This paper attempts to shed light into the realm of school boards, a frequently overlooked topic in political science literature. This study examines the relationship between a school board electoral structure and voter turnout levels. In particular, the author hypothesizes that ward-based elections due to their inherent smallness have higher voter turnout levels than at-large elections. In crafting such a relationship a mixed-method approach was used combining elements found in case studies with an intervention analysis. The paper describes voter turnout levels from 1989 to 2007 for a single, medium-sized school district in Illinois that had switched its style of elections from at-large to ward. It was found that following the switch to ward elections turnout actually decreased. However, the results were not statistically significant. The variable of competitiveness was also tested as it was thought that the more competitive elections were the more voter turnout increases. Here again, the author found no relationship between competitiveness and the election structure in ward and at-large elections. In concluding, the author states that some unseen intervening variable such as information costs may be influencing the relationship and significance between voter turnout and election structure. / Master of Arts

No description available.

This thesis examines the political public relations campaign of the Democratic Alliance in the 2009 elections in order to explain the party’s performance in these elections. The research is premised on John Petrocik’s (1996) issue ownership theory. A number of quantitative and qualitative content analyses were conducted to provide answers to the main research questions. These involved: the party’s 286 media releases; party leader Helen Zille’s 2009 campaign speeches; and Zille’s Facebook platform. Results revealed that although the DA demonstrated extreme political resilience amidst fierce challenges in the 2009 elections, the party primarily campaigned on an anti-ANC ticket and a fair amount of negative advertising against the governing party to win itself votes. Not only did the party fail to “associate” itself with real issues affecting South African voters—especially the poor Black African majority which constitutes the largest voting bloc—it failed to pronounce itself clearly on other issues. Instead, the party attached itself to a multitude of shared issues, often “trespassing” on issues of common concern not necessarily “owned” by any one political party. This study also deduced that while Facebook facilitated public opinion on the DA in the 2009 elections, it still could not be regarded as a genuine public sphere in the South African context. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication)

This thesis examines the political public relations campaign of the Democratic Alliance in the 2009 elections in order to explain the party’s performance in these elections. The research is premised on John Petrocik’s (1996) issue ownership theory. A number of quantitative and qualitative content analyses were conducted to provide answers to the main research questions. These involved: the party’s 286 media releases; party leader Helen Zille’s 2009 campaign speeches; and Zille’s Facebook platform. Results revealed that although the DA demonstrated extreme political resilience amidst fierce challenges in the 2009 elections, the party primarily campaigned on an anti-ANC ticket and a fair amount of negative advertising against the governing party to win itself votes. Not only did the party fail to “associate” itself with real issues affecting South African voters—especially the poor Black African majority which constitutes the largest voting bloc—it failed to pronounce itself clearly on other issues. Instead, the party attached itself to a multitude of shared issues, often “trespassing” on issues of common concern not necessarily “owned” by any one political party. This study also deduced that while Facebook facilitated public opinion on the DA in the 2009 elections, it still could not be regarded as a genuine public sphere in the South African context. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication)

This research explains the variance in voter turnout and ballot roll-off in county and circuit nonpartisan judicial elections in Florida from 2014 and 2016. Based on theory, a collection of constituent (demographic and socioeconomic), candidate, competition, and contextual variables is gathered to construct four regression models. Two full regression models were constructed for turnout and roll-off and analyzed using SPSS software, in addition to two best regression models analyzing five statistically significant variables found within each full model. Presidential year elections and higher populations age 65 and up had positive impacts on voter turnout, while primary elections, campaign expenditures, and populations of minor (other) party registered voters had statistically significant negative effects on turnout. Increases in ballot roll-off were associated with presidential year elections, and populations with more college degrees, higher median household income, and higher percentages of voters registered with no party affiliation or minor political parties. Roll-off decreased in primary elections. While various contextual, competition, and constituent variables had significant impact on both turnout and roll-off in Florida judicial elections, candidate characteristic variables had no significant impact on differences in voter turnout and ballot roll-off.

No description available.

China and Mexico present an intriguing case for comparison. In 1990, the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner described Mexico as “the perfect dictatorship”. By 2000, just a decade later, Mexico’s peaceful transition to a democracy culminated in the victory of Vicente Fox, and the unseating of the PRI’s seventy-one year rule over Mexico. China, or more specifically, People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, has been under the one-party leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for sixty-seven years, since it was founded in 1949, and remains an authoritarian regime today. Since the Third Wave of Democratization swept the world’s developing countries, there have been heated discussions about the potential of democratization in China. Much of the buzz surrounds the direct village elections in China, in which Chinese citizens have the opportunity to vote directly for their village leaders. Although it makes no pretense of hosting national elections, China has held village elections that seem to be a step towards democratization. Or is it? Despite the focus on village elections and the extent to which they are democratic, there has been little work comparing China’s local elections to that of other countries that have been through similar experiences, namely Mexico. This thesis will compare the cases of Mexico and China in order to explore the conditions for democratization, and hypothesize the future of China’s democracy. By examining scholarly works, historical trends, and recent events, this thesis will argue for the importance of local elections on the process of democratization in both Mexico and China.

This thesis attempts to examine the structure and functioning of politics in Sierra Leone at the Chiefdom , Constituency, District and National Levels, and the interactions between those levels. It is postulated that previous analyses of Sierra Leone politics have concentrated on the national level to the detriment of the peripheral areas, thus producing a distorted picture of the political process. 'Local' political issues take precedence over 'national' issues because of the nature of the brokerage system which developed in Sierra Leone to cope with the problemE$ resulting from the colonial power imposing the institutions of an integrated nation-state on a fragmented, 'plural' society. The Kono District is examined because it has a long history of opposition to the Central Government. Its people felt a sense of grievance that their district, which produced a large proportion of the national wealth because of the rich diamond deposits there, was not receiving its fair share of development resources. It is also an area undergoing rapid social and economic changes. A chronological approach is adopted to describe the changes between l~f~and 1970, and the work ends with some speculations on the nature of Centre-Periphery relations in Sierra Leone.

Previous comparative research into the determinants of voting using aggregate data has suffered from two limitations: it relied predominantly on country-level data; and it seldom ventured beyond a consideration of one or two types of elections. In order to overcome these shortcomings, we use an original dataset in which data are aggregated to sub-national units; and include examples of national, sub-national, and supra-national elections. A total of 66 elections between 1995 and 2008 are included, drawn from ten Western European countries: Belgium, England, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. For each country, the same sub-national geographical units are used for all election types, allowing the direct comparison of the effects of our selected institutional and socio-demographic variables. We find that the effects of the institutional determinants of voting are substantially and systematically reduced as the salience of the election type increases. For the socio-demographic variables, no such systematic relationship with salience is found. However, for some variables, the direction of effect is the opposite for European Parliament elections to that found for Municipal and Lower House elections, and supports the idea that EP elections differ sufficiently from sub-national, second-order elections to justify their ‘third-order’ classification. When we turn our attention to the effects of the socio-demographic variables in five individual countries, we find that the results are often consistent across different types of elections, and for all five countries. However, we also find that the effects of some variables have different effects in different countries. In these cases, we suggest explanations which relate turnout differences to wider political and social factors.

This research will analyze the comprehensive organizational strategy of the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA was dramatically transformed from a gun enthusiasts' group to one of the most powerful organizations in the US starting in the late 1970s. The key focus of the study will be on the political influences and victories the NRA has accomplished in the US over the past 30 years. The research will also focus on NRA senior leadership, NRA members, media sources and US politics as they relate to the current and future strategies of the organization. Furthermore, an in-depth look at the NRA's history will be examined followed by a broad focus on how the NRA has became, and remains, one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in the US. Due to the fluid nature of the NRA, interviews were taken with senior NRA personnel at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia, and at the Washington D.C. field office. The positions used for this paper were with the Director of the Grassroots Division and the Director of Federal Affairs. The goal of these interviews was to give this research the most current, up to date information on future goals and trends in the NRA.