Why do people run for elective office? Indeed, it is a central topic in political science that arguably is controversial to reveal, but always appealing since public authority remains in office. This study provides an explorative analysis to investigate local elites’ motives running for local parliament and village offices respectively in Kebumen, Indonesia. In examining individual’s motives, experiences and meanings of candidates are analysed using thematic analysis methods to capture emerging ideas of initial motives, enabling and constraining factors that affect the motives, and how both motives alter. The empirical findings of this study show that “people demand” and “community service” are both socially driven motives which act as a catalyst for the initial motives in candidacy process. In contrast, “monetary incentives” and “personal satisfaction” are both individually driven motives, which in turn replace the initial motives in response to high-cost political competition, that is so-called money politics. This study also captures the emergence of religious motive in the shifting process of the socially driven to the individually driven motives. Eventually, the study affirms that both motives, in combination, constitute a political motive as a desire of power to hold an elective office.

This theses deals with analysis of cases that were held mainly before the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic with regard to the election process and political parties. It focuses mainly on the analysis of topics that are often criticised by small political parties as harmful to the free and fair election process. Specifically, these topics include election threshold, setting electoral districts, methods for allocating seats, subsidising political parties from the national budget, financial restrictions on candidacy, and access to media. The thesis briefly summarizes relevant theoretical premises, which is followed be presenting the bases of criticism of the specific institutes, and finally the courts' opinions are analysed as well. With each of the institute, the main goal of the theses is to show how the courts interpret them. Specifically, it focuses on finding a line between what courts still deem acceptable, and what is perceived by them as too damaging to the fair and free election process.

Memoria (licenciado en ciencias jurídicas y sociales) / Con fecha 29 de noviembre del año 2012 se promulgó la Ley Nº 20.640 que “establece el sistema de elecciones primarias para la nominación de candidatos a Presidente de la República, Parlamentarios y Alcaldes” (en adelante la Ley), cuya publicación y entrada en vigencia tuvieron lugar el día 6 de diciembre del año 2012. Esta ley busca regular la participación de los partidos políticos en elecciones primarias para la nominación de candidatos a los cargos de Presidente de la República, Senador, Diputado y Alcalde. La ley contempla la opción de la existencia de pactos intrapartidarios, así como también la participación de candidaturas independientes patrocinadas, dejando a elección de los partidos políticos la norma que determinará el padrón electoral de los electores con derecho a sufragio (contenido en el artículo 20 de la Ley). Para el ejecutivo, la promulgación de esta Ley se justifica en la urgente necesidad de perfeccionar las instituciones democráticas. Esto, ya que en la actualidad existen diversos signos que vendrían a reflejar un posible debilitamiento de la institucionalidad, tales como (i) la baja en la participación electoral; (ii) el envejecimiento del electorado; y por sobre todo (iii) el aumento en la desconfianza ciudadana hacia los partidos políticos (Mensaje 119-359, 2011). Así, la ley que establece un sistema de elecciones primarias se enmarca dentro de una serie de reformas políticas adoptadas por el ejecutivo, dentro de las cuales se encuentra la ley de inscripción automática y voto voluntario, la elección directa de los Consejeros Regionales, la iniciativa ciudadana de ley y el incentivo a la realización de plebiscitos comunales. Dentro de esta serie de medidas, se considera especialmente relevante la institución de un sistema de primarias voluntarias y vinculantes para la selección de los candidatos a la mayoría de los cargos de elección popular, ya que ésta vendría a refrescar el proceso democrático del país, persiguiendo una mayor transparencia y representación de los partidos políticos. Todo lo señalado anteriormente hace necesaria la existencia de un análisis crítico de la Ley Nº 20.640 y de la realidad política en la que ella se inserta, ya que lo que motivó al legislador a dictar una ley que busca instaurar un sistema de elecciones primarias en nuestro país, nos obliga a analizar la presente ley no sólo desde una óptica jurídica, sino también desde la óptica de las ciencias políticas y de la realidad política y electoral actual. Es por eso que el presente trabajo tendrá por objeto la realización de un análisis crítico de la ley en cuestión con especial énfasis en la génesis de la misma, que es donde se insertan las diversas discusiones en torno a la realidad política actual y a la necesidad de fortalecimiento del sistema democrático y electoral

O trabalho proposto tem por objetivo a reconstrução dos debates relativos ao Código Eleitoral de 1932. Analisamos como as medidas introduzidas pelo Código fizeram parte da construção de uma nova concepção de representação política, a qual é produzida como verdadeira. A presença do conteúdo de verdade nos discursos de 1930 expõe a necessidade de uma substituição do falso pelo verdadeiro, opondo a representação presente na Primeira República, na qual a fraude eleitoral e a abstenção são apresentadas como entraves à democracia, a uma nova representação, que deveria se constituir a partir da lisura e da participação eleitorais. O regime introduzido pelo Governo Provisório, por ter se constituído sem a confirmação eleitoral, necessitava urgentemente de legitimação, a qual foi buscada por duas vias: o aumento da participação e a transparência das eleições. Entendemos que as medidas introduzidas pelo Código Eleitoral de 1932 caminham no sentido de uma inclusão política, tendo como base o pressuposto de que quanto maior o eleitorado, mais representativo o governo e, portanto, mais legítimo. No entanto, argumentamos que o controle eleitoral, que se dava no período anterior por meio das fraudes eleitorais e da dificuldade do alistamento, não se extingue, mas sofre transformações. Em outras palavras, o poder sobre as eleições é deslocado das mãos das oligarquias locais para o domínio da burocracia estatal. Assim, analisaremos como o conceito de representação verdadeira combina a expansão do eleitorado ao controle dos eleitores e elegíveis ao mesmo tempo em que busca estabelecer uma ligação legítima entre representantes e representados. / The purpose of the proposed work is to reconstruct the debates related to the Electoral Code of 1932. We analyze how the measures introduced by the Code were part of the construction of a new conception of political representation, which is produced as truthful. The presence of the content of truth in the speeches of 1930 exposes the need for a replacement of the untrue for the genuineness, opposing the type of representation that was present in the First Republic, in which electoral fraud and abstention are presented as obstacles to democracy, to a new representation that should be based on electoral integrity and real participation. Because it was constituted without electoral confirmation, the regime introduced by the Provisional Government urgently needed legitimacy, which was sought in two ways: increased participation and election transparency. We understand that the measures introduced by the 1932 Electoral Code are moving towards political inclusion, based on the assumption that the larger the electorate, the more representative the government and, therefore, the more legitimate it is. However, we argue that electoral control, which occurred in the previous period through electoral fraud, and the difficulty of enlistment, are not extinguished but undergo transformations. In other words, power over elections is shifted from the hands of local oligarchies into the domain of state bureaucracy. Thus, we will analyze how the concept of true representation associates with the expansion of the electorate onto the control of the eligibles and the voters, while at the same time seeking to establish a legitimate link between the representatives and the represented.

O presente trabalho investiga as causas determinantes da existência de ciclos eleitorais na política fiscal dos estados brasileiros. Para tanto, propõe-se uma metodologia para a decomposição dos ciclos eleitorais, procurando identificar as parcelas devidas ao oportunismo e à atividade sinalizadora dos governantes. O objetivo é investigar se, e em que medida, os eleitores são capazes de: (1) captar as sinalizações de competência emitidas pelos governantes, em conformidade com os modelos de ciclos políticos; e (2) identificar e punir os políticos oportunistas, em conformidade com os modelos de controle eleitoral. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o eleitorado recompensa a parcela oportunista dos ciclos, tanto nas receitas quanto nas despesas orçamentárias. Este resultado, no entanto, deve ser qualificado pela evidência de que o efeito do oportunismo sobre as chances de reeleição tem diminuído ao longo do tempo, indicando uma evolução na capacidade do eleitor de identificar e punir as manipulações eleitoreiras. Com relação à parcela de competência dos ciclos eleitorais, as estimativas evidenciam que o processo de sinalização de competência se dá, principalmente, através das variáveis da receita orçamentária. Este resultado está de acordo com os modelos de ciclos políticos racionais e indica que, pelo menos durante o período final da amostra, os ciclos na receita estão sendo induzidos pela atividade sinalizadora dos governantes. / The present work investigates the causes that determine the existence of political budget cycles in Brazilian Federal States. In this way, it is proposed a methodology to decompose the political cycles, trying to identify the parcels that are due to the opportunism and to the signaling activity of the governors. The aim is to investigate whether the electorate is capable of: (1) capture the competence signals sent by the governors, according to the models of the political cycles; and (2) identify and punish the opportunistic politics, according to the models of electoral control. The results indicate that the electorate rewards the opportunistic cycles in both revenue and public spending. This result, however, must be qualified by the evidence that the effect of the opportunism on the chances of reelection have diminished along the time, indicating an evolution in the capacity of the voters to identify and punish the electoral manipulations. With respect to the competence parcel of the cycles, the estimation indicates that the competence signaling occurs mainly through the budget revenue variables. This result is in accordance with the models of rational political cycles and indicates that, at least during the last period of the sample, the budget cycles are being induced by the signaling activity of the governors.

Au lendemain de la première guerre mondiale, l’échiquier politique britannique se redéploie du fait en particulier de l’élargissement de l’électorat permettant au Parti travailliste émergeant de consolider sa base électorale populaire. Dans un système politique essentiellement organisé autour du bipartisme, le Parti libéral est progressivement supplanté par le Parti travailliste en tant que parti de l’opposition au Conservatisme ce qui scelle inexorablement le déclin de celui-ci. Cette décadence s’est lentement effectuée jusqu’à atteindre son paroxysme le plus visible lors de la victoire des travaillistes aux élections d’après-guerre. Dans un système normalisé parl’alternance bipartisane, le Parti libéral amorce la période la plus sombre de son histoire.Cette thèse vise à apporter un éclairage relatif à l’évolution du Parti libéral, de sa quasi-extinction jusqu’à son renouveau et l’émergence d’une nouvelle force politique d’entité libérale-démocrate. La communication politique du Parti libéral et du LibDem constitue l’élément central de cette étude. Le cadre constitutionnel, représente un élément majeur dans les stratégies électorales des libéraux et des libéraux-démocrates ainsi que dans les fondements des alliances successives jusqu’à la formation d’une coalition gouvernementale en 2010. C’est en envisageant les raisons qui ont écarté les libéraux du pouvoir et celles qui leur ont permis de survivre comme un ensemble unifié autour d’une quête tendue vers la réforme électorale que se dessinent les élémentsexplicatifs de l’évolution du parti. / In the years following the First World War, the British political spectrum underwent a change, in particular as a result of the enlargement of the electorate, which enabled the Labour Party to strengthen its popular electoral grassroots. In a political system essentially organised around bipartisanism, the Liberal Party was gradually displaced and superseded by the Labour Party as the opposition party to Conservatism, which development marked a low point in the inexorable decline of the Liberals. This decline slowly continued until it reached a critical level, culminating in the overwhelming victory of Labour in the post-war elections. In a system typified by bipartisan alternation, the Liberal Party entered its darkest era. This dissertation aims to shed new light onthe Liberal Party's evolution from near-extinction to its revival, along with the emergence of a new political force in the shape of the Liberal Democrats.The Liberal Party’s and LibDems’ political communication is the core element of this work. The constitutional framework represents a major factor in the shaping of electoral strategies implemented by Liberals and Liberal Democrats, as well as in the making of successive alliances until the governmental coalition in 2010. By considering the reasons which alienated Liberals from power, and those which enabled them to survive as a united party, unified by the quest for electoral reform, one may offer a new approach to the history of the Liberal Party’s and LibDems’ evolution.

Esta pesquisa traz 3 estudos independentes, sobre temas ligados às questões do que é nacionalização partidária e como nacionalização, regionalização e localismo são afetados por e afetam os sistemas eleitorais e partidários. Mais especificamente, no capítulo 1 proponho uma nova definição teórica de nacionalização dos partidos e sistemas partidários. Argumento que tal conceito pode ser dividido em 4 dimensões, que são a nacionalização da organização partidária, da oferta eleitoral, da demanda eleitoral e dos resultados eleitorais. Em seguida, aplico esse quadro teórico ao caso brasileiro para mostrar como, de fato, maior precisão conceitual altera a leitura empírica que se faz de um sistema. No capítulo 2, exploro uma das consequências da nacionalização partidária, que vem sendo teorizada pela literatura mas nunca testada de modo direto. Trata-se da ideia de que nacionalização seria o que conecta as circunscrições eleitorais e faz as proposições de Duverger passarem do nível local ao nacional. Para testar isso, incluirei nacionalização dos sistemas partidários pela primeira vez num modelo de número de partidos - aptos lidar com problemas de endogeneidade que vêm impedindo autores de fazerem isso. Assim, será possível provar e demonstrar que a não inclusão de nacionalização vem causando viés de variável omitida nos modelos da literatura. Quando esse é corrigo, através da inclusão de nacionalização por um sistema de equações simultâneas, altera-se algumas das interpretações canônicas sobre a fragmentação partidária. Por fim, no capítulo 3 reavalio a ideia comum de que sistemas eleitorais com voto pessoal levariam candidatos a ter apoio eleitoral geograficamente concentrado, portanto localista. Ofereço uma discussão teórica e evidências de que tal padrão territorial não é a regra do que vem ocorrendo, por exemplo, em sistemas de lista aberta. Além disso, tanto concentrar votos como espalhá-los vem dando dividendos eleitorais e poucos candidatos conseguem atingir patamares altos de concentração, a um nível que prediga real aumento nas chances de eleição. / This research oers 3 independent studies on the questions of what is party nationalization, how nationalization, regionalization or localism are aected by and aect the electoral systems and the party systems. More specically, in the 1st chapter a new theoretical denition of party and party system nationalization is presented, dividing such concept into four dimensions - the nationalization of party organization, of the electoral supply, of the electoral demand and of the electoral outcome. After that, such a theoretical framework is applied to the Brazilian case to demonstrate how, in fact, more conceptual precision can alter empirical readings about a given party system. The 2nd chapter explores one of the consequences of party system nationalization, which literature has theorized but never tested directly. Namely, the idea that party nationalization would be what puts the electoral circumscriptions together and what makes Duvergerian propositions move from the local to the national level. To test that, party system nationalization is included for the rst time in a model of eective number of parties, after handling endogeneity problems that have prevented scholars from doing the same. With such inclusion, it will be proven and demonstrated that omitting party nationalization from models of number of parties, which is a common practice, incurs in omitted variable bias. In fact, such correct inclusion of party nationalization trough a system of simultaneous equations corrects that bias, altering some of the canonical interpretations about party system fragmentation. Lastly, in the 3rd chapter I reevaluate the common idea that electoral systems with personal voting would lead to geographical concentration (i.e. localization) of candidates\' electoral support. I oer a theoretical discussion and then empirical evidence that such territorial pattern is not the rule of what happens for instance in open-list PR. Besides, both concentrating and spreading votes are electorally protable results and very few candidates achieve levels of concentration that predicts eective increases in the odds of being elected.

[pt] Esta dissertação consiste em duas partes independentes. A primeira delas é uma avaliação empírica de ciclos políticos orçamentários nos municípios brasileiros. Nessa parte, investigamos primeiramente se as receitas e despesas municipais variam com a proximidade das eleições para prefeito. Em seguida, estimamos os efeitos dos níveis de competição política e transparência governamental sobre a magnitude dos ciclos orçamentários. Nossos resultados sugerem a existência de fortes ciclos orçamentários nos municípios do Brasil, embora seja difícil identificar uma relação causal entre tais ciclos e o calendário eleitoral. Além disso, encontramos evidência de que maior competição política e menor transparência governamental geram incentivos para que os prefeitos em exercício invistam mais nos últimos anos de seus mandatos. Na segunda parte da dissertação, procuramos estimar o impacto de propaganda eleitoral sobre o desempenho dos candidatos a prefeito e governador no Brasil. Estudos anteriores estabeleceram a idéia de que gastos de campanha e propaganda política teriam impacto muito modesto sobre os resultados de pleitos eletivos. No entanto, esses estudos sofrem de problemas sérios de identificação, como omissão de variáveis relevantes e causalidade reversa. Em nosso trabalho, exploramos uma fonte de variação exógena na distribuição dos tempos de propaganda entre os candidatos produzida pela legislação eleitoral brasileira. Nossos resultados indicam que a propaganda política por meio de rádio e televisão exerce um forte efeito sobre o desempenho dos candidatos. / [en] This thesis consists on two independent parts. The first one is an empirical evaluation of political budget cycles in Brazil. The research question is twofold. We ask the factual question of whether municipal level receipts and expenditures vary with the proximity of elections for mayor. Then, we investigate the effects of political competitiveness and govern transparency on the size of the budget cycles. Our results suggest the existence of strong budgetary cycles in the Brazilian municipalities, though it is difficult to identify a causal relationship between such cycles and the electoral calendar. Also, according to our findings, higher political competitiveness and lower govern transparency generate incentives for the incumbent mayors to invest more in the last year of their terms. In the second part of the thesis, we estimate the impact of political advertising on candidate performance in Brazilian mayoral and gubernatorial elections. Previous studies have established a minimal effects conventional wisdom that campaign spending and advertising have little impact on elections outcome. However, such studies suffer from omitted variable bias and reverse causality. We explore a quasi-natural experiment produced by Brazilian electoral legislation, and show that TV and radio advertising have a strong effect on candidates´ electoral performance.

Cette thèse se propose d’analyser toutes les questions liées au financement descampagnes électorales en vue des élections présidentielles. En effet, l’éclosion desaffaires de corruption politique, ayant révélé l’influence de l’argent dans la viepolitique, le financement des campagnes électorales a fait l’objet de débats dansplusieurs démocraties. Une comparaison entre la France et le Brésil, deuxdémocraties ou les systèmes électoraux différent, tente de montrer que le pouvoir del’argent peut influencer les élections, spécialement celles du président de laRépublique. Cette recherche aborde donc des questions relatives à laréglementation et au contrôle du financement des campagnes électorales à la Hautefonction publique. Y sont décrits de manière exhaustive avec pour modèlecomparative, les points positifs ainsi que les faiblesses des deux systèmes face à unmême ‘’ennemi’’ : l’influence de l’argent dans la vie politique. / This thesis intends to analyse all matters regarding financing election campaigns inpresidential elections. Actually, after political corruption outbreaks, revealing theinfluence money has on politics, financing of the election campaigns turned out to bethe object of discussion in many democracies. A comparison between France andBrazil, two democracies with two different electoral systems, intends to show how thepower of money can influence election, mainly in presidential campaigns. Thisresearch address issues relating to regulation and control of election campaignsfinancials of the highest public role. They are exhaustively described, having ascomparative models France and Brazil, strong points as well as weak points of bothsystems facing the same enemy: the influence of money in the political life.

This paper uses the case of Mexico to explore the effects of electoral systems on women’s representation in legislatures. While a number of studies have looked at how electoral rules affect women’s presence in parliament (descriptive representation), less work has focused on how these rules affect female legislators’ inclination to promote policy directed toward women as a constituency (substantive representation). Mexico’s mixed member electoral system serves to compare legislators operating within the same cultural, institutional and political context but who were elected under distinct electoral formulas, either through the local popular vote in single member districts (SMDs), or through proportional representation (PR) on the basis of party lists. A quantitative approach is adopted to explore the differences between the two groups when it comes to introducing legislative proposals related to women’s rights and gender equality. Based on data from the Mexican Chamber of Deputies covering a time span of 20 years, the results show that female legislators elected through Mexico’s PR tier are more likely to put forward bills on these issues than their SMD elected counterparts, independently of their party identification and where in the country they belong geographically. This suggests that the design of the electoral system can have an impact on legislative behavior, in this case that of female politicians when it comes to advancing women’s rights policy.