Respective Parties Research Articles

Patriotic narratives on national leadership in Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) song texts, ca 2000–2017

The national leadership question in post-2000 Zimbabwe can be examined using the rhetoric of the politicians involved and the song texts of their supporters. This article focuses on selected ZANU-PF and MDC song texts with a view to demonstrating that both ZANU-PF and MDC rely on the logic of mutual exclusion in policing inter- and intra-party national leadership contestations. Through an analysis of images and viewpoints deployed in the selected songs to depict the qualities of political leaders in ZANU-PF and MDC as antithetical, the article argues that the musicians’ reluctance and/or failure to rise above the myth of the leaders of their respective political parties as the best ever to emerge in Zimbabwean politics serves to oversimplify a highly intricate national political question. Inter alia, the article addresses the volition in scholarship on contemporary Zimbabwe to exclusively associate patriotic narratives with ZANU-PF, in addition to challenging Zimbabweans to think beyond identities that limit them as members of specific political parties.

Politische Krisenkommunikation: Welche Rollen nehmen Politiker in TV-Sondersendungen ein?

One reason why special German broadcast programs like „ARD Brennpunkt“ and „ZDF spezial“ fulfill their function in crisis communication is that politicians appear in them . In the course of an interdisciplinary research project on media disturbances, 164 of such special broadcasts from 2015 and 2016 were analyzed and 40 interviews with participants were conducted, eleven of those with national and local politicians . It is their roles that are elaborated here . Triangulating the conducted interviews on the one hand and textual analyses on the other, a typology of political role figurations can be presented . Political actors assumed the following roles: (1) “representative of the sovereign”, either as a statesperson or as responsive and palpable; (2) “representative of the party”, bringing forth the agenda of their respective party or subverting it as a deviator; (3) “communicator of exclusive knowledge”, underlining researched facts; (4) authorized expert, driving towards sobriety; (5) “evaluator”, emphasizing normative perspectives and (6) “crisis manager”, underlining their problem solving competence or even, within the sub-role of “local caretaker”, their personal engagement . The roles are part of a crisis communication that aims at calming and orientating the public .

PERKEMBANGAN POLITIK KETATANEGARAAN ISLAM DI INDONESIA


 
 
 The development of Islamic constitutional politics in Indonesia from time to time starting from the Dutch colonial period, the Japanese colonial period, the independence period, the old order period, the new order era and Islamic politics during the reformation era experienced different turmoil, not only in the form of structural reform government but to the grassroots of the community. Then over time, the scholars realized that their struggle would not succeed if they continued traditional methods. Therefore there needs to be a change which, although originating from its own colonial influence, is struggling through social education organizations or constitutional political movements. The presence of scholars in the political field should have a positive impact, contributing to the creation of a moral structure of political structures, because ulama are moral symbols. However, when the Ulama was polarized in such a way, that often between a cleric and other scholars faced each other and defended their respective parties. This condition will lead to division and the impact will confuse the people, so that it will weaken the strength of the Muslim community itself, which is often used by other party groups.
 
 

Optimal Incentive Contracts in Project Management

Motivated by the ever-growing complexity of projects and the consistent trend of outsourcing of individual tasks or components, we study the contract-design problem faced by a firm (or organization) for executing a project consisting of multiple tasks, each of which is performed by an individual contractor whose efforts (work-rates) are not observable. While the contractors incur costs continuously during the course of their tasks, the firm realizes its reward or revenue only when the entire project is (i.e., all tasks are) completed. The firm's contract-design decisions and the contractors' effort-level decisions are all governed by the goals of maximizing the respective party's expected discounted profit. We adopt the framework in Kwon et al. (2010a) and Chen et al. (2015), and derive optimal contracts for both parallel projects (tasks can be performed in parallel) and sequential projects (tasks have to be performed sequentially). The simplicity of the contracts we obtain suggests that there is potential for designing profit-maximizing contracts without paying a price in terms of contract complexity.

The Unequal Distribution of Speaking Time in Parliamentary‐Party Groups

Parliamentary debates provide an arena where Members of Parliament (MPs) present, challenge, or defend public policies. However, the “plenary bottleneck” allows the party leadership to decide who participates in a debate. We argue that in this decision the timing of a debate matters: in proximity of elections, the leadership should be concerned with maintaining its brand name and therefore restrict floor access, in particular if the debate is salient for the respective party. We evaluate our hypotheses in a cross‐country study drawing on a novel data set covering all speeches given during one or two legislative terms in six European parliaments. We find that the electoral cycle matters for the distribution of speaking time: Party leaders do restrict parliamentary speechmaking to a smaller number of MPs at the end of the term. This has important implications for our understanding of parliaments as an electoral arena and for our understanding of intraparty politics.

Evaluation of Paddy Production Mesurement in Indonesia

For many years, paddy production data was obtained from 2 different sources namely harvested area (form monthly report of agricultural statistics; Statistik Pertanian (SP)) and productivity from Ubinan Survey. Both sources need a standard operational procedure (SOP) and an officer to do it. Based on the data, the government states that the paddy production is self-sufficient. However, in fact, the government is still importing the rice. The fact the government still importing the rice is become concerns from researcher. We would like to investigate this issue by doing an in-depth interview involving respective parties. With this method, researcher tries to retrieve an information related to potential sources of bias and measures bias in every step of SP and Ubinan Survey. This bias are allegedly influenced by the implementation of data collection is not in accordance with the SOPs that has been determined. As a result of indepth interview, potential sources of bias in SP are influenced by 50% officers when they are doing the data collection with compilation. The other influence is that 22%-50% officers are not doing verification into the field after acquiring the harvested area data. Meanwhile, the potential sources of bias in Ubinan Survey indicating that the occurance of officers whose 5% - 10% doing listing and enumeration not timely and 5% doing replacement of selected paddy farmer/respondent. Both source of potential bias (SP and Ubinan Survey) makes a bias for harvested area of paddy between 12.61% - 20.72% and bias for paddy productivity between 0.23% - 0.25%.

Academics as mediators between languages and cultures in higher-education settings

Abstract Intercultural and multilingual communication has become a necessity for all institutions in the age of globalization and transculturation. Higher-education institutions are no exceptions to this, mainly due to increasing contact with universities and other institutions at the international level, student and teaching staff mobility, and exchange of knowledge and experience. Intercultural communication in universities includes not only national cultures of respective parties, but also educational and even legal cultures. Higher-education institutions are required to manage multilingual and intercultural communication effectively, undoubtedly with the help of translation. Today, in most higher-education institutions in Turkey, academics employed in foreign-language departments are responsible for translation work, i.e. intercultural communication. This paper mainly focuses on the role of academics as translators in the management of intercultural communication in higher-education settings. The paper first draws attention to the increasing need for intercultural and multilingual communication in higher education. It then explores the translator’s role, power, responsibility and limitations in achieving intercultural communication in higher-education institutions.

Socio- economic and demographic variables and their relation to relative poverty A survey applied to a sample of Saudi families' in Riyadh city: المتغيرات الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والديموغرافية وعلاقتها بالفقر النسبي - دراسة مسحية مطبقة على عينة من الأسر السعودية في مدينة الرياض-

The study aimed to define the social, economic and demographic characteristics of the relatively poor households in Riyadh, by identifying saving methods, spending measures, consumption patterns, and expenditure aspects of the relatively poor family, and then linking them with some social, economic and demographic variables such as career ranks, years of service- total family income- the educational level of the family head- type and ownership type of housing, and number of family members). Where some research questions were formulated and which help identifying the differences among the family in the sample of the study. Questionnaire was used as data collection tool. It included five main themes; the first theme included the primary data of the study sample. The second theme included identification of the dominant consumption patterns of the study sample. The third theme discussed the relative monthly spending pattern of the poor family in the study population. The fourth theme included the arrangements made by relatively poor families in the study population. Lastly; the fifth theme, identifies the culture of savings of the family in the study population. The study population was determined by Saudi employees at the public sector in a number of ministries in Riyadh. A random sample of 394 individuals was drawn. The study used the social survey method. A number of statistical methods were used to process the study data through the use of the program Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study reached a number of findings: The general characteristics of the study sample were as follows: It was found that the entire study population are heads of households and are holding prominent positions –grade seven and below- , their educational qualification is undergraduate and below. About 60% of the study sample is less than 5 persons; while 39% are five or less than 10. 96% of the study sample lives as independent families away from their extended families. The only income source that the family depends upon – in the study sample- is the salary of the household head. The total monthly income of all the relatively poor families in the study sample SR 10723 and less, and that 58% of the study sample live in apartments and the rest of the study sample either live in floors or villas. 64% of study sample do not own accommodation, while only 35% own their own housing. The means of transportation used by most of the study sample is one car. 77% of the study sample use government hospitals for treatment. Entertainment means of the relatively poor families in the study sample is either general parks or children’s games in the house. 67% of the study sample has financial commitments towards the National Banks. The children of 66% of the study sample are studying at government schools, whereas only 5% of them study at private schools. The children of the remaining percentage did not reach the school age. The prevailing consumption pattern of the relatively poor families in the study community is the balanced consumption pattern, quite far away from the luxurious or the squandering consumption pattern. While the monthly expenses are low in all needs except for two of these basic needs, these are: Food and clothing. Spending arrangements of relatively poor families in the study community are good to some extent. Lastly, the culture of savings of relatively poor families was significantly low. The study came out with the following recommendations: Educating the relatively poor families about the importance of rationalizing consumption, reconsider priorities when spending so that there shall be more concentration on necessities and avoiding extravagance in consumption. The awareness and education shall be carried out by the various media organizations. The respective parties of media organizations and educational sectors should educate people by raising the level of savings culture within them by presenting awareness programs hosting experts in these fields. The respective parties shall adopt national approach through which suitable measurement shall be set and relative poverty line in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shall be outlined. Further studies about the conditions of relatively poor families in the Saudi society shall be carried out. It is preferable that these studies are carried out every three years because prices are not stable, they are continuously changing.

Economic voting in provincial elections: Revisiting electoral accountability in the Canadian provinces

ABSTRACTWe examine the outcomes of the provincial elections having been held in Canada since the Great Recession and compare them with outcomes from past decades. Given the severity of the 2008 financial crisis, we test for whether provincial governments’ electoral fortunes over the recent period have been negatively impacted by this important economic shock. Our analyses of aggregate-level provincial electoral outcomes: (1) confirm that provincial incumbent parties are held accountable for provincial economic conditions; (2) show that this provincial economic voting pattern has been heightened during the financial crisis; and (3) demonstrate that provincial incumbents also incur vote share losses when national economic conditions worsen and their respective family party is in power at the federal level, although this referendum voting pattern appears to have been unaffected by the financial crisis.

A tale of two parties

Queensland’s 2017 state election resulted in Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Labor government being returned with a slim majority. While not a resounding victory, the result seemingly vindicated the premier’s decision to head to an early election, and reinforced her standing in a succession of opinion polls as ‘preferred premier’ for most voters. The result also halted the short sequence of Queensland governments being voted out of office in no uncertain terms by a supposedly volatile electorate. The extent to which Labor’s recent electoral success in Queensland — and the quelling of that volatility — can be attributed to Palaszczuk’s leadership is still open to debate. It is instructive, though, to note the differences in leadership and campaigning styles between Palaszczuk and her opponents, which saw her drag a decimated Labor Party back to office after a single term in opposition, then saw it returned with a working parliamentary majority. This article highlights those differences over the last term of government, contrasting the performance of the two major parties in Queensland in terms of their leadership and election campaign approaches. The analysis helps to explain some of the reasons for the respective parties’ recent electoral showings.

A comparative overview of European, US and South African constitutional property law

Traditionally, there is a distinction between private law property law and constitutional property law. Private-law property law concerns itself with the relations between two private parties in respect to an object or thing. This area of law has, depending on the type of legal tradition, been in development since Roman times (civil law) or since the battle of Hastings in 1066 (common law). Its principles and doctrine are aimed at facilitating trade between private individuals, the recognition of a limited set of rights with property (third party) effect, and rules on the creation, transfer and destruction of those rights. Constitutional law adds a dimension to property law that is mostly neglected by private-law property lawyers. Textbooks of property law, especially in European countries do not deal or only make mention of the existence of a constitutional dimension. Constitutional law and its influence on the law of property deserves a central place in any comparative study on the law of property. However, private-law property scholars, of course with the exception of some, often do not take knowledge of the constitutional dimension. This contribution is a descriptive contribution and seeks to show some of the basic aspects of constitutional property law. Keywords: Constitutional Property Law; Takings, Expropriation, 5th Amendment, A1P1, EU Constitutional Property Law.

Politics in the Courtroom: Political Ideology and Jury Decision Making

This paper uses data from the Gothenburg District Court in Sweden and a research design that exploits the random assignment of politically appointed jurors (termed nämndemän) to make three contributions to the literature on jury decision-making: (i) an assessment of whether systematic biases exist in the Swedish nämndemän system, (ii) causal evidence on the impact of juror political party on verdicts, and (iii) an empirical examination of the role of peer effects in jury decision-making. The results reveal a number of systematic biases: convictions for young defendants and those with distinctly Arabic names increase substantially when they are randomly assigned jurors from the far-right (nationalist) Swedish Democrat party, whereas convictions in cases with a female victim increase markedly when they are assigned jurors from the far-left (feminist) Vänster party. An analysis of peer effects implies that jurors from the far-left and far-right parties influence the votes of nämndemän from centrist parties in a way that is consistent with their respective party platforms. This analysis also suggests that at least some of these peer effects result in genuine changes of opinions (affecting trial outcomes), rather than vote changes motivated solely to reach unanimous decisions.

Policy evaluation in parliament: interest groups as catalysts

Members of Parliament (MPs) request policy evaluations and use the resultant findings to inform law-making and hold the government to account. Since most elected representatives have developed strong ties to interest groups, one might wonder whether these privileged relationships influence MPs’ parliamentary behavior. This study investigates how MPs’ affiliations to groups affect their demand for policy evaluations. Empirical evidence shows that, regardless of respective party or individual characteristics, MPs are more likely to request evaluations in those policy domains where they have a group affiliation. This effect holds even when controlling for a classical measure of MP's policy specialization, such as legislative committee membership. These findings suggest that ties between MPs and specific types of interest group should be considered when explaining parliamentary behavior across different policy domains. Point for practitioners To influence the policymaking process, interest groups participate in consultation procedures and parliamentary hearings, they lobby elected officials and deliver policy expertise to decision-makers. These advocacy strategies are well studied. This article innovates by showing that, in addition, interest groups foster the development of policy evaluations. MPs affiliated to an interest group active on a specific issue are likely to request policy evaluations in that policy domain. Interest groups strengthen the parliamentary demand for evaluation studies and, thus, may potentially contribute to the accountability of government and public administration.

Populist Eurosceptic trajectories in Italy and the Netherlands during the European crises

Multiple crises shook the European Union (EU) during the past decade. First, the economic and financial crises that unfolded since 2008 shook the foundations of the European project and its monetary union. Then, the inflow of migrants and asylum seekers into Europe in 2015 questioned the EU’s ability to jointly respond to common political issues. More recently, Brexit came across as the corollary of a prolonged legitimacy crisis. These crises have not only affected the course of European integration but also provided novel issues for political competition within the EU member states. At the party-political level, populist anti-establishment parties have traditionally listed among the principal interpreters and drivers of criticism towards ‘Europe’. In this article, we empirically address the changing Eurosceptic frames adopted by populist parties during these crises and speculate on the reverberation of these frames in respective party systems. For this purpose, we focus on two cases: Italy and the Netherlands. Both countries present instances of populist parties of different ideological persuasions within traditionally Europhile contexts. At the same time, both countries have been affected to very different extents by the recent crises, allowing us to examine how populist parties have responded to different political opportunities.

Post Shared, Vote Shared: Investigating the Link Between Facebook Performance and Electoral Success During the Hungarian General Election Campaign of 2014

This study investigates how candidates’ Facebook performance, measured by the number of average shares, likes, and comments per post, affects the personal vote they gained during the Hungarian general election campaign of 2014. The database contains three of the most voted-for candidates owning Facebook pages from all single-member districts. The results show that the average number of shares on candidates’ Facebook pages is positively associated with electoral outcome after controlling for, inter alia, the vote share of their respective party on list in the districts, whereas the numbers of likes and comments are not significantly related to the dependent variable.

A Comparative Overview of European, US and South African Constitutional Property Law

Traditionally, there is a distinction between private law property law and constitutional property law. Private-law property law concerns itself with the relations between two private parties in respect to an object or thing. This area of law has, depending on the type of legal tradition, been in development since Roman times (civil law) or since the battle of Hastings in 1066 (common law). Its principles and doctrine are aimed at facilitating trade between private individuals, the recognition of a limited set of rights with property (third party) effect, and rules on the creation, transfer and destruction of those rights. Constitutional law adds a dimension to property law that is mostly neglected by private-law property lawyers. Textbooks of property law, especially in European countries do not deal or only make mention of the existence of a constitutional dimension. Constitutional law and its influence on the law of property deserves a central place in any comparative study on the law of property. However, private-law property scholars, of course with the exception of some, often do not take knowledge of the constitutional dimension. This contribution is a descriptive contribution and seeks to show some of the basic aspects of constitutional property law.

Election Poster Persuasion

Abstract. We examined the effect of presenting unknown policy statements on German parties’ election posters. Study 1 showed that participants inferred the quality of a presented policy from knowledge about the respective political party. Study 2 showed that participants’ own political preferences influenced valence estimates: policy statements presented on campaign posters of liked political parties were rated significantly more positive than those presented on posters of disliked political parties. Study 3 replicated the findings of Study 2 with an additional measure of participants’ need for cognition. Need for cognition scores were unrelated to the valence transfer from political parties to policy evaluation. Study 4 replicated the findings of Studies 2 and 3 with an additional measure of participants’ voting intentions. Voting intentions were a significant predictor for valence transfer. Participants credited both their individually liked and disliked political parties for supporting the two unknown policies. However, the credit attributed to the liked party was significantly higher than to the disliked one. Study 5 replicated the findings of Studies 2, 3, and 4. Additionally, participants evaluated political clubs that were associated with the same policies previously presented on election posters. Here, a second-degree transfer emerged: from party valence to policy evaluation and from policy evaluation to club evaluation. Implications of the presented studies for policy communications and election campaigning are discussed.

INTERAKSI FRAKSI DALAM PROSES PENGAMBILAN KEPUTUSAN PUBLIK (Studi Organisasi DPRD Kota Malang 2010, Atas Kasus Pasar Tradisional Dinoyo Dan Blimbing Menjadi Pasar Moderen Di Kota Malang)

Abstract:This study aimed at describing the interaction of the factions in the organization's decision-making process DPRD Malang; with a focus on the kind of interaction both internally and externally fraction of the party over government policies Malang in development projects / peralian traditional market status and Dinoyo Blimbing Malang into Modern market in the city of Malang. Based on the results of field research (Member of Parliament Malang in Malang Parliament Office II) and analysis of data regarding political interactions between members of the board in a fraction in DPRD Malang; especially the interactions between the factions with regard to public decision making (policy Making) in the case of market Dinoyo and Blimbing can be seen the political interaction between the factions in the organization DPRD Malang in various forms, including: conflict, Accommodation, Compromise, and the Coalition in the process of pushing or thwart development policy and the transitional status of both markets.Although the final decision through voting; DPRD Malang still approve policies Dinoyo market development and market Blimbing as the modern market, since the beginning of the discussion on the construction of two projects in the city parliament Malang occur Pros and Cons of each-each faction will be the plan. Semuannya behalf of the interests of the people to remain grounded in their respective party platforms. The difficulties in the market building approvals showed adannya interaction among factions in the party's internal and external parties on development projects in both markets. The change of final views and policies fractions as a result of lobbying-lobbying in the political interaction between factions both in the form of cooperation (Pro) and the opposition (Counter) shows the form of interaction in political communication who conducted members of the faction DPRD Malang internal and external parties resulting in a decision together though through a vote to approve the construction of traditional markets and Dinoyo Blimbing into Modern market. Keywords: Fraction of DPRD II Malang, Interaction and Political Communication, Public Decision

DISCIPLINARY PROCESSES FOR SOUTH AFRICAN MAGISTRATES: REFLECTIONS ON THE MAGISTRATES ACT 90 OF 1993 AND THE LABOUR RELATIONS ACT 66 OF 1995

An employment relationship creates certain rights and protection for the respective parties concerned. For example, an employee has the right not to be unfairly dismissed or subjected to unfair labour practices in the execution of his or her duties. On the other hand, an employer has the right to lay down rules in order to regulate the conduct required from its employees. The Code of Good Practice recognises this right of the employer: Dismissal , which requires all employers to adopt disciplinary rules that establish the standard of conduct required from employees. If an employee fails to adhere to the required rules or standards, the employer has recourse in the form of discipline. Disciplinary action is usually initiated in response to poor work performance or unwarranted behaviour by workers and is aimed at restraining employees from behaving in a manner that could hamper production and the functioning of the organisation. When an employer exercises the right to discipline, regard must be had to the employee’s right to be treated fairly. It is therefore important that disciplinary procedures should maintain a proper balance between the rights of the respective parties in the disciplining process.The aim of this note is to compare the procedures for disciplining conventional employees in terms of the LRA with the procedures to discipline magistrates in terms of the Magistrates Act. The purpose of the comparison is to evaluate whether the disciplinary regime applicable to magistrates effectively ensures that they are appropriately and timeously disciplined when necessary in order to ensure a well-functioning judiciary. The note will commence with an outline of the legislative and regulatory framework of the respective disciplinary processes. This will be followed by an evaluation of whether the disciplinary regime governing magistrates contributes to a well-functioning judicial system. The note will conclude with recommendations regarding streamlined processes that would provide role players in the judiciary with certainty about the applicable remedies and the appropriate dispute resolution institutions where their disputes may be resolved.

We Are Not In Bonn Anymore: The Impact of German Unification on Party Systems at the Federal and Land levels

This article assesses the German party system and its development over time. Offering a systematic examination of elections at the national and sub-national levels and using a variety of qualitative and quantitative indicators, this article shows that unification has had a significant impact on party system development. While partisan dealignment among the western electorate and a lack of significant party alignment among eastern voters has led to converging behavioural patterns, there are still notable differences between the party systems in the two regions. The two parties that have dominated government formation at the federal level, the CDU/CSU and the SPD, still do better in the West, while the PDS/Die Linke continues to secure higher vote shares in the East. The FDP and the Greens consistently score higher results in the older states while the parties linked to the populist, radical, and/or extreme right have recently proven more successful in the younger ones. These differences are rooted in the distinctive voter bases of the respective parties and special characteristics attributed to the East German electorate.