Subsequent Elections Research Articles

Delayed shock? How Brexit conditioned campaign effects in British general elections

The impact of campaigns on electoral performance is conditioned in part by contextual effects. The popularity equilibrium model has proven to be an important guide to how the electoral effects of local campaigns vary by a party’s existing level of popularity. Such an equilibrium can, however be disturbed by an electoral shock—a rare event which fundamentally challenges the foundations that underpin predictability in elections. This article analyses the impact of the electoral shock of the UK’s 2016 referendum on EU membership on campaign effects in the subsequent elections of 2017 and 2019. Using a novel theoretical and methodological approach, it shows that while there were observable effects of the Leave vote already present before the referendum, the geography of the effectiveness of Labour and Conservative local campaigns was altered after the referendum. However, it was not until the 2019 election that the shock of the 2016 Leave vote became a particularly important predictor of the electoral efficacy of both parties’ campaigns.

The Political Consequences of Green Policies: Evidence from Italy

For many governments, enacting green policies is a priority, but such policies often impose on citizens substantial and uneven costs. How does the introduction of green policies affect voting? We study this question in the context of a major ban on polluting cars introduced in Milan, which was strongly opposed by the populist right party Lega. Using several inferential strategies, we show that owners of banned vehicles—who incurred a median loss of €3,750—were significantly more likely to vote for Lega in the subsequent elections. Our analysis indicates that this electoral change did not stem from a broader shift against environmentalism, but rather from disaffection with the policy’s uneven pocketbook implications. In line with this pattern, recipients of compensation from the local government were not more likely to switch to Lega. The findings highlight the central importance of distributive consequences in shaping the political ramifications of green policies.

A second chance elsewhere. Estimating the effect of winning (vs. being the runner-up) on future electoral prospects

The effect of being the winner (vs. being the runner-up) on winning subsequent elections has been estimated across a series of countries using regression discontinuity design. We contribute to this literature by incorporating politicians who move across constituencies. The US and the UK are our case studies. UK–US differences are not apparent when comparing estimates of the individual incumbency advantage, i.e., winning the same office in the same constituency. UK–US differences in the career advantage of winning office are almost entirely driven by the ability of the UK’s close-race runners-up to win elsewhere subsequently. Runners-up are more likely to move to safer seats. Marginal winners become locked-in to their seat. In the US, we observe negligible movement across constituencies.

The Obama effect? Race, first-time voting, and future participation

AbstractDid the 2008 United States presidential election produce stronger future mobilization for Blacks than non-Blacks? First-time voting influences long-term political behavior, but do minority voters see the most powerful effects when the formative election is tied to their group's political empowerment? I test this hypothesis in the context of the election of the first Black president in United States history, using voting eligibility discontinuities to identify the effect of voting in 2008 on future voting for Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites. Voting in 2008 caused a greater increase in the likelihood of voting in 2010 for Blacks than for other new voters, but there is no evidence of a sustained mobilizing advantage in subsequent elections. Furthermore, 2008 was not a unique formative voting experience for new Black voters, but rather produced similar effects on future voting as other presidential elections. These results signal that group political empowerment does not drive habitual voting.

‘I have opened the land for you’: pastoralist politics and election-related violence in Kenya’s arid north

ABSTRACT The shadow of election violence has hung over Kenyan politics since 2008, when post-election violence erupted across the country. These events paved the way for major national reforms, including the devolution of central government, designed to counteract tendencies of ethnic patronage and violence. Kenya’s subsequent election cycles have not seen the same explosion of nationwide violence, and therefore little has been written about election violence in Kenya in the post-devolution years. However, this article draws attention to the arid, pastoralist-dominated north, where there have in fact been significant episodes of violence that are election-related. Drawing on ethnographic research, it explores the case of Samburu, Isiolo and Laikipia counties during the 2017 and 2022 election cycles, when mass movements of armed pastoralists and herds forced their way, often violently, into targeted areas of land, resulting in widespread clashes, killings and displacement. The article investigates the endogenous elites and machinations within nomadic Samburu communities involved in and affected by this violence, using a ‘public authority lens’. It argues that ongoing governance changes in this region have created opportunities for political elites to mobilise territorial violence for strategic, political ends in advance of elections, including through a previously undocumented practice of “vote shipping”.

Gatekeeping Through Music: A Case of the Patriotic Front in Zambia

What can music used by politicians during campaigns tell us about their behaviour, character and their rule? The article responds to this question by analysing political songs used by Patriotic Front (PF) in Zambia, before winning the 2011 elections and the subsequent elections. This article argues that music can be an important unacknowledged tool for understanding the behaviour of political leaders, and in this case, their gatekeeping behaviour that aims at sustaining the ruling party in power by undermining the opposition.

The political consequences of resource scarcity: Targeted spending in a water-stressed democracy

We study whether resource scarcity enhances the scope for targeted spending in India. Farmers without access to groundwater during dry seasons cope using a large public-aid program controlled by local politicians. We leverage a multidimensional regression discontinuity for exogenous variation in whether local politicians are aligned with the state’s ruling party. We find that the state government channels disproportionate funds to politically-aligned jurisdictions in water-stressed areas and gains votes in subsequent elections. However, we find no partisan differences in aid allocation for non-water-stressed areas, suggesting a selective targeting of public funds to garner votes in the highest-return regions.

Przywództwo w nowych partiach politycznych w Polsce i jego znaczenie dla przekroczenia progu reprezentacji oraz instytucjonalizacji partii

LEADERSHIP IN NEW POLITICAL PARTIES IN POLAND AND ITS IMPORTANCE FOR OVERCOMING THE THRESHOLD OF PARTY REPRESENTATION AND FOR PARTY INSTITUTIONALIZATION After the period of relative stabilization of the Polish party system at the parliamentary level in the first decade of the 21st century, changes related to the entry of new parties on the political scene took place in the second one. While in 2007 only four established parties (PO, PiS, SLD and PSL) got seats in the parliament, and the party system at the parliamentary level was described as “concreted”. In subsequent elections of 2011, 2015, 2019, newly created parties managed to overcome the threshold of party representation. What they have in common is that they were founded shortly before the election by recognizable leaders and immediately achieved election success, which they were not able to repeat in subsequent elections, they lost their importance and were replaced by newer parties. The aim of the article is to define what role the leader plays in achieving electoral success of new parties and what is the importance of leadership for the party’s survival and further election success. These issues are considered in the context of changing the organizational model and the concepts of party institutionalization.

Targeting hunger or votes? The political economy of humanitarian transfers in Malawi

Do electoral considerations play a role in the targeting of humanitarian transfers? We analyze the targeting of direct cash and food transfers distributed in Malawi in response to an exceptionally poor harvest following a late and erratic rainy season of 2015/16. Combining household survey data on transfers with a remotely sensed measure of drought and with the results of the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections, we show that transfers were disproportionately targeted at marginal constituencies. Rather than distributing the transfers based solely on need or mobilizing its tribal base, the government attempted to persuade swing voters to support its candidates in the next elections. We find no evidence that this strategy was successful at increasing the vote of ruling party candidates in subsequent elections.

Postulaty Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej dotyczące pożądanego kierunku zmian kodeksu wyborczego

The aim of this article is to make a critical analysis of the postulates for amending the Electoral Code, proposed by the National Electoral Commission. We can agree with a large part of the above postulates, although their final normative shape will be of key importance in this case. However, there are also some proposals that can be considered at least debatable. First of all, this concerns the postulate to abandon the judicial composition of district electoral commissions, because even despite doubts as to the legality of the appointment of judges with the participation of the unconstitutional composition of the National Council of the Judiciary, guarantees of judicial independence are also a safeguard against politicization of the composition of subsequent election administration bodies. Anyway, it is worth emphasizing that the NEC’s proposals were in practice intended to constitute a form of justification for introducing changes contrary to the fundamental principles of electoral law, which took place in the winter of 2023.

Wojsko Polskie w kampanii wyborczej i wyborach do Sejmu PRL I kadencji z 26 października 1952 roku

This article describes the role played by the Polish Army, as well as units of the Internal Security Corps, during certain stages of the election campaign and subsequent election of the first Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic held on 26 October 1952. Based on archival materials the paper highlights when and what organs of the Polish Army were involved in the election campaign. Aspects such as the process behind the organizing of the election, the propaganda and agitation campaigns that were conducted, and the electoral mood in the army are also discussed.

Theorising repeated displacement: The role of anticipation and precedent. The case of Burundi

What drives mass displacement in the context of cyclical violence and repeated refugee flows? We take the context of Burundi and the Great Lakes region in Africa to show the limitations of available causal models, which are typically focused on war-related displacement, struggle to connect war and post-war displacement and where mass displacement is understood as a response to acute violence. Burundi is an excellent case study to problematise episodic, reactive and war-related causal models of displacement as this is a context with cyclical mass displacements spanning both war and peace and interconnected through dynamics such as people’s anticipation of worsening and reading of precedent. Taking the 2015 third-term contestation in Burundi as a starting point, we argue for a longue-durée approach to displacement and for complicating the dominant causality framework by bringing in three dynamics: anticipation, endogeneity and entrenchment. Anticipation considers how longer-term (violent) pasts rather than immediate events inform displacement. In Burundi, people drew on past experiences as well as rumours in an attempt to anticipate a deterioration. Endogeneity questions easy separations between displacement, violence and political crisis and rather sees them as co-constitutive. In Burundi, mass displacement cleared the opposition from domestic space and disenfranchised large populations in subsequent elections. It also drew increased transnational repression and triggered security fears on behalf of the regime. Finally, as the case of Burundi shows, redisplacement does not represent a ‘repeat’ or replication of past experience, but rather a new form of relation to exile and home. Against a long past of repeated displacements, many Burundians are entrenching in exile.

Contribuciones de particulares a campañas electorales en colombia: ¿afinidad política o inversión de corto plazo?

How do political campaigns financing and the subsequent election of their candidates affect decisions in state hiring? Donors’ resources are one of the most important sources of financing for public office candidates in Colombia, this could mean an additional form of citizen participation or an investment to later contract with the state. This paper analyzes the impact of financing successful electoral campaigns on the number of contracts subsequently obtained by their financiers. To this end, information was obtained on state contractors, in the periods 2012-2015 and 2016-2019, who contributed to campaigns in the framework of the 2015 regional elections. From the use of a difference-in-differences model, a significant increase in the number of total contracts obtained by campaign financiers whose candidates were winners was evidenced, as well as those modalities with simple and manipulable contracting processes, especially in the year following the election.

Between Coups and Election: Constitutional Engineering and Military Entrenchment in Sudan

This article investigates how armies re-entrench their power after thwarting democratic transitions. After the Sudanese military staged a coup in October 2021 and altered the transitional constitution, coup leader Abdelfattah al-Burhan announced the military's withdrawal in July 2022 after. We argue that these constitutional changes leveraged existing institutions in the military's favour to retain its influence over Sudanese governance. Using empirical evidence from Sudan's previous military takeovers to evaluate the post-coup constitutional engineering, the analysis finds that military control over the electoral commission as well as decentralisation will be determining factors moving forward. The timeframe between an anti-democratic coup and subsequent elections should be examined more carefully. Entrenching military power through elections requires a policy set up in advance, usually undertaken in this period. Thus, we provide key insights into how armies incrementally consolidate their power without radically overhauling existing institutions.

New parties in a crowded electoral space: the (in)stability of radical right voters in the Netherlands

Previous research demonstrated that voters for the Dutch radical right party PVV were the most stable voters among the highly volatile electorate. However, since 2017 two new radical right parties have successfully entered the Dutch Parliament: Forum for Democracy (FvD) and JA21, conceivably at the expense of the PVV. The success of these new parties is puzzling, because there does not seem to be much room for new parties campaigning on a highly similar platform. In our paper, we use LISS panel data to study the determinants of vote switching patterns between four subsequent elections from 2017 to 2021. We find that the surprise victory of the new far right in 2019 can be explained by its ability to attract both former PVV voters as well as voters new to the far right. Since then, FvD has lost many of its supporters again, but these voters have mostly switched to other far-right parties, meaning the far-right support base has become fragmented, yet enlarged. This suggests that when provided with viable alternatives, radical right voters are as volatile as other voter groups.

New media as monitors of democracy

While Zimbabwe’s first two post-independence elections in 1980 and 1985 were generallyconsidered to be a credible expression of the will of the people, subsequent elections in thatcountry were largely contested, with allegations of rigging, gerrymandering, vote-buying andcoercion, among several other irregularities. With a media landscape that is largely dominatedby state ownership and control, the total reporting on elections in Zimbabwe has always beenopenly biased in favour of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party, resulting in a hugeloss of credibility for both the electoral system and the state-owned media themselves. However,the advent of new communications technologies, such as the Internet and mobile phones, hasushered in a new era of political communication where citizens actively participate both in theelection campaign and the monitoring processes. This paper looks at the contribution of theinnovations in political communication that have come with these new media, focusing particularlyon the uses of mobile phones (in particular the SMS or short message service) during Zimbabwe’scontested 2008 election. More specifically, it explores the ways in which ordinary Zimbabweansappropriated the SMS as a tool for monitoring that election. Further, it discusses the implicationsof these new technologies for the conduct of elections in Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the Africancontinent, and for democracy in general. What is clear is that these new forms of communicationare fast eroding the monopoly of incumbent politicians over the communications landscape,undercutting the liberation discourse that has had a stranglehold on election processes, andsignalling the possibility of more open political spaces where divergent views can coexist.

SPECIAL CHARACTER OF THE POLISH COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY AS COMPARED TO THE EUROPEAN UNION

The intensity of the threat of terrorism, previously considered only as a potential event, is now increasing. The greatest consequence of the impact of terrorism as an asymmetric threat is its psychological dimension. Its negative impact manifests itself in the reduction of the sense of security in society, rather than in society’s actual deterioration. This often leads to a change in voting preferences in subsequent elections in a given country, and in the long run, can also lead to a reallocation of resources in a given state, changing its development prospects. The article categorizes terrorist phenomenon and their asymmetric threat factors, discussing the special nature of each threat. The authors found that terrorism also factors into the security considerations of a state. In the cases examined, a synergy effect occurs, caused by the many transnational entities responding to the emergence of this threat, numbers which continue to grow.

Does Political Representation Increase Participation? Evidence from Party Candidate Lotteries in Mexico

How does representation by politicians from specific communities influence these communities’ political participation? Analyzing a natural experiment from Mexico in which a party uses lotteries to select candidates for public office, this paper presents new insights into how representation shapes the political participation of underrepresented segments of society. I find that participation in subsequent elections is significantly higher among constituents who have been represented by randomly selected legislators with a similar social background who are part of local organizational networks (embedded representatives). Furthermore, I show that these represented constituents feel more empowered and that the party that provides this “grassroots” representation is rewarded with more support in the subsequent election. The findings highlight the importance of community embeddedness for political mobilization and have important implications for debates about democratic inclusion and representation.

Effects of electoral margins on party loyalty in the roll call votes: Evidence from the 20th National Assembly in South Korea

In modern democratic politics, members of parliament (MPs) engage in legislative activities influenced by political parties and voters. This article examines how electoral margins within constituencies affect MPs’ party loyalty in roll call votes. We analyzed all bills of the 20th Korean National Assembly (2016–2020), providing evidence for the marginal hypothesis from the perspective of an emerging democratic country. We found MPs were more likely to deviate from the party’s position in roll call votes during their term where voting margins were greater. This relationship was heterogeneous according to MPs’ and local districts’ conditions. We found feedback effects, whereby political parties and voters reflected the MPs’ party loyalty in the subsequent election. These results suggest that in Korea, where pork-centric regionalized politics have become solidified, voters tend to perceive MPs as representatives of political parties, and MPs constrained by tight voting margins seek to follow party discipline to ensure reelection.

Election Law as Materia Constitutionis– an Example of the 1888 Constitution .

As a standard source of constitutional law, the constitution usually contains basic provisions on the electoral system. However, constitutions sometimes regulate the electoral issues in more detail. An example of such a constitution in the constitutional history of Serbia is the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia of 1888. This paper will analyse the provisions of the 1888 Constitution regarding the electoral system. Having this in mind, the aim of this paper is: 1) to present and analyse the provisions in this constitution that regulate the electoral system, and to group them according to the appropriate institutions of election law; 2) to point out the unusually large number of provisions about the electoral system in this constitution and explain the reasons for that; 3) to present the reasons for making certain solutions at some of the institutions of election law. Provisions on election law will be classified according to the following institutions: the basic principles of the electoral system, constituencies and the number of MPs, active and passive suffrage, voting by lists, qualified MPs, electoral administration, election periods and subsequent elections, distribution of mandates.