteristics of itself node number, density and topology dynamic change in wireless sensor network, according to the wireless transmission energy consumption model REDM, Load-balanced Hierarchical Topology Control Algorithm based on LEACH algorithm is designed. The algorithm still uses the concept of round. Substitute cluster head and load evaluation method are introduced in view of frequent election of cluster head after cluster head failure. It can reduce cluster formation frequency, balance network energy consumption, extend the network lifetime and improve network management efficiency. Finally, the simulation results have verified this conclusion.

The Dynamic Electoral Connection: Symbolic Representation and the Effects of Elections on Public Perception of Elected Officials

Scholars have long recognized that elections, by themselves, are not enough to ensure the vitality of democratic governance (e.g., Dahl 1971). Sham elections in authoritarian states throughout the world (e.g., Cuba, Iraq) illustrate that Madison’s claim that frequent elections are essential, also requires meaningful choice to ensure that the government has ....an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people.” (Federalist 52). For citizens’ voices to matter, they must be given a choice between candidates and they must have the capacity to evaluate them. In this paper, we investigate how elections affect the nature of non-policy representation. We focus on the behavior both of legislators and citizens to examine how, and to what extent, impending elections affect legislators’ non-policy behavior and citizens responses to such changes. To do so we employ text analysis to explain how citizens’ evaluations of their elected officials correspond with pursuit the re-election goal. We ultimately find mixed results on this idea, indicating a need for further study into the topic of election and citizens’ perceptions.

How Did They Do It? Explaining Queensland Labor's Second Electoral Hegemony

Australia's entrenched liberal democratic traditions of a free media, fair and frequent elections and robust public debate might encourage outside observers to assume Australia is subject to frequent changes in government. The reality is very different: Australian politics have instead been ‘largely unchanged’ since the beginning of our bipolar party system in 1910 (Aitkin 1977, p. 1), with Australians re-electing incumbents on numerous occasions for decades on end. The obvious federal example is the 23-year dominance of the Liberal-Country Party Coalition, first elected in 1949 and re-endorsed at the following eight House of Representatives elections. Even more protracted electoral hegemonies have been found at state level, including Labor's control of Tasmania (1934–82, except for 1969–72) and New South Wales (1941–65), and the Liberals' hold on Victoria (1952–82) and South Australia (1938–65, most unusually under one Premier, Thomas Playford). It is therefore not a question of whether parties can enjoy excessively long hegemonies in Australia; it is instead one of how they achieve it.