Archive 2/2013

Lukáš Linek
Instutute of Sociology, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic
email: lukas.linek@soc.cas.cz

Abstract

In the last two decades, turnout research has disintegrated into a plethora of studies which focus on partial aspects of turnout. The overall idea of why people vote has been lost. Despite extensive research on turnout, we know relatively little about why people vote. The aim of this text is to present and critically discuss basic theories that explain voter turnout at the individual level. Overall, six theories are presented: the theory of socio-economic status and resources, the theory of civic orientations, the theory of mobilization and involvement in society, the theory of rational choice, the theory of valence politics, and the theory of habitual voting. These theories are discussed mainly from three aspects: (1) the causal mechanisms explaining why people vote; (2) the extent to which each theory links the decision to participate in an election with the decision about which party or candidate to vote for, as well as the sequence of these decisions; and (3) the timing of voters’ decisions to participate in an election. The author argues that because of the heterogeneity of voters and the nature of the decision whether or not to vote, it is necessary to understand individual theories not as competitive, but rather as complementary.

Key words

turnout, theories of turnout, political participation

Mária Kučerová
Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Slovakia
email: maria.kucerova283@gmail.com

Abstract

This article deals with the issue of the peace-building process in countries with long-standing civil wars and the factors that might influence such processes. Based on my analysis, I identify two types of factors that might influence the peace process: power-sharing arrangements as an institutional factor, and attitudes of internal actors of the peace process as an agency factor. In this article I analyze the peace-building process in the West African country of Liberia. The peace-building process is analyzed through the study of the two main peace treaties signed to end the Liberian civil war in the 1990s: the Treaties of Abuja and Accra. In the analysis, I focus mainly on the extent to which the peace treaties incorporate the elements of power-sharing as well as the motivations, decision-making, and behavior of internal actors involved in the peace building process during the implementation of the peace treaties. The goal of this analysis is to reveal which dominant factor influenced the stability of the peace-building process in Liberia.

Key words

power-sharing, internal actors, peace treaties, peace process, Liberia, peace treaty of Abuja, peace treaty of Accra

Martin Plešivčák
Department of Human GEography and Demography, Faculty of Science, Comenius University, Slovakia
email: plesivcak@fns.uniba.sk

Abstract

Voting preferences of electorates traditionally split along various structural cleavages in of society, including the urban-rural dimension. The intensity of both the similarity and divergence in voting decisions of inhabitants living in towns and cities on one hand, and in the countryside on the other, show varying rates of (in)stability, not only over time, but also in the spatial context, depending on the socio-economic, political, and historical predispositions of the country and its territorial units. The cardinal ambitions of this paper is both to evaluate the profile of urban-rural voter preferences of the main political parties on the Slovak political scene during the period of 1998-2010 at the national as well as at the regional level, and to reveal the socio-spatial mosaic in the electoral choices of people living in urban and rural environments in different parts of Slovakia using tools of cartographic interpretation.

Key words

political party, rurality in electoral support, urban, rural, region

Marek Antoš
Department of Constitutional Law, Faculty of Law, Charles Unviersity, Czech Republic
email: antos@prf.cuni.cz

Abstract

The members of the Czech Senate, the upper chamber of the Czech Parliament, are elected every six years through a two-round majority system in 81 single-seat electoral districts, with one-third of the chamber up for election every two years. District boundaries are set by a law which stipulates they must be modified by amendment if the number of inhabitants in any district diverges more than 15 % from the average. Recently, these changes have been carried out every two years shortly before the regular election is announced, and the number of districts affected by changes is gradually increasing. The extent of these changes, however, is usually very small, which makes later changes necessary. During last ten years, many districts have been changed more multiple times. It follows that the Samuels-Snyder index of malapportionment has increased from 0.0289 in 1996 to 0.0346 in 2010. Moreover, during the last electoral cycle, the 15% limit was not in fact observed in four of the 81 districts. Moreover, the criterion chosen for district size is not an optimal one, as it fails to take into account the uneven distribution of minors and foreigners, who do not have voting rights. In fact, the percentage of minors and foreigners in various districts varies in the interval <-2.3%; 2.8%> and <-2.8%; 6.8%>, respectively. This affects the weight of votes in various districts accordingly. Besides the problems with malapportionment, the law does not provide for any prevention of gerrymandering. Although there is no strong evidence of gerrymandering being used so far, at least one attempt in this respect was made in 2008. The article analyzes the law and its outcome and suggests some modifications to the law.

Key words

Senate elections, electoral districts, equal suffrage, malapportionment, gerrymandering

Abstract

Demmers, J. (2012). Theories of Violent Conflict: An Introduction, London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 158 pages.

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Fossum, J. E.; Menéndez, A. J. (2011). The Constitution's Gift: A Constitutional Theory for a Democratic European Union (Governance in Europe Series), Lanham: Roman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 314 pages.

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Pinto, A.C.; Morlino, L. (eds.) (2011). Dealing with the Legacy of Authoritarianism, London and New York: Routledge, 195 pages.

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