Magister Commercii - MCom / In May 2019, South Africa held its sixth democratic national and provincial elections. 48 political parties participated in this general election compared to the 19 that participated in 2014. Thus, the 2019 elections witnessed a significant broadening of political options that could appeal to the electorate. At the same time mechanisms for political parties to communicate and engage with voters have also evolved. Research has shown that ‘new media’, commonly known as social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for example), have increasingly become part of the political communication methods within electoral democracies. Given this, the study aimed to conduct a deep analysis of the use of Twitter as a communication tool by the African National Congress (ANC), Democratic Alliance (DA) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) during the election campaign period of 2019. The study adopted a qualitative method, by having a virtual ethnography approach to collect Twitter feeds. In addition, a Twitter survey was conducted in order to understand how the users received the political campaigns on the platform. The analysis was guided by the theoretical framework of Foot and Schneider (2006) which outlines and discusses four pillars (or functions) of online campaigning namely: “informing, involving, connecting and mobilizing”.

Forecasting Election Results in the Czech Republic Kateřina Doskočilová In this thesis, a forecasting model for the 2017 legislative election in the Czech Republic is built. As the Czech Republic has a multi-party system, the outcomes of the model are the expected vote shares for each party. There are two types of forecasts calculated. Firstly, a poll-based forecast using a dynamic linear model and Kalman filter to weigh the information in the polls. Secondly, the prices on betting markets are translated into probabilistic forecasts for the expected vote shares. This is a novel approach as prediction markets were previously used to forecasts only the probabilities of winning an election. Finally, the two types of forecasts are combined into one and weighed by their variance. Comparing the forecasts, we conclude that the betting market is able to predict the exact vote shares the most accurately right before the election.

In three papers, I consider two questions of nationalization in American politics, and one question of the methodology necessary to study them. Nationalization is the process by which local politics become more like national politics on the basis of political issues and electoral engagement. It is usually measured using the difference in presidential and state-level electoral returns over time. To expand the study of nationalization, I use automated content analysis to derive new measures for the phenomenon’s study based on political text. In particular, I apply automated content analysis via latent dirichlet allocation to code for salient topics in text from national political agenda speech, local agenda speech, and state laws. The primary source for these local agenda codes is a novel database of State of the State addresses, which are like presidential State of the Union addresses, but are delivered by governors. I developed the database over the past seven years as part of this dissertation; it draws from all 50 States, and the earliest captured addresses date to the year 1893. The secondary sources for these codes are the State of the Union addresses and a corpus of laws passed by state legislatures. I utilize the codes from these naturally distinct text corpora to study the nationalization of the political agenda, and how nationalized elections relate to the production of salient laws. The comparison of naturally distinct texts, however, is problematic and requires further examination. To that end, the first paper, “A Theory and Method for Pooling Naturally Distinct Corpora” concerns the theory and method for why we should be able to use, pool, and compare the computer-generated codes from these naturally distinct text corpora to study nationalization. I propose a theoretical framework with which the researcher may defend the pooling of corpora, and introduce an empirical approach to testing for absolute comparability, the delta-statistic. While statistics like the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and penalized log likelihood can help the researcher to determine if a model fits the pooled corpora better than the corpora separately, the delta-statistic relies on a strong theory of latent traits to evaluate the absolute quality of a pooled model. This is especially important when it is impossible to evaluate ground truth fit because some data are unlabeled. The second paper, “Have State Policy Agendas Become More Nationalized?” examines whether the nationalization of state policy agendas is related to the nationalization of gubernatorial elections. The analysis shows that State agendas, as laid out in the State of the State addresses, have become more similar to each other over time. It also shows that State agendas have become more similar to the national agenda, as laid out in the State of the Union addresses. Finally, I demonstrate an increasing relationship between the similarity in the agenda and the nationalization of elections. The findings suggest that the nationalization of the agenda is a significant and related factor to the nationalization of elections. The third paper, “Can States Govern Effectively When Politics Are Nationalized?” considers the question of whether electoral nationalization moderates the relationship between divided government and legislative productivity in the states. I find a null effect of divided government on salient lawmaking ability, and that nationalization of state legislatures has generally decreased the production of salient laws. The result holds even though nationalization is unrelated to the ability of our state governments to take action on salient issues during times of divided government. The findings suggest that behavioral factors driving lawmaker decisions may be more to blame for lawmaking defects than institutional ones. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the value of text analysis to the analysis of nationalization and other research topics in American politics.

This monograph is the result of the extension of a Master's thesis which was submitted to the Department of Political Science of the University of Wisconsin in 1925. The present work is divided into three parts. The first four chapters which deal the legal procedure of Parliamentary elections in England embody the corresponding part of the original essay with some changes. The next four chapters which describe the working of the electoral system are entirely new additions and they were written after the author had spent one year in England in personal investigations. The last three chapters which treat the corrupt and illegal practices and the election petitions are the result of reconstruction from that part of the old dissertation which covers the same ground.

in English The aim of this thesis is to explain the institutional setting of the political system of Greater Prague (polity) - especially the electoral system and institutional structures - and then in this located space realize real encounters and cooperation of political parties (politics). Working in its first chapter deals with the identification, evaluation or sources from which it is based. The second chapter briefly depicts the development of public administration in Prague and the creation of Greater Prague in 1922. In the third chapter, there are defined authorities, where the Prague municipal affairs usually took place, and their competence. The fourth chapter explains the functioning of the electoral system, which was an important determinant of the form of the party system. The electoral system with highly proportional effects allowed representation of number of parties (mainly arising from the cleavages in the society). The most powerful political parties, operating in the central council, are briefly introduced, including their prominent protagonists of the Prague City Hall. In the extensive sixth chapter, the results of municipal elections from the years 1923- 1938 are compared in time and space of the city. The observed territorial differences of electoral support are cartographic...

The thesis' purpose is to analyse the evolution of Green Party between 2006 and 2010. Thesis is concentrated on the period when the party recorded under the leadership of M. Bursik its greatest electoral success and managed to not only exceed the electoral clause to enter the Chamber of Deputies, but also participate in forming a government together with the ODS and the KDU - CSL. Soon it became clear that the party was splitted in opinion and there was a struggle between realists, realizing that if they wanted to enforce their policies they would have to accept many compromises, and ecological radicals, who wanted to impose all or nothing. The thesis also describes the work of the Green Party in government and growing conflicts between members of Party, which resulted in the establishment of intra-party fraction "Democratic challenge" and consequent elimination of MPs O. Zubová and V. Jakubková of the Green Party parliamentary group. Particularly, intraparty conflicts and the inability of its President M. Bursik to unite the party meant a slow but steady decline in party preferences. This observation was confirmed by the electoral failures in regional elections and following elections to the European Parliament, after whichM. Bursik resigned. But finally even his successor O. Liška didn't manage...

Anotation The thesis' purpose is to analyse the evolution of Green Party between 2006 and 2010. Thesis is concentrated on the period when the party recorded under the leadership of M. Bursik its greatest electoral success and managed to not only exceed the electoral clause to enter the Chamber of Deputies, but also participate in forming a government together with the ODS and the KDU - CSL. Soon it became clear that the party was splitted in opinion and there was a struggle between realists, realizing that if they wanted to enforce their policies they would have to accept many compromises, and ecological radicals, who wanted to impose all or nothing. The thesis also describes the work of the Green Party in government and growing conflicts between members of Party, which resulted in the establishment of intra-party fraction "Democratic challenge" and consequent elimination of MPs O. Zubová and V. Jakubková of the Green Party parliamentary group. Particularly, intraparty conflicts and the inability of its President M. Bursik to unite the party meant a slow but steady decline in party preferences. This observation was confirmed by the electoral failures in regional elections and following elections to the European Parliament, after whichM. Bursik resigned. But finally even his successor O. Liška didn't manage...

The master's thesis "Direct election of mayors in the European experience" is dealing with the direct election of mayors, which is being used in more than a half of the European countries. The focus of the thesis is the trend and the impacts of the direct election of mayors. The purpose is to find out, if the direct election of mayors causes an increase in the voter's turnout, if there are cases of divided majorities under the direct election of mayors and if those are causing issues with the system functioning. Lastly, if the direct election of mayors is a trend which is going to spread into further countries. The first theoretical part deals with the phenomenon of the direct election of mayors, the leadership theories at the local level, typologies of local systems and brings a theoretical basis for the analysis of the voter turnout and divided majorities. The second part contains an overview of the European countries according to the direct or indirect method of voting for their mayors and also case studies of chosen countries. In the cases of England, Norway, Croatia, Poland, Italy, Austria and Germany the voter turnout, the frequency of divided majorities and the functioning of a system under divided majorities is analyzed. The analysis is based on the primary primary data, existing research and the...

Diploma thesis " New media as a key factor of the electoral marketing " deals with the role of new media in the electoral marketing. The author of this thesis tries to demonstrate the influence of new media on the success of candidates in the elections. Specifically, the author works with the Presidential elections in 2013 in the Czech Republic. On thi example author tries to verificate the hypothesis that without the use of new media in the election campaign, candidates can not succeed in the campaign . To confirm the hypothesis, author uses the QCA - quantitative comparative analysis. This type of analysis brings mathematical elements to the social sciences. The main tool for this analysis is to statements manner , as we know from mathematics. In addition to the analysis itself, diploma thesis also describes the functioning of the new media , specifically social networks: Facebook , Twitter and Youtube, that is social networks, which are used by most Czech Republic . Without a comprehensive understanding of how the social networks work can not truly understand their potential for a political marketing. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

In this dissertation, the first two chapters seek to understand and quantify how different types of frictions shape individual and market outcomes. This strand of my current research studies questions in urban settings such as the role of ridesharing platforms in mitigating the search and match frictions prevalent in taxi markets and how information frictions can hinder the growth small and medium sized firms in developing countries. The final chapter of my dissertation studies the consequences of electoral accountability in democracies. This strand of research studies the role of electoral incentives in shaping the allocation and provision of effort by politicians. The first chapter of my dissertation, co-authored with Motaz Al-Chanati, studiesthe sources of efficiency gains in ridesharing markets. The key motivation arises from the fact that in many decentralized transportation markets, search and match frictions lead to inefficient outcomes. Ridesharing platforms, who act as intermediaries in traditional taxi markets, improve upon the status quo along two key dimensions: surge pricing and centralized matching. We study how and why these two features make the market more efficient; and explore how alternate pricing and matching rules can improve outcomes further. To this end, we develop a structural model of the ridesharing market with four components: (1) dynamically optimizing drivers who make entry, exit and search decisions; (2) stochastic demand; (3) surge pricing rule and (4) a matching technology. Relative to our benchmark model, surge pricing generates large gains for all agents; primarily during late nights. This is driven by the role surge plays in inducing drivers to enter the market. In contrast, centralized matching reduces match frictions and increases surplus for consumers, drivers, and the ridesharing platform, irrespective of the time of the day. We then show that a simple, more flexible pricing rule can generate even larger welfare gains for all agents. Our results highlight how and why centralized matching and surge pricing are able to make the market more efficient. We conclude by drawing policy implications for improving the competitiveness between taxis and ridesharing platforms. My second chapter, co-authored with Jonas Hjort and Golvine de Rochambeau, studies the role of information frictions amongst firms in developing countries. Evidence suggests that many firms in poor countries stagnate because they cannot access growth-conducive markets. We hypothesize that overlooked informational barriers distort market access. To investigate, we gave a random subset of medium-sized Liberian firms vouchers for a week-long program that exclusively teaches “sellership”: how to sell to corporations, governments, and other large buyers. Firms that participate win three times as many formal contracts a year later. The impact is heterogeneous: informational sales barriers bind for about a quarter of firms. Three years after training, these firms continue to win desirable contracts, are more likely to operate, and employ more workers. In my final chapter, I analyze how politicians in Canada allocate their time and effort when faced with competitive elections. In particular I study how well the so-called discipline effect work in democratic elections and how does it affect the allocation of time and resources of politicians. To do this, I present causal evidence of the effect of electoral vulnerability on subsequent performance of Canadian Members of Parliament along various dimensions. More specifically, I document a politician’s substitution of effort across different tasks in response to plausibly exogenous variation in electoral vulnerability. Using party opinion polls on the day before the election as an instrument, I estimate that more electorally vulnerable politicians substitute effort away from attending the parliament and instead spend more money in their constituency and more money in the following election campaign. These MPs spend more on salaries to their staff, travel to and from the constituency and advertising to constituents. I also find evidence that electorally vulnerable MPs find it harder to raise money for their next election but are compensated by transfers from the political party they belong to. This substitution of effort towards constituency and campaign activities is rationalized with a simple political economy model where politicians can influence a voter’s belief about their ability by exerting effort on more costly, but informative actions.