A field experiment in rural Liberia is used to study democratic participation in fragile states. Fragile states are marked by political fragmentation, local patronage systems, and voter vulnerability. To understand the effects of such conditions on democratic expression through elections, the experiment introduced new forms of interaction between rural citizens and third-party actors: (i) civic education and town hall workshops directed by non-governmental organizations in communities over nine months and (ii) security committees that brought rural community representatives into monthly exchange with United Nations peacekeepers. Civic education workshops increased enthusiasm for electoral participation, produced a coordinated shift from parochial to national candidates, and increased willingness to report on manipulation. A program combining the two interactions had similar effects. The security committees had negligible effects. Barriers to political information and voter coordination appear to be important but resolvable problems for elections in fragile states.
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On March 1, Iranians voted for a 290-seat Majles (the parliament) and an 88-seat Assembly of Experts, a clerical body tasked with overseeing the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and selecting the new one. The elections, the first after the widespread protests in 2022-2023 sparked by the death in custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, due to flouting the country's strict dress code, were heavily marred by boycott from the moderate and reformist-leaning segments of society.The Guardians Council, the hardline-dominated body that vets the candidates, compounded the resentment by disqualifying most of the few moderate and reformist candidates who bothered to apply. The extent of disqualifications reached truly farcical dimensions: the former two term president (2013-2021) and member of the Assembly of Experts for 24 years, the centrist Hassan Rouhani was barred from running for the Assembly of Experts.As a result, the elections registered the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic: 40% according to official data, and closer to 30% according to unofficial observers. For a system that traditionally places a high premium on participation as means of its legitimation, these numbers represent an unmitigated fiasco.The new parliament will thus be dominated by hardline factions. The moderates who made it to the parliament will be reduced to a marginal minority of around 20 MPs. That, however, does not necessarily augur an era of a rubber-stamping chamber. The different conservative and hardline factions are bound to try to out-hawk each other on a host of domestic and foreign policies, such as enforcing rigid veiling on women or defying the U.S. and boosting the "Axis of Resistance," as a network of the Iranian allies in the Middle East is known.The declining fortunes of the outgoing speaker of the parliament Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf illustrate the taste of things of come: a traditional conservative and IRGC veteran who occasionally displayed a pragmatist streak, Qalibaf came only fourth in Tehran out of 30 Tehran MPs, tallying 409,808 votes as opposed to 1,260,000 he gathered in 2020. The main beneficiary of his decline seems to have been an ultra-radical firebrand Mahmoud Nabavian who came first in Tehran with 535,000 votes and is reportedly strongly opposed to Qalibaf.Nabavian made himself famous by categorically stating the ex-president Rouhani and his foreign minister Javad Zarif purposely signed to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international watchdog against money laundering and terrorist financing, to hand over Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC elite Al-Quds Force, to the U.S. in exchange for getting the banking sanctions released. Soleimani was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in early 2020.It wasn't always like this. In February 2018, as a foreign affairs staffer, I was part of the visiting European Parliament delegation to Iran, during which we met with our counterparts in the Iranian parliament. Then our delegation witnessed a fair degree of pluralism running from hardline conservatives, through pragmatic principlists to outright reformists. The assembly was chaired by Ali Larijani, a pragmatic conservative who in his later years moved increasingly to the center — to the point of being excluded from running in presidential elections in 2021. That parliament was elected in 2016 with a participation rate of 61.4%, reflecting the optimistic mood in the country following the signature of the nuclear deal in 2015.This correlation between higher participation and reformist pulsations is not lost on the guardians of the "nezam" (or, the system). Yet the 2024 elections took place in a particularly sensitive context, and, more than with the parliament, it had to do with the simultaneous elections to the Assembly of Experts. That body is elected once every 8 years and is tasked with selecting the new supreme leader. Given that the incumbent Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is currently 84, it can't be ruled out that the newly elected assembly will have to choose his successor. To ensure the clerical continuity of the Islamic Republic, the establishment has apparently chosen to run as little risks as possible and accordingly narrowed the field to the most loyal of the loyalists. That explains the exclusion of Rouhani from running. In another significant upset, the former chief justice Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, a brother of the former speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani, failed to secure a seat in the assembly, even though he, as opposed to Rouhani, was allowed to run.These developments suggest that the establishment is clearly less concerned with the popular legitimacy and representativity of the institutions than with ensuring a smooth transition to a new leadership.This aversion to risk also helps explain why Iran's foreign policy is in fact more moderate in practice than its rhetoric suggests. Iran's focus is on vindicating its diplomatic and moral leadership in the Islamic world as the leader of the "resistance" over Palestine rather than seek a military confrontation with Israel and/or U.S. Such a confrontation could bear unacceptable security and economic costs and derail the main priority which is to carefully stage-manage the transition.Iran's influence may help to explain why there was no escalation following the U.S. strikes on Iran-allied Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria carried out on February 2 in retaliation for the drone attack that killed 3 U.S. service members in Jordan. It is particularly meaningful that there was no response from Kataeb Hezbollah, one of the closest Iranian allies in Iraq, to the killing of one of its top commanders by the U.S. — even though it took place after the group announced, presumably in coordination with Tehran, that it was halting its attacks on the Americans.Elsewhere, Iran has continued its rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, despite the latter's cozying up to Israel. While in late 2022, Tehran conducted war drills on the border with Azerbaijan — unlike Saudi Arabia, an open ally of Israel's — it is now busy discussing new transit deals with Baku. There are even signs that Iran's opposition to Israel itself may be less stringent than its rhetoric suggests: Tehran backed at the U.N. and at the Organization of Islamic Conference resolutions calling for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, thus implicitly recognizing Israel's right to exist. There is a decent chance that a departure of Khamenei, who holds strong personal and ideological animus against Israel, may further tilt Iran in a pragmatic direction. And Tehran, even under the current hardline government, occasionally showed an ability to deal with Washington — witness the prisoners swaps and the agreed unfreezing of Iranian assets in September of 2023. The elections in Iran have gone a long way from removing any lingering pretense of democratic legitimation of the system. Little change, however, is expected in the country's foreign policy: Tehran is likely to continue talking tough while seeking deals where possible.
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Not only will the start of 2024 greet Bossier City with a decision whether and how to extend the city's public-private partnership with Manchac Consulting, but also a chance to signal to a beleaguered citizenry that holds taxing decision-making power that its days of splurging on questionable spending priorities are over and the consequences mitigated.
Until recently for two decades, an out-of-control City Council majority, aided by past mayors, spent several hundred million dollars, with a couple hundred million of that – on a money-losing arena, a parking garage for a landlord that went into receivership, on a high-tech office building that never lived up to inflated promises, on a road to nowhere, and for other less grandiose schemes – going to what charitably might be called questionable priorities, but perhaps more realistically can be described as wasted and unneeded. Debt owed at the end of 2022 was almost $435 million and has left residents with the highest per capita debt of any city in Louisiana at just under $7,000 each.
Operating monies as well show a pattern of dubious use. Besides the Manchac contract, the city subsidizes tennis playing and out-of-towner use of parks at residents' expense. And a new hybrid, potentially giving away to the Port of Caddo-Bossier a water distribution facility unless an unlikely chain of events occurs to compensate fully the city, is an unforced error looming over the city for decades to come. Meanwhile, many city employees can't receive pay raises in an era of higher inflation, or retired firefighters get stiffed on the city contributing to their health insurance premiums due to overbearing debt and poor current spending choices.
This background of fiscal imprudence establishes the environment under which the city will ask next year for a renewal of two property taxes that provide funding for public safety. At its last meeting, the City Council set a public hearing for renewal at its meeting after the next, Jan. 16, that begins the process of asking voters for another ten years' worth set currently at a combined 11.03 mils dedicated to maintenance and operations.
It follows the playbook when the calendar puts a millage expiration the year of city elections, which it adhered to in 2020 for the 6.19 mil tax currently set at 5.98 for public safety salaries. That is, cue up a vote before national elections in that year in time for both budgeting with, if the measure passes, assurance of that revenue for the next year and before the next year's city elections, to avoid conflating talk of taxes with incumbents' quest for reelection the next year and for that year keeping turnout low so that the directly affected party of city employees – in public safety – disproportionately are likely to participate in that election to help achieve item passage.
The expiring millages, like the previous (these are the only three subject to votes; the city's other, the general alimony charge for operations currently set at 5.57 under the Constitution doesn't need voter approval) actually were approved at a maximum of 11.41 in 2015 but were not rolled forward. Unlike levies on economic activity like sales taxes, property taxes hit assets, and the Constitution distinguishes between the two by forcing local governments to roll back millage rates after the required quadrennial reassessments that occur during presidential election years so that any reassessed property (not new to the roll or part of a transaction where the market sets a value) pays the same amount as prior to reassessment, as calculated in the aggregate of all parish property.
Alternatively, a local government may choose to roll forward millages the year after a reassessment, at least up to the maximum authorized rate, recapturing some or all of the revenue forgone by any increase in the parish tax base. In the case of a city government, that requires a two-thirds supermajority vote by its council, or five votes in Bossier City. Note that it could work the other way, and did in 2017 in Bossier City: a decline in the tax base automatically could shift rates higher up to the maximum rate without need of a Council vote.
This is why elected officials like to send renewals off at the previous rate approved by voters rather than a rate that they have not stopped from rolling back, or even voluntarily set themselves. Indeed, after the 8/15/2020 renewal of the salaries millage at the original 6.19 rate, the Council a month later rolled it back down to the 5.98 rate charged previously prior to the 2016 reassessment, in the knowledge that the 2020 reassessment rose – only about six months prior to 2021 city elections.
The same scenario could well play out in 2024. The four graybeard councilors for whom this will be their fourth or more reassessment – Republicans David Montgomery and Jeff Free, Democrat Bubba Williams, and no party Jeff Darby – assuming less than a year from now city voters haven't amended into the charter lifetime three-term limits that would disqualify all four from running for reelection and all succeed, may want to put onto the August ballot for renewal the previous maximum rates of 8.61 and 2.80 and then roll back to the current 8.32 and 2.71 shortly thereafter if the measures are approved, as they did in 2020 with the other levy.
Except that then, given the city's fiscal problems that they foisted onto it, the temptation remains palpable months after 2025 elections, and weeks after their new terms begin, to roll all 2025 rates forward partially or entirely up to the (current combined) maximum of 23.36. It would take one more affirmative vote, and over the past 30 months Republican rookie Councilor Vince Maggio, assuming he runs for reelection and succeeds, on many occasions has proved himself to be a compliant lapdog to the graybeards and could provide that vote.
Therefore, to prevent unequivocably any chance at a tax increase, the renewals should be authorized for an election at the 8.32 and 2.71 rates. One thing hampering the city's growth – it barely gained in population from 2010 to 2020 – is its higher-than-necessary property tax rates, which put in fifth-highest among Louisiana's ten largest cities and 50 percent higher than its peer cities Kenner and Lake Charles.
The Council vote to ask for renewal that will come soon – and it must by its last meeting in February to make the Apr. 27 general municipal election date since the July and August dates in 2020 were one-offs to make up for pandemic-cancelled elections and aren't available this time – must reflect the current rates, not the past maximums. It's the best way to build trust in the citizenry for renewing that it won't have to pay for councilors' past mistakes, as well as sets the city up better for future growth.
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Recent elections in Central Europe swept out incumbents, but in opposite directions, with the nearby Ukraine war and its impact on citizens and the economies never far from the political surface.Poland's liberal opposition managed to defeat the stubborn hold on power of the conservative nationalist party that has ruled since 2015. With the exception of the far-right Konfederacja party, the victors and the vanquished in Poland both support Ukraine's war effort. However, the campaign period exposed some economic grievances related to supporting Ukraine's European Union membership bid.In Slovakia, former prime minister Robert Fico, whose SMER party combines social democratic welfare policies with conservative nationalism, defeated the pro-EU and pro-Ukraine incumbents by emphatically opposing further military aid for Ukraine. Poland: Return to the European fold?The victory of Poland's liberal opposition in the October 15 parliamentary elections was momentous for the European Union, since it could signal the end of the uneasy relations with Europe under Poland's conservative Law and Justice party (PiS).The prospective coalition will be composed of the Civic Platform led by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, along with the centrist Third Way coalition and the New Left bloc. Together, these three parties won 54% of the vote in a record turnout. Tusk, who served as president of the EU Council from 2014 to 2019, is committed to unblocking over 30 billion euros withheld by the EU pending the reversal of measures taken by PiS seen as having curbed judicial independence.Although it has no obvious coalition partner, PiS got the largest share of votes of any single party at 35.6 percent, allowing their leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski to claim a victory of sorts. The Law and Justice party, having governed for eight years, will be formidable in opposition, in part because the PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda's term ends only in 2025. Even if Duda bows to the election arithmetic and allows Tusk and partners to form a new government, PiS can rely on the presidential veto and court challenges to hobble Tusk's policy agenda.Law and Justice took a stubborn anti-German stance while in power and has sought to depict Tusk and other liberal opponents as agents of Germany. Moreover, Kaczynski has long accused Tusk of conspiring with Russia to cause the Polish presidential aircraft to crash as it attempted to land in the Russian city of Smolensk in 2010. For several years prior to this event, Tusk had, as Prime Minister, pursued a limited rapprochement with Russia, part of his attempt to bring Polish diplomacy more into alignment with that of France and Germany.A rare exception among nationalist-populist parties in Europe, PiS enthusiastically pushed for greater and more advanced weapons deliveries to Ukraine. However, during the election campaign this fall, PiS exploited Ukraine fatigue among Polish farmers calling for barring Ukrainian grain from the Polish market. In mid-September, in the midst of the electoral campaign, Duda likened Ukraine to a drowning man that risked taking others down with it.Polls indicate that many Poles resent the alleged economic impact of the roughly 1 million Ukrainian refugees resettled in the country. The Polish population seems to be torn between this resentment and the otherwise still solid support for Ukraine's war effort. There are also unresolved historical grievances held by some Poles against Ukrainians. Insightful polling last year concluded that Poles love Ukraine but not Ukrainians. PiS in opposition will likely seek to block Ukrainian EU accession, which can easily be depicted as disadvantageous to Polish economic interests and will respond to the frustrations exposed by the swing in public opinion.Slovakia's elections move country away from Ukraine supportSlovakia's elections of September 30 brought former Prime Minister Robert Fico's SMER (Direction) party back to power in coalition with two other parties. Fico and his coalition partners — the social democratic Voice Party and the hard-right nationalist Slovak National Party — campaigned openly on halting military support to Ukraine and on resisting any new sanctions on Russia. The pro-EU and pro-Ukraine Progressive Slovakia finished a distant second.Slovak public opinion shows a swelling Ukraine fatigue. Inflation, a weak economy and a general positive disposition among many Slovaks toward Russia are among the causes.At his first EU summit on October 27, Fico announced an end of any further military support from Slovakia to Ukraine and called for the EU to press for a negotiated settlement. He pledged to oppose any new sanctions against Russia that would adversely affect Slovakia's economy. In these positions, Fico and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were in close alignment. Since matters of foreign and security policy in the EU are decided unanimously, Hungary and Slovakia have some leverage over policy outcomes.How might the balance have shifted?The Polish election result may well reinforce Poland's already pronounced Atlanticist orientation. But Tusk's government may also align Poland more closely with the somewhat more nuanced and reserved position taken by Germany on supporting Ukraine. Germany has been cautious to avoid escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and has only reluctantly come on board with the US in the provision of longer-range and more advanced weaponry. Poland, under its conservative government, publicly derided German hesitations. This may change under Tusk.Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Macron have also championed intensified cooperation in defense-industrial modernization for Europe, a cause which Poland has not heretofore espoused. This could also change under Tusk's leadership. But Tusk's role will be under constant challenge, since PiS will hope to divide his coalition and bring forward new elections. The ongoing drag on the Polish economy will ensure that the question of balancing support for Ukraine with other objectives will not disappear from public discourse.Kaczynski's PiS was strongly in sympathy with Orban's Hungary in decrying the imposition of the European normative agenda on the scope of their powers. But the two parties never began to close the gap between their views on questions of war and peace. Relations between the two countries will now be far less cordial.Slovakia, on the other hand, is a small but unreserved ally for Hungary in resisting further military support for Ukraine. Fico has already fully committed Slovakia to opposing new military aid from the EU to Ukraine and any new sanctions against Russia. This will on balance reduce the marginalization of Hungary in the EU and in NATO.The net effect of these two elections leave the disposition of Europe as a whole toward support for Ukraine still very much in play. Poland returns to the top table of European decision-making but in doing so will be expected to accommodate to some extent the views of Germany and France. Slovakia under Fico will offer important cover to Orban's Hungary, which would otherwise be isolated.
This paper will analyse the fundamental right to vote during a global pandemic - how various states have adapted to it and what were the crucial mistakes made. Three main ways of voting will be analysed with regard to the issues they would each solve and threats they pose. First is in-person voting, which is the most common and trusted way of voting. It is generally agreed that voting in-person is the most trustworthy method, as the possibilities of fraud are kept at minimum and the overall election integrity is saved. On the other hand, questions have been raised in regards to long waiting lines, poor allocation of resources and procedural intricacies. Additionally, with global pandemic, this trusted method has been faced with health concerns, especially from those of older age or poorer healthcare conditions, which results in in-person voting becoming discriminatory. Secondly, there's voting by mail. While some countries, like Germany, that have long traditions of mail voting have experienced an increased turnout after turning to all mail voting during the pandemic, some states, especially in the US, have raised concerns in regards to fraud and political manipulation as well as financial burdens of suddenly turning to mail voting. Consequently, some states have problematic regulations in regards to eligibility for voting by mail and procedures of casting such votes. Finally, electronic vote must be considered as dictates the future of humankind. While Estonia has seen great results with their I-voting system, this work will analyse the vulnerabilities of electronic methods and propose what has to be done in order to use them while keeping the integrity of elections - specifically DRE/GEMS machines, blockchain voting as well as the Estonian example. ; Pasaulinės pandemijos metu kilo daug iššūkių persikeliant į darbą, mokslus nuotoliu, teismų sprendimus ir daugelį kitų gyvenimo aspektų nuotoliniu būdu. Panašūs sunkumai kilo ir prisitaikant balsuoti šiuo laikotarpiu. Valstybės ieškojo sprendimų, kurie leistų išlaikyti reikalingą pagarbą balsavimo teisei ir apsaugoti visuomenę nuo padarinių sveikatai bei gyvybei. Šiame darbe bus analizuojami būdai užtikrinti visuotinius, lygius ir nepriklausomus rinkimus bei slaptą balsavimą metu, kai žmonių susibūrimai draudžiami siekiant apsaugoti visuomenės sveikatą. Visų pirma, aptariamas balsavimas fiziškai nukeliaujant į balsavimo vietą. Toks balsavimo būdas yra pats paprasčiausias ir populiariausias, pirmiausia dėl to, kad nesunkiai patvirtinama rinkėjo tapatybė ir užtikrinamas rinkimų patikimumas. Tačiau net ir šis metodas yra kritikuojamas dėl ilgų eilių, kurias tenka pralaukti rinkėjams prieš balsuojant (kai kuriose JAV valstijose jos gali siekti iki 5-7 val.), prasto rinkimų darbuotojų apmokymo, blogo resursų (rinkimų darbuotojų, balsavimo priemonių) paskirstymo, taip pat dėl sudėtingų ir net diskriminuojančių procedūrų. Pandemijos metu ši situacija tik paaštrėjo - balsavimas fiziškai nukeliaujant į balsavimo vietą kelia grėsmę sveikatai, o kai kuriais atvejais - net gyvybei. Kadangi kai kurios socialinės grupės yra labiau pažeidžiamos, rinkimų organizavimas tik tokiu būdu yra diskriminuojantis jų atžvilgiu. Pavyzdžiui, vyresnio amžiaus žmonės ar prastesnę sveikatos apsaugą gaunantys žmonės, gali bijoti apsikrėsti virusu labiau, nes jiems tai turėtų didesnes pasėkmes, nei jaunam ir visiškai sveikam žmogui. Todėl tikėtina, kad tokie piliečiai nerizikuos eiti balsuoti fiziškai ir taip ne dėl savo kaltės praras galimybę balsuoti apskritai. Kitas būdas, kurį viena ar kita forma pasitelkė nemaža dalis valstybių per COVID-19 pandemiją, yra balsavimas paštu. Valstybėse, kurios turi ilgą balsavimo paštu tradiciją, kaip Vokietija, šis metodas atnešė puikių rezultatų ir net didesnį rinkėjų aktyvumą, nei įprastiniuose rinkimuose. Visgi, kitose valstybėse tokie siūlymai sukėlė daug klausimų: dėl galimo sukčiavimo, politinio manipuliavimo rinkėjų paštu balsais, taip pat finansinių išteklių, kurių pareikalautų visuotinis balsavimas paštu. Tai ypač svarbu JAV, kur nacionalinis pašto paslaugų tiekėjas jau keletą metų turi finansinių problemų, o COVID-19 pandemijos metu siuntiniai vėluoja dar labiau, nei įprastai. Kita problema yra teisinis balsavimo paštu reguliavimas. Svarbu pastebėti, kad visi pakitimai, daromi rinkimų teisiniam reguliavimui, turi būti ne tik teisėti, t.y. atitikti Konstituciją ir egzistuojančius įstatymus, tačiau ir būti minimalūs, kad nepažeistų rinkimų teisės stabilumo. Dėl to kai kur kilo problemų dėl asmenų, kurie turi teisę balsuoti paštu - daugelis valstybių šia teise leidžia pasinaudoti tik ribotai grupei asmenų (paprastai senjorams ir neįgaliesiems), tad žmogus, kuris tiesiog bijo užsikrėsti virusu, neturi teisės prašyti balsuoti paštu. Taip pat svarbu atkreipti dėmesį ir į procedūrinius reguliavimo aspektus - terminai prašyti balsavimo biulietenio paštu ir jį išsiųsti. Pandemijos metu šie terminai privalo būti pratęsti, siekiant apsaugoti balsavimo teisę žmonių, kuriems paskirta saviizoliacija jau po termino prašyti balsavimo biuletenio paštu pabaigos. Kitokiu atveju, vėlgi - asmuo be savo kaltės prarastų teisę balsuoti. Būtina pastebėti ir procedūrinius reikalavimus, dėl kurių dažniausiai atmetami balsavimo paštu biuleteniai - notaro ar liudytojų parašai, reikalingi vokeliai, ir kita netyčia neteisingai užpildyta informacija. Šiuos reikalavimus būtina pritaikyti taip, kad nebūtų bereikalingai apsunkinamas balsavimo procesas, kai rinkėjas atiduoda balsą gera valia, tačiau kartu nėra suteikiamos sąlygos piktnaudžiauti, kaip tai nutiko Prancūzijoje, kur buvo įtarimų, kad kandidatai piktnaudžiauja rinkėjų teise balsuoti per įgaliotinį. Geras sprendimas būtų "informavimo ir pataisymo" sistema, naudojama kai kuriose JAV valstijose. Ji leidžia rinkėjui, po to kai yra informuojamas apie procedūrinius biuletenio trūkumus, juos ištaisyti ir naujai išsiųsti savo balsavimo biuletenį. Galiausiai, darbe aptariamos elektroninio balsavimo galimybės. Pirmiausia - situacija dalyje JAV valstijų, kur ilgą laiką buvo naudojama "DRE/GEMS" sistema, paremta sena ir ilgą laiką neatnaujinta operacine sistema, į kurią galima nesunkiai įsilaužti, nepaliekant pėdsakų. Toliau analizuojama "blockchain" technologijos naudojimo galimybė balsuojant, Vakarų Virginijos naudota "Voatz" programėlė, paremta būtent "blockchain" technologija - jos stiprybės ir pažeidžiamumas. Taip pat aptariama "I-Voting" sistemos sėkmė Estijoje. Šioje technologijoje taip pat buvo rasta procedūrinių problemų, tačiau didelė dalis jų buvo panaikinta auditu ir papildomais reikalavimais, atsižvelgiant į mokslininkų tyrimus, nuolat implementuojami papildomi patobulinimai. Visgi, informacinių technologijų bendruomenė sutaria, kad jokia elektroninė sistema nėra neįveikiama; turint omenyje Rusijos kišimąsi į 2014 m. Ukrainos ir 2016 m. JAV rinkimus, būtina apsvarstyti kiekvieną pažeidžiamumą, kad ir koks menkai įmanomas jis atrodytų. Suinteresuotas užsienio įsilaužėlis su tinkamu finansavimu gali turėti ir sunkiai prieinamų metodų, tad prieš realizuojant elektroninę balsavimo sistemą, būtina išanalizuoti kiekvieną jos silpnybę. Tai ypač svarbu, siekiant išsaugoti visuomenės pasitikėjimą rinkimais ir apskritai demokratine sistema. Vykdant bet kokius pakitimus rinkimų ir balsavimo sistemai, svarbu įvertinti visus variantus ir suprasti kiekvieno iš jų silpnybes, kad būtų galima nuo jų apsisaugoti, šviesti visuomenę ir jų išvengti. Esminis aspektas yra visus pakitimus vykdyti laikantis Purcell principo bei Venecijos komisijos rekomendacijomis; rinkimų reguliavimas turi būti pastovus ir nekelti chaoso, dėl to drastiškai keisti balsavimo metodą nepaliekant vietos pereinamajam laikotarpiui būtų neprotinga - visi pakitimai turėtų vykti laipsniškai, atsižvelgiant į tai, kiek tai leidžia egzistuojantis reguliavimas. Vis dėlto, svarbu, kad pandemijos laikotarpiu šie pakitimai būtų vykdomi ir būtų suteikiama daugiau galimybių balsuoti, ne tik fiziškai. Kitokiu atveju diskriminuojamos labiau viruso pažeidžiamos socialinės grupės ir piliečiai, priversti izoliuotis. ; Teisės fakultetas
The project aims to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the government's irrigation program with focus on the technical, physical, and institutional aspects of performance of communal irrigation systems (CIS). Cycle 1 involved the assessment of 66 communal irrigation systems (CIS) from 11 provinces in Luzon, while Cycle 2 covered 12 CIS from 4 provinces in the Visayas, and 12 CIS from 4 provinces in Mindanao. Provinces were selected based on the total FUSA served by CIS, while the selection of sample CIS per province were based on size category of service areas: small (50 ha and below), medium (between 50 and 100 ha), and large (above 100 ha). They were then characterized based on water source, type of extraction/ distribution technology (gravity, pump), FUSA, operational status and cropping intensity. Primary and secondary data were collected. Key informant interviews (KII) of the RIO or IMO Managers, as well as other key actors such as NIA-IDOs and the IA President, were conducted using a structured questionnaire. Focus group discussions with IA officers/ members were likewise carried out. Walkthroughs to gauge the physical conditions of the systems were conducted in 2 of the 6 selected CIS from the 11 provinces in Luzon for a total of 22, and in all the 24 CIS selected in Visayas and Mindanao. Majority of the selected CIS are gravity systems except in some provinces where there are more pump irrigation systems. Water sources of the CIS are lakes, rivers, creeks, springs, runoff and ground water. While some rivers tapped have adequate flows for irrigation even during the dry seasons, unreliable water supply is a major problem for majority of the CIS who tap water from less dependable small rivers and creeks, or rely on springs and runoff. In most of the CIS visited, farmers resort to conjunctive use of STWs with their CIS especially during long dry periods. Many CIS where found to be in slope greater that 3%, and as such, it is recommended to include all areas within 8% slope, minus the built-up and other protected areas as potential irrigable areas. The presence of a dependable surface water source and a good shallow aquifer, as well as the soil type and its suitability to different type of crops, should also be used as major criteria for irrigation development. On the problem of water supply sources, there should be a concerted and united effort on the part of concerned government agencies like NWRB, NIA, BSWM, and the academe to identify potential sites for diversion dams and storage reservoirs. The estimation of dependable (low) water supply and flood (high) discharges for rivers is very important. As such, the shelved proposal for the institution of the National Water Resources Management Office under the Office of the President should be revived and reformulated. The institution of Water Resources Centers in selected state colleges and universities (SCUs), who can continuously gather, analyze and manage water resources data would be significant in building hydrologic database. All accumulated water resources data should be housed in a database center within the proposed super body. There are a host of technical problems that confronts the IAs and the performance of their CIS. Most run-of-the-river type dams are old, and some with sediments almost at the crest level. Damaged sluice and intake gates are usually replaced with wooden flashboards, sand bags or stones, and defective lifting mechanisms are either left open or fitted with chain blocks. Sedimentation due to catchment denudation, mining, lahar, among others, is a major problem decreasing dam storage potential and canal carrying capacity. A positive aspect is that most CIS have concrete-lined main canals and laterals, and their conditions depend on the IA O&M and cleanup mechanisms. At any rate, sediment discharge estimation should be a prerequisite in feasibility studies and provision of silt control devices should be included in the design for sediment laden rivers. Control structures include simple cross regulators, check gates, drop structures, division boxes and farm turnouts most of which uses wooden flashboards for water level control. Most service roads are in bad conditions with some dams accessible only by walking or by motorcycles. As in most irrigation systems, flow measurements are not conducted and there are no specific drainage canals at the CIS leading to flooding problems in some systems during the rainy season. Water distribution is usually from paddy to paddy, with few farm ditches contributing to large application losses. Rehabilitation works have been performed through NIA's technical assistance and mostly done to correct damaged dams and headworks, lining of canals, and dredging of sediments. With the recent availability of low-cost HDPE pipes, the feasibility of using these materials for subsurface conveyance of irrigation to the fields, should be looked into. Most IAs believe that they receive adequate water at the right time though frequent delays and inequitable flow distribution still abound. The IAs also generally rate their systems high in terms of water delivery, flexibility, reliability and equitability, and themselves in terms of water distribution and canal maintenance, indicating the high relative impact of NIA to the farmers. There is no distinct pattern based on size of FUSA on the performance of CIS and functionality of IAs. Crucial is the capacity of each IA to harness its organizational capacity to build human, financial, social capital, thus, the need for continuous capacity building. CIS development remains dependent on government (i.e., NIA) assistance and the planned management transfer to LGUs based on AFMA is rarely implemented, if at all. Problems of sustainability of irrigation infrastructure loom due to persistent environmental problems (watershed degradation, siltation, extreme climate-related events). IAs apparently have none or limited role in watershed management but these can serve as partners in watershed management programs. The role of IDOs is very crucial but even with a heavy workload they are not getting adequate incentives (e.g. security of tenure and other benefits. Most often, IDOs are hired on job order basis with salaries drawn from CIS project budget. All of the IAs interviewed were grateful for the FISA since they are relieved from paying the cost of their CIS. The IAs continued to collect fees from their members for their O&M, referring to them as irrigation management fee (IMF) or association service charge (ASC). However, some IA members are reluctant to pay any fee citing the implementation of FISA. IA's concerns in O&M and inadequate funds are persistent. FISA declared that O&M cost shall be provided by the national government. Therefore, there should be clear guidelines or provisions on this. FISA maintains the significant role of NIA in providing technical support to IAs and in building IAs' capacity to sustain their functionality. Thus, linkage between NIA and IAs should be sustained.
On November 4, 1791, the united States Army under the command of Arthur St. Clair suffered its worst defeat at the hands of the Indians. Over half of the nearly 2,000 men engaged in battle were killed or wounded along the headwaters of the Wabash River in present-day Ohio. Dismissed as a mere skirmish in a series of engagements against the Indians from 1790 to 1795, this battle and its fateful commander have fallen into obscurity in the annals of American history. The story of the doomed campaign of 1791 is only one of a number of crucial engagements for the Northwest Territory, which encompass the states of Ohio and Indiana from 1790- 1795. Soon after the conclusion of its war for independence, the United States set out on a course of nation building. Long before the Revolution, settlers had ventured into the hostile wilderness along the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. With the war over and the United States a sovereign nation, the land bordered by the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south seemed primed for the influx of settlers. Contrary to popular beliefs that this region was uncivilized, many Indian nations prospered within the forests north of the Ohio River. Indians living in this region became increasingly more defensive and aggressive toward encroaching settlers. The United States government, fearful of provoking the Indian nations into war, yet hungry for the land, half -heartedly pursued a course of peaceful co- existence. Eventually, hostilities between Indians and settlers in the Old Northwest Territory sparked a land war initiating two centuries of bloodshed in America. The war started in the forests of the Old Northwest in the 1790's set a precedent throughout the American West, as the United States government and settlers could not resist their appetite for land controlled by Indian nations. The United States military was unprepared for the war about to begin along its frontier. Controversy engulfed the nation over the re-establishment of the military following the Revolution. The fear of a standing army gripped American people who saw firsthand the seemingly unlimited powers the British army could exude over a population. Accordingly, the framers of the Articles of Confederation and Constitution felt it necessary to limit military power by recruiting state militias, rather than providing for a large, federally regulated army. Thus, supporting the army fell to private and civilian contractors who were responsible for arming, feeding, and equipping the soldiers on the frontier. By 1790, the War Department's reliance in filling the army's quotas with state militias, while depending upon private contractors to meet the army's logistical needs, contributed to the army's first major defeat in the Old Northwest Territory. Major-General Josiah Harmar, commander of the first campaign against the Miami Indians, faced numerous problems with his soldiers, particularly the militia, as well as logistical nightmares. Supplies either reached his men late or not at all; and when engaged by the Indians, the militia soldiers under Harmar's command fled from the field of battle. Harmar experienced many difficulties with the militia and civilian contractors years earlier. From 1785 until the campaign in 1790, contractors responsible for supplying the frontier army, supplied defective equipment. The supplies that did reach the troops were nearly always late. The contractors' usual excuse for the inadequate supplies cited a lack of funding by the Confederation government. Harmar also experienced despair from the militia detachments sent to the Northwest Territory. Those soldiers were largely inexperienced or unwilling to submit to the discipline of the military, and Harmar always lacked enough troops to man the frontier garrison from states unwilling or unable to send men out into the harsh lands along the Ohio River. The United States' first major campaign against a "foreign" enemy revealed some serious deficiencies in the military establishment. However, the disaster of the first campaign would not change any policies within the War Department on manning and supplying the army. For the second campaign into the Old Northwest Territory, the policies that hindered the military's effectiveness for nearly a decade would spell doom for the soldiers under the command of Arthur St. Clair. The War Department, in planning the campaign of 1791, decided the only improvement needed to defeat the Miami Indians was to build a larger army. It soon became evident that such was not the case. General St. Clair took command of the army in March 1791, but the army did not begin its journey to the Indian territory until September, two months behind schedule. St. Clair's efforts to prepare an army for battle had been impeded at every turn by contractors, unruly soldiers, weather, and a myriad of other difficulties. The two men largely responsible for the delays and difficulties of the army were Quartermaster General, Samuel Hodgdon and William Duer, contractor for provisions. The preparations for the campaign were obstructed from deficient equipment and unnecessary delays committed by these two men. Training suffered as time needed to drill the men was spent repairing equipment. Eventually, the poorly trained soldiers left Fort Washington, bearing inadequate equipment and rations, totally unprepared for the fate which awaited them along the Wabash River. On the morning of November 4, St. Clair's army was overwhelmed by a band of Indians led by the brilliant Miami chief, Little Turtle. Within hours, the United States Army was routed and withdrew from their camp along the Wabash River in disarray. On the slow and arduous march into Indian Territory, the logistical problems continued to affect the overall preparedness of the army. Supplies were deficient, and the rations were late in reaching the troops in the field. St. Clair's efforts were also obstructed by desertions and the advancing winter season. By the morning of November 4, 1791, the beleaguered army under St. Clair's command was simply unprepared and overwhelmed by an Indian army half their size. In retrospect, St. Clair's logistical system failed to support his mission. Mismanagement of supplies, coupled with the poor troop turnout, affected the ability of the army to mount a successful campaign against the Indians of the Northwest Territory. The defeat of St. Clair was the climax to seven years of rebuilding the nation's military following the Revolutionary War. The War Department, relying on civilians to supply the troops and on state militias to fill their ranks, discovered all too painfully the mistakes of this policy. Not until three years later, would a United States Army be able to defeat and subdue the Indians of the Northwest Territory and claim this region for the young nation. After defeating the greatest military power in the world, Great Britain, it took two humbling campaigns and nearly a decade of carelessness for the United States Army to attain its former glory.
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Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in as Pakistan's new prime minister Sunday amid a swirl of accusations that his party, in concert with the Pakistani military, rigged the elections.Earlier this month, voters in Pakistan woke up to what initially appeared to be an overwhelming victory to former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and a strong rebuke to the powerful military-backed government in the country's parliamentary elections. Instead, the election was ultimately called for the military's preferred candidate, Sharif, of the conservative Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) party.Early results, broadcast widely by the Pakistani media, had shown a landslide victory for PTI. After the election was called for Sharif's party, nonpartisan observers like the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) found that there were election law violations at over two-thirds of polling sites, which almost certainly helped change the outcomes.This was in addition to unprecedented efforts by the Pakistani military to discourage voter turnout and intimidate candidates running with the populist PTI, including forcing PTI-aligned candidates to run as independents, banning the PTI's iconic cricket bat symbol from the ballot in a country where a significant number of illiterate voters rely on those symbols to identify candidates, and widespread mobile outages.Late in the evening of the election, after an unusual gap in media coverage, constituencies where televised results and hard documentation (known as "Form 45s") had shown PTI-backed candidates with commanding leads were suddenly showing "official" results in which PML-N candidates had surged to improbable leads, in some cases with PTI-backed candidates losing votes. A high-ranking elections official in Rawalpindi, a city housing the military headquarters abutting the capital Islamabad, later confessed to flipping 13 constituencies against PTI-aligned candidates and accused the Election Commission of Pakistan and military leadership of orchestrating electoral theft. In spite of these efforts to ostensibly skew the results in the PMLN's favor, official results still showed the PTI with 93-seat plurality, eclipsing the PMLN's 75 seats. But reducing the potentially-enormous PTI mandate into a bare plurality left the party incapable of overcoming a coalition of the PMLN and the PPP — Pakistan's other dynastic political party — and forming a government. Members of the U.S. Congress from across the political spectrum have come out with statements sounding the alarm on the Pakistani military's election interference, vote rigging, and fraud. A number of lawmakers are specifically calling on the State Department to refuse to recognize the results of Pakistan's election until there is an independent investigation into the vote rigging and fraud. Growing pressure from Congress, advocates, and Pakistani-Americans, many of whom support PTI, has forced the State Department to think carefully about its next moves. House Foreign Affairs Committee members like Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) and Rep. John James (R-Mich.) were among the lawmakers stressing the importance of making sure the U.S. does not recognize an illegitimate government in Pakistan. "Now is the time for the international community to stand on the side of the people of Pakistan," Rep. Wild said. "We cannot recognize a new government until it is clear that democracy has prevailed." Progressives, establishment Democrats, and even Republicans have spoken out in recent days to express support for the right of the Pakistani people to a democratically elected government. More than two dozen lawmakers, led by Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), sent a letter to the Biden administration on Wednesday demanding it withhold recognition of the new government until there's an investigation. The State Department's response, on the other hand, has been mixed. Not long after military and police forces moved to suppress the election results, Biden's State Department put out a statement calling for an investigation into the election fraud. "Claims of interference or fraud should be fully investigated," spokesperson Matthew Miller said. However, he added, "the United States is prepared to work with the next Pakistani government, regardless of party." Pressure from activists and lawmakers like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) likely compelled the State Department to issue a recent call on Pakistan's government to restore access to X (formerly known as Twitter) during an extensive blackout in the country.It remains a question how committed the State Department is to seeing this through. At a press briefing earlier this month, Miller said the U.S. wants to see the vote rigging investigated by "Pakistan's legal system." It is widely known, however, that Pakistan's legal system is an arm of the regime. Courts in Pakistan have already thrown cases out, and it was the Supreme Court that essentially banned PTI candidates from running in the election when it ruled they could not use their party symbol on ballots. When Intercept reporter Ryan Grim pressed Miller on this fact, pointing to growing congressional calls for an independent investigation, Miller replied: "I don't know what body they're proposing." But the State Department has had no problem assessing elections and suggesting actions against them in the past. They just appear stronger and more categorical. In July 2023, the State Department declared that the Cambodian national elections "were neither free nor fair." When Uganda saw its government undermine the 2021 general election with violence, intimidation, and other suppression tactics, Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the actions and announced visa restrictions "on those believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic process in Uganda." On Sunday, the State Department condemned the "sham parliamentary elections" in Belarus. "Impossible to hold free and fair elections in a climate of fear and with 1400+ political prisoners," Miller said in a tweet. Anyone familiar with recent U.S. foreign policy knows well that Washington is never shy about condemning purportedly undemocratic behavior abroad, even using it as justification for military interventions and sanctions regimes.A chorus for an election audit is growing domestically in Pakistan. Election monitors with varying degrees of independence from officials in Islamabad, ranging from FAFEN to the Pattan Development Organization, have called the results into question and demanded action from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Pattan officials have gone even further in their assessment of electoral fraud and have demanded an investigation of motives: "Since Pattan had observed and analysed the whole electoral process of the election, we are confident to note that rigging at each step of the election was likely to be part of a grand strategy. Therefore, it appears necessary to investigate the role of its authors, the implementors and who are the possible beneficiaries." Pressure is growing from the halls of the U.S. Congress on the State Department to endorse such an audit before recognizing any PMLN-PPP coalition government formed under fraudulent terms. Senior Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among the latest and most significant of those voices, addressing his message to the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S.: "Pakistani authorities must fully investigate the allegations of fraud and electoral interference. Without a credible investigation, a new government will struggle to bring the Pakistani people together." Sen. Van Hollen also invoked the specter of Pakistan's looming IMF negotiations, a challenge that has plagued the country's fragile governments and economy for years and one that has similarly been raised by Imran Khan in his own letter asking the IMF not to extend a loan to an undemocratic Pakistani government.The coming weeks will be a crucial moment in the future of Pakistan's fragile democracy.
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Last week at the Bossier City Council meeting, the head of its and Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler's appointed Charter Review Commission Preston Friedley reported on his panel's activities and solicited input from councilors on changes. How – if – they respond to that will determine whether the constructed body actually carries out the task envisioned for it in the city charter or if it exists merely as a dog-and-pony show with ulterior political motives.
The Commission has met twice and addressed organizational considerations. It has set up an aggressive schedule of meetings throughout February and intends to toss in some public forums as well. That in and of itself indicates its use as a political tool to preserve the power of a small number of city insiders.
Its creation came in the context of a petition drive to put a three-term lifetime limit into the Charter. The drive succeeded, but has become hung up over legal minutiae initiated at the behest of the four graybeard councilors – Republicans David Montgomery and Jeff Free, Democrat Bubba Williams, and no party Jeff Darby – all of whom would be disbarred from running for reelection next year if the petitions (one covering councilor service, the other the mayor's) make it onto the Nov. 5 or Dec. 7 ballots and receive majority voter approval – plus GOP rookie Councilor Vince Maggio. On at least three out of four occasions each of the five has refused – illegally, according to the Charter which states they must approve for the ballot a petition certified by the registrar of voters as the pair were – to do that.
Out of this majority's political desires was born the idea of the Commission, as a tactic to accomplish a couple of goals. First, it wanted to take the steam out of the term limits movement. The lawfare gambit it has pursued most optimistically could declare the petitions invalid, but if that fails the fallback position is to drag proceedings out so long that the court doesn't rule the items onto the ballot by Oct. 14, the deadline for propositions to make the December ballot (the November ballot deadline is Jun. 19). Even if the judiciary (with the city likely trying to push it all the way to the Supreme Court, wasting huge chunks of taxpayer dollars along the way) does this that is a small victory, for the chances of the measures not passing in November are essentially zero while for December, likely without a federal election on the ballot with lower turnout, that expands to a small chance.
However, a parallel effort to put the same items (and more) onto the ballot in 2024 with a signature-gathering process is taking place, which could moot the court case. In this eventuality, the Council majority hopes the Commission would combat this by coming up with its own rival version of term limits, weaker such as grandfathering in current councilors, having it apply not until 2029 elections (by then the youngest of the graybeards and Maggio would be in their latter sixties in age), and/or lengthening the number of terms eligible to serve and/or not making it lifetime and/or retroactive. The intent is at the least to put a competing, comparatively limp version on the ballot.
Or, it may stand alone. The ongoing new petitioning effort has to wrap up within the month to make the November ballot, because there is a short interval where the registrar must vet signatures for certification, then afterwards the Council legally has 90 days before it must act to put something on the ballot (the graybeard plus Maggio coalition won't ever consider the other option of voting to insert the measures into the Charter within 30 days), and the majority will delay as long as it can. The second attempt has a much better chance of making the December ballot, so the graybeards+ desire is for the Commission to have its watered-down version on there first, hope to have that pass, then argue against a stronger version coming the next month saying term limits are done and dusted.
However, there's a second goal that graybeards+ might pursue. Commissioners could put a weak term limits measure in play surrounded by one or more poison pills, as the Charter defines amending the charter through the commission method as replacing the entire document. Therefore, ballot language would refer to a new document that could vary from almost no to extensive alterations. Further, amendments are not separated out but every change is in essence voted up or down.
So, for example, to weak term limits could be married something like changing the petitioning process to make it more difficult, as a third of the total votes cast in the last citywide office contested at the polls is not a demanding standard (the new petitioning also includes an amendment to make it easier still to have direct democracy). With this strategy, the graybeards+ would make a small, almost meaningless, concession to achieve a much larger goal of preventing encroachment on their power. This helps bring a win either way: obtaining a net victory or, if voters reject limits plus the poison pill (echoing in 2004 when massively defeated were some changes linked with a mandatory increased fee on water bills) that can delegitimize the idea and make it harder for future efforts to have limits, whether in discouraging petitioning or voting for a measure in progress on the way to the ballot.
The signaling for a quick resolution can achieve either. The Commission could slap on a diluted term limits proposal with a poison pill or send it out solo. In fact, if the solo version ends up on the same ballot as a stricter measure by petition, whether from court decision or new petitioning, as the two conflict and both pass the Charter instructs the one with the highest vote total becomes effective. This would leave term limits supporters with a difficult choice: vote for the diluted version which almost assuredly would put it into effect as the graybeards+ and their allies will do the same and try to influence the public to follow but with them vote against the stricter version, or if voting against both could lose any limitation, even a weak one. The degree of difficulty in choice becomes compounded if a poison pill were attached.
Thus, if the graybeards+ want to respond the Friedley's request – only Chandler's two appointment notifications were accompanied with the topic solicitation as suggested in the Charter – they would promote the weakest possible term limits and perhaps a poison pill. They may not make any public statement at all, having given the marching orders in private. That there seems to be a big hurry among some on the Commission lends to the latter possibility.
To make the November ballot, effectively the Commission has to wrap up by the end of May to give the Council time to put its product onto the ballot. A sprint there with a weak term limits item, regardless of a poison pill, would show the majority of the commission – with five of its nine members appointed by the graybeards+ and all but one of them political insiders or related to them – simply are there to carry out a sabotage mission on behalf of their appointers. Any serious attempt to iron out to any meaningful degree any inconsistencies, ambiguities, and anachronisms in the Charter, much less to consider seriously reforms to make city government more responsive and responsible, can't succeed in four months. The Commission should supplant this planned rush to judgment with a deliberative process that serves the interests of the people, not those of the masters of some of its appointees.
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It's been a tumultuous two weeks in Venezuela. First, the Biden administration and the Maduro government signed a deal exchanging democratic guarantees for sanctions relief on oil, natural gas, and gold mining — some of Venezuela's largest industries. With the sanctions lifted, Maduro allowed the opposition's primary election to go ahead. María Corina Machado, a classical liberal who calls herself the "Iron Lady of Venezuela" and went through the same Yale program as Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, won the election with an astounding 93 percent of the vote. Venezuelans overwhelmingly showed up to vote, doubling the expected turnout of 1 million ballots. Maduro quickly declared the election illegitimate and labeled Machado a puppet of U.S. interests, going directly against the sanctions relief deal.The U.S. and Machado have expressed little intention beyond rhetoric to reinstate sanctions. After all, the U.S. is in desperate need of oil, and Venezuela has plenty to offer. Unless the U.S. can establish direct incentives for Maduro and his regime to make democratic reforms, a peaceful path to democratization is highly unlikely. If anything, Maduro has shown his willingness to keep sanctions on to push for specific geopolitical demands while maintaining his domestic anti-U.S. message. In 2021, Maduro suspended all negotiations with the U.S. over the imprisonment of Colombian financier Alex Saab. Despite that, the U.S. went ahead with some sanctions relief soon after. Maduro has created an alternative economy for Venezuela, where illicit markets make up for over one fifth of all of the country's GDP. With oil revenues currently standing at $9.3 billion annually, sanctions relief would only lead to "a moderate increase in Venezuelan oil production," according to Dr. Francisco Monaldi of the Baker Institute. Alternatively, the Maduro regime has increasingly looked to other economic opportunities to ensure its permanency. After being pushed out of the international financial system, Venezuela has grown its commercial, financial, diplomatic, political, and security relationship with other sanctioned regimes, including Iran, China, Russia, Nicaragua, and Cuba, which have themselves contested the results of the opposition election and reiterated support for Maduro. More states with a nominally anti-Western posture, such as Bolivia, South Africa, Turkey, and Ethiopia, are also providing some support given that some of their interests align with Maduro's. These relationships lead to a circle of mutual assistance wherein the leaders' political survival is ensured through a permanent flow of commerce and cash between these regimes.These states now have a vested interest in preventing an adversary to their interests from entering the Palacio de Miraflores, and Maduro knows it. Sanctions are much less harmful to the regime than they were years ago. Maduro's calculation is simple: Whether he decides to hold a fully democratic election against Machado, a sham election like in 2018, or to fully overtake the country through military force, Maduro will have sufficient support on his side. Credible polls show Maduro has the backingt of 58 percent of voting intentions (compared to Machado's 23 percent), with many in the resistance, particularly those with the financial capability to organize contestation efforts, having already left the country. Whether the U.S. foreign policy establishment likes it or not, Maduro, like his predecessor Hugo Chávez, will use any foreign pressure the U.S. decides to undertake to his political advantage. If sanctions are lifted, Maduro will keep attacking the opposition while boasting about his negotiating genius. If sanctions are put back on, Maduro will parade as a martyr again to his crowd of adoring supporters, meanwhile using the tried-and-tested alternative global order offered by sanctioned regimes to ensure the regime's security.Some left-wing governments in the region are also offering rhetorical and material support to Maduro, heightening the regional cost of regime change. With this deal and other domestic political wins — including slashing the poverty rate by a quarter in two years, regaining international recognition, and raising oil production — Maduro's support will likely consolidate. The regime also has the added benefit of violent support from the colectivos (pro-Maduro thugs who intimidate the opposition), the military and intelligence services, drug cartels, the state media apparatus, and a number of foreign governments. On the off-chance that Maduro ultimately loses the election, these interests might collectively ensure that a peaceful transition of power is impossible without significant military involvement from the West — cooperation that the West is likely unwilling or unable to offer. Maduro's rise to power demonstrates how difficult he will be to unseat. Illiberal and dictatorial regimes do not simply relinquish power under popular and external pressure, and Maduro has proven his ability to disregard opposition in favor of his interests. To foster democratic reforms, regime change must start from within the regime itself.In the non-Western world, some dictatorships have survived domestic and foreign coup attempts, debilitating sanctions, continuous opposition, and meager political support. If those conditions were sufficient for a transition to popular rule, democracy would have blossomed in countries with dictatorships facing heavy internal and external pressure, like Belarus, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Egypt. In these cases, we can see how immense pressure, instead of spurring democratic reforms, can lead to further repression from the regime. Unfortunately, it may take a conflict for Maduro to leave power, and such a conflict would leave thousands or millions dead and displaced, with only a failed state in its wake. However, there is a better, less bloody option. Instead of imposing foreign military power over Maduro's regime, Western allies can privately encourage democratic ideals within the regime itself by creating incentives and providing the regime a nonviolent alternative.There is precedent for this. During the Cold War, authoritarian dictators ruled with support from either the West or the rest. Right-wing dictatorships in Latin America enjoyed the support of the U.S. In Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay, there were intense debates among the military government about how and when the military would cede power back to the people. Ultimately, due to the prevalent view that holding onto power too harshly and lengthily could result in a failed state, the countries all held elections on their own accord a few years later, with the military progressively regaining a relatively apolitical role in their countries.After long attempts at reform from various political and military groups outside the countries, the Central Intelligence Agency and its allies, which helped put many of these dictatorships in power in the first place, encouraged democratic reforms through private pressure and dialogue by ensuring the regime leaders would not face persecution.To prevent a return to dictatorship or conflict, Western powers or the new democratic regimes offered some protection to political and military leaders associated with dictatorship. Without some kind of civil or internationalized conflict, it is ultimately up to the regimes themselves to decide when democracy is restored, and they will only do so if they believe they will still hold some power and their interests protected. Unless his own security is guaranteed, Maduro will have no impulse to leave power. Reform won't happen until the regime, or Maduro himself, is willing to change. Dear RS readers: It has been an extraordinary year and our editing team has been working overtime to make sure that we are covering the current conflicts with quality, fresh analysis that doesn't cleave to the mainstream orthodoxy or take official Washington and the commentariat at face value. Our staff reporters, experts, and outside writers offer top-notch, independent work, daily. Please consider making a tax-exempt, year-end contribution to Responsible Statecraft so that we can continue this quality coverage — which you will find nowhere else — into 2024. Happy Holidays!
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As the fig leaves fall away and the threats escalate, the battle about term limits on Bossier City elected officials has mutated from a veneer of concern over legal obligations to a process driven by reelection concerns on both sides, although opponents have captured a monopoly on hypocritical self-interest that continues to erode their political fortunes while giving Mayor Tommy Chandler a tremendous opportunity to boost his own.
This week a Council majority of graybeards – councilors Republicans David Montgomery and Jeff Free, Democrat Bubba Williams, and no party Jeff Darby who all will have served at least 12 years by 2025 – plus their pet rookie Republican Vince Maggio, in concert with their consigliere City Attorney Charles Jacobs hope to go all Cosa Nostra in their endeavor to defeat the effort to give voters a say on a three-term lifetime and retroactive limit in office. They combat a petition certified by Bossier Parish Registrar of Voters Stephanie Agee that the city charter forces the Council to approve placing such an item on the ballot by Nov. 7.
But this majority bloc resists, because such a vote of taken within the next 14 months almost certainly will pass the measure and end the political careers of the graybeards. And the excuse they try to use is the petition didn't directly have the birth years of signers listed as stated specifically in the relevant state statute, although it did list the voter identification numbers unique to signing individuals that includes the birth year of them, providing an indirect listing that complies with the spirit of the law if not its exact wording.
Until recently, the bloc went to great pains to frame their opposition in terms of legal niceties, principally that every letter needed correct crossing and dotting or else sometime in the indeterminate future some otherwise ineligible candidate (read: any of the graybeards) would sue to get on the ballot, citing defectiveness of the petition process. However, this fig leaf cannot overcome the fact that the charter says they must put the contents of a certified petition on the ballot by a certain date or they are in violation of the charter, and they have just such a petition at hand.
Further, Chandler won't leave them alone, pricking at them to do their duty to their public embarrassment. At the Council's last meeting, he introduced a resolution to fulfill the charter's imperative, which the bloc voted down but was supported by Republicans Chris Smith and Brian Hammons. So, he reintroduced it for the very next one, and he may keep doing it every single meeting as long as the Council doesn't comply. Every time he does this, he reminds voters he will fight for term limits and gives a chance for Hammons and Smith to do the same. And every time he does this, he reminds voters that not only do Darby, Free, Maggio, Montgomery, and Williams oppose term limits, but also that they repudiate their own oaths of office requiring them to uphold the charter.
Thus, to contain the damage Chandler keeps inflicting the bloc must dispense with the chimera of neutrality it has tried to sell and instead attack the petition itself. Adding a layer of hypocrisy to its quest, at the upcoming meeting it wants to pass a resolution – which failed to make the agenda as a late addition last meeting – to ask Agee to "decertify" the petition. The resolution's language doesn't hide that, despite no legal judgment to verify this, it declares its request valid "due to the petition failing to meet all the requirements of Louisiana Revised Statute 18:3."
Note that until now Jacobs and the bloc have claimed they oppose a move to put the petition language onto the ballot out of strict adherence to the law, but now they expose themselves as taking a side by asking Agee to do something for which registrars don't have the legal authority which appears nowhere in statute. It is an extralegal process invented out of thin air that does anything but adhere to the law, but which fulfills a purely political purpose.
However, this is only the veiled threat, akin to a mobster visiting Agee and telling her something like she has a nice registrar's office and it would be a shame if something happened to it, which she could avoid by following the bloc's wishes (assuming it passes that resolution, which given the numbers assuredly will happen). Because another resolution on the agenda carries the threat through by empowering Jacobs to litigate against the petition, which involves suing the registrar.
Of course, the resolution in many respects is both empty and meaningless. Under the charter, the city attorney doesn't have to have such a resolution in hand to pursue litigation, but rather it is a political gesture that carries both risk and reward. It attempts to avoid further damage to Jacobs, who has come under ethical fire for his manipulation of Council affairs at odds with the Charter and his publicly spreading false information in the course of his duties, by giving him the appearance of an imprimatur to procced, but it also puts the bloc again on record against term limits utilizing an unambiguous attempt to sabotage the democratic process.
And it would appear objectively as a futile gesture. How does the city have any standing to do this; who is harmed by having a certified petition? And because the law is silent about reversing petition certification, there's no valid mandamus claim that government fails to do its duty. The legal gymnastics involved even to present a plausible challenge will prove challenging.
Finally, and again involving a display of hypocrisy, last meeting the bloc muscled through a call for a charter review commission that would assess, among other things, term limits. Thus, why doesn't the majority let the vote take place, and during the campaign as a reason to vote down the measures (councilor and mayor terms) cite its allegation of invalidity and that the commission will come up with its own version of limits to correct that? And regardless of whether these pass, it can present its own version if different through the commission for voter approval (which it can guarantee through its selection of commissioners)? Why does it insist on bending and twisting the law instead?
Of course, the end goal in any legal machinations is not to defeat the petition's validity, which ultimately seems unlikely under the spirit of the law, but to delay having to put its language on the ballot until either it becomes subject to a low-stimulus special election that provides its lowest chances of success – which means a delay of at least six months but no more than nine because national elections will drive the election calendar next year and provoke high turnout – or it gets pushed past city elections in 2025. With Jacobs' past as a 26th Judicial District judge, he can hope his comradeship with that bench will pay off with a former colleague producing the ruling he wants that accomplishes the amount of delay desired.
Perhaps the bloc will succeed through all of this in buying its members the chance to win another term. Yet if this victory comes, it may be pyrrhic, for the resulting bad publicity and easy explanation to voters – X number of times voting against term limits, Y number of times voting to violate the city charter, all the while looking out for their own self-interests at the expense of the people's using taxpayer dollars – could cause the bloc members to lose the war of reelection. Aided by Chandler, who every time he twists the knife in by contrast further solidifies his chances of reelection.
A hurricane threat, a shortened schedule, some botched scheduling and an audience that couldn't get excited in unison were just a few of the challenges that confronted the Republican Party's Convention that concluded this past week in Tampa, Florida. The main purpose was to reintroduce Mitt Romney to the file and rank of his own party as well as to the wider national audience and to show that, besides business experience and his CEO approach to politics, the man is also human. With the help of Ann Romney, this was arguably accomplished. However, once humanized, the candidate had to convey a compelling message, a vision of the future that would sway the 8% undecided, and convert the anti-Obama into pro-Romney voters. In this, the Convention fell short. His strategic efforts as a candidate in the Primary Election were dedicated to convincing the right wing of the Republican party that his ideas and values had "evolved "from his times of governor of Massachusetts: he is now pro-life and not pro-choice, and his signature health care reform for that state, based on an individual mandate, had very little resemblance to Obamacare. He succeeded then, but these ultra conservative positions alienated two fundamental blocs of voters he will need for the general election, namely, women and Latinos. Indeed, the gender gap puts Obama ahead, with 51% of women voting for Obama and 41% for Romney. The Latino voter gap is at 63% for Obama to 28% for Romney. The campaign's political calculation was thus to use the Convention to appeal to the wider audience by showing the party's "diversity", by "humanizing" the candidate and by convincing the Evangelical right that being Mormon is not a monstrosity. Testimonials by members of his congregation, a convincing speech by Ann Romney and a black- and- white biographical video succeeded in meeting this goal. We learned that Mr. Romney is a wonderful husband and father, a patient man who tries to live by a set of values; that his years as head of a Mormon community were devoted to helping the needy, accompanying the lonely and counseling the troubled. It was also revealed that his tithing was uncommonly and consistently generous. The Convention was carefully staged to show younger, more diverse GOP "rising stars" in order to bring into the fold some of still persuadable minorities. Paul Ryan, the Catholic, strictly anti- abortion 42-year old that completes the ticket, gave an ideological speech that charmed the older generation, with references to "central-planners" and direct attacks on Obama's "socialist" policies, using what could be described at best as half-truths. A great admirer of atheist right-wing writer Ayn Rand, Ryan, a Representative from Wisconsin, rose to fame this past year by presenting a budget plan that would lower taxes for the upper-income bracket, privatize Medicare and harshly restrict social programs. Portraying himself as a compassionate conservative, he is supposed to bring in the Catholic vote. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Florida Senator Marco Rubio used their personal stories aptly and were able to get two of the few electrifying moments of the Convention. Rice's appearance was important after a period of what seemed to be her retirement from politics; she talked optimistically about America, its unbound freedoms, its role as an underwriter of world order, and unquestionably, the land of exceptional opportunity: channeling Obama, she offered her story as a testament of these possibilities. In spite of growing up in the Jim Crow South, she rose to Secretary of State and here she was today, the first "stateswoman" of the Republican Party. Rubio, a fresh-faced 41 year old and the son of working class Cuban immigrants, was the Latino version of the same idea. He had the difficult task of introducing Mitt Romney after the audience was still puzzled at Clint Eastwood's imaginary dialogue with President Obama (represented by an empty chair). After an awkward moment during which the seniors in the audience were still trying to process the meaning of Eastwood's sometimes off-color parody, Rubio managed the transition quite well and soon people were paying him undivided attention. One of the best-received portions was an anecdote about his father, who worked for years at a bar. "He stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room," Rubio said, bringing in a huge applause. There were many of these "rag-to-riches" stories aimed at reassuring the viewers that the candidate's wealth is not an obstacle to Romney and Ryan's newly found empathic conservatism. Mitt Romney's entrance along a cordoned red carpet, shaking hands and nodding to groups of supporters on each side, as well as the first few lines of his acceptance speech were shrewdly staged to evoke the State of the Union address. In line with the general theme, he devoted two thirds of his speech to his own biography and very little to the specifics of his economic agenda. While conventions are seldom memorable affairs, and while this one is most likely going to be remembered by the bizarre spectacle of actor Clint Eastwood talking, at times incoherently, to an empty chair, there were other minor headlines running parallel to it that deserve more attention for what they reveal of the long-term GOP plan to re-take government. Under the pretext that voter fraud is prevalent in presidential elections (a claim unsubstantiated by serious research), at least 14 Republican-dominated state legislatures, mostly (but not all) in the South, have been quietly passing new laws aimed at making the act of voting more difficult in those states. The intention is clear: to keep just enough demographic groups likely to vote for the Democrats (namely, young people and minorities) away from the polls. This voter suppression strategy takes different forms, the most prevalent of which is requiring the presentation of government- issued photo IDs, such as a driver's license or a US passport, at the polls It is a well-known fact that many elderly minorities and disabled citizens who don't drive lack these (Social Security cards in the US do not have photos, and there is not voting document such as a "credencial civica" in the US). These groups of people would have a hard time getting one, sometimes requiring them to travel miles away to get to the closest Public Safety office. In the case of young students, university-issued student identification cards for the most part are not accepted at the polls. Other bills and rules were aimed at shortening early voting time frames, repealing Election Day registration laws, and preventing non-profit, non-partisan groups such as the League of Women Voters from organizing voter registration campaigns. This week, however, a three-judge panel of the Federal District Court in Washington DC struck down a Texas voter ID law. Two days earlier, a different three-judge panel for the same court found that, in its redrawing of the electoral-district map (a practice that takes place every ten years following a national Census), the Texas legislature had intentionally discriminated against minority voters More important than any platform, more lasting than any emotional appeal to voters, voter suppression attempts constitute a politically divisive outrage that goes to the heart of our democracy. Indeed, it is unfathomable that over a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation and the Fifteenth Amendment, and half a century after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, minorities in the United States still have to rely on the court system to protect their right to vote. In a presidential election year and with a race as tight as the one we are about to witness in two months, voter turnout is fundamental. Laws aimed at discouraging citizens to vote are a surreptitiously shrewd, anti-democratic way to ensure victory.
In the early 1960s Italy was described as a country characterized both by high disaffection and low social participation, not a picture of a healthy democracy particularly if compared with other more economically advanced countries, characterized by a participant civic culture. Since the country was divided between a partisan minority that actively participated in political parties (and related organizations), and those who did not participate at all, the decentralized pluralistic democracy proposed by Tocqueville was still non-existing in Italy. In the last sixty years Italian society has undergone a process of modernization and mass scholarization that significantly changed the socio-political context: the levels of resources in society increased, an intense season of social mobilization led to an expansion and growth of civil society participation and to a gradual separation from subcultural belonging. According to the neo-Tocquevillian thesis of political socialization of associations, the slow, but persistent, upward movement of Italian social participation and civil associations should have then transformed Italian parochial citizens into participant citizens, with higher political efficacy and more likely to participate at higher rates in politics in less partisan ways. Yet, while political disaffection has stayed quite constant (and extremely high) through the years. Moreover, conventional political participation, relatively high in the 1960s compared to other countries, has undergone a slow but profound crisis since the 1980s while electoral participation, that had been surprisingly high since the end of the war (more than 90% turnout), and quite stable for many years, started to decrease. What appears from these macro level trends of the socio-political context is a paradox in light of social capital theories: in Italy the theory that sees the spread of social associations as producing participatory citizens has not worked, and at the macro level the three indicators of interest, social participation, political disaffection and political participation, seem to follow rather independent behavioural paths. We investigated why it is so and whether the same relation can be found at the micro level. Whereas this longitudinal study that investigates causality is very important for understanding the dynamics at work in Italy, it has much wider implications that go beyond the specificity of a single country. Since we find similar results at the macro and micro levels, the underlying mechanism hypothesized by social capital theories is empirically undermined, at least in its universalistic perspective. This volume consists in two main parts. The first part includes Chapter 1 to 3 and relates to a broad and extensive literature review on the world of political and social participation as well as of political disaffection, both in general terms and in more specific terms relating to the Italian case. The second part of the research includes Chapter 4 to 8 and relates to the empirical analyses of the Italian socio-political context. We first describe through secondary data analysis its evolution across time. We then construct a few hypotheses linking education and time in its time-period, political cohort and life-cycle aspects, in order to test with a multi-source pooled dataset whether the thesis of cognitive mobilization of Inglehart and Dalton has been at work in Italy for different types of associations after the post-war process of societal modernization. We finally move to a more analytical level constructing several hypotheses in order to study the existent causal relationship between social participation, political participation and political efficacy. Using a three-wave Italian national election panel (ITANES), through structural equation modelling (SEM) we test for several forms of association, whether at the micro level the theory of political socialization of associations holds. We also test alternative models, such as the theory of self-selection, or the theory of reverse causation. Finally, in order to give more insight to our findings we run a latent class analysis identifying different profiles of participation among the Italian population. Chapter 9 summarizes our findings, thinking upon the general interpretation of results and discussing the implications for future research. Analyses show firstly that the thesis of "cognitive mobilization" (which gives importance to changing levels of education in society, and to changing attitudes through a process of generational replacement) is only partially able to explain the evolutions of the macro trends of participation in Italy. Secondly, they show that it is not possible to claim which of the causal model tested worked better. Indeed, self-selection models worked only slightly better than political socialization models, but neither worked properly because participation in conventional politics and in civil society associations in Italy do not seem to be much connected to each other. We then conclude that, in a context like Italy, looking only at the demand side (individual characteristics or individual experiences within social groups) distorts the analysis because it is necessary to look also at the characteristics of the political offer and of the socio-political context in which citizens decide to participate, as well as at the structure of political parties. If these were found to be depending on the wider political context, the thesis of social capital might have to be rethought as being context-dependent. Since this research empirically studies only one country in a longitudinal way, however, studying the influence of the political offer is not possible if only in a speculative way. Non-empirically, the Italian "paradox" can indeed be solved in the following way. Italian political system has been modernized under fascism that, being a totalitarian regime, used to mobilize people to participate in a top-down way. This has strongly influenced the structure of the post-war Italian political system, since major parties (DC-Christian Democrats and PCI-Communist Party) were actually structured and functioned in the same way as Fascist party did, although with an extremely different ideological content. Relatively high levels of political participation in late 1950s were then not due to bottom-up participation in a pluralistic democracy, but they were rather a consequence of top-down mobilization of quite homogeneous sub-cultures (as states within the state, and against it). This situation slowly changed with increasing levels of economic and educational resources in society, and change in the international context of the Cold War, finally leading toward a crisis of political parties. When the political system collapsed in the 1990s due to bribery scandals, political parties changed their structure, relating much more on communication via mass media rather than on local branches of parties. The result was that people virtually stopped to participate in conventional politics also because they were no more mobilized from above to participate. Social participation increased across time on the one hand because number of social associations increased, because of higher levels of resources in society, while on the other hand, it can be argued that this increase is the consequence of a closed party system that is not able to incorporate citizens demands, and this is particularly true for the most politicized types of social associations, such as trade unions or social movements associations. Finally, political efficacy remains constant and low across time because of idealized views that citizens hold of political participation, along with perceptions of a closed party system that does not have transparent channels of recruitment and that does not treat citizens in equal ways. We conclude with a question to be investigated in future research: does this peculiar evolution of the socio-political context concerns only Italy, that has apparently not yet become a pluralistic Tocquevillian democracy, or is Italy only an extreme case of a more general European phenomenon, where countries have historically been politicized in a different way than the US (top-down vs. bottom-up, as Tocqueville and then Weber already reported long time ago)?
