Pre-electoral Period Research Articles

Political monetary cycles: An empirical study

After decades of research, discussions related to the link between political events and monetary policy have been ongoing. The purpose of this study is to examine whether electorally induced cycles in monetary policy exist. To achieve this, a unique panel dataset comprising 110 countries over 32 periods (1985–2016) was constructed, incorporating election periods and political regimes. This study provides evidence that elections influence monetary policy in developed and developing countries. Specifically, the study reveals that the growth of monetary mass (measured as the growth rate of M1) is significantly higher during pre-electoral periods. On average, the growth of monetary mass is between 1.1% and 2% higher during the 12 months prior to a national election. Furthermore, the study conducts an extensive analysis on the type of institutional frameworks that may mitigate these political monetary cycles. it suggest that free and fair elections, left-wing incumbents and the seniority of central banks contributes to reducing the magnitude these political monetary cycles.

Interactive Election Campaigns on Social Media? Flow of Political Information Among Journalists and Politicians as an Element of the Communication Strategy of Political Actors

ABSTRACT This study examined politicians’ communication strategies with journalists in Poland within the context of the flow of information on social media (Facebook and Twitter). The main questions posed in the article concerned which entities used which patterns of information flow, and whether during election campaigns, politicians communicated with journalists on social media by reacting to the latter’s published posts. The study focused on pre-electoral periods of two consecutive parliamentary elections in Poland conducted in 2015 and 2019. The results showed that politicians rarely reacted to journalists’ Twitter posts. If they did, they most often used reactive communication. Additionally, political actors from opposition parties more intensely used information flow patterns with a higher level of interactivity in 2019 than in 2015.

Depois de eleitas : os desafios de deputadas federais para o exercício do mandato

PROBLEMATIC: The problematic of this article covers the analysis of the difficulties that female federal deputies face after being elected to office. After being elected, are they treated equally by the parties and the House in relation to the deputies? What specific difficulties do they face in exercising their mandate? OBJECTIVE: The present study aims to assess what are the main obstacles that female members of Congress face during their term of office, based on their own perceptions. METHODS: The methodological strategies consist of three stages. Firstly, for exploratory purposes, an online focus group was conducted with advisors to female congresswomen in order to capture the perceptions of those who deal directly with them on a daily basis and are familiar with the problems they face. Secondly, based on the preliminary results of the focus group, a survey with closed and open questions was carried out with four paired groups: (a) advisors of the offices of the parliamentarians in Brasilia; (b) advisors of their offices in the states; (c) advisors of the party leaderships; (d) advisors of the standing committees of the House, totaling 506 respondents. The last stage of the research consisted of face-to-face interviews with the women deputies themselves, with the objective of hearing directly from them how they face the problems resulting from the condition of being a woman. RESULT: The results show that the obstacles are not restricted to the pre-electoral period, but permeate the entire mandate of the women already elected, thus hindering the advancement and consolidation of female political representation in Brazil in the Legislative Branch.Legislative Branch. CONCLUSIONS: The conclusions show that the election of female representatives is not enough, but mainly the existence of institutional conditions so that women can fully exercise their role as political subjects.fully exercise their role as political subjects, that is, that the representatives can effectively exercise their mandate in harmony with the causes they defend, on behalf of the social groups they represent.

Summary Judicial Proceedings as a Measure for Electoral Disinformation: Defining the European Standard

AbstractElectoral disinformation has become one of the most challenging problems for democratic states. All of them are facing the phenomenon of - both online and offline - dissemination of false information during pre-electoral period, which is harmful for individual and collective rights. As a consequence, some European countries adopted special measures, including summary judicial proceedings in order to declare that information or materials used in electioneering are false and to prohibit its further dissemination. There are already three rulings of the ECtHR concerning this expeditious judicial examination provided in the Polish law. In December 2018 France passed complex regulation against manipulation of information that include similar mechanisms. This article, basing on the ECtHR’s case law and some national experiences, attempts to define the minimal European standard for measures targeted at electoral disinformation, especially judicial summary proceeding. It contains the analysis of the notion of electoral disinformation, defines the state’s positive obligations in this sphere, and indicates mayor challenges for the legal framework. The principal argument is that summary judicial proceedings – if adequately designed – cannot be questioned from the Convention standpoint and provide a partial solution to the problem of electoral disinformation.

Election boycott in a hybrid regime: The case of 2020 parliamentary elections in Serbia

The 2020 elections in Serbia were held on 21st of June, as the first elections in Europe since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic. The pre-electoral period was marked by the announcement of boycott from opposition, followed by a number of attempts of ruling party to mitigate the potential negative effects. The decision of opposition to restrain from participation came as a response to the long-term accusations of heavily biased electoral and media conditions, which culminated in EU-mediated (but largely unsuccessful) roundtable talks in 2019. On a larger scale, the administration headed by the President Aleksandar Vučić is becoming increasingly authoritarian, with several indices now classifying Serbia as a hybrid regime. As expected, the elections brought a convincing victory to Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party, which won 188 out of 250 seats. Despite the overwhelming triumph, government was formed more than four months later. This paper is contributing to the literature on actors’ strategies in hybrid regimes. Although only short-term effects of the boycott could be assessed, the 2020 elections in Serbia demonstrate that legitimacy of the regime cannot be endangered if the opposition is not supported by international actors, and moreover, that the election results have only strengthened the regime.

The impact of women’s leadership in local governments: the case of Spain

The main objective of this article is to analyze whether the gender of the mayor and the municipal council members affects compliance with the principles of budgetary stability and financial sustainability established in the Spanish legislation, for the period 2013–2016. We find that the leadership of women mayors in local governments contributes to improving their financial situation. In particular, the presence of women mayors governing with a high proportion of female councilors (in compliance with the quota law) increases the probability of budgetary stability, financial sustainability and remaining within the legal debt limit. In addition, the results show that in pre-electoral periods, women mayors are less likely to employ strategies designed to enhance their reelection chances.

How does legislative behavior change when the country becomes democratic? The case of South Korea

The Political Legislation Cycle theory predicts a peak of legislative production in the pre-electoral period, when legislators focus on voters’ welfare to be reelected. This paper verifies the theory on South Korean legislative production (1948–2016); it is the first test of the theory in a country undergoing a process of democratization, thus providing evidence relevant also for the conditional political cycles literature. Two insofar untested hypotheses are verified: 1) peaks of legislative production should increase with the degree of democracy; 2) as the party system and the mechanisms of legislative checks and balances develop, the PLC should become more evident in bills of legislative rather than executive’s initiative. A hurdle model estimated on both laws of parliamentary proposal and of government assignment lends empirical support to both hypotheses, with the noticeable feature that PLC in Korea appear more in the form of an upward trend than of pre-electoral peaks.

Politics in Poor Places? Clientelism and Elections in Democracies

We review a decade of literature on clientelism, a central topic in the study of developing democracies. We define clientelism as the discretionary distribution of public resources by politicians. We distinguish clientelism that occurs in the pre-electoral period (electoral clientelism) from that which occurs between elections (welfare clientelism). We provide new cross-national evidence questioning whether clientelism is actually effective in the sense of securing reelection for the politicians who engage in it. We offer ideas to understand why politicians continue to practice it nonetheless. Finally, we suggest that clientelism evolves with economic development, assuming new forms in highly developed democracies but not disappearing.

Regulación legal de las encuestas electorales: análisis teórico y comparado

La importancia general que las encuestas electorales han adquirido y el impacto particular que se ha identificado que tienen en el periodo preelectoral han llevado a su regulación jurídica. Ello ha generado una discusión en torno a cuál es la regulación más adecuada para considerar los diferentes intereses en juego. El presente trabajo busca analizar críticamente la actual forma de regulación en el derecho comparado que, por un lado, establece un periodo blackout para la publicación de encuestas y, por otro, establece la obligación de disclosure para la comprensión y evaluación de los resultados de las encuestas. Se revisa el derecho comparado de forma panorámica y se ahonda en los casos de Estados Unidos, Canadá, España, Francia, Colombia y Chile. Se observa que las obligaciones de disclosure son menos problemáticas que el blackout en la medida que afecta de manera más tenue a las libertades de expresión e información. Sin embargo, al introducir algunos elementos teóricos que podrían servir para calificar y comprender mejor los intereses en juego, a saber, la libertad de expresión y el correcto funcionamiento de la democracia, se identifica una justificación robusta y satisfactoria no sólo para el disclosure sino también para el blackout.

Raising the stakes: Land titling and electoral stability in Kenya

How does large-scale land reform affect electoral stability and the prospects for election violence? While scholars have theorized elite-level logics of land distribution, few studies analyze the effects of land reform on the attitudes of ordinary citizens, and the implications such reforms have for electoral violence. The article uses an original survey and qualitative interviews in coastal Kenya to examine the effects of the Kenyan government’s recent land titling campaign, the most ambitious and extensive since independence. It theorizes and tests the micro-mechanisms through which the selective distribution of land rights in the pre-electoral period heightens or lowers the stakes of an electoral outcome by altering levels of political trust and perceived threat. Results indicate that title deed beneficiaries are more likely to trust political institutions than non-beneficiaries. Yet, while title deed recipients are more likely to trust state institutions, they are also more likely to fear the electoral process compared to non-beneficiaries. The findings reveal how the perceived stakes of an election can vary across local spaces. Where political trust is low and threat is high, citizens may view elections as particularly high-stakes events and, thus, may be more willing to take on the costs of participation in violence to ensure their preferred political outcome, or to defend themselves against anticipated attacks.

Changing patterns of party unity in the Knesset: The consequences of the Israeli anti-defection law

This article explores the consequences of the Israeli anti-defection law for the rate and timing of party switching in the Knesset. Its central finding is that while the anti-defection law has failed to act as a strong deterrent against party exits and defections, it (i) moved defections to the immediate pre-electoral period and (ii) encouraged collective party switching via the formation of new party groups as opposed to solo defections. While these effects can be directly attributed to the incentives that are generated by the legislation, the Israeli case holds an important implication for the comparative study of anti-defection laws: such laws may not improve legislative party unity if there are other institutions, such as the electoral system and candidate selection practices, that have a countervailing effect and incentivize party exit.

Legislative Cycles in a Semipresidential System

The political-legislation-cycle theory predicts a peak of legislative production in the pre-electoral period, when the legislator focuses on voters' welfare in order to be reelected. This paper tests the theory on the French semipresidential system, characterized by direct election of both the executive and the legislative branch. We use a data set that encompasses all the legislation passed in France from 1959 to 2012 at a monthly rate, and find a dual cycle of the production of laws, connected to both the presidential and the legislative elections.

How do elections affect international cooperation? Evidence from environmental treaty participation

Is there a strategically beneficial time for political leaders to make international environmental commitments? Based on the political cycles theory, we argue that leaders have incentives to delay costly ratification of international environmental agreements to the post-electoral period. However, the cost of participating in these agreements is often lower for developing countries, and they may enjoy indirect advantages, which may make them more prone to ratifying in the pre-electoral period. These hypotheses are assessed empirically by studying the ratification process of 41 global environmental agreements censused in the Environmental Treaties and Resources Indicators’ database from 1976 to 1999. We use a duration model in which time is measured on a daily basis, enabling us to precisely identify pre- and post-electoral periods—a significant challenge in political cycles studies. Our investigation reveals the existence of political ratification cycles that are of substantial magnitude and non-linear over the pre- and post-electoral years.

What is left for parties? An overview of party mandate in France 1981–2009

The review draws on the author’s recent book to explore the long-standing question of the influence of partisanship on policy implementation. Partisanship is traditionally expected to exert an influence on policy implementation, because, on the one hand, citizens perceive their vote as an expression of preference towards a certain set of policies, whereas, on the other, parties conceive policies as tools to differentiate themselves from one another in the electoral market. However, the consistence between parties’ preferences and the policies they enact is often questioned. I argue that party mandate is best understood as the correspondence between partisan and institutional agendas. Drawing on the Comparative Agendas Project data on Party Manifestos, Communiques du Conseil des Ministres and passed legislation (1981–2009), I show that party preferences matter but their influence on public policy is weak. Moreover, this study confirms that the institutional configuration has an impact on party mandate but exclusively with respect to the executive agenda. Finally, this research shows that French mainstream parties follow electoral business cycles, and party mandate appeared to be stronger in pre-electoral periods. The present research holds important implications for the study of the influence of parties on policymaking, on policy change and more in general for studies dealing with the quality of representative democracy.

Public spending interactions and local politics. Empirical evidence from French municipalities

This paper aims at testing whether there exist spending interactions between French municipalities by estimating a dynamic panel data model. Our results suggest that there are some interactions between neighbouring municipalities as regards primary and investment expenditures. A positive relationship between municipalities' wage bill and un- employment rates is likely to stress a rise of temporary employment in those municipalities that suffer from social troubles. Further, the estimation results show that these interdepen- dences also exist between cities whose mayors have the same partisan affiliation. Finally, our results confirm the opportunistic behaviour of local governments, which increase all categories of public spending in pre-electoral periods

Political business cycles at the municipal level

The present article tests predictions of rational political business cycle models using a large and previously unexplored data set of Portuguese municipalities. This data allows for a clean test of these predictions due to the high level of detail on expenditure items, an exogenous fixed election schedule, and homogeneity of Portuguese local governments with respect to policy instruments and institutions. Estimation results clearly reveal the opportunistic behaviour of local governments. In pre-electoral periods, they increase total expenditures and change their composition favouring items that are highly visible to the electorate. This behaviour is consistent with an effort to signal competence and increase chances of re-election.

Incentives for budget discipline in the presence of elections

This paper presents a mechanism to mitigate the adverse consequences of the political budget cycle on social welfare. We use a simplified two-period version of Rogoff's [Rogoff, K., 1990. Equilibrium political budget cycles. American Economic Review 80, 21–36.] rational budget cycle model to address the normative issue of reducing the budget deficit in pre-electoral periods. A regulation consisting of a sanction scheme contingent on fiscal policy joint with a fixed transfer is shown to provide the appropriate incentives for budget discipline in the presence of elections.

Os partidos no eleitorado: percepções públicas e laços partidários no Brasil

Este artigo examina o impacto da politica partidaria sobre o eleitorado brasileiro. Um indicativo importante da consolidacao do sistema partidario e a criacao de imagem e vinculo partidario junto aos eleitores. Na medida em que o sistema partidario tende a se estabilizar, supoe-se que os eleitores passem a fixar os perfis dos partidos e a criar preferencia ou lealdade partidarias. Isso significa que a volatilidade eleitoral, inicialmente elevada, tenderia a decrescer ao longo do tempo e que pelo menos os principais partidos construiriam sua identidade, servindo assim como atalho para a obtencao de informacao sobre as diversas candidaturas e para a decisao eleitoral. A preocupacao principal desta analise e verificar em que medida esse processo de conhecimento e de construcao de identidade partidaria tem ocorrido no Brasil, tomando como base empirica uma pesquisa realizada na area metropolitana de Sao Paulo no periodo pre-eleitoral de 2002.

Un compromis monétaire favorable à l'Europe

Un compromis monétaire favorable à l'Europe

European elections and the pre‐electoral period: Media use and campaign evaluations

Abstract: This article addresses the problems of the campaign period of the 1989 Euro‐elections: frequency of following the campaign, media use, preferences for various channels of communication (conversations, encounters with party workers, political meetings, mailed material, posters, advertisements, press, TV, radio). It demonstrates that, even if important national variations can be found, common socio‐economic and political stratifications are at work, across borders, on the continent.The variables of sex, occupation and political affiliations clearly play a role which frequently is transnational, and sometimes more active than the variable of nation. It is also true that, compared to the 1979 campaign, the 1989 one is marked by a problem of significant alignments: the last campaign tends to be less sexist, less ‘socially privileged’ and less biased to right wing voters than the first one. But these alignments take place among weak figures of interest and participation.