The purpose of the study is to investigate 8th grade Turkish students&rsquo / perceptions towards civic concepts and issues like good citizenship, government responsibilities and women&rsquo / s political and social rights and to determine the factors affecting their intentions to participate in electoral, political and civic activities. In order to achieve this aim, a nation-wide survey was conducted with a sample of 2497 students from 60 schools in 21 provinces. The questionnaire developed by International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) on civic education was adapted and used as the data collection instrument. The data obtained from the sample were analyzed through both descriptive (mean, frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistics (ANOVA, Hierarchical Multiple Regression). The results revealed that students value both conventional and social movement citizenship activities to be a good citizen. However, although they plan to participate in electoral and civic activities, more than half of them do not plan to participate in political activities such as joining a party, being a candidate for a local office. Moreover, it was found that the variances in students&rsquo / intentions to participate in electoral, political and civic activities were explained by students&rsquo / background characteristics, their media consumption habits, their discussion practices and discussion environment in classrooms, curricular and extracurricular experiences and finally by their perceptions of good citizenship and participation in school. Findings were discussed around relevant literature both in Turkey and abroad.

In August, 2004, the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan passed landmark constitutional amendment proposals to cut the number of legislative seats in half, and adopt a "single-district, two-vote" system. In May, 2005, the parliamentary electorate system in Taiwan was officially changed from a single-nontransferable voting system (SNTV) to a single-member district parallel voting system. The new voting system was introduced in January, 2008. Under SNTV, the seats won in Kaohsiung County¡¥s legislator election were in proportion to the two political parties. However, the result of the first election after the electorate system changed showed a landslide victory of the KMT (Kuomingtang). The DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) should not have suffered such defeat in the election with the strength and power that their political factions have in Kaohsiung County. Many factors are for certain involved in winning or losing an election, and the focus of this thesis will be on the changes of political factions and how they can influent vote results. Under SNTV, the most influential and powerful political factions in Kaohsiung County were the Red Party, the White Party, and the Black Party. Under the new electoral system, however, as only one candidate will be elected, the political factions, as well as the candidates, have started changing their ways of thinking in terms of whom they should support. The candidates have been paying much more attention to the local political factions. Taking their own interests into consideration, the local political factions have also changed the way they intend to manipulate the vote results. The awakening of the local political factions indirectly made impacts on the result of the Seventh legislator election. In the future, the results of various elections may very well be influenced by the changes of the local political factions. To gain a clearer view of the changes of Kaohsiung County¡¥s political factions under the new voting system, the thesis will first describe the similarities and differences between SNTV and single-member district parallel voting system. It will then discuss the formation and development of Taiwan and Kaohsiung County¡¥s local political factions. The different electoral tactics of the KMT and the DPP under the two voting systems will then be analyzed, following by the examination of the voting results.

<p>This study aims at describing if discrepancies can be found between the rhetoric in Swedish political parties’ electoral campaigns to the European Parliament elections in 2004 and their representatives’ actual behavior in the European Parliament and to develop plausible explanations to these possible discrepancies. The research method that is being used is content analysis, aiming to answer four research questions regarding the electoral campaigns to the European Parliament elections in 2004 and the behavior by the parties’ representatives during the following term of office. The main findings are that some discrepancies can be found regarding which questions are raised most frequently in the electoral campaigns and in the European Parliament, but that no discrepancies can be found regarding the positions taken in questions in the electoral campaigns and in the European Parliament. The plausible explanations that are presented are that the parties raise certain questions in the campaigns with the purpose of maximizing the number of votes and then raise other questions in the European Parliament, that size of the party group matters and that the individuals representing the parties might effect the coherence between rhetoric and actual behavior.</p>

This study explores the hegemonic articulation of ‘feminist politics’ by the Swedish political party Feminist Initiative (Feministiskt initiativ) during 2014 national parliamentary election campaign. The analysis is carried out on two levels: the construction of the hegemonic project of feminist politics and the construction of an antagonist.      Deploying the discourse-theoretical approach by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as well as the theories of radical democracy and intersectionality, it is shown how a new, broad collective feminist identity is produced by deconstructing womanhood as an identifiable and unproblematic category as well as expanding the signifying chain of feminism by including new social struggles into it. As a result, the feminist subject is conceptualized in radical-democratic terms as a citizen with equal rights, rather than an essentialized female subject. Two nodal points that fix the meaning of the hegemonic project of feminist politics are identified: one is human rights, which enables the expansion of the chain of equivalence, and the other is experience of oppression, which acknowledges differences existing within the movement and prevents it from muting marginalized voices. Discrimination, being the constitutive outside, both threatens and produces the subject: on the one hand, it violates human rights that underlie feminist politics; on the other hand, it produces the experience of oppression that gives a unique feminist perspective to each member of the collective identity. The hegemonic project thus emerges as dependent on the oppressive power of discrimination. The study suggests a critical discussion on how the constitutive outside – discrimination – empties the concept of feminism by a radical expansion of its meaning.    The research furthermore explores the construction of the antagonist of the hegemonic project. Utilizing analytical concepts from the writings of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, it is demonstrated how social structures and norms acquire agency and become the significant Other for the feminist identity. The thesis is concluded by a critical discussion on the fundamental impossibility of identification based on opposing oneself to something that can only be expressed with a signifier that ultimately lacks any signified.

As a crisis of representation challenges third wave democracies, two of its most salient indicators – weak party institutionalization and the underrepresentation of marginalized groups – have thus far been evaluated only in isolation. This dissertation contends that the two dynamics are related, and uses extensive variation within Brazil, the third wave's most populous democracy, to analyze the relationship. Employing an original empirical database of 21,478 candidacies, 73 interviews, and field observations from throughout Brazil, I explain how voters, electoral rules, and parties interact to undermine women's political participation and representative democracy. Despite socioeconomic progress, an effective women's movement, an electorate increasingly receptive to female politicians, and a legislated gender quota, Brazil ranks poorly in global assessments of women's legislative presence. Using mixed methods, this dissertation analyzes variation in women's electoral performance across districts, electoral rules, parties, and women to explain the puzzle of women's underrepresentation in Brazil. I argue that the weakly institutionalized and male dominant character of most Brazilian parties has undermined the quota while also hindering women's political prospects and circumscribing their pathways to power. I subject the hypotheses of the women's representation literature and my own arguments to empirical testing and find that Brazil's female political aspirants are thwarted not by development level, electoral size, or ideology, but rather by the preponderance of inchoate and male-led parties. The analysis demonstrates that to effectively promote women's participation in candidate-centered elections, parties must have the capacity to provide women with essential psychological, organizational, and material support and the will, heralded by the party leadership, to do so. The paucity of such support and persistence of traditional gender norms have led Brazil's few female politicians to craft novel profiles; by conforming to traditional gender norms as supermadres, or converting social, organizational, or professional experiences into political capital as lutadoras or technocrats, such women have nonetheless thrived in inhospitable electoral contexts. I conclude that reforms that strengthen parties while incentivizing the promotion of women's participation within parties offer the greatest potential for mitigating Brazil's crisis of representation, situating once more the goals of the women's movement within the broader democratic reform agenda. / text

The three branches of American government---judicial, legislative, and executive---serve important governmental roles, and present their own interesting political questions. We answer three here. First, what are the differences between judges and politicians, and how does this inform the formers' selection? Second, how do senators behave to satisfy their political preferences and the electorate's? Third, what is the optimal strategy for a candidate in the Electoral College? American states select judges in various ways. In Chapter 1, we analyze "merit selection." Typically, a nonpartisan commission culls applicants for judgeships, and an appointee is selected by the governor. Then, periodically, this judge undergoes a retention election: an up-or-down vote by the state's electorate. We contribute a microeconomic model to analyze these elections. We compare this institution, in welfare terms, to others used to appoint and retain judges. Finally, we analyze a recent and ongoing phenomenon: these elections are transforming from historically rubber stamp formalities into contested, politicized contests. The politicization of issues brought before courts increases the likelihood of judges being ousted. In Chapter 2, we explore the behavior of legislators in the U.S. Senate, and of the voters who elect them. We examine shifts in incumbent senators' espoused political positions over time, as the reelection campaign approaches. We introduce novel game theoretic models of incumbent-challenger interaction. We find, through empirical analysis of senators' roll call votes, that senators moderate their positions over time, as potential reelection approaches. Moreover, this moderation accelerates. This is explained by the behavior of voters: the moderation is mirrored by the attention paid by voters. Also, the identity of an incumbent's challenger plays an important role in the amount of moderation exhibited by the incumbent. In Chapter 3, we consider a highly adaptable game theoretic model of competition in the Electoral College. It takes the form of a repeated game. Candidates make allocation decisions to persuade voters. Candidates get utility from winning office, and disutility from expending resources. We characterize optimal campaign strategy, and present comparative statics. We show, inter alia, that a candidate with an inherent advantage may prefer a longer campaign. / text

Economics is the study of the allocation of resources. Since Arrow's Fundamental Welfare Theorems, we know that competitive-markets achieve Pareto allocations when governments correct market failures. Thus, it has largely been the mission of economists to serve as 'Market Engineers': To identify and quantify market failures so the government can implement Pareto-improving policy (make everyone better without making anyone worse). Do Pareto- improving policies get implemented? How does policy become implemented? Achieving a Pareto efficient allocation of a nation's resources requires studying the implementation of policy, and therefore studying the allocation of political resources that influence policy. Policy implementation begins with the electoral process. In this dissertation, I use auction analysis, econometrics, and game theory to study political resource allocations in the electoral process. This dissertation consists of three research papers: Finance-Augmented Median-Voter Model, Vote Empirics, and Colonel Blotto Strategies. The Finance-Augmented Median-Voter Model postulates that candidates' campaign expenditures are bids in a first-price asymmetric all-pay auction in order to explain campaign expenditure behavior. Vote Empirics empirically analyzes the impacts of campaign expenditures, incumbency status, and district voter registration statistics on observed vote-share results from the 2004 congressional election. Colonel Blotto Strategies postulates that parties' campaign allocations across congressional districts may be a version of the classic Col Blotto game from Game Theory. While some equilibrium strategies and equilibrium payoffs have been identified, this paper completely characterizes players' optimal strategies. In total, this dissertation solves candidates' optimal campaign expenditure strategies when campaign expenditures are bids in an all-pay auction. The analysis demonstrates the need for understanding exactly the impacts of various factors, including strategic expenditures, on final vote results. The research uses econometric techniques to identify the effects. Last, the research derives the complete characterization of Col Blotto strategies. Discussed extensions provide testable predictions for cross-district Party contributions. I present this research not as a final statement to the literature, but in hopes that future research will continue its explanation of political resource allocation. An even greater hope is that in time this literature will be used to identify optimal "policy-influencing policies"; constitutional election policies that provide for the implementation of Pareto-improving government policies. / text

I examine the relationship between the electoral security of congressmen, measured as vote margins in the previous election, and the support Members of Congress offer to their party. I develop a theory that predicts safe members will be more willing to support than vulnerable members and leaders demand more loyalty from safe members than vulnerable. This arrangement is rational and beneficial for leaders and both types of members. Using an OLS regression, I find basic support for my theory.

<p>By what means can legislative committees exercise influence on policy outputs? How and why do committees in different countries differ in their abilities to do so? This dissertation argues that legislative committee power is a multidimensional concept. Committee procedures can be distinguished into three analytic dimensions: 1) committees' positive agenda power, their power to ensure the placement of legislative versions preferred by them on the floor; 2) committees' negative agenda power, their power to delay or block the progress of legislation; and 3) committees' information capacity, institutional incentives granted to them to gather and transmit information. These distinct dimensions benefit different legislative actors. Therefore, they reflect different features of a political system, and may not be consistently strong or week.</p><p>Based on an original cross-national data set, the dissertation shows that committee procedures cluster empirically in these three distinct dimensions. Furthermore, the dissertation also demonstrates how legislators' electoral incentives, the composition of multiparty governments, preexisting authoritarian incumbents' uncertainty and bargaining power, and the changes in legislative memberships affect different dimensions of committee power.</p> / Dissertation

Demokratizacija ar liberalizacija – ilgi ir sudėtingi procesai. Tai labai gerai atsispindi Centrinės Azijos regione. Čia po SSRS žlugimo, kaip ir kitos po-sovietinės valstybės taip Kirgizija bei Kazachstanas, turėjo sukurti naujas arba stipriai modifikuoti senas konstitucijas bei rinkimų sistemas. Oficialiai abi šalys pasirinko demokratinius režimus. Tai pažymima abiejų valstybių konstitucijų pirmosiose pastraipose. Tačiau reali valstybių politika iki šiol koncentruojasi ties jų lyderiais ir „klanais“ bei atskirais regionais. Aptariamose valstybėse de Jure ir de facto demokratija įkūnijama įvairiais būdais. Iš principo esminės demokratinės teisės, tokios kaip: žodžio laisvė, spaudos laisvė, religijos ir bendravimo laisvės yra uždraustos arba iš dalies suvaržytos. Šiame darbe bus pristatomos skirtingos demokratinės tranzicijos teorijos, bei jų taikymo galimybė Kazachstano ir Kirgizijos atvejais. Peržvelgiama ne tik teorijų raida, bet ir pateikiama demokratizacijos ir liberalizacijos klasifikacija. Trumpai pristatomi abiejų valstybių istorinės raidos ir dabartinis kontekstai. Darbe dėmesys labiausiai sutelkiamas rinkimų sistemos ir konstitucijų formavimuisi pokomunistinių laikotarpiu bei tolimesnei jų raidai. Išskiriami atskiri valstybių valdymo atvejai, kuriuos įteisino kintančios konstitucijos ar rinkimų įstatymai. / Democratization and liberalization are very elaborate processes. This is very obvious in the region of Central Asia. Just after collapse of USSR countries like Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan had to create new or completely modify old constitutions and electoral laws. Officially both countries had chosen democratic systems. That is also marked in the first articles of their constitutions. However real politics in these countries is based on their leaders, “clans” and separate regions preferences. De jure and de facto democracies are accomplished in many different ways. Traditionally democratic freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of association – while provided for in the constitutions - are suppressed and/or severely limited. Several democratic transition theories and their adoption in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan will be presented in this study. It will be overviewed not only their development but also marked different classification. Most of the study will be concentrated into electoral systems development and development of each country’s constitutions after collapse of USSR. It will be marked different types of ruling systems, which have provided each electoral law or constitution amendments.