Multiparty System Research Articles

Political Parties and Electoral Volatility: How (un)stable is the Albanian Electorate?

This paper offers an in-depth analysis of electoral volatility in Albania from 1991 to 2021, a transformative period from a communist regime to a democratic multi-party system. It diverges from Central and Eastern European trends by examining Albania's unique political dynamics and the factors influencing electoral behavior and volatility. Utilizing the Pedersen Index, the study methodically evaluates various determinants impacting party electoral volatility in Albania. The research underscores the significance of high membership rates and robust ground organization within major political parties as key contributors to low volatility levels in Albania's party system, thus providing insight into the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Albania's political landscape.

Priorities of Political Communication in Armenia’s Internal Politics

Currently, the effective use of political communication to confront internal threats to national security is an important issue in the Republic of Armenia (RA). Among the internal threats, the author singled out the absence of a stable civil society, the non-establishment of the multi-party system, the neglect of the feedback mechanism in the state’s political communication, etc. In particular, the following are the main reasons for the weakness of the multi-party system in RA:  weak connection with voters, being active only during election periods,  unclear ideological orientation,  personnel policy, the weak structure of internal democracy and autonomy.  not sufficient representation in all provinces  non-transparency of political and financial activities,  weak control over the activity of parties.

Is Negative Campaigning a Response to a Dynamic Polling Environment? Evidence from Facebook and Twitter Posts by German Party Leaders in the 2021 German Federal Election

ABSTRACT Do negative campaigning strategies evolve in sync with a party leader’s position in public opinion polls? In Germany’s multi-party system, previous research during the traditional media era found that a chancellor candidate’s drop in the polls did not impact negativity. This study focuses on the dynamic campaign in the 2021 Federal Election, which is the most competitive campaign to date in the social media era as there was no incumbent chancellor candidate. The prevalence of negative campaigning by six major party leaders who made a total of n = 3580 posts on Facebook and Twitter from 1 March to Election Day on 25 September 2021 is studied here. Negative posts accounted for 7.7 per cent of total posts. Results also show that a chancellor candidate’s position in the polls matters: Front-runners are less likely to rely on negative campaigning, but as candidates drop down in the polls from being the main challenger to rank third or lower, their negative campaigning increases. During the official six-week campaign or the hot phase, the number of negative posts increases overall as Election Day approaches. Variation in the use of negative campaigning among the individual chancellor candidates is discussed as is evidence of negative campaigning prior to the hot phase.

Made to measure: interest group message customization in a multi-party system

Made to measure: interest group message customization in a multi-party system

Политические партии в процессе осуществления политической модернизации России

The article analyzes the place and role of political parties in the process of political modernization of the Russian Federation, in the formation of a unified system of public power and in the functioning of the political system of society. Attention is focused on the historical background and stages of the development of the multiparty system in Russia, from the end of the XIX century to the present. It is concluded that in the context of foreign policy challenges and internal transformations, Russian political parties have demonstrated their maturity and ability to consolidate society around the priorities of state policy. The process of Russia's political modernization cannot be imagined without the active participation and development of political parties, which, despite all the challenges and deviations, continue to be an important factor in strengthening democratic institutions and state sovereignty.

Enhancing Task-Oriented Dialogue Systems through Synchronous Multi-Party Interaction and Multi-Group Virtual Simulation

This paper presents two innovative approaches: a synchronous multi-party dialogue system that engages in simultaneous interactions with multiple users, and multi-group simulations involving virtual user groups to evaluate the resilience of this system. Unlike most other chatbots that communicate with each user independently, our system facilitates information gathering from multiple users and executes 17 administrative tasks for group requests adeptly by leveraging a state machine-based framework for complete control over dialogue flow and a large language model (LLM) for robust context understanding. Assessing such a unique dialogue system poses challenges, as it requires many groups of users to interact with the system concurrently for an extended duration. To address this, we simulate various virtual groups using an LLM, each comprising 10–30 users who may belong to multiple groups, in order to evaluate the efficacy of our system; each user is assigned a persona and allowed to interact freely without scripts. As a result, our system shows average success rates of 87% for task completion and 89% for natural language understanding. Comparatively, our virtual simulation, which has an average success rate of 80%, is juxtaposed with a group of 15 human users, depicting similar task diversity and error trends. To our knowledge, it is the first work to show the LLM’s potential in both task execution and the simulation of a synchronous dialogue system to fully automate administrative tasks.

THE EVOLUTION OF MULTIPARTY POLITICS IN UZBEKISTAN: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT

This article examines the development of the multiparty system in Uzbekistan, highlighting the key stages and milestones since independence. It outlines the role of political parties in fostering democratic governance and representing the interests of diverse social groups in society. The paper explores the historical formation of political parties in Uzbekistan, from the cessation of the one-party system to the establishment of legal frameworks that empower political parties in shaping state power. The emergence of the Ecological Party of Uzbekistan is discussed as a significant event in the country’s evolving political landscape. Furthermore, the article addresses the current challenges faced by political parties, including the lack of political ideology, limited public awareness of political rights, and the need for improved competition among parties. The author argues that enhancing the legal foundation of parties and increasing their involvement in governance is essential for deepening democratic reforms. The article concludes with recommendations to strengthen political party participation, foster public trust, and promote active competition in Uzbekistan’s political system.

Qualitative comparative analysis of policies implemented by 26 European countries during the 2020 great lockdown.

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, from March 1 to April 15, 2020, significant variations emerged among countries regarding the implementation of lockdown policies. During this period, viewed strictly from an epidemiological perspective, lockdown measures are considered the most effective means of containing a pandemic. However, the adoption of such measures varied, raising questions about whether the reluctance or failure of countries to implement lockdown policies reflected a disregard for epidemiological knowledge or stemmed from an inability to enforce these measures. This article employs Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) with 26 European countries as case studies to investigate under what combination of conditions a country would implement lockdown policies. The QCA results identify three distinct combinations of conditions that lead countries to implement lockdown measures. First, countries with relatively concentrated political power are more likely to implement lockdown policies. Among the 10 countries governed by a majority party or majority coalition within a two-party or moderate multi-party system, seven implemented lockdown policies. Second, in cases of relatively dispersed political power, countries facing state fragility risks are more likely to implement lockdown policies. Among the eight countries that meet both conditions, five implemented lockdown policies. Finally, factors such as political heritage, severity of the pandemic, demographic composition, healthcare access, quality standards, and the ruling party's ideology play a lesser role in the decision to enact lockdown measures. This article offers a novel perspective on the dynamics of party politics and state capacity in the context of decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between political systems and public health crisis management, highlighting how various political and governance factors influence the adoption of public health interventions during crises.

Why has Europe become the concentration area of multi-party states: A novel explanatory model of multifactorial mechanism

The existence of a multi-party system is one of the most important criterion for assessing the degree of democratization of a state. In contemporary democratic republics, the multi-party system has become a formalistic representation. However, in Europe, the de facto multi-party systems are extensively retained, making Europe a veritable concentration area of multi-party states. This research delved into the phenomenon and conducted a qualitative comparative analysis on the cases of 44 European countries to explore the factors contributing to multi-party states’ agglomeration in Europe. The findings demonstrate a novel explanatory model of multifactorial mechanism of Europe becoming the concentration area of multi-party states, whose solution coverage is 0.7 and solution consistency is 0.954545. According to the model, a developed country with a tradition of parliamentary government is more likely to possess a well-established multi-party system in a non-religious environment. High levels of educational attainment and political participation of the population allow a multi-party system to emerge and continue. Furthermore, the model indicates that a strong Christian culture hinders the development of multi-party systems to some extent, while economy growth has a direct and positive relationship with the formation and continuation of multi-party systems.

FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF MULTIPARTY REGIONAL SYSTEMS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

The article examines the peculiarities of the formation and development of multiparty system in the regions at the present stage of Russia’s political development. The article analyzes the processes of transformation of the Russian party system in the context of systematic changes in the mechanisms of legislative regulation of their party and political activities. The aim of the study is to determine the degree of influence of the regional party system on the exercise of political power in Russian regions. This is necessary to determine the main directions for improving the system of party legislation in the process of establishing a new political system. Conclusions. As a result of the conducted research, a number of unresolved contradictions in the formation and development of the modern Russian regional party system have been identified. These contradictions do not allow this type of party system to achieve the level of influence that would give them the opportunity to really and effectively participate in the current political process. It can be argued that the party systems that have developed today in the regions are lagging behind in their development in comparison with the all-Russian party system. The author concludes that in order to change the current situation, it is necessary to improve the quality of representation from political parties in regional and municipal authorities. In order for political parties in the regions to articulate the interests and needs of various social groups, they must have the necessary power resources in making decisions on the leadership and management of the region. One of such ways to increase the level of influence of the regional party system is, in the author’s opinion, the reform of party legislation in the direction of creating broader opportunities, both for creating parties of different political spectrum and for increasing their power capabilities.

Is a “Responsible Prime Minister” Impossible under Presidentialism? The Weak Constitutional Premiership and the Political Conditions for an Exception to Emerge in South Korea

This paper explores under what political conditions a “responsible prime minister” can emerge in a presidential system, focusing on South Korea after the 1987 democratization. Under presidentialism, premiers lack the constitutional resources to make themselves into a “responsible prime minister” independent from the president. Even such political resources as high popularity, deep trust from the president, and influence over the legislature are not enough to make them a “responsible prime minister”. Thus, most premiers remain a highly compliant subordinate of their president in Korea. By contrast, in a multi-party system Kim Dae-jung (DJ) sought to invite a third party, the United Liberal Democrats, into the “DJP Alliance” in order to win a highly competitive presidential election and therefore had to yield the prime-ministerial post to the head of the coalition partner party, Kim Jong-pil (JP). Under these political conditions, JP could be a “responsible prime minister” as an exception.

Blockchain-Enabled Secure Data Sharing with Honey Encryption and DSNN-Based Key Generation

Ensuring data confidentiality is a critical requirement for modern security systems globally. Despite the implementation of various access-control policies to enhance system security, significant threats persist due to insecure and inadequate access management. To address this, Multi-Party Authorization (MPA) systems employ multiple authorities for authorization and authentication, utilizing blockchain technology to store and access data securely, ensuring immutable and trusted audit trails. In this work, we propose a hybrid key-generation approach called the Identity and Attribute-Based Honey Encryption (IABHE) Algorithm combined with Deep Spiking Neural Network (DSNN) denoted by IABHE+DSNN for secure data sharing in a multi-party blockchain-based system. This approach incorporates various entities and multiple security functionalities to ensure data security. The data-sharing process involves several steps: initialization, authentication, initial registration, data protection, validation, and data sharing. Data protection is executed within the MapReduce framework, with data encryption performed using IABHE and key generation managed by DSNN. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed IABHE+DSNN approach achieves a decryption time of 10.786 s, an encryption time of 15.765 s, and a key complexity of 0.887, outperforming existing methods.

THE SECOND CONSTITUTIONAL ERA IN THE CONTEXT OF MULTI-PARTY SYSTEM IN TURKIYE

There is no consensus among authors as to when the multi-party system started in Turkiye. While some authors state that the multi-party system in Turkiye started in the Second Constitutional Era, many authors generally accept that the multi-party system in Turkiye started after the Second World War. The second position has become so common that it has come to affect authors’ perceptions; whenever the transition to multi-party system in Turkiye is mentioned, the process that started in 1945 first comes to mind. This study argues that the multi-party system in Turkiye started in the Second Constitutional Era, a view that is contrary to which is widely known and accepted. The Second Constitutional Era was a period that started in 1908 when Abdulhamid II was forced to restore the Constitution of 1976 and continued until the end of 1918. It is necessary to divide this ten-year period into two parts: the period until 1913 when the Committee of Union and Progress was not the only authority and the following period which was marked by the Committee’s unchallenged rule. The second period under the authoritarian rule of the Committee can not be regarded as a multi-party regime, but rather a period of single-party rule. For this reason, the multi-party system is a phenomenon that we encounter in the first part of the Second Constitutional Era. In this context, the current study aims to reveal this multi-party regime by focusing on political life, especially the cabinets, political parties, and elections of the period, and also to change the common opinion in literature.

A mechanism design approach for multi-party machine learning

In a multi-party machine learning system, different parties cooperate on optimizing towards better models by sharing data in a privacy-preserving way. A major challenge in learning is the incentive issue. For example, if there is competition among the parties, one may strategically hide their data to prevent other parties from getting better models.In this paper, we study the problem through the lens of mechanism design and incorporate the features of multi-party learning in our setting. First, each agent's valuation has externalities that depend on others' types and actions. Second, each agent can only misreport a type lower than his true type, but not the other way round. We provide the optimal truthful mechanism in the separable utility setting, as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for truthful mechanisms in general cases. Finally, we propose an algorithm to find the desirable mechanism that is truthful, individually rational, efficient and weakly budget-balanced, and analyze the computational complexity of the algorithm.

Voice, access, and ownership: enabling environments for nutrition advocacy in India and Nigeria

What constitutes an enabling environment for nutrition advocacy in low- and middle-income countries? While a sizeable body of scholarship considers the enabling environment for nutrition policy, we focus specifically on the necessary conditions for advocacy. We argue that three factors—voice, access, and ownership—provide a useful lens into the advocacy enabling environment. These are operationalized, respectively, as the space to articulate and frame policy positions, entry points to interact with policy decision makers, and the existence of committed decision makers rather than those responding to pressures from external actors. These three factors are explored vis-à-vis a comparative analysis of two federal democracies—India and Nigeria—that each have vibrant advocacy communities confronting persistent malnutrition. Drawing on more than 100 structured interviews with nutrition advocates, government actors, donors, and researchers in the two countries, we highlight the ways in which voice, access, and ownership interactively shape advocacy efforts. In doing so, we find that Nigeria has a less ideological approach to certain nutrition issues than in India but also perceived to be more beholden to external actors in defining its nutrition actions. Recent restrictions on freedom of speech and association shrunk the civic space in India but these were less problematic in Nigeria. In both countries, the multi-tiered, multi-party system offers many different points of access into the policy arena, with sometimes negative implications for coordination. Overall, the paper contributes more broadly to the literature on enabling environments by highlighting potential indicators to guide nutrition advocates in other settings.

The history of studying the problem of transformation of the Spanish political system on the example of the activity of the party «Citizens» (2015-2022)

The paper offers an analysis of modern research devoted to the qualification of the state of the modern political system in Spain. The author's attention is focused on the interpretation of systemic changes, the indicator of which was the activity of a new national party – "Citizens". The activities of the "Citizens" revealed the crisis of the traditional political system, based, in particular, on bipartisanship, within which two national forces dominated the country for more than 30 years – the conservative People's Party (NP) and the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). Therefore, the activity of the Citizens Party in 2015-2022 is an illustrative example of the changes taking place in the country's political system. The author systematized the main directions of modern historiography, both Spanish and Russian, paying attention to the logic of their formation, the focuses of research interest, the source base and the methods used by specialists. The methodological basis of the work is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, systematic analysis; historical and genetic method and comparative approach, which is due to the research logic of studying works on the transformation of the Spanish political system over time, and involves a comparative analysis of domestic and foreign literature. The conclusion is made about the similarity of methodology and sources; the "turn" in the study of Spanish Transit and the party-political system formed in 1975-1982 is defined – the transition from "modeling" to historical specifics. The main characteristics of the Spanish political system that exist in modern research are revealed, and the controversial prospects for the evolution of the system are noted. The author's qualification of the party system (the movement from bipartism to unstable multiparty system) dominates both modern historical works and political analysis. Modern researchers and analysts mainly paid their attention to the bright Podemos party, which is associated with its loud rhetoric and opposition to the constitutional foundations of Spain, but the activities of "Citizens", despite their activity in a crisis situation, turned out to be on the sidelines of research interest.

A Comparison of Legislative Election Systems in Indonesia and Malaysia

The article aimed to analyze the comparison of electoral systems in Indonesia and Malaysia due to relevant differences and similarities. In Malaysia, the legislative election system was implemented to elect members of the People Council using a district platform. Meanwhile, Indonesia used an Open Proportional system to elect members of the National and Regional Representative Councils. A total of three aspects were also compared between both countries through a legal research and comparative approach, namely Government, Election, and Party Systems. Data collection was subsequently carried out through empirical studies, including interviews and literature reviews. The results showed that differences in government systems, state forms, and administration were observed between Indonesia and Malaysia, where proportional and district electoral platforms were implemented, respectively. Despite the differences, the two countries still had various similarities, such as the implementation of a multiparty system using different party coalition platforms. Variations were also observed in the implementation of voting rights by soldiers and convicts within both countries.

GOVERNMENT COALITION PARTIES' INTEREST CONFLICT AND THEIR ETHICS BASED ON SURAH AL-MUMTAHANAH

A multi-party system of governance, which is based on idiosyncratically and culturally diverse identities, is so prone to disintegration that it will erode public trust. Government confidence and authority declined as a result of problems that emerged as government coalitions were formed. The most notable of these included the rejection of influence, the politicization of the law, the arrogance of officials, the repudiation of offices, and the accumulation of wealth in unwarranted ways. The author's motivation to solve the formula problem, "What is the ethics of coalition multi-party government from the perspective of the Quran's interpretation of Surah Al-Mumtahanah verses eight and nine?" stems from the aforementioned issue. Descriptive and qualitative analysis research on the ethical normative analysis conducted in the Republic of Indonesia's cabinet between 2019 and 2024 is associated with the principles of Quranic ethics, which call for cooperation. The novel observation made by the author is that the coalition is a close-knit political organization that does not marginalize friends and instead stands tall and sits low, unlike a two-legged, power-sharing political party. Coalitions also foster cooperation, which advances mankind, fosters justice, and unites people.

Fairy-tale prince or voivode? Royalist propaganda and theories of monarchy under Carol II of Romania

ABSTRACT The article discusses the self-portrayal of the ‘Royal Dictatorship’ of Carol II of Romania and analyses four theories of monarchy produced or published under his regime. It shows that the Romanian ‘Royal Dictatorship’ relied on leitmotifs targeting the multiparty system, territorial revisionism, and the Iron Guard, but that it lacked a coherent official doctrine. The article argues that this void allowed for Romanian theorists of monarchy to draw divergent, Western or (pseudo-)autochthonous genealogies for the regime. To this effect, it examines theories of monarchy by Mihail Fărcășanu, Paul Negulescu, Cezar Petrescu, and Theodor Vlădescu.

Television in the Republic of Moldova: a decade of transformation (1988 – 1998)

The initial years of this decade marked the transition from totalitarianism to democracy. During this time, the pluralism of opinions, the establishment of a multiparty system, and the embrace of freedom of expression became legally recognized realities, even within the remnants of Soviet society. This shift laid the foundation for the emergence of independent journalism. Following the Republic of Moldova, s declaration of sovereignty in 1990 and its subsequent independence in 1991, significant changes took place. State Television evolved into National Television, introducing programs that addressed pressing societal issues. However, after 1993, there were noticeable regressions. The media landscape began reverting to some of its former practices, such as increasing the number of broadcasts that solely highlighted the activities of state bodies. These reports often lacked diverse perspectives, echoing the onesided narratives of the totalitarian era. By the close of the decade, funding for television was slashed, leading to a reduction in broadcast hours (to as few as 6 hours daily). This limited coverage hindered a comprehensive discussion of the myriad challenges facing society.