1,721,056 research outputs found
Local coalition strategies in Belgium
No full textRegarding the three domains of research to which this paper aimed at contributing, our preliminary analyses indicate the following:
- Local coalition formation remains quite distinct to what is observed at the Belgian national level, as the number of majority situations (although decreasing) opens the door for the formation of single-party governments. However, interesting patterns were revealed amongst these majority situations in the two main regions: it is especially in Flanders that parties with a majority of seats invite other partners to join and therefore form oversized coalitions. The higher fragmentation of the Flemish party system and the necessity for the -usually dominant on the local scene- Christian-democrats to find relays with regional and national governments in which this party was excluded were pointed at as potential explanations. Notice also that for the first time an analysis of coalition formation at the local level evaluated the strength of the policy proximity factor. This revealed that in Wallonia in general local parties do end up in coalition with partners that are not those they perceive as closest to them in policy terms.
- The study of coalition formation at the local level allowed us to scrutinize factors that are not yet well (or not at all) considered in coalition theories, such as the frequency of pre-electoral talks and the strength of socio-psychological factors such as good personal relationships between leaders of different parties. As argued in this paper, where the process of coalition building is not formalized (like in Belgian local politics where formation is of a free-style type) and where there are no institutional instruments that allows for changes in government (nor anticipated elections) during the six-year mandate, parties have incentives to reduce uncertainty by engaging in pre-electoral bargaining. We have also argued that personal relationships may play a more important role at the local level than at higher levels of government because of the proximity and shared socialization of leaders of competing parties.
- Finally, this paper talks to the comparative study of local politics in general in its intention to gauge the effects of local party autonomy with regard to the formation of coalitions that respect the specificities of each commune’s (local electoral trends, local issues on which competition is based, ideological position of local parties which may be quite different than the national one, etc.) democratic system. We also hypothesized that history (previous experiences in power) may take a greater role in contemporary coalition behavior because local party elites tend to stay at the helm for longer periods than national ones. Empirical analyses over the turnover of local party elites are therefore in order. So is research on local party internal democracy, which may also have a constraining effect in local parties’ coalition strategies. In the present paper we probably did not rely on a valid indicator of intra-party democracy and therefore could not prove that it is indeed the case. Rather, our results may indicate that local parties that are well organized and less dependent on higher levels for the selection of candidates (are therefore more autonomous) tend to do better in coalition bargaining
Actual and Potential Electoral Absenteeism in Belgium
No full textDuring the eighties and nineties of the 20th century, absenteeism increased in Belgium. This
evolution ended for all types of elections at the beginning of the current century. This paper
offered a number of potential explanations for this puzzle, but we acknowledge that further
examination is necessary to provide a clear answer for this change.
We showed that potential absenteeists share specific characteristics. Potential turnout (in case
of abolishment of compulsory voting) is linked with socio-demographic variables, with sociopsychological
dispositions and with political attitudinal variables. Further investigation and
comparisons between results of our contextual (aggregate) and survey (individual-level)
analysis are in order. For instance, we noticed that a higher number of lists in a commune is
linked to more absenteeism, whereas survey data allowed us to show that the higher educated
were less likely to abstain if voting was made non compulsory. It is therefore likely that
through education, interest in politics is raised to such an extent that a longer and therefore
more complex menu of parties to vote for is not an obstacle for some parts of the population
whilst it is very much likely to be one for the less privileged groups.
The evolution of the possible effects of abolishing compulsory voting on the power
distribution of different parties is not stable. By consequence, modulating this electoral rule in
order to reshuffle political cards (such as reducing the electoral results of anti-systems parties)
is a high risk operation.
The politically most relevant conclusion of our research is that the level of education and
socio-economic status are still strong determinants of potential absenteeism in Belgium. This
is a stable finding, as we could show that it did not change since our first research project on
the 1991 elections. Lower educated citizens and lower socio-economic status groups are more
likely to ‘exit’ the electoral system in case of abolishment. Abolishing compulsory voting is,
from the point of view of social (in)equality, not a neutral operation
Local coalition strategies in Belgium
No full textRegarding the three domains of research to which this paper aimed at contributing, our preliminary analyses indicate the following:
- Local coalition formation remains quite distinct to what is observed at the Belgian national level, as the number of majority situations (although decreasing) opens the door for the formation of single-party governments. However, interesting patterns were revealed amongst these majority situations in the two main regions: it is especially in Flanders that parties with a majority of seats invite other partners to join and therefore form oversized coalitions. The higher fragmentation of the Flemish party system and the necessity for the -usually dominant on the local scene- Christian-democrats to find relays with regional and national governments in which this party was excluded were pointed at as potential explanations. Notice also that for the first time an analysis of coalition formation at the local level evaluated the strength of the policy proximity factor. This revealed that in Wallonia in general local parties do end up in coalition with partners that are not those they perceive as closest to them in policy terms.
- The study of coalition formation at the local level allowed us to scrutinize factors that are not yet well (or not at all) considered in coalition theories, such as the frequency of pre-electoral talks and the strength of socio-psychological factors such as good personal relationships between leaders of different parties. As argued in this paper, where the process of coalition building is not formalized (like in Belgian local politics where formation is of a free-style type) and where there are no institutional instruments that allows for changes in government (nor anticipated elections) during the six-year mandate, parties have incentives to reduce uncertainty by engaging in pre-electoral bargaining. We have also argued that personal relationships may play a more important role at the local level than at higher levels of government because of the proximity and shared socialization of leaders of competing parties.
- Finally, this paper talks to the comparative study of local politics in general in its intention to gauge the effects of local party autonomy with regard to the formation of coalitions that respect the specificities of each commune’s (local electoral trends, local issues on which competition is based, ideological position of local parties which may be quite different than the national one, etc.) democratic system. We also hypothesized that history (previous experiences in power) may take a greater role in contemporary coalition behavior because local party elites tend to stay at the helm for longer periods than national ones. Empirical analyses over the turnover of local party elites are therefore in order. So is research on local party internal democracy, which may also have a constraining effect in local parties’ coalition strategies. In the present paper we probably did not rely on a valid indicator of intra-party democracy and therefore could not prove that it is indeed the case. Rather, our results may indicate that local parties that are well organized and less dependent on higher levels for the selection of candidates (are therefore more autonomous) tend to do better in coalition bargaining
Actual and Potential Electoral Absenteeism in Belgium
No full textDuring the eighties and nineties of the 20th century, absenteeism increased in Belgium. This
evolution ended for all types of elections at the beginning of the current century. This paper
offered a number of potential explanations for this puzzle, but we acknowledge that further
examination is necessary to provide a clear answer for this change.
We showed that potential absenteeists share specific characteristics. Potential turnout (in case
of abolishment of compulsory voting) is linked with socio-demographic variables, with sociopsychological
dispositions and with political attitudinal variables. Further investigation and
comparisons between results of our contextual (aggregate) and survey (individual-level)
analysis are in order. For instance, we noticed that a higher number of lists in a commune is
linked to more absenteeism, whereas survey data allowed us to show that the higher educated
were less likely to abstain if voting was made non compulsory. It is therefore likely that
through education, interest in politics is raised to such an extent that a longer and therefore
more complex menu of parties to vote for is not an obstacle for some parts of the population
whilst it is very much likely to be one for the less privileged groups.
The evolution of the possible effects of abolishing compulsory voting on the power
distribution of different parties is not stable. By consequence, modulating this electoral rule in
order to reshuffle political cards (such as reducing the electoral results of anti-systems parties)
is a high risk operation.
The politically most relevant conclusion of our research is that the level of education and
socio-economic status are still strong determinants of potential absenteeism in Belgium. This
is a stable finding, as we could show that it did not change since our first research project on
the 1991 elections. Lower educated citizens and lower socio-economic status groups are more
likely to ‘exit’ the electoral system in case of abolishment. Abolishing compulsory voting is,
from the point of view of social (in)equality, not a neutral operation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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