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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.

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.

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!

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)?

So, who from Louisiana's political left is right
about the morass of the state's Democrats? The veteran political analyst who
foresees the light at the end of the tunnel as very distant? Or the academician
who thinks the party's political fortunes can improve dramatically?

As
part of his television gig, longtime editor of the shopper New Orleans
Gambit – no longer a shopper since The Advocate chain gulped it up a few
years ago – Clancy DuBos doesn't see much hope for the party that ruled the
state uncontested starting over a century ago for six decades, and still was in
the majority until about 15 years. He declared the party on "life support" and,
boldly asserting perhaps the surest thing in state political history, foresaw a
major shakeup in state party leadership within the next few months.

That's axiomatic for a state party with a single
out of eight members of Congress, without a single statewide executive, standing
on the wrong sides of supermajorities in each legislative chamber, soon to be
down 9-2 on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and in three years
likely to lose ground on the one elected body where it isn't in a steep minority,
the Public Service Commission. Having no candidate come within 25 points of
Republican winners in any statewide race and ceding even more supermajority
ground to the GOP in the Legislature as a result of this year's election makes leadership
change a question not of if, but of when.

Possibly the party's state central committee will
act sooner, at its next quarterly meeting, to dump current Chairwoman Katie Bernhardt
and others. Being that they are the ones that put her there originally, they
may not and concentrate instead on winning reelection next spring and then have
the new group make the change.

Regardless of when, expect its happening to eject
from leadership the final vestiges of the rent-seeking/trail lawyer/courthouse
liberal populist gang of whites lording over the party. The facts are that of all
the 48 state office elected Democrats – two on the PSC, two on BESE, 11 in the
Senate, and 33 in the House – all but seven are black, and blacks comprise 61
percent of the party registrants. Black political elites must take primary
control of the party to help shape candidacies that will attract a majority black
base that will inspire a turnout that among that base which likely was below 20
percent in the general election runoff.

On the point that new, if unspecified other than
it needs to raise more money, leadership is needed, Dillard University
professor Robert Collins agrees.
Yet he thinks, with that in hand, there's a way forward for Democrats, based
upon observations of other odd-year state election results. Specifically, he
views the success of an amendment to Ohio's constitution to make abortion less
restricted, of Virginia Democrats' ability to stave off further Republican
gains there in legislative elections, and Kentucky Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear to
win narrowly reelection as object lessons towards reinvigorating Louisiana
Democrats.

However, there's much less to the eye here than he
argues. First, Louisiana is not a swing state like Ohio – slightly red – or
Viriginia – slightly blue. It's a solidly center-right state slowly becoming less
of the former and more of the latter. So, among the three states, only Kentucky
is comparable.

That doesn't mean the issue of state regulations
on abortion can't be used as a wedge to pry some voters away from Republicans. Except
that Collins misreads the inherent power of that issue not just in Louisiana,
but nationally. Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court (rightfully through one of
the most
erudite decisions in its history) disabused the notion that the Constitution
contained a right to snuff the unborn, the degree to which only constrained by
state action within the bounds of an incoherent Court decision made a
half-century ago, now with states empowered to decide abortion's boundaries they
have engaged in an equilibrium exercise to align their laws with their people's
prevailing moral beliefs as enunciated through their elected representatives or
through instruments of direct democracy.

Since the decision, states have wandered their ways
towards their individual median preferences. Soon, that will resolve and the
issue will cease to grant either political party more than a miniscule
advantage or disadvantage, which will include Louisiana because it pretty much
rested at equilibrium from the moment the decision came down.

Collins mistakenly doesn't think so, citing a
recent poll (and he could have gone with another
a bit older) showing slightly more Louisianans oppose the current law that
allows for abortions only in the case of a threat to the mother's physical health
or is unviable than support it, using this factoid to argue that a Democrat running
hard on the issue to loosen restrictions could gain major traction.

The problem with this is abortion for decades
among Louisianans (and nationally) has been far down the list of voter concerns.
Most recently, issues towards the top (from the poll Collins cited) swing very
much against Democrats, and in Louisiana in particular because the negative
outcomes the state experiences on these come precisely from decades of governance
by liberal Democrat populists – and voters increasingly are acknowledging that
role in the state's economic destruction.

Running hard on liberalizing abortion in Louisiana
– often described as the most
pro-life state in America and with the oldest and deepest Catholic roots of
any – is a fool's errand. It will hardly move the needle in a state suffering depopulation,
economic development running behind almost all others, and educational quality
still lagging just about any other. (As shown in the Senate District 12 race last
month where an avowedly
pro-abortion candidate lost 78-13 percent.)

Nor can the lesson in the one state Collins mentioned
with a similar political environment to Louisiana, Kentucky and the Democrat Beshear
win, translate to Louisiana Democrats. What Collins doesn't know or
disregards is Beshear won only because his last name is Beshear. His father
having been governor from 2007-15 and the last name on state ballots 15 times
in the last 44 years, the dynastic familiarity with the name made him an
extreme outlier in a system that in every other way mirrors Louisiana –
supermajorities in the state legislature and Republicans controlling every
other statewide office.

There's no such Democrat in Louisiana now or for the
foreseeable future. And almost certainly in Kentucky in 2027, when Beshear is
term-limited, we'll see a Jeff Landry-like
Republican seize the office to give the Kentucky GOP a clean sweep. In essence –
in one of the few instances where Louisiana isn't behind the times now –
Kentucky is four years behind Louisiana.

DuBos, running against type over the past couple
of decades, is right: Louisiana Democrats have no immediate hope of becoming a
relevant party again. But he does miss the caveat: unless they make a concerted
effort to move closer to the median voter. Since the election of Democrat Pres.
Barack
Obama, the party has emulated its national level, becoming shriller as its
leadership sprinted to the far left, embracing tighter identity politics and conspiratorial
economics.

The ensuing trickle down to its candidates gushes
precisely against the prescriptions of its waning Great Society base who argue
any platform that doesn't put first and foremost, beyond any other issue such
as climate alarmism, defunding police, gender affirmation, etc., economic policy
to address working class concerns will not win elections. That goes triple in
Louisiana, where the irony is the population already is sensitized to the folly
of the economic policies these liberals have stumped for since the Great
Society.

Moving towards the Louisiana median voter will be
a hard thing for the party to do with all the pressure coming from the national
party that predicates its issue preferences on what New York, Illinois, and
California Democrats want. But pulling rabbit candidates out of hats, pinning
hopes on insignificant single issues, or pining for leadership that is just old
wine in new bottles won't make it; shedding radicalism is the only hope for
Louisiana Democrats to gain anything but episodic and rarely consequential
influence over policy-making in the state.

Bad governance causes economic, social, developmental and environmental problems in many developing countries. Developing countries have adopted a number of reforms that have assisted in achieving good governance. The success of governance reform depends on the starting point of each country – what institutional arrangements exist at the out-set and who the people implementing reforms within the existing institutional framework are. This dissertation focuses on how formal institutions (laws and regulations) and informal institutions (culture, habit and conception) impact on good governance. Three characteristics central to good governance - transparency, participation and accountability are studied in the research. A number of key findings were: Good governance in Hanoi and Berlin represent the two extremes of the scale, while governance in Berlin is almost at the top of the scale, governance in Hanoi is at the bottom. Good governance in Hanoi is still far from achieved. In Berlin, information about public policies, administrative services and public finance is available, reliable and understandable. People do not encounter any problems accessing public information. In Hanoi, however, public information is not easy to access. There are big differences between Hanoi and Berlin in the three forms of participation. While voting in Hanoi to elect local deputies is formal and forced, elections in Berlin are fair and free. The candidates in local elections in Berlin come from different parties, whereas the candidacy of local deputies in Hanoi is thoroughly controlled by the Fatherland Front. Even though the turnout of voters in local deputy elections is close to 90 percent in Hanoi, the legitimacy of both the elections and the process of representation is non-existent because the local deputy candidates are decided by the Communist Party. The involvement of people in solving local problems is encouraged by the government in Berlin. The different initiatives include citizenry budget, citizen activity, citizen initiatives, etc. Individual citizens are free to participate either individually or through an association. Lacking transparency and participation, the quality of public service in Hanoi is poor. Citizens seldom get their services on time as required by the regulations. Citizens who want to receive public services can bribe officials directly, use the power of relationships, or pay a third person – the mediator ("Cò" - in Vietnamese). In contrast, public service delivery in Berlin follows the customer-orientated principle. The quality of service is high in relation to time and cost. Paying speed money, bribery and using relationships to gain preferential public service do not exist in Berlin. Using the examples of Berlin and Hanoi, it is clear to see how transparency, participation and accountability are interconnected and influence each other. Without a free and fair election as well as participation of non-governmental organisations, civil organisations, and the media in political decision-making and public actions, it is hard to hold the Hanoi local government accountable. The key differences in formal institutions (regulative and cognitive) between Berlin and Hanoi reflect the three main principles: rule of law vs. rule by law, pluralism vs. monopoly Party in politics and social market economy vs. market economy with socialist orientation. In Berlin the logic of appropriateness and codes of conduct are respect for laws, respect of individual freedom and ideas and awareness of community development. People in Berlin take for granted that public services are delivered to them fairly. Ideas such as using money or relationships to shorten public administrative procedures do not exist in the mind of either public officials or citizens. In Hanoi, under a weak formal framework of good governance, new values and norms (prosperity, achievement) generated in the economic transition interact with the habits of the centrally-planned economy (lying, dependence, passivity) and traditional values (hierarchy, harmony, family, collectivism) influence behaviours of those involved. In Hanoi "doing the right thing" such as compliance with law doesn't become "the way it is". The unintended consequence of the deliberate reform actions of the Party is the prevalence of corruption. The socialist orientation seems not to have been achieved as the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Good governance is not achievable if citizens and officials are concerned only with their self-interest. State and society depend on each other. Theoretically to achieve good governance in Hanoi, institutions (formal and informal) able to create good citizens, officials and deputies should be generated. Good citizens are good by habit rather than by nature. The rule of law principle is necessary for the professional performance of local administrations and People's Councils. When the rule of law is applied consistently, the room for informal institutions to function will be reduced. Promoting good governance in Hanoi is dependent on the need and desire to change the government and people themselves. Good governance in Berlin can be seen to be the result of the efforts of the local government and citizens after a long period of development and continuous adjustment. Institutional transformation is always a long and complicated process because the change in formal regulations as well as in the way they are implemented may meet strong resistance from the established practice. This study has attempted to point out the weaknesses of the institutions of Hanoi and has identified factors affecting future development towards good governance. But it is not easy to determine how long it will take to change the institutional setting of Hanoi in order to achieve good governance. ; Bad governance (schlechte Regierungsführung) verursacht neben wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Schäden auch Umwelt- und Entwicklungsprobleme in vielen Entwicklungsländern. Entwicklungsländer haben zahlreiche Reformen in Angriff genommen, welche sie in der Entwicklung von good governance (gute Regierungsführung) unterstützen sollen. Der Erfolg solcher Reformen staatlicher Steuerungs- und Regelsysteme hängt jedoch maßgeblich von der Ausgangssituation in den einzelnen Ländern ab. Einfluss auf den Erfolg haben Faktoren wie z. B. die existierende institutionelle Ordnung, auf die zu Beginn solcher Reformen zurückgegriffen werden kann. Auch der verantwortliche Personenkreis, der mit der Umsetzung der Reformen beauftragt wird, ist für deren Erfolg maßgeblich. Diese Dissertation befasst sich damit, wie sich formelle Institutionen (Gesetze und Regeln) sowie informelle Institutionen (Kultur, Gewohnheit und Wahrnehmung) auf good governance auswirken können. Im Rahmen dieser Forschungsarbeit werden drei Merkmale mit besonderem Bezug zu good governance untersucht: Transparenz, Partizipation und Rechenschaftspflicht. Folgende Untersuchungsergebnisse sind hervorzuheben: In Bezug auf good governance stellen Berlin und Hanoi zwei Extreme dar. Während Berlin auf einer "good-governance-Skala" im positiven oberen Bereich anzusiedeln wäre, müsste sich Hanoi eher im unteren Bereich wiederfinden. Good governance im Sinne von verantwortungsvoller Regierungsführung ist in Hanoi bei weitem noch nicht erreicht. So sind in Berlin Informationen sowohl über die Ziele und die Entscheidungen der am Politikprozess beteiligten Akteure und über Dienstleistungen der Verwaltung als auch über die öffentlichen Finanzen allgemein abrufbar, verlässlich und verständlich. Dies ist nicht der Fall in Hanoi. Während in Berlin die BürgerInnen keine Schwierigkeiten im Zugang zu öffentlichen Informationen haben, so sind diese Informationen in Hanoi nicht oder nur schwer erhältlich. Weiterhin gibt es zwischen Hanoi und Berlin erhebliche Unterschiede in den drei Arten der Partizipation. Während die Wahlen kommunaler Vertreter in Hanoi rein formell und erzwungen sind, so sind Wahlen in Berlin gleich, geheim und frei. Bei den Berliner Kommunalwahlen entstammen die VertreterInnen den unterschiedlichen Parteien und Wählervereinigungen, während die Kandidatur der KommunalvertreterInnen in Hanoi weitgehend durch die Volksfront bestimmt wird. Obwohl die Wahlbeteiligung bei den lokalen Wahlen in Hanoi bei fast 90% liegt, so ist die Legitimität sowohl der Wahlen selbst als auch des Vertretungsprozesses so gut wie nicht vorhanden. Die zu wählenden VolksvertreterInnen werden ausschließlich durch die Kommunistische Partei bestimmt. In Berlin wird die Teilhabe der BürgerInnen bei der Lösung kommunaler Probleme durch die Regierung gefördert. Hierzu werden unterschiedliche Methoden genutzt, u. a. der Bürgerhaushalt, Bürgerportale, Bürgerinitiativen etc. Einzelne BürgerInnen können entscheiden, ob sie sich individuell oder auch kollektiv einbringen. Durch das Fehlen von Transparenz und bürgerlicher Teilhabe ist die Qualität öffentlicher Dienstleistungen in Hanoi gering. So werden Dienstleistungen selten innerhalb der Fristerbracht, die gesetzlich vorgegeben ist. BürgerInnen, die dennoch öffentliche Dienstleistungen in Anspruch nehmen und zeitnah erhalten wollen, können die verantwortlichen Beamten direkt bestechen, ihre persönlichen Beziehungen nutzen oder eine dritte Person gegen Bezahlung beauftragen – einen "Mediator" (Vietnamesisch: "Cò"). Im Gegensatz hierzu werden Dienstleistungen in Berlin kundenorientiert erbracht. Die Qualität der Dienstleistungen ist in Bezug auf Zeit und Kosten hochwertig. Schmiergeldzahlungen, Bestechung sowie das Nutzen persönlicher Beziehungen im Austausch für "bessere" öffentliche Dienstleistungen sind in Berlin unüblich. Die Analyse der Fallstudien in Berlin und Hanoi verdeutlichen, wie Transparenz, bürgerliche Teilhabe sowie Rechenschaftspflicht miteinander verflochten sind und sich gegenseitig beeinflussen. Es ist schwierig die Kommunalverwaltung in Hanoi zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen. Hierzu fehlt es an geeigneten Instrumenten, wie z.B. freie und gleiche Wahlen. Es fehlt ebenfalls die Beteiligung von Akteuren wie freien Medien, Nichtregierungsorganisationen und zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen. Der wesentliche Unterschied formeller regulativer und kognitiver Institutionen zwischen Berlin und Hanoi wird anhand von drei Prinzipien dargestellt: Rechtsstaatlichkeit (Rule of Law) vs. Herrschaft durch Recht (rule by law), Pluralismus vs. Einheitspartei innerhalb der Politik sowie Marktwirtschaft vs. Marktwirtschaft sozialistischer Prägung. In Berlin gelten Verhaltensnormen, welche das Gesetz und die individuelle Freiheit respektieren. Ebenso herrscht das Bewusstsein vor, die Gemeinschaft zu fördern. EinwohnerInnen Berlins erachten es als selbstverständlich, dass sie öffentliche Dienstleistungen gerecht in Anspruch nehmen können. Die Vorstellung, Geld oder Beziehungen auf unrechtmäßige Art zu nutzen, um Verwaltungsvorgänge abzukürzen, herrschen weder bei Verwaltung noch bei den BürgerInnen vor. Innerhalb eines schwachen formellen Rahmens von good governance in Hanoi interagieren neue Werte und Normen einer Volkswirtschaft im Umbruch (Wohlstand, Erfolg) mit denen einer Planwirtschaft (Lügen, Abhängigkeit, Passivität) sowie mit denen traditioneller Gesellschaften (Hierarchie, Harmonie, Familie, Kollektivismus) und beeinflussen die Handlungen der Akteure. In Hanoi wird es nicht als selbstverständlich angesehen, das zu tun, was in Berlin als "das Richtige" angesehen würde, z. B. Gesetze einzuhalten. Unbeabsichtigte Konsequenzen willkürlicher Reformaktivitäten der Partei zeigen sich im Fortbestehen von Korruption. Die sozialistische Orientierung der Marktwirtschaft scheint nicht erreicht worden zu sein, da sich die Schere zwischen Reich und Arm geweitet hat. Good governance ist unerreichbar, wenn BürgerInnen, Verwaltung und PolitikerInnen hauptsächlich von Eigeninteressen gelenkt werden. Der Staat und die Gesellschaft hängen voneinander ab. Um theoretisch good governance in Hanoi zu erreichen, müssten (formelle und informelle) Institutionen geschaffen werden, die positiven Einfluss auf BürgerInnen, Verwaltung und VolksvertreterInnen haben. BürgerInnen sind "gut" aufgrund von Lernprozessen und Gewöhnung und nicht aufgrund ihrer Natur. Das Rechtstaatlichkeitsprinzip ist notwendig, um die Leistungsbereitschaft lokaler Verwaltungen sowie der Volksvertretungen zu stärken. Sobald Rechtstaatlichkeit konsequente Anwendung findet, verringert sich auch der Raum, in dem informelle Institutionen angewendet werden können. Die Förderung von good governance in Hanoi hängt im Wesentlichen vom Verlangen ab, die Regierung und die Menschen zu verändern. Good governance in Berlin sollte als Ergebnis eines andauernden Prozesses von Entwicklung und Änderung von Lokalregierung und BürgerInnen angesehen werden. Institutionelle Transformation ist ein langwieriger und komplizierter Prozess. Veränderungen formeller Regelungen sowie die Art der Implementierung solch neuer Regelungen trifft möglicherweise auf starken Widerstand seitens etablierter Akteure mit ihren Gewohnheiten. In dieser Studie wurde gezeigt, welches die Schwachpunkte der Institutionen in Hanoi sind. Ebenso wurden jene Faktoren identifiziert, welche die zukünftige Entwicklung in Richtung von good governance beeinflussen können. Es ist jedoch schwierig einzuschätzen, wie lange es dauern wird, das institutionelle Gefüge in Hanoi hin zu verantwortungsvoller Regierungsführung zu ändern.

Teaching English to Filipino learners have been challenging especially during the time of pandemic with very limited interaction between the teacher and the students. Different online learning platforms were explored and utilized so that continuity of learning may happen despite the situation. Distance learning was welcomed by every learner both in the basic education system and tertiary levels. Applications were also further accessed so that language learning can become more engaging at the same time develop the communication skills of all learners. However, this scenario was not a walk in the park for many; likewise, it becomes more difficult for those students who have special needs. These circumstances serve as challenges for teachers to reevaluate and reinvent their teaching practices to further accommodate and teach English to diverse learners may it be during times of pandemic or not. In line with this, the book Supporting English Learners with Exceptional Needs by Patricia Rice Doran and Amy K. Noggle was reviewed and evaluated. The authors are faculty in Arcola Elementary School in Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland as well as in Towson University. For this reason, this gives us thought that the authors gained inspiration in writing this book through their students to provide them support and intervention. This book tries to address the needs of the learners who have high-incidence and low-incidence disabilities. As reviewers and evaluators of this book, we have our personal thoughts and ideas in teaching English to our learners. Filipino learners who are studying English also possess diverseness and uniqueness which lets us use varied teaching strategies to accommodate different learners' needs and weaknesses. The information featured in this book are useful to better and improve the classroom teaching of English and further develop the skills of the students. The insights shared by the author could be essential for use to devise ways towards improvement of language learning suited for the needs of Filipinos learners. In its introduction, the writers had elaborated the extensive research of the challenges faced in the United States concerning English learners. The data showed that there is a need to reevaluate practices as well as improve class routine since learners are diverse in so many ways. Moreover, these challenges paved way for opportunities to support as well make significant changes in the education system were seen. It is also important to note that the book recognizes the potentials that could be discovered from learners with disabilities if they would be supported and nurtured through a special education system in accordance to the child development perspective. The book is divided into three sections which include different chapters that showcase scenarios in real-life setting, elaboration of key concepts, and more importantly practical approaches relevant in teaching English to learners with learning disabilities. Specifically, Section 1 includes background knowledge related to English learners and students' abilities. Section 2 discussed the classroom structures and framework. Lastly, Section 3 distinguishes the support needed for English learners with disability. Through these sections the strengths, weaknesses, as well as policies for English learners were emphasized together with the necessary classroom approaches and assessments that can be utilized in specializing programs for English learners. The first Chapter of the book is What Do English Learners Bring to Our Schools? Cognitive, Linguistic, and Cultural Assets. In this chapter we are given a realization on how we provide interventions and assessment among our diverse learners. It is elaborated that in the case of a classroom with learners of diverse background we should highlight the essence of strength-based thinking. It also made us reflect on the resilience of our students and their funds of knowledge. The chapter could sum up the need for teachers to develop strategies that will be holistic and honing the context of the uniqueness of each learner especially in language learning. The chapter also put emphasis on educational equity among learners, we must value the strengths and assets of the learners as they attain proficiency in language learning. The second Chapter of the book, Challenges and Opportunities for English Learners in Our Schools, expounds on the concept of dealing with our learners' needs as opportunities instead of challenges. As language teachers we should see a silver lining upon hurdling the challenges of diversity among our learners. It put significant consideration on translating the learners' need which are composed of different life-stressors into meaningful opportunities towards learning. The chapter also presents to us several challenges faced by a language learner which involves not only his cognitive ability but his family and cultural background. The chapter also expounds on several approaches and learning frameworks which can be valuable resources for educators in dealing with learners needs as opportunities rather than challenges. On the other hand, Chapter 3, A Policy Primer reiterates the different government and state policies concerning children right to education and how these policies helped in transforming the language learning landscape for many English learners with difficult situation such as the child who became the point of discussion in the chapter "Eterio". The chapter also traces back the history of how discrimination due to race or disability was not avoided by several state policies such as the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) in 2002, and the 'Every Student Succeed Acts (ESSA)' in 2015. More so, the chapter puts emphasis on how policies put premium on the protection of English learners with exceptional needs as well as those policies that recognizes the need to fund individualized educational services. Section 2 of the book is welcomed by its fourth Chapter, Ecological Approaches and Multitiered Systems of Support: Holistic Approaches to Serving English Learners where in it distinguishes the diversity of learners in a learning community. Given the said situation, it expounds on the significance of an ecological, tiered framework which may present school personnel the chance to back up the learners in several aspects. These may include interdisciplinary communication and collaborative work among school personnel. The chapter also assess the necessity to ensure that the intervention provided for the learners are based from their background and level of development. The chapter reflects on presenting interventions not only based on their cultural perspectives but also based on the whole-child perspective. In Chapter 5, Collaborative Problem Solving for English Learners: The Unique Role of the ESOL Teacher the authors discuss the problem-solving process in language learning. The chapter reviewed the different process that are found conducive towards planning successful classes among English learners. It explains the need for a thorough discussion and observations prompts that may be relevant in solving the problem of a learner. The discussion on collaborative problem solving was given prominence in the chapter as well since it is found to be an important element in providing support in teaching diverse learners. Furthermore, the need of consistency among ESOL teachers as an integral part of the problem-solving process was focused upon since they are expected to distinguish the strengths of the learners, and how these will be used to better facilitate strategies. The sixth Chapter is Universal Supports for English Learners at Risk. This chapter discusses the common problems that the English teachers are experiencing in their classes like lack of parental support and nonacademic factors (lack of sleep, living environment, and daily stressors) which leads to the use of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This is a framework for curriculum and instruction that is used to provide accessibility, support, and challenge by considering the needs of each learner. Moreover, thin this chapter, it is emphasized that teachers need to identify and consider a lot of factors before providing solutions and interventions. The support provided to students are not confined with the structured classroom adjustments, sometimes students are affected by external factors like family pressures or internal factors like student's disability. Chapter seventh is Targeted Supports for English Learners. This chapter explains the parameters in providing targeted supports and interventions to English learners. Teachers need to consider the prior experiences of the learners including their trauma if there is. Identifying the student's strengths, needs, and unique profile is necessary. It is also emphasized that in the implementation of the intervention, parents or family members are encouraged to take part actively for an effective turnout. Chapter eight is Assessment and Identification for English/ Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners: High-incidence Disabilities. In this chapter, several court cases were featured to gain understanding on the experiences of the people with disabilities and their challenges encountered by the immigrants and minority populations in schools. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 (IDEA) was also discussed that is made to provide unbiased testing procedures and to address language barriers. Chapter ninth is Assessment and Identification for English Learners: Low-incidence Disabilities. This chapter features how the students with low-incidence disabilities (LID) were specifically evaluated and assessed and the challenges that the teachers faced. The LID students are the ones who are deaf, blind, or having other health impairments. The challenges faced by the teachers were shortage of knowledgeable personnel, specialized/interdisciplinary knowledge, and skill sets, and need for appropriate assessment procedures. The teachers needed the help of some medical, speech, audiology, and assistive technology in addressing the needs of the learners under LID prior and during the learning process. The last chapter is Intensive Supports and Specialized Programming for English Learners. This part talks about the recommended practices in developing and implementing specialized programs for students with low-incidence disabilities and high-incidence disabilities. Teachers may reach to the families of the learners with disabilities. A collaborative discussion is helpful to make sure that the ways in teaching the students were appropriate and fitting according to the needs of the students. Also, schools may provide intensive interventions and supports to students that takes into consideration their level of proficiency and cultural fit. This chapter provided a number of available resources and self-evaluation forms that teachers and schools may use. In the hope of improving the teaching and learning experience of the students and to further address diverse learners, the evaluators recommend this book to teachers of English. In terms of addressing the students' needs and weaknesses, this book provided sample situations that teachers of English usually encounter while providing strategies on how to properly address them. Furthermore, this book tries to ensure that all the learners discover their giftedness and how they could use it in powerful ways.

Many countries with scheduled elections this year face a difficult choice in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: how to balance public health considerations with holding a free and fair election. Learn more from NDI Senior Associate and Director of Electoral Programs Pat Merloe and Program Director Julia Brothers as they talk about democratic back-sliding during this crisis, electoral integrity, and ways civil society organizations can still make a difference.
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Pat Merlow: In the public health crisis, especially where governments are weak or people are suspicious of governments, trusted voices are really important to get out accurate information.
Julia Brothers: Hello, this is Julia Brothers. I'm the Program Director for Elections at the National Democratic Institute. Welcome to Dem Works.
JB: Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is sewing insecurity among the public, which can be exploited by authoritarians to consolidate power in sideline democratic institutions. It also poses severe technical, political, and social threats to elections themselves.
In many countries, the effects of the virus may strain citizen relationships with government and elected [inaudible] officials, intensify political tensions and the potentials for violence, disenfranchise voters and increase conditions for democratic backsliding.
Today I'm joined by Pat Merlow, senior associate and director of electoral programs at NDI. Welcome to the podcast, Pat. Thank you for being here.
Pat Merlow: Hi, Julia.
JB: So the COVID-19 crisis is causing enormous challenges for every country, including those with scheduled elections this year. What are the biggest concerns deciding whether to hold or postpone elections?
PM: Elections must be held in ways that safeguard public health and in ways that ensure genuine opportunities for the electorate to vote. Universal and equal suffrage, which is in every modern constitution, means inclusion, not exclusion. So we have to also hold elections in ways where the political parties and the candidates have a fair chance to compete for votes without a playing field that's being manipulated or intentionally or unintentionally tilted in one party's favor.
So striking a proper democratic balance of public safety and credible election processes is different and really difficult in every country. Depends a lot on the level of economic and technological development in the country on the nature of social cohesion versus divisions in the country and political polarization.
So in many countries where NDI works, the concern is whether authoritarians will rush through elections with undue public health risks in order to gain an electoral advantage or to postpone elections under conditions that advantage their attempts to gain and maintain more power.
A second troubling circumstance in countries that are unstable or prone to various kinds of violence, where constrains of the public health crisis can be used by malign actors to flood the population with this information... I mean we're hearing this term infodemic; also hate speech and other means to scapegoat religious or ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people or women in order to gain political advantage.
That's not all the countries where NDI works, but even those are neither authoritarian nor fragile states, the COVID-19 crisis is still posing gigantic challenges both on the public health and to electoral integrity.
JB: Right. I mean these factors present themselves as challenges to electoral integrity, not just where there might be bad faith actors that are trying to utilize this crisis to consolidate power, but also just in addressing basic issues related to how to make sure that you're maximizing participation during a public health crisis.
What are some of the factors that these countries would need to think about in terms of actually implementing elections either during a public health crisis or immediately after.
PM: There really are a number of factors that have to be considered. So the first thing that comes to everybody's mind of course is what do you do? Can people actually go to polling places or should they be under some sort of the shelter in place lockdown-like circumstances.
That doesn't just affect whether to vote. That really has to do with whether you can register to vote safely or not. In countries where there are not a high level of electronic engagement where the digital divide falls really widely across broad swipes of the population, gathering those people into places to register to vote or to vote is really the only means of doing it. So the question of a postponement becomes really an operative question.
Then we're concerned with what are the conditions for the postponement and how does that interrelate with the declarations of states of emergency, whether they're being done properly with the kinds of constraints on limitations on powers or whether they're being done in ways that usurp power.
JB: Yeah. I think one of the major concerns, especially thinking about citizens being able to participate in the process, is that during a pandemic, if voters are concerned about going out to vote, chances are that that's not going to be an equal distribution among the population, where there are a vulnerable populations that will be more impacted.
You'll see disproportionate levels of low turnout among certain communities like senior citizens or persons with disabilities or women who disproportionately have the burden of childcare and are in a situation where you don't have options for even temporary childcare because of social distancing regulations.
Well, this seems like a good place to take a short break.
For more than 35 years, NDI has been honored to work with courageous and committed pro-democracy activists and leaders around the world to help countries develop the institution's practices and skills necessary for democracy success. Welcome back.
JB: So we talked a bit about the postponements that we're seeing around the world in terms of electoral timelines. Are election observers relevant during electoral delays, especially if there's restrictions on movement in the population if they're under some form of shelter in place or lockdown.
PM: Yeah. So Julie, you mentioned that NDI works in more than 70 countries and in fact, working with nonpartisan citizen groups and coalitions and various organizations is one of the hallmarks of NDI's work over more than 35 years now and certainly the 25 years where I've been involved.
There's a network of citizen election observers, there are nine of them in various regions of the world and they're amalgamated in more than 250 organizations from 90 countries. Those organizations have been sharing best practices and ideas about what can be done.
So let me just quickly mention a couple of them. There are four areas where they have been able to focus. One are ways to assist; that is, to assist public health agencies and the electoral authorities to bring about safe elections and fair elections.
The second is ways to address authoritarian opportunism and how states of emergency and various conditions are being used by those who would usurp the citizens of power.
The third are ways to address disinformation, hate speech and attempts at hyperpolarization that influence and create unfair conditions for elections.
The fourth way is to address, as you mentioned earlier, examples of where a health crisis can lead to disenfranchisement or further tilt the playing field so that it's an unfair circumstance.
JB: Yeah, I mean you mentioned especially tracking the authoritarian leaders who are potentially taking advantage of the health crisis to grab power and subvert democracy and in some unstable countries, this can threaten heightened instability.
What can election servers be doing to address that or what are they currently doing to address that?
PM: The most important thing is citizen election observers in all kinds of countries have been time tested and over the series of elections cycles two, three, even four in many countries, they've built national networks and they've established themselves as trusted voices.
In a public health crisis, especially where governments are weak or people are suspicious of government, trusted voices are really important to get out accurate information from the health authorities, accurate information from the electoral authorities about what to do, where to do things and so on.
Also, they have networks that can collect information; even during lockdowns. You and I were in a conversation with one of the partner organizations with whom we work in Sri Lanka just last week. The head of that organization is working on a civil society task force.
That task force is considering how to gain access to women's shelters, to older people's homes, to places where there's foster children's care, drug treatment centers, and so on because these are vulnerable populations that are being hit hard by the crisis.
One of the things that he pointed out in our conversation is that the government is taking advantage of the postponement of the election for electoral advantage by handing out dry goods to citizens and even medical supplies through the political party rather than as an impartial governmental service to the people.
So the question that he posed was, even during lockdown, is there a way that our network of over 1,000 people could begin to document this and report it so that we can lift up to the public the nature of this problem that's coming about and see if we can't get some accountability and get them to cut back.
So even during a lockdown, it's possible for the citizen observer groups to do things that are extraordinarily relevant.
JB: Yeah, I mean it seems like there are certainly opportunities for electoral observers to be monitoring the kinds of things that they would normally be looking at in a pre-election period when their elections are delayed... Issues related to is the government still helping to create conditions for a credible and competitive process in the midst of a public health emergency. Are conditions being put in place to ensure that marginalized populations are not sidelined from the process.
But it also kind of expands it a little bit too in that there are these potentially other issues that that groups may consider looking at. Like you mentioned, how health resources are being distributed and what kinds of policy changes are being made and how were those being made?
What's the decision-making process around things like delaying the elections, around emergency voting procedures? Are they inclusive? Are all the parties being brought in to them? Is civil society be brought into these discussions and taking a look at some of these new conditions that observers may otherwise not necessarily be monitoring in a pre-election period.
I think the other issue here is there are constraints here in terms of potentially being able to deploy a bunch observers out into the field to collect information if you're in a lockdown situation.
So it's been interesting talking with groups to see how they're thinking creatively about how they can collect some of this information remotely. What kind of data exists that you can collect whether it's open data sources from the government looking at budgets, looking at how budgets are changing and how resources are moving.
You mentioned looking at disinformation, being able to monitor social media and seeing what data could be collected from that.
It's been interesting to see how citizen election observers around the world are getting creative and still doing their jobs while being sometimes trapped at home.
PM: Absolutely. You mentioned the disinformation... One of the things that we've been seeing is that in Russia for example, they have been making use of the COVID crisis to begin to track people even more carefully to introduce facial recognition technologies and cameras.
The term that's been throwing around is cybergulags being created there. With China's facial recognition technologies and the way that's been used to suppress the weaker minorities, China has been introducing that working with governments and other places in the world to try to get that into voter registration so that you have biometric voter registration data that includes facial recognition technology.
So in this era, getting access to government decision making, getting access even to the health data and disaggregated by gender, by vulnerable groups and so on is part of the work that election observers normally do. Demanding open electoral data can lead easily to the same kinds of advocacy around open health data.
One of the other things I thought that you've touched on that's interesting is the states of emergencies and the relationships between that and postponement. There's more than 45 countries at this point that have postponed elections at the national and sub-national level.
Not all of them are problematic by any means, but in a lot of countries, there have been extended states of emergency without any end date. The postponements have no end date on them.
One of the things that election observers can do is to join with... And many of them are human rights organizations and bringing about the rules that have been established in the international arena for limiting the duration of states of emergencies, that the measures that are taken have to be proportionate to the nature of the threat to the nation to bring those issues up and do advocacy around them and to help those of us in the international arena be aware of where these problems are in various countries.
JB: With that, I think we'll take a quick break. We'll be back after this quick message.
One of the things that Secretary Albright has said is that it's absolutely essential for young people to understand that they must participate and that they are the energy behind democracy.
You can hear more from other democracy heroes by listening to our Dem Works podcast. It is available on iTunes and SoundCloud.
So before the break, we were talking about the role that citizen election monitors are playing in the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on electoral integrity. Are there other considerations that citizen election groups should be thinking about in the need for electoral integrity in their countries?
I'm thinking especially related to how groups can make sure that their observers are safe while also being able to collect information and an advocate for critical processes and good governance.
PM: That's really a critical question, Julia. A good example that comes to mind is in Mali, which has had very few reported cases of COVID-19, there was a parliamentary election just two weeks ago. The government, for national security reasons, has had to postpone those elections for almost two years and they were really in a phase of saying we need to push it ahead. In fact, there had not been a reported COVID-19 death until just a few hours before the election date.
So it went forward and the citizen observers with which NDI has been working in that country in the weeks leading up to that advocated that the polling stations had to have masks for the staff; had to have gloves; had to have hand sanitizers or hand washing stations because hand sanitizer is hard to get in a lot of places in Mali.
They made sure that their observers had those materials themselves. I think 1,500 observers went out to polling stations across the country. In their own headquarters and gathering data, there was social distancing that took place and they did a lot of checking in with their observers about how they were doing, how they were feeling over the course of the day.
So one thing that the citizen observers can do is to join with organizations that are health advocates for those places where either voter registration is about to take place or voting is about to take place to ensure that the conditions minimize the risk.
We just saw this over this past weekend in the elections that were held in South Korea. Whether or not you might think that the election should go forward, there was a country where there's a lot of public confidence in what the government has been doing and in the integrity of the election authorities and voter turnout was not terribly affected by this.
So there is something that can be done immediately and as you have mentioned, there are numerous things that can be looked at by citizen observers without ever really leaving their homes or their headquarters. One of those, as you mentioned, is disinformation. Our partners in Georgia, for example, have uncovered a link between Russian propaganda, which has gone up around disinformation around COVID-19 and linking it to destabilizing public trust in Georgia's government.
There's a really interesting report that they came out with just last week on that front. So how does COVID-19 and elections interface is something that can be explored in a number of dimensions.
JB: We've talked mostly about the work of nonpartisan civil society organizations and their own countries that are confronting this challenge. Is there a role for international election observers on terms of electoral oversight during a public crisis, especially knowing that they will have some of the same if not even more constraints than citizen election monitors?
PM: It's a very difficult role at the moment for international election observers. We've been in touch with our colleagues at the African Union and the European Union, at the United Nations and Organization of American States and so on. Many of them have been bringing teams home from countries. Some of them have been postponing or canceling sending teams out.
At the same time, there are a number of things that international observers can do. As you mentioned, you can look at things from a distance. You can review the legal framework, which is part of what every international election observation and citizen observers do.
You can compare what has been done over the past few cycles of elections, where recommendations have been made, whether those recommendations were acted upon or whether you find the same problem repeating in the next report and prioritize the issues that you might look to and even be able to inform diplomats and others about things that they should be raising with government.
You can look at disinformation and other information disorder, hate speech and so on, from afar. Certainly you can tune in with what the critical people inside a country who are working on these issues have been doing. You can conduct some long distance interviews with key people in the citizen groups and in the election authorities and the political leaders to learn their opinions about what the state of play is in the country and their concerns going forward.
But when it comes time to put people on the ground, we have to look at travel restrictions. We have to look at countries where foreigners have been seen as people who bring in COVID-19 and there's been violence against them; so security of observers is important. And the numbers of people who may go or where they may be deployed depending upon hotspots in the country and so on.
So this is something that over the course of this year will be a challenge. And the next thing will be a challenge for international election observers is that as so many elections are being postponed, they're being postponed probably towards the end of this year or the beginning of next year, which already has many scheduled elections. So there may be an overwhelming demand for which the supply of financial and human resources runs short.
JB: It does seem like at this point, especially knowing that international election observers in a lot of the places just can't deploy right now, one of the roles to play here is really trying to raise the voices of the citizen groups on the ground that are able to actually do some on the ground observation.
Also keeping in mind, especially for the places we're concerned about authoritarian overreach, thinking about how we can use some of these international mechanisms to push back on democratic backsliding and mitigate tensions in places where it could potentially be a bit more unstable with the current situation.
PM: You're right. That's the contribution that the international community can do, too... To really amplify the voices of the citizenry and to augment their efforts to bring about respect for civil and political rights.
When you have a network of thousands of citizens who have taken the time and the effort to go out of their homes, into the street, to look at what the nature of the threats of violence or vote buying or intimidation to document how these things of disproportionally driven women or restricted women's political and electoral participation, would they have taken the time to go into polling stations, sometimes under threat or coercion?
These people have become a solid core of citizen empowerment in so many countries around the world, and each of those citizens, of course, is using WhatsApp and other ways of talking and they're influencers within a country.
They can gather information, they can give accurate information out, but as they report up through their networks, if there's good collaboration between the reputable citizen groups and the credible international election observers and the international community more broadly, we can use that cooperation that we've been working on over the years to try to bring attention, even when it's hard to shine a light directly on problems in countries that are being affected by this crisis and facing political challenges and stress.
JB: Well, thank you again, Pat, for joining us. I think this has been a particularly relevant discussion. I'd also like to say thank you to our listeners.
To learn more about NDI or to listen to other Dem Works podcasts, please visit our website@www.ndi.org
PM: Thank you, Julia and thank you to the listeners.





Democracy (General), Elections Podcasts Listen democracy

One year after a national election in which the Democrats won not only the presidency but 18 congressional seats and 9 new senators, the party lost two major gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, but won an unexpected congressional seat in upstate New York. Clearly, Obama's coattails did not prove strong enough to bring out the two groups that helped him go over the top in last year's election, namely, the youth vote and the African American votes. There are many lessons to be learned by both parties from this past week' s elections, but there is also the risk of over interpreting results as a prequel of next year's mid-term elections. First, in an "off-off" year, most of the electorate was indifferent to the elections, worried as they are about more pressing issues such as higher taxes, the ever-expanding deficit and more than anything else, about unemployment, which has just surpassed the 10% mark in spite of reported GDP growth of 3.5% this quarter. Second, the state gubernatorial races were played out at the local level and had more to do with the candidates themselves than with the voters 'discontent with the President. Indeed, in a Virginia exit poll, 60% of the voters said that they had based their vote on state issues, while only 24% of those polled said they had used their vote to express their dissatisfaction with the President and 20% to express their support for him. On the other hand, Congressional elections reflect more of the national mood, and here the Democrats were winners: due to an inner brawl among Republicans, they unexpectedly won a seat the Republicans had held since the 1870s in the twenty-third district of New York. still, just as it would be a mistake to give national significance to the state races, it would also be silly to miss the obvious: the preponderant mood in the country is anti-incumbency, and this affects both parties. But clearly, independents who voted for Obama are re-directing their votes toward the Republicans and becoming savvier, more issue specific voters. In addition, both parties have base problems: the Democrats need to figure out how to get their base to the polls during off-year elections, and the Republicans must find ways to control their base so that it does not destroy the party. Turnout was the definitive factor in both gubernatorial races: it fell from 3.7 million to under 2 million in Virginia, and from almost 4 million to 2.3 million in New Jersey. The Republicans and Independents were more energized than the Democratic base, so they voted in larger numbers. Young voters between 18 and 29 years of age represented only 10% in Virginia and 9% in New Jersey. In contrast, in the 2008 presidential race they represented 21% and 17% respectively, and are credited for delivering the states to Obama in both cases. In New Jersey, an unpopular Democratic incumbent, albeit an Obama ally, lost to a new Republican face that ran on a fiscally conservative platform. Obama's appeal was apparently weaker than the voters' aversion for Jon Corzine, so U.S district attorney Chris Christie won, becoming the first Republican to win that position in 12 years. In Virginia, Bob McDonnell underplayed his extreme socially conservative views and his connection to Christian Right leader Pat Robertson. Instead, he ran a positive campaign based on job creation, quality of life for Virginians and fiscal responsibility. His opponent, Creigh Deeds, ran a negative TV ad campaign based on his opponent's social conservatism and his ideology as reflected in a misogynist twenty-year old thesis. In a calculation that backfired, Deeds distanced himself from President Obama for most of his campaign, only to turn to him towards the end. It proved to be too late. On that sunny autumnal day, Democratic voters, especially African Americans and young voters, the two groups than gave Obama his victory in Virginia, were absent from the polls. After eight years of two outstanding Democratic governors, the Executive Mansion in Richmond reverted to Republicans. Unlike Governor Warner who in 2005 prepared the way for his successor, Tim Kaine had spent most of 2009 out of the state, in his new national role as chairman the Democratic National Committee, and did very little to help Deeds. Kaine's national ambition seems to have gotten in the way of his local role as Deeds' promoter and cheerleader, and he became, in the words of Professor Larry Sabato, more of a "partisan rather than a unifying figure" at home. However, the apathy of Democratic voters has deeper roots than just civic irresponsibility or lack of engagement. It is also a reflection of disillusion and even rage with the failure of the Obama administration to create jobs and to deal with Wall Street in stricter terms, for example by breaking up the "too-big-to-fail" banks, introducing stricter regulation of derivatives trading and by reducing of CEO's compensation. Again, in spite of all the rhetoric, Obama seems to have bailed out Wall Street at the expense of middle-class tax payers and small businesses. In sum, Obama's young followers and liberals stayed home because Obama is moving too slowly in crucial issues; independents switched parties because of their own fears of losing their jobs and facing higher taxes, as well as to punish the Democrats for too much government spending with little results for higher employment; and McDonnell benefited as much from a weak, erratic opponent who ran a terrible campaign as he did from his own smart strategy and pragmatic style.While the main problem then for Democrats is how to energize the base so that they can fulfill their civic duty and vote, the Republicans have the opposite problem: how to control their base so that it does not get in the way of allowing the party to field moderate candidates that can get the Independent vote. In this sense, what happened in New York 23rd district may be a blessing in disguise for the Republicans, as it will teach them a lesson in time for next year mid-term election. In this previously little known congressional district near the Canadian border, the Republican Party nominated moderate Assemblywoman DeDe Scozzafava in a special election called to fill the seat of Representative JohnMcHugh (R-NY) who had been appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama. This was regarded as a safe Republican seat given that the party had held it for over 100 years. However, in a twist of events that took both parties by surprise, Conservatives rebelled against the party nominee, whose social values were deemed too liberal, and fielded their own candidate, Doug Hoffman, with the support of talk show celebrities Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Sarah Palin. The Club for Growth, main supporter of Tea Partiers and Birthers, poured a lot of money in support of Hoffman, and consequently Scozzafava, the official Republican Party nominee, started training in the polls. On the weekend before the election, Scozzafava abandoned the race and endorsed the Democratic candidate! The Right was jubilant, confident of a victory in this rural district, which has very few immigrants and is 93% white. Indeed, Fox news insisted on predicting a "tidal wave" in favor of the Conservative candidate all throughout Election Day, only to be forced to concede at past midnight that instead, the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, had won. The election in the 23rd district, then, served as a warning to Republicans of whatnot to do in 2010. While the two Republicans that won the gubernatorial races did so by moving to center, thus appealing to Independents and moderates, the main losers in New York state were the Tea Partiers and Birthers who have taken advantage of the vacuum of leadership at the top, have hijacked the Republican Party and made the country at times seem ungovernable. Let it be noted here that both conservative candidates then- to- be governors elect, Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia, had rejected Palin's offer to campaign for them. Recognizing the relevance of this kind of wisdom, as well as his good looks and ability to persuade, McDonnell is already being touted as a possible candidate for the 2012 national ticket.2009 will be remembered as the year of anti-incumbency, but this anti-incumbent mood is not so much about Obama, who still enjoys close to 60% of popularity, as it is about government in general. Indeed, every special Congressional election since Obama assumed the presidency has been won by Democrats even in seats previously held by Republicans. In politics, one year is an eternity, so it is difficult to extrapolate the November 3rd results to next year's mid-term election. It all depends on whether the economic stimulus starts to work more consistently and is translated into jobs. The passage of health care reform by the House is undoubtedly a victory for Democrats, but it was a narrow one, with 39 Democrats voting against it, in spite of serious compromises by House Speaker Pelosi, including one amendment that prohibits the use of federal money for abortion and that is already under fire by the party's liberals. If the so-called Stupak amendment is not taken out in House-Senate conference, then the Party may see a huge backlash by women and other groups. Still, health care reform will be a reality by year's end, and once it passes it will become sacred: voters will embrace it (as they did with Medicaid and Medicare, as well as Social Security) and, together with job recovery, it may become the basis of a better mid-term election for Democrats than most pundits are predicting now.Finally, while the two gubernatorial races were won by the Republicans, and can be read as a warning to incumbent governors everywhere in next year's elections, it is clear that the largest group that went to the polls were mainly McCain voters, as well as disgruntled independent voters who shifted to the right. And while this trend is good news for the Republicans, the inexorable weight of demographics is against them: these races were won by an overwhelmingly white and older, more male than female, electorate who constitute at the same time an increasingly smaller percentage of the population as a whole. The fastest-rising voting groups do not vote for the Republican Party, which they consider the party "without ideas". To win next year, the GOP needs to regroup fast, get rid of the Palin-Limbaugh baggage and find new leadership. A year has gone by since their huge electoral loss and they have yet to find it. Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science and Geography Director, ODU Model United Nations Program Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia

The virulent strain of nativist, anti-establishment, anti-corporatist and anti-immigrant sentiment is rocking the foundations of traditional party systems in all industrialized democracies. Its causes are many, but in broad terms it is safe to say they surfaced right after the 2008-09 economic collapse, an era that was characterized by intense polarization and confrontational approaches against governments, corporations and financial institutions which crossed party lines and traditional political cleavages. The sweeping changes brought about by globalized capital and corporate interests, and the blurring of national borders that accompanied them, have alienated big swathes of the population and given rise to new forms of strident populism everywhere.In the United States the main manifestation of this phenomenon is taking the form of a populist revolt, a singular form of class warfare inside the Republican Party, between the established party hierarchy and the Tea Party movement.As the next legislative election approaches, the internecine feud within the Republican Party continues to create challenges for its top candidates who must veer more right-wing to secure the nomination and then turn back to the center of American politics to win the general election. Before 2012, the GOP tried to co-opt the extreme right and used their rhetoric, but after the 2012 election losses, the party took uncertain steps to distance itself from the movement. Today, the movement rather than the establishment seems to be dictating the party line, so there is paralysis in Washington once again. The leadership will still have to govern and legislate on some central issues-increase the debt limit, fund the government, and renew the authorization charter of the Export-Import Bank, among other things, and in so doing, further alienate Tea Party voters. The Republican-dominated House will no doubt stay away from the avoidable taboos, such as considering immigration reform (for which the Senate already passed its own bill one year ago!) and in consequence, one more time unintentionally secure the Latino vote for the Democratic Party. They will continue blocking the minimum wage raise and the Fair Paycheck Act, thereby losing the minorities and women's vote. In this context, the 2016 presidential horizon looks brilliantly promising for Democrats and their two presidential hopefuls, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren.The defeat of Virginia Representative and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the June 10th Republican primary for the seventh Congressional district is symptomatic of deep divisions not only within the Republican Partybut in the electorate at large. Eric Cantor, a Republican with impeccable conservative credentials who had been re-elected seven times and who was first in line for House Speaker,lost by ten solid points to a little known college professor who ran against him by portraying him as the pro-Wall Street, pro-K Street typical Washington insider, indifferent from Main Street needs and demands. This race is very significant for several reasons. For starters, the anti-Washington, anti "corporate welfare" and anti-Wall Street sentiment is widespread among independent voters and those GOP legislators that have been "pro-bailout, pro-Obama stimulus spending and pro-immigration," as articulated by Tea Party leaders, live in fear of being chastened by voters.That is why this week Republicans in Congress who were holding their breath, are exhaling with a sense of relief as Senator Thad Cochran wins the primary runoff against Tea Party challenger ChrisMcDaniels who ran on a promise to voters that he would add his voice to the fight against Obamacare and big government spending. It appears then that the anti-incumbent sentiment has not been strong enoughto become a sustained trend: so far, only two sitting representatives have not won re-nomination in the House and all 18 Senate races have been won by those holding the seats, including Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, who was a leader in favor of Immigration Reform in the Senate, but has been vocal in confronting Obama with his dismal record in foreign policy, from Benghazi to Syria to Ukraine, and now all the way back to Iraq. But even pollsters have been taken by surprise in most cases, whether as to the narrowness of results (such as the one is Mississippi, which required a runoff election) or to the unfathomable upsets (Cantor's represents a historical defeat: no Majority leader had been voted out in a primary election since the nineteenth century). There are many reasons why nobody saw this coming, first among them the constant problem of voter turnout, especially in primaries, followed by new strategies by candidates (David Bratt, the college professor that beat Cantor, did door -to -door canvassing, taking time to speak to prospective voters, and he beat a competitor who had outspent him 40 to 1) and by the strong commitment of a small group of activists that mobilized the grassroots against Cantor's pro-business stance. The outcome of these races is further complicated by the fact that many Democrats are taking part in open primaries, which makes them even more unpredictable. Democrats participated in both races, voting against the incumbent, Cantor, in Virginia (he was perceived as the main obstacle for bringing to the floor a vote on immigration bills that apparently would have had the votes to pass) and in favor of incumbent, veteranSenator Thad Cochran in Mississippi (he courted the African American vote, pointing out the amount of federal funds he had brought to the state in his 36 years as Senator, and they acquiesced, fearing Mc Daniels would be a worse choice for their interests in such a red state as Mississippi).These idiosyncratic variations and distortions should not distract us from the fact that the defeat of ultra-conservative House Majority leader from a white, affluent Richmond suburb is extremely significant and will have many ramifications in the near future. First and foremost, it has led to an immediate reshuffle of the party internal House leadership, as Cantorresigned his post as Majority leader. The first in line to fill his post, House whip Kevin McCarthy from California, used his insider skills to mobilize his contacts and call in his favors fast enough to pre-empt a challenge by a Tea Party congressman from Idaho, Raul Labrador, in a secret, internal party ballot. He has thus become Majority leader only eight years after he was first elected to Congress for California 23rd district. If re-elected in November, he will be first in line for House Speaker when Rep. Boehner gives up his post. This coveted position would have been Cantor's crowning achievement after a solid career of 14 years in Congress: he had hoped to become the first Jewish Speaker of the House.In spite of McCarthy's success in pre-empting challenges from outside the party leadership, the next one in line to move into McCarthy's whip position, deputy whip Peter Roskam from Illinois, lost the ballot to Tea Party challenger Steve Scalise from Louisiana, who mobilized the vote of Southern legislators and won, thereby establishing a presence for the movement inside the GOP hierarchy. Scalise, who was elected to Congress in 2008, has also risen rapidly through the ranks, as chairman of the ultra-conservative Republican Study Group and as a vocal advocate against big government.Party Whips in Congress are in charge of counting votes for and against legislation. They are enforcers, offering incentives and doling out punishments for votes among their caucus members. Their role becomes particularly important in close votes. The whip is also the main liaison between the party leadership and the rank and file.Primaries are proving to be much more dangerous for establishment Republicans than a prospective national election at the end of this year, in which they are poised to win both some Senate and House seats, mainly due to slow economic growth and low support for Obama, but more pointedly due to the opportunity created by the retirement of a significant number of long-serving senior legislators. Rather than the November election challenge against Democrats, primaries have become the main obstacle to surmount and the main focus of funding for incumbents and party establishment candidates. Memories of seats lost due to Tea party primary winners in the national 2010 and 2012 election still loom heavily in GOP minds. Karl Rove's words of advice to both the Tea Party activists and the GOP leadershipin February of 2010 still resonate in the halls of Congress:"If Tea party groups are to maximize their influence on policy, they must now begin the difficult task of disassociating themselves from cranks and conspiracy nuts. This includes 9/11 deniers, "birthers" who insist Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., and militia supporters espousing something vaguely close to armed rebellion.""The GOP is also better off if it foregoes any attempt to merge with the tea party movement. The GOP cannot possibly hope to control the dynamics of the highly decentralized galaxy of groups that make up the tea party movement. There will be troubling excesses and these will hurt Republicans if the party is formally associated with tea party groups" (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 18 2010).Because they are extremely vocal as well as media favorites (whether to disparage or to endorse them) and have made some undeniable inroads into the halls of power, the Tea Partiers have indeed made a splash in US politics, and they have re-shaped the agenda on issues of taxes and spending (with mixed success). But so far this term, 273 of 275 House incumbents and 18 out of 18 Senators have won re-nomination, even if in most House cases these contests were won by small margins. This is evidence that there is still somediscipline in party ranks, and newcomers are forced to follow the party leadership. For example in Kentucky, Sen. Rand Paul, largely recognized as the presidential candidate for Tea-Partiers and libertarians alike, did not campaign in favor of the Tea Party candidate who was running against Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, and gave the former only lukewarm support. Senator McConnell, a tough, seasoned veteran, was reported to have had a private, one-on-one, closed-doors conversation with Rand Paul before the primary campaign started…It then becomes clear that membership still has its privileges, and the Tea Partiers' disdain for insider politicking and the compromises required by politics in general won't take them very far. That is the stuff of politics, so now these political neophytes are getting into the fray, they will have to learn a few organizational lessons from the savvy insiders they are trying to replace. Nonetheless, one of the first comments made by Kevin McCarthy Fox News as he moved into Cantor's position was that "Yes, he would let the Export-Import Bank (reauthorization) to expire because it is something the private sector can do better". This represents a reversal from his 2012 position, and one that distances him from the business community and the party establishment, who want the Bank to remain. (Tea Partiers want to do away with the Ex-Im, the IRS and the Department of Education, among other institutions they find superfluous). In another interview, McCarthy asserted that the GOP had more to gain (politically) if it moved closer to libertarian ideas. So it has become apparent then, that the Tea Party as a movement and as a faction of the Republican Party is here to stay, at least for the near future. Its strength will depend on how they can accommodate their desires to the realities of governing the United States of America in the XXI century.María Fornella-Oehninger - Comparative Politics Professor, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Quotes from Josep Colomer:Constitutional Polarization. A Critical Review of the U.S. Political SystemRoutledge, 2023.  CLICK to purchaseA collection of 6 posts. 1 - Why a Federation? The aim of the Convention in Philadelphia was not to experiment with democracy in a large territory, but to create a "stronger", "firmer" government able to defend the new independent states from the British and other foreign troops still over the continent. The priority was to create a standing army, to pay the debt for the War for Independence, and to introduce the subsequent federal taxes. The basic institutions were the states-appointed Senate and the mighty President with war powers.Some delegates warned that in the new and independent United States, people would not accept, again, taxation without representation. That's why the House of Representatives was embodied as the democratic component of the government. Then, the delegates responded to its perils by designing a series of "filters" and "checks" to prevent the House from prevailing over the other components. The separation of powers and their institutional checks were a cap, intended to tame and temper democracy. NOT A DEMOCRACYMadison warned against "the amazing violence and turbulence of the democratic spirit," and stated, "democratic communities may be unsteady, and be led to action by the impulse of the moment." Later, in the campaign to ratify the Constitution in New York, he would hold that, in the past, democracies "have ever been found spectacles of turbulence and contention … and as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."Alexander Hamilton would allege that "the zeal for the rights of the people has been a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government." In his view, democracies are manipulated by people who "commence as demagogues and end being tyrants."Gouverneur Morris was an influential delegate from Pennsylvania who is credited as the main redactor of the final text of the Constitution. He also cautioned against "the turbulence, the precipitation, changeableness, and excess" of democratic assemblies.Other delegates in the Convention referred to "the fury" and "the folly" of democracy. One confessed, "It's the anarchy, or rather worse than anarchy of a pure democracy, which I fear." Another simply stated, "democracy, the worst of all political evils." DIVINE HANDAbout the divine hand guiding the constituents, see, for example:     "America felt that the hand of providence was on the young republic … There can be little question that the hand of providence has been on a nation which finds a Washington, a Lincoln or a Roosevelt when it needs him," Seymour M. Lipset, American Exceptionalism, W. W. Norton, 1997, pp. 13–14.    "I can't wait to go to Heaven and meet the Framers and tell them the work that you did in putting together our Constitution is a work of genius. Thank you. It was divinely inspired," Mike Pence, Vice-President of the United States in December 2020. Reported by Gregory Jacob, Counselor of the Vice-President, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, June 16, 2022. 2- An elected MonarchyMONTESQUIEUIn the imaginary Constitution of England described by Montesquieu, the powers of the three institutions were so challenged and limited by mutual checks that the most likely result would be governmental paralysis. He held that in order to prevent abuses, "Power should stop ["arrête" in French] power"; brake, not just "check" as it was sloppily translated. In Montesquieu's words, with these rules, "these three powers should naturally form a state of repose or inaction." In the perhaps unlikely or infrequent case that public affairs required some action, he conceded that the three powers should be "forced to move, but still in concert." Madison would only ambiguously paraphrase, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."   There was a problem: Montesquieu had misunderstood how the British system actually worked. What he described was closer to an old-fashioned, outdated model that, in the best of cases, could be identified with a transitory, provisional past period in England's history. It did not correspond with the political system in motion when he visited London, and even less with practices contemporary to the Framers gathered in Philadelphia several decades later. By following Montesquieu's obsolete account, the authors of the US Constitution misunderstood the source.MONARCHYThe monarchical proposal was most explicitly presented by Alexander Hamilton. He did not attend most of the Convention sessions, but on June 18, he showed up, took the floor, and delivered a prepared speech for more than five hours, no break for lunch, that left the delegates flabbergasted. Hamilton proposed a president that would be chosen by electors and serve for life. Such an "elective Monarch" would appoint the state governors and could veto state laws. At the federal level, the president would also be the arbiter for expected regular conflict between the Senate also appointed for life and the popular House: "This check is a Monarch," he suggested, "capable of resisting the popular current." The president, with absolute veto over congressional legislation, would be "a salutary check upon the legislative body." According to Ron Chernow, his biographer, Hamilton had written in his personal notes for his Convention speech that the president would not only be appointed for life but also "ought to be hereditary and to have so much power that it will not be his interest to risk much to acquire more." Yet, probably sensing the audience's reluctance to his already delivered proposals, he skipped that part.    Adams, who would become the US' first vice president and the second president, was suspected of having monarchist leanings. He would propose calling George Washington "His Majesty the President," thought hereditary rule inevitable, and, after Washington's childless tenure prevented it, he would be the first to make his son run for president.3-The Founders' Portraits in WashingtonWhat one can see and guess about these characters by looking at eight portraits,  the first five by Gilbert Stuart and the next two by John Trumbull at the National Gallery of Art, and the eighth by Joseph Siffred Duplessis at the National Portrait Gallery.             4- How the System Actually Works CHECKS AND GRIEVANCESAlexander Hamilton clearly lay on the side of scant congressional legislation. He said, "The injury that may possibly be done by defecting a few good laws will be amply compensated by the advantages of preventing a number of bad ones." It was like fasting for the sake of not being poisoned; the result is anemia, not good political health.In practice, there are checks but no balances. The existing blockingmechanisms in the US constitutional system do not produce balances in favor of a few good laws. They are largely unbalanced in favor of the Presidency and its powers, which is aggravated by the biases of the presidential elections.The US constitutional plan, instead of relying upon positive institutionalincentives, such as the expectation of sharing power in the Cabinet, countedon politicians' virtuous behavior. Yet, absent our better angels' motivations, the system of negative checks becomes a machine for sustained conflict. PRESIDENTIALISMThe greatest increase in presidential power has derived from wars. From General George Washington, leader of the Revolutionary War for Independence, through Theodore Roosevelt, a high-level combatant in the Spanish-American War in the Caribbean, eleven of the first twenty-five presidents were war men. Whether as generals, national heroes, or upper-echelon military officers, Andrew Jackson, William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley fought in the wars against the British, the Indians, the Mexicans, or, in the Civil War, other Americans, and their military feats helped them to be elected.Alexander Hamilton had already identified the management of foreign affairs as the main way to expand executive powers: "It is of the nature of war to increase the executive, at the expense of the legislative authority." Discussing rates of presidents, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. observed that war "made it easier for a president to achieve greatness.            5- No Parties, But PolarizationNO PARTIESThe Framers were confident about the future of the republic because they miscalculated that in a great, expanding, and diverse Union with multiple institutional checks, it would be unlikely that nationwide parties could be created. They expected that the best individuals with "enlightened views and virtuous sentiments" would lead the new politics against "the pestilential influence of party animosities" and "the pestilential breath of faction," as scorned by both James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, respectively. Currently, the two major political parties in the US encompass a range of policy proposals and ideological orientations comparable to the typical European system with multiple parties: There are liberals and socialists within the Democratic Party, and conservatives and populists within the Republican Party, with the minor Greens and Libertarians flanking each side. However, the political competition is polarized by two parties or candidates because of the electoral system and the election of the president.POLITICAL, NO SOCIAL POLARIZATION The polarization of parties and candidates is more politically consequential than the polarization of voters. Generally, parties can lead and carry voters in their direction, either to closeness or to distance from each other, but to a limited extent. That is because it is less difficult to coordinate and mobilize a few thousand politicians than millions of voters. If parties and political leaders move to radicalize their positions and provoke polarization, voters may follow and become more polarized in their preferences, but usually less than the politicians and parties come to be. If, conversely, parties moderate and converge in their positions, voters may also moderate themselves but less than the partisan politicians do.FEAR AND NATIONAL FERVOR During the Cold War, many citizens developed a sense of unity, love of patriotic values, and pride in the American way of life. They trusted the rulers, who appeared as their protectors and providers of security. Challenging the government in the middle of a war would have been regarded as treason. In parallel, the ruling officials were able to keep many state secrets, their policy performances were not seriously evaluated, they enjoyed discrete privacy from the media, and gained support and devotion from the public.After the Cold War, without the threat of a nuclear war, the public lost their fear. There was a new openness to indiscretion and transgression. The new political atmosphere became the opposite of the previous period: a general mistrust of government, close scrutiny of corrupt practices, leaks of confidential plans and messages, frequent scandals about politicians' business or private affairs, and loud calls for more transparency and accountability. After the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the "peace dividend" that appeared to be a potential source of domestic progress led instead to domestic mayhem. With just a little exaggeration, one could say that, over the years, the international Cold War was replaced with a domestic cold war.          6- Towards the 2024 ElectionPRIMARIESThe primaries mechanism is a substitute for the formation of multiple parties. To build a majority, in Europe and other democracies, a coalition of multiple parties must be formed after the election; in the US, a coalition of multiple factions within a party must be formed before the election. In European parliamentary systems with multiple parties, the mess comes after the election; sometimes, the formation of a coalition in parliament for the choice of a prime minister takes months. In the US, the mess is before the election; the process of simplifying the pluralistic setting to only two major presidential candidates starts more than a year before Election Day. These alternative experiences both confirm that, in the absence of a traditional monarch, simplifying a complex society to one single executive leader is always a challenging endeavor.The main drawback of the system of partisan primaries is that it may not produce a majority in support for the winning candidate but it can result in the nomination of an extreme or unqualified demagogue who would be rejected by a majority of voters.The turnout in the presidential primaries has increased to nearly 50% of the party voters in the general election since the 2010s. However, the number of primary candidates within each party has also increased, up to double digits in recent seasons, which reduced the support for the winner. In 2016, Donald Trump was voted in the primaries by only 22% of his voters in the general election; Hillary Clinton, by 26% of her votes in the general election; and in 2020, Joe Biden by only 23%.SPLITTING CANDIDATESIf popular participation increases, partisanship becomes more compact, and the potential political pluralism of the country is not well articulated by the party system, third and further candidates reappear. They indirectly made a winner by splitting partisan support in at least four of the first eight presidential elections after the Cold War. The independent Ross Perot split Republican voters twice, in 1992 and 1996, and twice produced a Democratic winner with a minority of popular votes. The other way around, the Green Party's Ralph Nader split Democratic voters in 2000 and produced a Republican winner with a minority of popular votes. Also, the Greens and other candidacies absorbed potential Democratic voters in 2016 and helped make a Republican candidate the winner with a minority of popular votes.CAN TRUMP RETURN?There are also precedents of traitors who persisted in politics, ran for office, were elected, and provoked further turmoil. At least two former presidents joined the Confederacy during the Civil War. Former Whig President John Tyler, who had replaced William Harrison at his death one month after entering office, was first elected to and chaired the Virginia Secession Convention, and during the Civil War, he was elected first to the Provisional Confederation Congress and then to the Confederate House of Representatives. Former Democratic President Franklin Pierce collaborated closely with Confederacy President Jefferson Davis. Also, former President Andrew Johnson was elected senator on an anti-Reconstruction platform.Collection:1- Why a Federation2- An Elected Monarchy3- Psychological Portraits of the Founders and Framers4– How the System Actually Works5- No Parties, But Polarization6- Towards the 2024 Election