This dissertation considers the political behaviour of youth in Whitefish River First Nation. This small Ojibway community located near Sudbury, Ontario is used as a case study to inquire into the political experiences, attitudes and behaviour of youth. Rooted in Community-Based Research and Indigenous Research Principles, conversations were carried out in a circle-method referred to as Discussion Circles to assess the political behaviour of youth between the ages of 16 and 25. While this study is heavily qualitative-focused, it includes some quantitative components. These include a youth political participation questionnaire and electoral participation data for Whitefish River First nation in federal, provincial and band elections. Results demonstrate that the youth have a unique experience of politics defined by their identities, community and relationships. Their political behaviour is complex and nuanced. While they may not participate in conventional political activities, they are heavily involved in activities that are rooted in their culture and traditions. The community overall is democratically healthy and tends to participate widely in federal and provincial elections. Youth are for the most part satisfied with their lives in the community, but there are significant challenges due to the consequences of colonialism. Many of these implications affect their political behaviour. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

It is generally accepted that the youth are overall apathetic towards political activities and that such apathy is evidenced in low voter turnout during elections. Such conventional wisdom seems to be based mainly on findings in Western democracies and generates concern as to the future nature and resilience of democracy. When a significantly large proportion of the voting population shows apathetic attitudes towards the processes that enable participation of the public in democracy, it questions the extent to which a democracy can be consolidated. In the past the South African youth played an important role in the process of transformation to democracy and thereby possibly left a legacy of youth involvement. However, in the developing world, which includes South Africa, the youth seems to show the same sort of abstaining behaviour as their Western counterparts towards elections. This is problematic as the South African youth comprises a significantly large proportion of the voting population. This dissertation focuses on South African university youth and their political and voting behaviour. They have been chosen for the focus of this study as they are widely considered to be the future elite and leadership of South Africa. The aim of this study is to determine the extent to which Western scholarly explanations of youth voting behaviour can be applied to South African university youth. Western literature on voting behaviour identifies various models of voting behaviour (which comprise the Sociological Model, Michigan Model, Party Identification Model, Media/Dominant Ideology Model and Rational Choice Model) and age effects on voting behaviour (Cohort Effect, Individual Ageing Effect and Life Cycle Effect). Each of these seeks to explain voting behaviour and in order to determine how applicable they are to South African university youth, an analytical framework was developed in order to analyse and interpret the data gathered by means of questionnaires and focus group discussions. Ultimately it was found that most Western models and age effects are to some extent applicable in explaining the voting behaviour of South African university youth (albeit to a greater or lesser extent). / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

Diploma thesis "True reasons which lead people into polling station" is tasked to detect motivation which affects an electoral behaviour of citizens, concretely their active participation in an election of their political representatives, considering the matter of fact that elected incumbents are those who work out all measures of public policy. There is enforced the legitimizing character of election, which displays the decreasing voter turnout as pathological phenomenon destroying the basics of democratic society, and sight on elections as an institution mediating between citizens and shape of implemented public policy. The theoretical part of thesis gives an overview of various concepts interpreting a voter turnout as an effect of endogenous and exogenetic factors. The paradigm are the theory of sources and the theory of representation, accenting on importance of the endogenous factors, and contextual theory, theory of motivation and racional choice theory, referring to key influence of the exogenic element. The empirical part of thesis, making use of personal research, verifies practically the theoretical knowledge and produces factual predication about motivational elements of electoral behaviour in one municipality in district of Hradec Králové. The confrontation of theoretical knowledge and...

This dissertation is comprised of six standalone articles that provide insights on what type of candidate voters prefer with a particular focus on gender, age affinity, occupation, and political experience (i.e., incumbency). The question of who is elected is one of the most fundamental questions in political science as it pertains to the issue of descriptive representation. The first article presents two novel datasets that I collected. These datasets include information on all candidates in Canadian federal and Ontario provincial elections from 1867 to 2019, and they are the basis for four of the remaining articles in this dissertation. The second article examines whether women get fewer votes in Canadian federal elections. Using the novel data I collected, with over 21,000 unique candidates since 1921 (when the first women were allowed to run for seats in Parliament), we are able to compute precise estimates of the difference in the electoral fortunes of men and women candidates. We demonstrate that while there was a gender gap in the past, the difference between male and female candidates’ vote shares is now statistically indistinguishable from zero. The third article investigates whether women get fewer votes in the Ontario provincial elections. We again estimate the effects longitudinally, using the novel data I collected, from 1902 onwards. The results are very similar to those found for Canadian federal elections. This is important because it shows that our estimates are robust: regardless of the level of government, female candidates are not being discriminated against by voters. While these results might rely on Canadian data, finding similar results at different levels of government enhances the generalizability of my conclusions. The fourth article uses cross-national data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project, covering 853,414 individual voters, 51 countries, 126 elections, and 639 unique leaders. Using this dataset, I test the hypotheses that a leader is more popular among voters closer to them in age and that such voters are more likely to vote for them. I find some support for both hypotheses though the effects are substantively very small. The fifth article asks if candidates who are lawyers get more votes compared to non-lawyers. This paper also leverages the novel data that I collected at the federal level, which includes the occupation and electoral performance of every candidate who ran for office between 1921 and 2015. Our analysis shows that lawyers get more votes than non-lawyers, but that their electoral advantage is very small. The sixth article asks whether incumbents have an electoral advantage and if such an advantage differs across gender. This paper once again uses the novel data that I collected to estimate the electoral advantage enjoyed by incumbents during 9 Canadian federal elections, in 2,739 ridings, from 1990 to 2019. Using a regression discontinuity (RD) design, I compare men and women who have very narrowly won or lost elections on their probability of running again, vote share and probability of winning in the next election. I find that there is an electoral advantage of being an incumbent but that the differences across gender are, with the exception of vote share, not significant. Incumbents are more likely to run again in the next election than their non-incumbent counterparts. Furthermore, women do not suffer an electoral penalty across the three different outcome variables, suggesting that voters are not discriminating against women once they run for office. / Cette thèse est constituée de six articles qui apportent un éclairage nouveau sur les préférences des électeurs à l’égard des candidats et de leurs profils sociodémographiques, avec une attention particulière portée au genre, à l’affinité d’âge, à l’occupation professionnelle et à l’expérience politique. La question cherchant à savoir qui se fait élire est l’une des plus fondamentales en science politique, car elle se rapporte à l’enjeu de la représentation descriptive. Le premier article présente deux bases de données originales que j’ai moi-même assemblées. Ces bases de données comportent de l’information sur l’ensemble des candidats aux élections fédérales canadiennes ainsi qu’aux élections provinciales ontariennes entre 1867 et 2019; elles posent les bases pour les autres articles de cette thèse. Le deuxième article examine si les femmes obtiennent moins de votes aux élections fédérales cana-diennes. En utilisant ma base de données inédite, comprenant plus de 21 000 candidat(e)s uniques depuis l’élection de 1921 (la première au cours de laquelle les femmes ont pu se porter candidates pour des sièges au Parlement), nous sommes en mesure d’estimer avec précision les différences qui existent dans la performance électorale des hommes et des femmes. Je démontre que, bien qu’il y ait eu un fossé entre les hommes les femmes qui ont cherché à se faire élire dans le passé, il ne semble pas y avoir aujourd’hui de réelle différence dans le pourcentage des voix récoltées par les candidats en fonction de leur sexe. Le troisième article se demande si les femmes obtiennent moins de votes dans les élections provin-ciales ontariennes. Les effets sont à nouveau estimés de manière longitudinale, en utilisant les don-nées qui ont été récoltées pour tous les candidats et toutes les candidates depuis 1902. Les résultats sont très similaires à ceux trouvés pour les élections fédérales canadiennes, ce qui démontre la ro-bustesse de mes conclusions. Peu importe le palier de gouvernement, il semble que l’électorat ne fasse pas de discrimination en fonction du sexe des candidats. Bien que ces résultats puissent être spécifiques au Canada, le fait que les résultats soient similaires aux niveaux fédéral et provincial accroît le caractère généralisable de mes conclusions. Le quatrième article utilise des données transnationales du projet Comparative Study of Electoral Sys-tems, couvrant plus de 850 000 individus et 639 leaders politiques dans 51 pays et 126 élections. Je teste les hypothèses voulant que les leaders soient plus populaires auprès d’électeurs du même groupe d’âge, et que ces derniers aient une plus forte propension à voter pour de tels leaders. J’obtiens des résultats qui semblent appuyer ces hypothèses, mais les effets associés à l’âge sont sub-stantivement très petits. Le cinquième article tâche de déterminer si les candidats qui pratiquent le métier d’avocats obtiennent plus de votes que les autres. Les analyses dans cette étude tirent parti de ma base de don-nées inédite sur les candidats lors des élections fédérales canadiennes, laquelle inclut l’occupation et la performance électorale de chaque candidat ayant brigué un siège au Parlement entre 1921 et 2015. Nos résultats démontrent que les avocats obtiennent plus de votes que les non-avocats, mais que leur avantage électoral est très limité. Le sixième article se demande si les candidats sortants bénéficient d’un avantage électoral et si cet avantage varie en fonction du genre. Cette étude tire parti de ma base de données originale pour estimer l’avantage électoral des candidats sortants lors de 9 élections fédérales canadiennes, dans 2 739 circonscriptions, entre 1990 et 2019. En déployant une analyse de discontinuité, je compare les hommes et les femmes qui ont de justesse gagné ou perdu des élections en fonction de trois critères : la probabilité de se porter candidat à nouveau, la part du vote obtenue et la probabilité de remporter la prochaine élection. Je trouve que le statut de sortant offre un avantage électoral, mais que les différences entre les hommes et les femmes sont, sauf pour ce qui est de la part du vote, non significatives. Les candidats sortants ont une plus grande probabilité de se représenter à la prochaine élection que les candidats non sortants. Qui plus est, les femmes ne souffrent de pénalité électorale pour aucune des trois variables dépendantes, ce qui suggère que les électeurs ne discriminent pas les candidats en fonction du genre.

Les médias sociaux augmentent-ils les niveaux de polarisation affective en renforçant l'animosité envers les partisans opposés ? Les recherches montrent que la polarisation affective est influencée par les niveaux croissants de polarisation idéologique des élites, mais également par l'évolution des systèmes médiatiques. Les plateformes de réseaux sociaux, où les utilisateurs sont plus enclins à être exposés à des informations conformes à leur prédisposition, pourraient agir différemment en fonction des caractéristiques architecturales telles que les algorithmes, les sections de commentaires et la présentation. Je présente une étude expérimentale dans laquelle environ 425 répondants du Québec ont été invités à suivre des comptes politiques préidentifiés en accord avec leur idéologie déclarée entre deux plateformes médiatiques – Facebook et Instagram. Les résultats révèlent que les traitements ont influencé la polarisation affective, mais que leurs effets sont modestes. Alors que les répondants assignés au traitement Facebook sont devenus légèrement plus polarisés affectivement, j'ai observé l'effet inverse pour ceux assignés au traitement Instagram. Ces résultats indiquent donc un modèle intéressant selon lequel différentes plateformes de médias sociaux pourraient avoir des effets distincts. Cette étude d'un mois, au cours de laquelle j'ai recréé des chambres d'écho administrées dans un environnement naturel, permet d’approfondir le fonctionnement des différentes plateformes médiatiques et la manière dont l'obtention d’information politique sur les réseaux sociaux pourrait affecter les sentiments des gens à l'égard de partisans opposés, mais également ceux qu’ils considèrent de leur in-group. / Do social media raise levels of affective polarization by increasing animosity towards opposing partisans? Research shows that affective polarization is influenced by the growing levels of elite ideological polarization and most importantly, the changing media systems Social media platforms, where users are more inclined to be exposed with information consistent with their predisposition, such as what they believe in regard of their likes, comments and follows, might act differently based on configuration characteristics like algorithms, comments sections and presentation. I present a two-wave experimental study where around 425 respondents from Québec were asked to follow pre-identified political accounts in line with their self-reported ideology between two social-media platforms – Facebook and Instagram. Results reveal that social media conditions influenced affective polarization, but their effect was modest. While respondents assigned to the Facebook treatment became slightly more affectively polarized, I observed the opposite effect for the ones assigned to the Instagram treatment. These results thus point to an interesting pattern whereby different social media platforms might have different media effect. This month-long study where I recreated echo chambers administered in a natural environment, allowed me to shed light on how different social media platforms operate and how the habit of getting political information on social media could alter people’s feelings towards opposing partisans.

Submitted by Caroline Xavier (caroline.xavier@pucrs.br) on 2017-07-03T13:27:49Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_FELIPE_GOULART_TOMKOWSKI_COMPLETO.pdf: 661319 bytes, checksum: 652d7011baedb676606b1b58f3f86c31 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-03T13:27:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_FELIPE_GOULART_TOMKOWSKI_COMPLETO.pdf: 661319 bytes, checksum: 652d7011baedb676606b1b58f3f86c31 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-30 / A presente disserta??o tem por objetivo investigar o valor instrumental do comportamento humano para o funcionamento da democracia atrav?s da ideia de raz?o p?blica. A intera??o que existe entre governo e cidad?os ? determinante para que as pol?ticas p?blicas de um pa?s sejam condizentes com as prefer?ncias da popula??o e n?o de grupos de poder. Sendo assim, torna-se importante analisar a ideia subjacente ? democracia de "governo pela discuss?o" ? luz de teorias que nos iluminem tanto no que diz respeito ? ideia de decis?o coletiva justa, quanto, ao real comportamento humano. Para tal, primeiramente ? apresentada a ideia de raz?o p?blica a contraponto, em particular, as vis?es de Rawls e Sen, dando ?nfase para ao conceito de imparcialidade nas decis?es pol?ticas. Em seguida, na terceira se??o, trabalham-se as ideais de racionalidade, razoabilidade, introduzindo-se os conceitos de heur?sticas, vieses, e valores sociais. Assim, constr?i-se uma associa??o para se pensar sobre os resultados de diferentes tipos de comportamento humano para a democracia e como ? poss?vel refletir a partir dele sobre as ideias de objetividade posicional e transcendental. Finalmente, na se??o IV, realiza-se uma investiga??o emp?rica atrav?s da base de sobre a rela??o entre percep??es sobre informa??es e disposi??es pol?ticas e a frequ?ncia de conversa sobre pol?tica com os amigos. Utiliza-se um modelo de regress?o log?stica ordenada, com dados do Latino Bar?metro de 2015 para o Brasil, aliado ao m?todo de componentes principais para capturar dimens?es explicativas relevantes. Os seguintes resultados obtidos contradizem as hip?teses pr?vias: a falta de confian?a no governo e a percep??o de garantias faltantes n?o significativos, o ativismo dissociado a causas espec?ficas reduz, ao passo que, um senso de cidadania ao reverso aumenta as chances de se conversar sobre pol?tica com mais frequ?ncia com amigos. / The present dissertation aims to investigate the instrumental role of human behaviour for democracy through the idea of public reason. The interaction between government and citizens is decisive for a country's public policies to be in line with population preferences rather than power groups. Thus, it becomes important to analyse the idea underlying democracy of "government by discussion" in the light of theories that enlighten us both with regard to the idea of just collective decision and real human behaviour. To this end, we first counterpoint the idea of public reason, in particular, of Rawls and Sen, with an emphasis on the concept of impartiality in political decisions. Then, in the third section, we work on the notions of rationality, reasonableness, introducing the concepts of heuristics, biases, and social values. Thus, an association is constructed for thinking about the results of different types of human behavior for democracy and how the ideas of positional and transcendental objectivity fit this purpose well. Finally, in section IV, we conduct an empirical investigation based on the relationship between perceptions of relevant political information and dispositions and the frequency of political talk with friends. We use a logistic regression model, with data from the 2015 Latin Barometer for Brazil, combined with principal components method to capture relevant explanatory dimensions. The following results contradict previous hypotheses: lack of trust in the government and the perception of absent guarantees are not significant, while activism dissociated of specific causes reduces and a reverse sense of citizenship increases the chances of talking about politics more frequently with friends.

Management was once described as the art of getting things done through the efforts of oneself and other people (Follett, 1941) and is functionalised through acts of planning, organising, leading and controlling tasks and people for pre-defined objectives. These four cardinal pillars of management are translated into various models, tools and techniques of best practice of how to manage. While acknowledging that the substance of the current management models, tools and techniques have for years broadly contributed to how organisations are run, my research sheds more light on the shortcomings underlying some of the assumptions and ways of thinking behind these models and tools. My research findings based on my experience in working for the Department for International Development suggests that management practice and organisational change occur in the context of human power relationships in which people constrain and enable each other on the basis of human attributes such as identities, attitudes, values, perceptions, emotions, fears, expectations, motives and interests. I argue that these human attributes, human power relations and the totality of human emotions arise in the social, and understanding the ways in which these attributes shape local interaction and daily human relating is critical in making sense of the reality of organisational change and management. I suggest that management practice occurs in the context of everyday politics of human relating. It is that type of politics that takes place within families, groups of people, organisations, communities, and indeed throughout all units of society around the distribution of power, wealth, resources, thoughts and ideas. This way of thinking has enormous implications for the way we conceptualise management theory and practice. I am suggesting that managers do not solely determine, nor do employees freely choose their identities, attitudes, values, perceptions, emotions, fears, expectations and motives. These human dimensions arise from social relationships and personal experiences. As such, it is simply not for a manager to decide or force other employees on which of these human attributes to influence their behaviour. I am arguing that the social nature of management practice and role of human agents is inherently complex and cannot, in the scientific sense, be adequately reduced to discrete, systematic, complete and predictive models, tools and techniques without losing some meaning of what we do in management.

The central issue in this study is political socialisation and its implications within a rural setting in South Africa with a particular focus on Calais village in Limpopo Province. The aim of the study is to determine how adult residents of Calais village, are politically socialised; and furthermore to assess the impact of the socialisation process on the residents’ political behaviour within a democratic South Africa. In order to achieve the research purpose, face-to-face interviews were conducted with forty (40) adult residents in Calais village. The study revealed that the respondents were politically socialised by the media, immediate family, peers, extended family, political parties, local municipality, school, traditional leadership, ward committee and religious institutions. The media were the most important agent, while the religious institutions were the least. Furthermore, NGOs and trade unions were not socialisation agents in Calais village. The socialisation process had an impact on the respondents’ political behaviour in terms of political interest, party identification, political beliefs, efficacy, knowledge, awareness and participation. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)