Critically examines the role of electoral systems in the democratisation process and conflict management in divided societies such as Kenya and Rwanda. Analyses the power sharing arrangement institutionalized in Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide in order to demonstrate the potential to mitigate issues of ethnic. Also explores the anomalous results caused by the current electoral system in Kenya (First Past The Post) in its process of democratization and then find out which is the most suitable electoral system which encourage co-operation and inclusiveness and discourage conflict and exclusiveness. minority representation / A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Atangcho N Akonumbo, Faculté de Sciences Sociales et de Gestion, Université Catholique D’Afrique, Centrale Yaounde Cameroun. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

The Best Loser System (BLS) in Mauritius is a component of the electoral system where candidates are selected by established procedure on the basis of their race or community to stand as members of parliament It is as a tool to protect minority interests. The main research question is the following : what are the human rights implications and the prospect of reform of the BLS in Mauritius? / A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Mr Angelo Matusse, Faculty of Law, Universidade Eduardo, Mondlane Mocambique. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

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.

Assuming gender neutrality in comparative analysis, i.e. not including either explicit or implicit references to a particular gender or sex, runs the risk of camouflaging the unequal distribution of political power, economic influence, and political access for men and women. Unfortunately, in assuming such neutrality, one is blinded to the inherent flaws of political systems, the inequalities they create, and their lack of consideration of gender and women's rights. To counteract this inequality between the sexes, women's social movements are fighting to create gender awareness and establish formal policies that place them at the same level as their male counterparts, and feminist ideals are slowly becoming more prominent. As in other regions, in Latin America, quota laws have been established as affirmative action-type mechanisms that are meant to create a balance in view of the inequalities women face in ascending to political office. My study focuses on whether or not quota laws have increased women's presence in Latin American political legislatures and if they have met the intended objectives by the women's social movements that advocated for them. My results indicate that quota laws have not worked in every Latin American country to dramatically increase women's presence in politics. The literature also suggests that quota laws have not entirely been able to produce the desired outcomes as proposed by women's social movements in the region. I also address the question of what has made quota laws successful in some countries, yet not in others. My research indicates that the effectiveness of quota laws depends on how they are drafted and implemented, that is if institutions have effectively been altered and if the government is taking specific measures to ensure that the law is being enforced. Since women have not been able to rely on the good faith of the political parties to determine their entry to positions of public authority, traditional procedures for candidate selection have been in need of alteration. I conclude that if quota laws are not customized to a country's electoral system and applied meticulously by political parties, they will hardly produce any results for women.

There are few literatures to explore political party¡¦s Nomination Institution and its relationship with electoral system. This thesis traces Legislative Yuan elections system from multi-member-district, single non-transferable vote to single-member district with plurality system and single-district two votes system and explore whether the modification has had an impact on party¡¦s nomination institution. According to theoretical assumption and foreign research statistics, ¡§single-district two votes system¡¨ tends to promote political party nomination system towards top-down decentralization. This study aims to investigate whether single-district two votes system is able to influence political parties to improve the centralized nomination institution that had been rooted in SNTV. The findings are positive regarding the application of single-district two votes system. During the seventh legislators election, major Parties of R.O.C. had adjusted their Nomination Institution, and Party members¡¦ opinions along with public¡¦s preference had been taken into accounts greatly compare to the past. KMT is one of the salient examples for not only make the largest modification in nomination, but also gain the most profit from this election.

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

Magistro baigiamajame darbe „Rinkimų sistemų poveikis balsavimo rezultatams: 2004 m. ir 2008 m. Lietuvos Respublikos Seimo rinkimų atvejų analizė“ nagrinėjama kaip būtų susiklostę abiejų paskutinių LR Seimo rinkimų rezultatai, jei rinkimai vyktų ne pagal dabar taikomą paralelinę mišrią rinkimų sistemą. Šio darbo tikslas – išanalizuoti ir eksperimentiškai patikrinti kaip skirtingos rinkimų sistemos įtakoja LR Seimo rinkimų rezultatus ir kaip nuo to keičiasi parlamentinių partijų svoris bei įtaka. Uždaviniai: 1. Apžvelgti šiuo metu pasaulyje naudojamas rinkimų sistemas; 2. Pateikti pagrindinių rinkimų sistemų detalią analizę išskiriant jų privalumus bei trūkumus; 3. Atlikti 2004 m. ir 2008 m. LR Seimo rinkimų atvejų analizę pritaikant skirtingas rinkimų sistemas; 4. Palyginti galimus 2004 m. ir 2008 m. LR Seimo rinkimų rezultatus taikant skirtingas rinkimų sistemas bei apibendrinti gautus rezultatus. Hipotezės: 1. Sąrašinė proporcinė rinkimų sistema parankesnė naujai susikūrusioms partijoms ir savo ruožtu neparanki tradicinėms; 2. Mažoritarinės rinkimų sistemos neparankios naujai susikūrusioms partijoms; 3. Tautinių mažumų partijoms ir nepartiniams kandidatams parankiausia “pirmas-prie-finišo” rinkimų sistema; Atliktoje analizėje su 5 skirtingomis rinkimų sistemomis, patvirtinamos keltos hipotezės, kad proporcinio atstovavimo rinkimų sistemos palankios naujai besikuriančioms partijoms ir leistų joms turėti iki 80% daugiau atstovų įstatymų leidžiamojoje institucijoje, kai tuo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Master‘s Degree final paper work „Electoral systems impact on voting results: 2004 and 2008 Lithuanian parliament elections‘ case study“ pays main attention to what the results would be of the two last elections to Lithuanian parliament if other than parallel electoral system was used. Main goal is to analize and experimentaly check how do different electoral systems impact Lithuanian parliament results and how depending on results do the party position, weight and influence change. Object: 1. To review electoral systems currently used in the world; 2. To make detailed analysis of main electoral systems stressing their advantages and disadvantages; 3. To analyse 2004 and 2008 Lithuanian parliament elections using five different electoral systems (party list, two round, first-past-the-post, MMP and limited voting); 4. To compare possible results of 20004 and 2008 Lithuanian parliament elections using different electoral systems and conclude the results Hypothesis: 1. Party list system provides new parties with additional seats in the parliament; 2. Plurality / majority systems provides new parties with less seats comparing to parallel system; 3. First-past-the-post provides additional seats (comparing to parallel system) to minority parties and non-partisan candidates. Detailed analysis results confirm, that party list system provides new parties with additional seasts in the parliament. At the same time, two biggest traditional parties would lose up to 28,89% seats comparing... [to full text]

<p>Declining industries are privileged at the expense of new innovative ones in some cities but not others. In order to understand why, I develop an argument about how politics aggregates the demand for industrial rents across space. Geographically concentrated industries produce electorates with homogenous preferences in favor of supporting established local firms. In electoral systems where politicians are beholden to voters in a narrow geographic constituency, politicians will support efforts to prop up these industries even as these measures stymie innovation. Conversely, in electoral systems where politicians are beholden to broad party interests, politicians will support nationally important and geographically dispersed industries. Concentrated industries, by contrast, are more likely to die a rapid death and leave public resources available for new pioneering firms. Thus, the intersection between electoral and political geography provides insight into the Schumpeterian creative destruction needed to transform a city into a post-industrial economy. I formalize my argument in two models: one analyzing the demand of subsidies over public goods by voters and another exploring the tradeoff between rent-seeking and innovation by firms. I test the resulting hypotheses through cross-country statistical regressions and two in-depth case studies. Using firm-level data across many countries I show that political geography conditions the provision of subsidies to declining firms, and that electorally important firms are less likely to innovate. Then, using original field data I investigate the causal impact of political institutions and economic geography on the provision of subsidies by utilizing exogenous shocks in Thailand and India.</p> / Dissertation

The thesis "The Developement of the Electoral System in Estonia and it's Influence on the Party System between the Years 1990 and 2007" deals, after the first chapter about the theoretical attitudes to the influence of the electoral systems on the party systems, with the, firstly historical background of this interwar, independent, and democratic baltic state. The following chapters drala with the changes on the electoral rules in Estonia since 1990 and first of all about the influence of these changes on the stability of a party system and government.

Most African states emerged from shadows and made a transition from mono-party, one-person and military rule towards political pluralism and multi-party democratic governance in 1990s. One of the key ingredients of this transformation is the holding of regular elections and electoral systems that undergird the electoral process itself. However still, most African states practice what is referred to as shallow democracy as opposed to deeper democracy that requires full participation of citizens and accountability. Shallow democracy is the democracy that has not made any positive impacts to the ordinary people despite the radical changes to the constitution and expansion of part activity. / Prepared under the supervision of Mr Paulo Comoane at the Faculty of Law, Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2011. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / nf2012 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM