This thesis seeks to analyze the phenomenon of political business cycle (PBC) in the Czech Republic. It follows up the efforts of previous authors to determine the existence and subsequent character of the PBC in the country. Based upon the related works, it summarizes the current situation. However, unlike the previous analyses, this work concerns the monetary side of the economy. To be more precise, it examines the role of the Czech National Bank (CNB) within the process of political business cycle. It questions the level of independency of the CNB and poses a question whether the institution might actively participate in the creation of PBC. The following empirical analysis reveals that the CNB actively reduces the monetary base level in the economy within the pre-election period. It might signal its tendency to mitigate opportunistic behavior of the government.

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived effectiveness of specific advisory committee activities during a school bond proposal and election process. The study began with an extensive review of the literature on the use of advisory committee activities in school districts for the purpose of promoting a school bond issue. This revealed that school officials maintaining a low profile, the presence of a diverse community task force, focusing on YES voters, involving the committee in early planning, focusing on disseminating information, and focusing on benefits to children and the community are all important in the passage of a school bond election. A survey was developed and administered to committee members, school board members and school district administrators in a North Texas school district that had successfully completed a bond election. Survey respondents consistently supported the practices put into place by the studied school district, which closely mirrored the activities espoused in the research. Respondents believed the diversity of the task force and the roles of the committee members to be crucial to the passage of the bond. The only subcategory of questions that drew mixed reviews and positions of support was that of the need for the administration and board to maintain a low profile. Participants in the survey viewed having a diverse community task force, focusing on YES votes, involvement in early planning, focusing on disseminating information, and focusing on benefits to children and the community as being important to the successful passage of the school bond election, with clear dissemination of information being the most important activity of the committee.

This thesis examines if and how the Internet viewers of Saturday Night Live skits were influenced by the video skits. the viewers’ online comments were read, categorized and analyzed for content to explore and discuss how the viewers “read” the text of the online video skits. Each video in which candidates John McCain, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama appeared is summarized and analyzed through viewers’ comments. a sample of skits including actors’ portrayals of McCain, Palin, Clinton, Obama and Joe Biden is also summarized and analyzed to find and discuss how the viewers’ perceptions were influenced by the portrayals.

Ever since union - and before - black South Africans have been excluded from parliament, provincial councils and other law-making bodies. This means that blacks have never participated in the electoral process. The voting (electoral) system - its nature and workings - remained the sole preserve of white political parties and the Apartheid government of the day. As a result of a conjuncture of circumstances (as per Harare Declaration), the African National Congress and the apart0heid government are now engaged in talks. Hopefully this will ultimately lead to negotiations towards a new Constitution which will make provision for a single unitary, non-racial, non-sexist South Africa with universal franchise on one single common voters roll and one person one vote. Part of the process of constitution-making for such a South Africa, will be the working out of a system of voting, an electoral system, which would be appropriate for the country. The African National Congress has recognised the need for a multi-party system, the right of all other political forces and organisations to organise and to compete for power on the political terrain. The ANC also recognises that all parties enjoying significant support should have the right to be represented in a Constituent Assembly and parliament. The question which needs to be resolved is: What would be an appropriate electoral system to achieve the stated objec0tive? It is to place the issue before the people of our country and to ensure participation at the widest levels by all the organisa0tions of the people in the process of constitution-making (including formulating and/or agreeing upon an acceptable system of voting), that the African National Congress, Community Law Centre (University of the Western Cape) and the Centre for Development Studies have organised a conference to be held in the Western Cape on 2 - 4 NOVEM0BER 1990. This conference will not be a decision-making one. nor will there be any resolutions at the end of the conference. The objective is to facilitate meaningful discussions throughout the country. To facilitate this process, we present a discussion document entitled "ELECTORAL SYSTEMS: A CRITICAL SURVEY" which has been prepared by Professor KADER ASMAL, a member of the Constitutional Committee of the ANC and Professor of Law at Trinity College, Dublin. It is hoped that arising from these discussions, there will be more meaningful discussions and consultations amongst or0ganisations such as trade unions, civic organisations, women’s organisations and other sectoral or0ganisations - ultimately leading to a situation which we would be better able to decide on an acceptable, unity building and democratic electoral system. / "The Community Law Centre (UWC) & Centre for Development Studies in conjunction with the ANC Constitutional Committee."--Cover

Scholars of party strategy and government accountability rarely directly connect the priorities of parties' principals, groups seeking to influence parties, to their theories of electoral strategy, parliamentary behavior and policy outputs. I develop a theory that links parties' goals to their behaviors in three areas: electoral strategy, parliamentary behavior and government policies. I build on previous theories by focusing on the issues included in parties' electoral campaigns and their principals. In particular, I conceptualize policy platforms as a balance between parties' policy and electoral goals. I distinguish between statements reflecting these goals by considering the effect of the electoral context on the intra-party groups' policy approach. My theory predicts that party leaders add issues to their electoral platforms when conditions lead intra-party groups to be pragmatic. They decrease the number of issues in the platform when electoral conditions lead intra-party groups to be more ideologically rigid. Parties performing well in the previous election or that expect voters to reward them for their participation in government cause intra-party groups to act more pragmatically. However, these groups become more ideologically rigid when the party lost seats in previous elections or expect punishment for their economic record in office. Upon taking office, I theorize that parliamentary leaders use procedures that both highlight and constrain information about their policy priorities to build the party's image of accountability with voters. Government leaders limit information to voters on issues important to their ideologically motivated intra-party groups, but protect their image with intra-party groups by discussing information about their policy agenda at the party's national meetings. Finally, I predict that ideologically cohesive governments dedicate greater more laws to the priorities of their intra-party groups than to voters' goals because intra-party groups have greater information about the government's behavior and can replace party leaders through national congresses more frequently than voters. I test my theory using a mixed-methods approach. In particular, I test my theory quantitatively in three sections. Using data on 24 countries between 1962 and 2008 from the Comparative Manifestos Project and the OECD, I first predict the number of issues in parties' platforms based on the electoral context. I then use the results from this analysis to predict the application of legislative procedures and the amount of legislation on issues for parties' principals in the French Assemblée Nationale from 1978 through 2007 with data from the Comparative Agendas Project. Throughout these large-N analyses I find evidence in favor of the theory; parties' platforms respond to electoral conditions, government leaders use procedures on issues important to both groups and ideologically cohesive governments devote a larger number of laws to intra-party groups. Finally, following the logic of a nested-analysis, I undertake case studies of the French Parti Socialiste's organizational behavior leading up to elections in 1993 and 1997 and its behavior in office following the 1997 election. I use evidence from news reports, party congress and legislative debates, party newsletters, and personal interviews. The analysis indicates that intra-party groups influence parties' electoral and legislative strategies. The results suggest that intra-party politics hold broad consequences for parties' behavior in office.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地域研究) / 甲第22556号 / 地博第259号 / 新制||地||98(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科東南アジア地域研究専攻 / (主査)教授 玉田 芳史, 教授 岡本 正明, 准教授 中西 嘉宏 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Area Studies / Kyoto University / DFAM

For this study, I set out to examine the electoral manifestos of four European populist parties in national elections, in order to analyze the ideological similarities and differences between the Finns Party, the Sweden Democrats, the National Rally, and the League. Political manifestos represent authoritative statements on party policies. I aimed to compare the ideologies expressed in the manifestos and to allocate them on a left-neutral-right scale according to a model developed by Backlund (2013), Benoitand Laver (2007), and Lowe et al. (2011). The theoretical background comes from Spatial theory (Downs 1957, Sartori 1977, Adams 1998) and Saliency theory (Budge & Farlie 1983, Budge et al. 2001, Klingemann et al. 2006). I derived the research data from the Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) database; the data are longitudinal, covering 48 variables from two elections during the period of 2011-2018. I investigated how the parties present their political goals through qualitative analyses, as well as an examination of the salience and frequency of issues. I compared the data to long-term trends from MARPOR data and from the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys. My findings indicate that the parties have common ideological traits such as nationalism, European Union (EU) opposition, and immigration negativity, but they differ in how they advocate for various policy matters. The Finns Party is the least moderate and openly exhibits nationalism and discriminatory features. The Sweden Democrats share attributes with leftist ideologies, except for the EU opposition and a veiled immigration negativity. The National Rally is nationalistic and privileges protectionism, but is more indirectly immigration and EU negative. The League shows an increasing preference for federalism and EU and immigration negativity during the two elections.

This study determines how economic, political, and socio-demographic factors impact the parliamentary election outcomes in central and eastern European countries in transition period. A one-way fixed-effect method has been applied to analyze two main economic models. The dependent variables are share of the Western-oriented and traditional-oriented parties. Data of sixteen countries have been used in the thesis. According to the results of this study, it is possible to conclude that outcomes of parliamentary elections in central and eastern European countries depended on political and socio-demographic factors from I 990-2001. Factors such as loans, received from the United States, per capita in the pre-election year, as a measure of external pressure, and share of agriculture in GDP, as a measure of country`s level of development, demonstrate consistent significance in both variations of the model.

El presente trabajo de investigación realiza un análisis de la cobertura periodística de los diarios La República y El Comercio durante las elecciones municipales de Lima en el mes de septiembre del año 2018. Se ha considerado como parte de este análisis 10 notas informativas de ambos diarios, algunas a favor o en contra de determinado candidato, otras pretenden ser neutrales sin expresar su postura dominante. Asimismo, el motivo por el cual se realiza el presente trabajo es para que los jóvenes puedan informarse y conocer más a profundidad cómo es una campaña electoral municipal en Lima- Perú, mientras que el objetivo de la investigación, tal y como se ha mencionado, es analizar en qué consistió la cobertura periodística de los diarios La República y El Comercio durante las elecciones municipales de Lima en el mes de setiembre del año 2018. Asimismo, el fin de este trabajo periodístico también es que lo dicho a lo largo del trabajo pueda servir como contexto y guía a todo estudiante perdido en el mundo político. La metodología que se emplea en esta investigación es cualitativa, ya que describe y analiza los elementos expuestos en ambos medios escritos. Uno de los resultados es que Renzo Reggiardo y Jorge Muñoz, dos de los candidatos a la alcaldía de Lima, fueron más cubiertos y privilegiados por La República y El Comercio respectivamente. La conclusión principal es que el diario nacional El Comercio cubrió en mayor magnitud la campaña del candidato Jorge Muñoz en el mes de setiembre, mientras que el diario La República lo hizo con mayor notoriedad al postulante Renzo Reggiardo. / This research makes an analysis of media coverage of the daily La Republica and El Comercio during the municipal elections in Lima in September 2018. It has been considered as part of this analysis 10 briefing notes of both newspapers, some in favor or against a particular candidate, others pretend to be neutral without expressing its dominant position. Also, the reason why this work is done is for young people to learn and know more deeply what a municipal election campaign in Lima, Peru, while the target of the investigation, as mentioned, it is to analyze how media coverage consisted of the daily La Republica and El Comercio during the municipal elections in Lima in the month of September 2018. Likewise, the purpose of this journalistic work is also that what has been said throughout the work can serve as a context and guide for every student lost in the political world. The methodology used in this research is qualitative, since it describes and analyzes the elements outlined in both print media. One of the results is that Renzo Reggiardo and Jorge Muñoz, two of the candidates for mayor of Lima, were more covered and privileged by La Republica and El Comercio respectively. The main conclusion is that the national newspaper El Comercio covered in greater magnitude campaign candidate Jorge Muñoz in the month of September, while the daily La Republica did more notoriety to the applicant Renzo Reggiardo. / Trabajo de investigación

This thesis tests one of the approaches that analyzes the rise of right-wing populist parties, "the economic crisis" approach. The core idea of this theory is that during an economic crisis, there is a rise of electoral support for the right-wing populist parties. The two case studies which are studied are the (Northern) League in Italy and the National Front/Rally in France. These analyses include a brief history of the said parties, their political profile, and the results in elections after the 2008-2009 financial crisis. As well as data on the profile of supporters of these parties and the reasons why they support these parties, and their views on some of the main political and social issues. From the data confrontation it is shown that there is no correlation between times of economic hardship, and the electoral success of these parties. And what is more important supporters of these parties also emphasize reasons related with identity rather than economic problems for supporting these parties. For economic issues they have a similar perception to the rest of the population. Keywords Populism, right-wing populism, populist parties, economic crisis, elections, identity.