The article is concerned with voting indicators in the European Union. The first chapter constructs a model of voting power & defines four indicators: A. Simple relative power, B. Shapley-Shubik index, C. Banzhaf index, D. Coleman index. The second chapter defines data: the voting structure according the Nice Treaty & nine algorithms -- variants of the EU enlargement. The third chapter summarizes empirical results. The fourth chapter discusses statistical relations between voting indicators. The fifth chapter brings conclusions. 11 Tables, 29 References. Adapted from the source document.
The article asks whether a paradox of new members comes into being during the EU enlargement. The first chapter defines the paradox of new members & examines its frequency in political communities. The second chapter introduces practical examples of the paradox & specifies voting power indicators in the EU. The third chapter brings empirical results -- frequency of the paradox during EU enlargement. The fourth chapter tests some hypotheses & defines a disproportionality index. The fifth chapter summarizes conclusions. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.
This article aims at explaining the success of the center-left coalition in the Italian regional elections in April 2005. Does it express voters real discontent with the government of the House of Freedoms? Or, alternatively, are the results due to the fact that in the so-called second-order elections governing parties are regularly punished & opposition parties preferred? This article takes into consideration the concept of second-order elections & explains on this basis the recent electoral results. References. Adapted from the source document.
The referendum on the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union was the first -- & thus far the only -- national referendum in the history of both the Czech Republic & Czechoslovakia. Although it was obvious that the majority of the Czech population was in favor of joining the European Union, sociologists could not predict the turnout. The polls had shown that at least 70 percent of the population would vote "Yes." However, as there had been no referendum in the country's history before, there were fears of voter apathy. There was no experience concerning the difference between public opinion polls & the actual results. Regardless of these factors, TNS Factum offered a very accurate prediction of voter turnout & of support for accession. The voting pattern in the actual referendum was firmly correlated with & similar to the voting behavior in the 2002 parliamentary elections. A study on electoral data showed a strong correlation between the support for Koalice (Coalition of liberals & Christian democrats) in the 2002 general election & the pro-EU voles in the 2003 referendum. The Czech referendum was not an exception compared to developments in other post-communist states. Nevertheless, there is a clear difference between east European referenda & past EU referenda in Western Europe. The latter were characterized by higher voter turnout & by relatively less enthusiasm concerning EU accession. In this respect, the post-communist referenda were the inverse. They displayed low voter turnout & high support for accession; hence, they demonstrate the differing perceptions of the east European populations & their western counterparts. 8 Tables, 7 Graphs, 14 References. Adapted from the source document.
This article focuses on proving some of the earlier published hypotheses that criticized the possibility applying the electoral bonus (bonus seats) to elections to the Chamber of Deputies in the Czech Republic. The results of the Czech parliamentary elections held at the very end of May 2010 provide some empirical data for this analysis and help to prove that the mechanism of the electoral bonus is not useful in the Czech political system. The main reasons for this claim are the hypotheses that the electoral bonus should not reinforce the position of the government coalition and that it erodes the will of the people, whose votes in fact count towards the bonus seat(s) of another party (namely that party which receives the electoral bonus). Adapted from the source document.
The EU enlargement process is a vital part of European integration. Previous research into EU enlargement aimed especially at the process itself or at the approaches of member states or EU institutions towards enlargement. We focus on political parties and their positions towards future enlargement of the EU. Comparing the opinions of the CDU and CSU on EU enlargement, we try to find out whether these two parties can be, at a European level, considered as one homogeneous actor and whether the CDU and CSU's declaratory opinions are consistent with the parties' MEP voting. Analysis thus deals both with the programme documents and statements of relevant politicians and with roll call votes in the European parliament. Adapted from the source document.
The level of political participation of American citizens is commonly considered to be high. However, voter turnout is in fact relatively low, even in highly attractive presidential elections. The article focuses on this phenomenon and the particular factors that, according to the literature, affect turnout negatively. The first part describes various methods being used to measure voter turnout in the USA. The difference can even be several percentage points, depending on the method of calculation. With regard to these distinctions, American data cannot be directly compared with voter turnout statistics in European countries that use a different methodology. The main part of the article analyses several factors that are generally considered to influence voter turnout in the USA negatively, and counts their real impact. One important factor is that voter registration methods can lower the turnout by up to 11 per cent. Also significant is the lowering of the voting-age limit in 1971. Neither gradual changes in population age structure nor enactment of election-day holidays have proven to negatively influence turnout. The principal findings reveal a permanent increase of inhabitants without voting rights (esp. non-citizens). These persons are included in voting-age population figures, and due to inexact methodology, cause a merely statistical decrease at the level of at least 3 per cent of voter turnout. Adapted from the source document.
A pre-election analysis is going to describe the role of self-candidates in the 2006 Czech parliamentary election. The article is focused on the basic characteristics of ballots. The various ballots are compared from different views -- the number of candidates, the demographic representation, the role of local political authorities, & the candidacy of former parliament members. Adapted from the source document.
This paper analyses the effect of turnout on the support of different parties in the Czech Republic. It tests hypotheses derived from American & Western European literature concerning the advantage/disadvantage of higher turnout for particular parties, especially for left-wing parties. The text introduces the main theories & research strategies concerning the partisan effects of voter turnout, & then tests several hypotheses concerning this issue. The analysis uses both aggregate & individual level data. The results show that higher turnout is advantageous for the parties whose voters lack strong party identification (CSSD & the Green Party). On the other hand, it brings lower gains to parties with a disciplined electorate (ODS, KDU-CSL & partly also for KSCM). The case of KSCM points to the curvilinearity of the relationship between turnout & party support. More sophisticated statistical analysis should be used in future research. Adapted from the source document.
This article analyzes the origin & development of the Movement for Autonomous Democracy -- Association for Moravia & Silesia (HSD-SMS) in the early stages of the formation of the Czech political system. The article covers the period of Boleslav Barta's chairmanship. Barta founded & defined HSD-SMS as a non-partisan political movement of all democratic Moravians & Silesians. HSD-SMS achieved surprising success in the first free parliamentary elections held in June 1990 (10% of the total vote for the Czech National Council). However, the following events revealed the inability of HSD-SMS to become a stable part of the Czech political system. The movement had to cope with internal problems & its own unsuccessful parliamentary policy. HSD-SMS did not manage to push through any of their policy goals in the area of territorial & administrative reorganization of the state. The sudden death of the leader Boleslav Barta accelerated the movement's decline. In addition, HSD-SMS lacked the attributes of modern political parties. References. Adapted from the source document.
The article explores several reasons why women in Czech politics are underrepresented not only relative to their overall share in the society but also relative to their presence at lower levels of politics. The article tests two principal hypotheses using data from both a unique post-electoral public opinion survey carried out in the Olomouc region in 2010, and from official electoral statistics. First, it concentrates on the structural barriers of female underrepresentation presented by the candidate nomination and selection processes of the political parties. Second, it explores the possibility that more flexible candidate lists are beneficial for female representation. We compare the proportions of preference votes received by women both prior to and after electoral reforms in 2010, which for the first time gave voters the possibility to cast four preference votes and thus made the list structures more flexible. The research design includes both OLS and logistic regression models, which specify the empirical relationships derived from previous theoretical debates. The results suggest that Czech women are heavily disadvantaged by the Czech parties' candidate selection mechanisms, and also that we do not have enough evidence to conclude that flexible lists are more conducive to higher female representation. The article concludes by considering various institutional means of reducing female political underrepresentation, including the introduction of electoral gender quotas. Adapted from the source document.
In the Slovak parliamentary elections of 2010, the reformist centre-right parties defeated the left-nationalist coalition government led by Robert Fico. The election results brought some other surprises – the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia and its leader, three-times Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar, as well as the Party of Hungarian Coalition were eliminated from the national parliament. Moreover, the election outcome of the radical right-wing Slovak National Party declined significantly. On the other hand, two new parties entered parliament. All in all, the election outcomes show the weakening of the nationalist agenda and the nationalist vote. The paper examines why this has happened and raises the question of to what extent it is sustainable.
The article deals with concepts of the empirical threshold of representation as proposed by Rein Taagepera & the real threshold as proposed by Tomas Lebeda. Both empirical & real thresholds are operational methods of the actual threshold. The empirical threshold indicates the actual share of the vote which a party needs to have a fifty-fifty chance of gaining a seat. The real threshold indicates the minimal actual share of the vote which a party needs to gain representation. The author of the paper argues that real thresholds serve as an illustration of a hypothetical rather than a real situation & they do not always occur between the upper & the lower thresholds. The second part of the paper analyzes the original & the current electoral systems for the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament. While under the current electoral system a party with 6.15 per cent of the vote has a fifty-fifty chance of winning a seat within a district, the share was 4.36 per cent of the vote within the original electoral system. On the other hand, the national empirical threshold is lower under the current electoral system. This is caused by relatively large districts of the original system which are more hospitable to small parties at the district level, but not necessarily from the national perspective. Adapted from the source document.
This article discusses the growing role of China in UN peacekeeping operations since 1989. First, the reasons for the non-engagement of China after its admission to the UN and its Security Council in 1971 are described to stress the difference of the Chinese behavior after the end of the Cold War. Second, the increasing Chinese activity in UN peacekeeping is shown by describing China's gradually changing behavior in three areas: voting in the Security Council, personnel contributions to peacekeeping operations and financial contributions to the UN peacekeeping budget. In the end, the article suggests that China's growing role in UN PKO could be understood as an important part of China's peaceful rise policy. Adapted from the source document.
