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The electoral franchise has become more universal as restrictions based on criteria such as sex or property have been lifted throughout the process of democratisation. Yet, a broad range of exclusions has persisted to this date, making the suffrage non-universal, even in established democracies. In this article, we present ELECLAW, a new set of indicators that captures the subtle and variegated legal landscape of persisting electoral rights restrictions. We measure the inclusiveness of the right to vote and the right to stand as candidate across four levels and three types of elections for three categories of voters: citizen residents, non-citizen residents, and non-resident citizens. ELECLAW currently covers fifty-one democracies in three different continents (the Americas, Europe, and Oceania) depicting the legal situation in 2015. The article introduces the methodology used for building the indicators so as to make it transparent to the broader research community. To this aim, it successively unpacks the conceptualisation underlying the indicators, explains the measurement by providing specific examples, and discusses the merits of a differentiated and context-driven method of aggregation.

First Online: 14 February 2019 ; The electoral franchise has become more universal as restrictions based on criteria such as sex or property have been lifted throughout the process of democratisation. Yet, a broad range of exclusions has persisted to this date, making the suffrage non-universal, even in established democracies. In this article, we present ELECLAW, a new set of indicators that captures the subtle and variegated legal landscape of persisting electoral rights restrictions. We measure the inclusiveness of the right to vote and the right to stand as candidate across four levels and three types of elections for three categories of voters: citizen residents, non-citizen residents, and non-resident citizens. ELECLAW currently covers fifty-one democracies in three different continents (the Americas, Europe, and Oceania) depicting the legal situation in 2015. The article introduces the methodology used for building the indicators so as to make it transparent to the broader research community. To this aim, it successively unpacks the conceptualisation underlying the indicators, explains the measurement by providing specific examples, and discusses the merits of a differentiated and context-driven method of aggregation.

Much social science suggests that income inequality is a product of economic and demographic factors and recent work highlights the influence of Leftist politics in affluent Western democracies. But, prior research has neglected rightist politics. We examine the impact of cumulative right party power on three measures of income inequality in an unbalanced panel of 16 affluent Western democracies from 1969 to 2000. We find that cumulative right party power significantly increases inequality with effects comparable to other established causes. Left party power has less influence than the right on the Gini coefficient and the 90/50 ratio but a larger influence on the 90/10 ratio. Union density is insignificant after controlling for right party power. Right party power partly channels through and partly combines with government expenditures to affect inequality. Temporal interactions show that right parties became more influential after 1989 while left parties became less effective. Supplementary analyses suggest that a component of right party power's effects occurs through labor market inequality prior to taxes and transfers. Sensitivity analyses reveal that the results are robust to a wide variety of alternative specifications and operationalizations and do not depend on the inclusion of the U.S. in the sample. Our results inform debates about the sources of inequality and related sociological theories regarding class, politics, the state and the economy.

This methodological article presents an introduction to the field of clause-based semantic text analysis. The method is introduced and elaborated with regard to the study of ideological developments within fledgling democracies. In such studies modality plays an important role. Democratic societies are maintained in accordance with either a modality of achievement or one of necessity. This is illustrated using editorial texts from Hungary, one of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe where people had to find their democratic way after communism disappeared in 1989.

There are two contending accounts of cross-national variation in voter turnout rates. One emphasizes the role of institutions and electoral attributes, whereas the other stresses cultural and historical factors. The authors evaluate the merits of these two arguments. They first apply the model developed by R. W. Jackman to turnout rates during the 1980s, expanding the sample of industrial states to include three newer democracies with recent authoritarian histories: Greece, Portugal, and Spain. They then examine the potential impact of cultural variables on voter turnout rates. The authors conclude that the institutional argument outperforms the cultural account of conventional political participation.

This chapter draws broad conclusions about relationships between left-of-centre (and indeed other) parties and unions from the new and rich data gathered by the country teams, allowing innovative datasets to be created based on the survey of links at the organizational level.

The article is dedicated to analyzing patterns of minority governments' stability in European parliamentary democracies, in particular in the European systems of positive and negative parliamentarism (in 1944-2016). The author found that minority governments are relatively less stable than majority governments. However, the researcher argued that the single-party minority governments on average are more stable than minority coalition governments.

The article is dedicated to analyzing patterns of minority governments' stability in European parliamentary democracies, in particular in the European systems of positive and negative parliamentarism (in 1944-2016). The author found that minority governments are relatively less stable than majority governments. However, the researcher argued that the single-party minority governments on average are more stable than minority coalition governments.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to critically examine the working of the Ombudsman offices in six developing democracies in the Commonwealth Caribbean in order to assess/evaluate the degree or extent of effectiveness of these offices. It aims to look at them from both contemporary and evolutionary perspectives. Although it focuses on the Commonwealth Caribbean, some references to other parts of the world are also made for a better and comparative understanding of the Ombudsman institution.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based mainly on archival research. Original/primary as well as secondary sources – old, recent and contemporary – have been used. Random interviews and observation have also been useful sources of information.FindingsOn the one hand, this study identifies various factors and related issues that make the performance of the Ombudsman institution difficult and problematic in the Commonwealth Caribbean; and, on the other, it also identifies some remedial measures for effectively dealing with these problems. Although the Ombudsman office has a number of inadequacies, it plays a fairly useful role in protecting and promoting human rights, in redressing grievances especially of the "small" people, and thus in contributing to good governance, transparency and democratic values.Research limitations/implicationsThere is considerable dearth of literature on this institution in the Caribbean. This study, at least partially, fills the gap.Practical implicationsThe adoption of the remedial measures identified will improve the performance and the effectiveness of this institution in varying degrees. These measures/recommendations will also facilitate the reform efforts of the policy makers who will find them useful.Originality/valueThe paper, based on original research, makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the Ombudsman institution.

This dissertation is comprised of three distinct but related research papers which seek to contribute to our understanding of institutional development of legislative parties and party systems in new and established democracies. On a macro scale, institutionalization in a competitive political environment is both a process and a product of the complex interaction between a variety of structural conditions emergent from and shaped by voter and elite choices. Each of the three papers addresses a different but crucial aspect of that process: party pluralism in new democracies; party unity at the elite level; and electoral death of parties in parliament. ; TARA (Trinity?s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns: rssadmin@tcd.ie