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<p>This paper gave an insight into the novelties as well as the deficiencies of the provisions related to democratic elections and their implementation framework. It examined the potential effectiveness or otherwise of a binding treaty which is not yet enforced on the basis of past experience. In effect, it shed light on the possible measures that could be taken to guarantee its realisation and to circumvent the shortcomings in ensuring its effective implementation.</p>

Voter frustration in the US is driven largely by partisanship and gridlock in Congress. This paper seeks to understand the root causes of gridlock and look at alternative methods for eliminating it. I find that while the media focuses on polarization as the root cause of gridlock, the checks and balances system plays an equally significant role, and that the interaction between the party system and the governmental structure of the US government creates incentives that cause gridlock to form. Recent reforms have failed to successfully address gridlock because they do not change the polarized party system or the barriers to policy-making in government. After acknowledging the failure of recent reforms, I consider a new set of reforms: electoral system reform. The field of electoral systems provides many policy alternatives with profound tradeoffs, many of which make gridlock obsolete. Majoritarian systems create single-party majorities and reduce checks on majority power, allowing the majority party to implement their platform tempered through voter approval rather than checks on their power. Proportional systems retain checks and balances through the creation of governing coalitions, but the parties in power have stronger incentives to cooperate and compromise than under the current polarized US system. I propose a system for evaluating electoral systems and compare them in terms of accountability, legitimacy, effectiveness, representativeness, and complexity. Finally, I propose two electoral reforms, informed by the study of electoral systems, that are both feasible and increase the ability for third parties to gain seats in the legislature. The first, proportional representation for House members, creates small to medium-sized proportional Congressional districts at the state level to reduce the threshold for party entry. The second, Alternative Vote (ranked-choice) for Senate, proposes switching to a preference ranking system for Senate elections further remove barriers to third parties. These reforms should undermine the polarized two-party system and create new incentives for cooperation in Congress.

For years political fundraising was structured around who could raise the most to outlast their opponent. The 2016 presidential elections showed that this standard was no longer the case. Fundraising was a core aspect of campaign finance that was further advanced with the introduction of Citizens United. It established new outlets of fundraising known as super PACs that changed the dynamics in campaign finance. This further incentivized presidential candidates to raise as much funds as they could. Former Governor of Florida Jeb Bush embodied this new gold standard in his 2016 campaign run. On the other hand, celebrity mogul Donald Trump completely defied all standards with his self-funded 2016 campaign. Bush’s defeat and Trump’s victory represents a new era of campaign finance for future elections.

This dissertation is concerned with recent changes in levels of voter turnout for presidential elections. Turnout decreased at each election from 1960 to 1976 despite a variety of changes taking place in American society which might have been expected to lead to increased turnout. The present research attempts to shed light on this paradox by means of a longitudinal analysis of a variety of surveys of the American electorate. Data collected by the Bureau of the Census were used in an investigation of changes in turnout across various demographically defined subgroups between 1964 and 1976. The Census surveys provide information about approximately 100,000 persons. Data collected by the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center (SRC) were used in an analysis of the attitudinal correlates of the turnout decline. The SRC samples ranged in size from 1500 to 2000 respondents. A comparison of the Census and SRC surveys revealed that although turnout levels were generally higher in the SRC series than in the Census series, the two series provided similar estimates of the relationships of turnout to such demographic characteristics as region, color, and sex. The traditional sex differential in turnout was found to have narrowed steadily from 1964 to 1976 so that by 1976, female turnout equalled that of males among non-Southern whites and Southern blacks and exceeded that of males among non-Southern blacks. Reversals of the traditional sex differential were particularly pronounced within younger, more educated segments of the population. Further analysis revealed that the sex differential in turnout was related to sex differences in patterns of labor force participation. Differential change by color and region between 1964 and 1968 was also observed; the turnout of non-Southern blacks decreased sharply over this four year period while that of Southern blacks increased markedly. No further change in the color differential was observed in either region from 1968 to 1976, although this finding was later discovered to be the result of increases in the color differential among younger, more educated persons and counterbalancing decreases in this differential among older, less educated persons. Also observed over this 12 year period was a decrease in the traditional regional turnout differential. From 1964 to 1968 and again from 1972 to 1976, Southern and non-Southern turnout rates converged. Approximately 27% of the turnout decline observed between 1968 and 1972 could be attributed to the lowering of the voting age. Among whites, the greatest decreases in turnout over the entire 12 year interval were observed among persons between the ages of 45 and 54. Among blacks, the greatest decreases were observed among the 25 to 34 year old age group while actual increases were observed at the oldest end of the age continuum. Patterns of change by education paralleled to a certain extent the age-related patterns, with the greatest turnout decreases from 1964 to 1976 being observed among whites with between 9 and 11 years of education and among black high school graduates. The attitudinal correlates of turnout examined in this research included measures of party identification, political interest, political efficacy, and political trust. It was found that the aggregate turnout decline from 1964 to 1972 could be statistically "explained" by decreasing party identification and increasing political cynicism. Further analysis revealed that increased cynicism accounted for the sharp decrease in turnout observed among non-Southern blacks between 1964 and 1968 and suppressed the increase in turnout observed among Southern blacks over this same period. The other attitudinal items, although cross-sectionally related to turnout in theoretically predicted ways, failed to explain away the turnout decline.

Tout en s'inscrivant dans le cadre général de l'histoire des femmes et de l'histoire électoralecontemporaine, la thèse se veut d'abord une thèse d'histoire locale quantitative et fait appel égalementà quelques données relevant d'autres disciplines (science politique, droit public, sociologie). Tout endonnant lieu à une comparaison avec l'évolution constatée au plan national, la thèse s'intéresse àl'histoire d'une population donnée (toutes les catégories de femmes élues), dans un espacegéographique donné (le département de la Sarthe), sur une période donnée (1945-2010).L'augmentation du nombre de femmes élues et la diversification des fonctions auxquelles elles ontaccédé sont appréhendées au travers d'une interrogation qui exprime la problématique de la thèse, àsavoir : quelle est la portée de cette progression et quelle signification peut-on y donner ? En réponsela thèse s'efforce de montrer que cette progression quantitative des femmes élues s'est accompagnéed'un certain nombre de pratiques réglementaires ou comportementales qui en limitent la portée et ennuancent la signification. Le plan chronologique adopté permet de mettre en relief les trois phases quiont marqué l'histoire des femmes élues en Sarthe de 1945 à 2010 en reliant chacune à la problématiquegénérale. Cette articulation générale de la thèse débouche ainsi sur un plan en 3 parties intituléesrespectivement : Les années 1945/1970 : une présence tolérée, un statut inchangé ; Les années1970/1990 : une présence acceptée, une pression contenue ; Les années 1990 / 2010 : une présencereconnue, une inégalité maintenue. / Set in the general frame of the history of women and the contemporary electoral history, this thesis isprimarily a quantitative local history thesis which also includes some data from other fields (politicalscience, public law and sociology). As well as comparing it with the evolution noticed on a nationalscale, the thesis focuses therefore on the history of a given population (all the categories of electedwomen), in a given geographical area (the department of Sarthe), during a given time period (1945-2010).The increasing number of women elected in Sarthe from 1945 to 2010 and the diversification of theoffices they have had access to are grasped through a questioning typifying the problematic of thethesis, which is: what is the significance of this progress and what is the possible meaning of it? Toanswer this question, the thesis strives to show that this quantitative progress of elected women camewith some statutory or behavioral applications which limit its scope and qualify its meaning. Theadopted chronological outline emphasizes the three stages which marked the history of elected womenin Sarthe from 1945 to 2010, linking each of the stages to the general problematic. This generalarticulation of the thesis hence falls into three parts respectively entitled: The years 1945/1970: atolerated presence, an unchanged status; The years 1970/1990: an accepted presence, a containedpressure; The years 1990/2010: a recognized presence, a maintained inequality.

These days are western democracies in serious crisis. We could observe this crisis in disconnection societal topics, not only, but especially political, from the citizens, who are affected with these topics the most. The citizens are becoming apathetic; they have no interest file their energy beyond their own private and professional life. This situation could develop in two directions. The first way means conservation of current state, status quo, and it leads to not so happy future. Or another way change of course happens and the interest in public life will be activating in the citizens. And I believe in the second possibility. However, there is lot to do, to revise many aspects of public life, e.g. political parties, funding to these parties, institute of representation and how community perceive it, or elections, the way legitimation.

The diploma thesis called "The Framing of the Topic of National Indebtedness in MF DNES and Právo before the Election to the Chamber of Deputies 2010" deals with a concrete example of framing in Czech media praxis. The national indebtedness was one of the key topics during the pre-election campaign. The coverage of this topic is analyzed in two Czech newpapers - Mladá fronta DNES and Právo. The diploma thesis describes the frames used in the coverage and compares framing in both newpapers.

The main aim of this thesis is an introduction into the basic principles of electoral law and instruments of their protection, especially through the judicial power, in the local elections. The right to participate on public affairs is one of the fundamental attributes of the citizens of a democratic state. Its protection through independent and impartial courts is very important. The first chapter sets out rights relating to elections into municipal councils. The second chapter explains the stages of the electoral process, including examples of selected court decisions related to some institutes. The third chapter deals with the protection of public subjective rights in the election judiciary. The protection is provided to political rights of voters, political parties, candidates and elected members of representative bodies. There is a brief mention about the protection that has been previously provided by civilian courts. In accordance with the system of the Judicial Administrative Procedure Code I discuss four particular types of proceedings - proceedings in matters of electoral rolls, proceedings in matters of registration of candidates, proceedings in matters of invalidibity of elections and voting and proceedings concerning termination of the mandate. The third type of procedure, judicial...

The atmosphere of the election campaign before the elections in October 2012 was not such fierce as during the last campaign. It was mainly due to absence of a major topic that would polarise the society, like the health fees in 2008. The ČSSD tried to find a similar controversial topic that might have been the church restitutions for a moment. The purpose of the negative campaign was to discourage people from voting the governmental parties ODS and TOP 09, but it also could weaken the KDU-ČSL that was and still is closely connected with churches, especially the catholic church. The representatives of the KDU-ČSL themselves didn't publish any opinions concerning this matter, with only few exceptions. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and evaluate the media output of the KDU-ČSL during the election campaign that was run before the elections to the regional governments and the Senate. In the first part, the outline of the media strategy of the KDU-ČSL is introduced. The next part is devoted to a quantitative content analysis that compiles an overview of the regional media in the respective regions. The following qualitative analysis describes the media outputs devoted to the KDU-ČSL and its leaders. In the final part, the whole campaign of the KDU-ČSL is evaluated, together with the...