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Did ballot measures banning same-sex marriage help swing the 2004 general election to George W. Bush? This article examines possible electoral effects of gay marriage ballot measures in two key neighboring presidential battleground states, Michigan and Ohio. Weighted least-squares multivariate regression is used to examine county-level voting patterns on the gay marriage bans, turnout in 2004, and support for Bush in 2004. Results show that counties with higher percentages of Republicans and evangelicals in both states supported the gay marriage bans, as did counties in Michigan with higher densities of Catholics. Although support for the anti-gay measures did not help increase turnout across counties in either state, support for the measures did positively impact the county-level vote for Bush in 2004. Adapted from the source document.

In order to deal with the power of the media and their growing importance in the presidential campaigns of the Fifth Republic, a distinction should be made between the selection of candidates and their promotion or elimination in the course of the electoral competition. With regard to the former, the article considers operation Mr. X before the 1965 campaign and the emergence of Segolene Royal for 2007. This will illustrate the intervention of the media in the making of a candidate while the case of Segolene Royal highlights more the importance of opinion polls. As for the promotion or the elimination of the candidates, the contribution of the media comes from the way they frame the candidates in terms of personal traits or political stakes but, more importantly, from the conjunction or disjunction they allow between the communication controlled by the candidates and the information they broadcast. Adapted from the source document.

Based on a long familiarity with the rural areas of the province of Kenedougou, this text provides a description of the impact (& the lack thereof) of the presidential election in a Senufo village. Adapted from the source document.

The article discusses the parameters conditioning the chair's effectiveness in international multilateral negotiations. Building on existing accounts of Presidential functions, an analytical typology of these parameters is provided, elaborating on the direction and magnitude of their impact. Conditioning parameters are clustered into three categories: the broader international environment in which the chair operates and the issues with which (s)he is called to deal; organization-specific features of an institutional and political nature; and the chair's personal skills and country-of-origin attributes. The potential for effect of these parameters is illustrated by reference to the chairmanship of the UN Security Council (SC). The origins, institutional features and main tasks of the Council are discussed, as well as the role of its chair as an agenda manager and broker. It is argued that the SC President's role well exceeds the formal tasks that are stipulated in the Rules of Procedure. Although mainly procedural in nature, these tasks may have important political implications, stressing the informal component of Presidential intervention. The conditioning parameters identified have a catalytic impact upon and account for the great variance in SC chair performance and the effectiveness of the chair's intervention. Adapted from the source document.