Electoral Behavior

Since the fall of communism nearly a decade ago, a series of important changes have occurred within the party system of Belarus. On the one hand, there is a potential for party system stabilization, given relatively stable party competition, the acceptance of parties as legitimate political actors in the electoral game, and the existence of predictable group loyalties to them. On the other hand, one may still witness intensive vote changing, the tendency for the presidency to strengthen, and a lingering sign of reversion in Belarus's democratization. This necessitates a discussion of the extent to which these two perspectives are contradictory, and how the paradox can be explained. The study examines the nature of instability and its causes, and discusses whether vote changing may be interpreted as `quasi-volatility', which does not primarily imply a radical dealignment in voting

Information visibility affordances of online technologies are reshaping expectations for personnel selection and concordantly, career management. Drawing on data from 59 employers, this research suggests employers are (perhaps unintentionally) re-imagining personnel selection as they appropriate strategies from electoral contexts to ‘vote’ on job candidates. This study identifies and explicates employers’ use of a new career lens—the worker as politician. Employers report seeking workers with an electable personalities informed by appropriate endorsements, who demonstrate commercially ‘sanitized’ public images, reflecting the ‘right’ kind of private life, and mainstream values. In so doing, employers extend when, where, and in what role contexts employment evaluations occur, and in which contexts workers’ must therefore consider managing their reputations and careers. This study contributes research on how ICTs and information visibility affect everyday practices of personnel selection, career management, and reputation building.

"Although the EU launched its first citizenship programme in 1992 with considerable fanfare, arguably nothing much changed for employees who had already moved to another member-state. True, the system of aggregation of entitlements and 'pro-ratarisation', launched in 1957, is continually being developed and perfected. But in terms of political citizenship -- traditionally understood as the right to vote and to stand for election -- free movers both then and subsequently have gained no substantial new rights. Their right to vote for the government of the day remains fully curtailed by nationality barriers. As Shaw (2007) remarked, '…the denial of rights remains the status quo…'. So while the number of employees moving to jobs in other MS may be increasing at a faster rate than before 1992, the result is, arguably, an increase in taxpayers who cannot vote for the government that decides how to spend their taxes. This constitutes a return to a pre-democratic taxation without representation. As a phenomenon, this can hardly be considered an advance in citizenship, especially in the midst of new discourses on European Citizenship and democracy, though it is worth noting that work on democracy such as Held (2006) considers new forms of inclusion such as deliberative democracy but not the extension of suffrage.
This paper focused on these free movers, encouraged to move, work and pay taxes, but prevented from taking part in electing the government of the day. How do they see their situation and participation? The methodology for the research took some cues from Gamson (1992/1996)Talking Politics with its validation of qualitative approaches to investigating people's awareness of political issues through conversations rather than surveys. In this way, organised group discussions were held with 28 participants recruited through the formalised channels of social and market research companies, with the discussions (in English or Spanish) recorded in audio-visual studios, and subsequently transcribed.
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Although the actual constitutional preferences of the Scottish public have been analysed at great length, the assessments of how different constitutional scenarios will perform in future have received little attention. This paper aims to address this by examining how well the public think an independent and a devolution max (DevoMax) Scotland will perform, looking specifically at the role of national identity and party affiliation. Factor analysis is used to construct a latent ‘performance assessment’ variable, and this latent variable is used extensively in the analysis. The paper finds that, on the whole, there is little difference between performance assessments of independence and DevoMax. However when considering national identity it can be seen that although Scottish identifiers by and large assess independence and DevoMax equally, strong British identifiers do not; they are considerably less negative about DevoMax. Furthermore, although the patterns of performance assessment are unsurprising in terms of party affiliation, Labour affiliates are, on the whole, more positive about the future performance of an independent Scotland than might have been expected. Furthermore, linear regression shows that the ‘identity’ variables have a more powerful effect on perceptions of independence than DevoMax. These findings suggest that an element of ‘heuristic shortcutting’ might be taking place.

"Le vote, sous le règne du suffrage universel, est le principal mode de légitimation des régimes de démocratie représentative. Cette pratique générale – s’exprimer à échéance régulière pourl ’élection de ses représentants – recouvre un grand nombre de diversités. Diversité dans la nature des régimes : régimes parlementaire, semi-présidentiel ou présidentiel. Diversité dans les espaces-temps qui séparent les scrutins. Diversité surtout dans les modalités de l’élection.Le mode de scrutin est une des contraintes juridico-politiques qui entourent l’expression du suffrage. Depuis plusieurs années, la nature et les modalités des systèmes électoraux sont au centre de débats politiques et scientifiques. Certains Etats ont changé leur législation électorale récemment (Italie, Japon, Nouvelle-Zélande). En Belgique, la problématique d’un éventuel passage au scrutin majoritaire a été évoquée à plusieurs reprises. L’ouvrage fait le point sur l’état des principaux modes de scrutin à l’ceuvre en Europe. Une question centrale traverse le livre: dans quelle mesure le mode de scrutin « fait-il » l’élection ? Cette problématique est au cceur des différentes contributions à travers l’évocation de situations en Europe occidentale et centrale ou dans une dimension internationale – les élections pour le Parlement européen.Dans la deuxième partie du livre, la controverse est centrée sur la Belgique, à travers des interrogations clés : quelles raisons ont justifié le passage d’un mode de scrutin majoritaire au scrutin proportionnel en 1899 ? Quelles sont les modalités juridiques d’un éventuel changement de mode de scrutin ? Quels pourraient, enfin, être les effets d’un passage du mode de scrutin proportionnel à un scrutin majoritaire ?

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