Search Results (12)

This study evaluates the effectiveness of Jordan’s judiciary in overseeing electoral appeals within the framework of a constitutional monarchy. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, it combines doctrinal legal analysis of key constitutional provisions and Election Law No. 4 of 2022 with a comparative examination of electoral adjudication in Tunisia, Egypt, and Lebanon. The study is further strengthened by a structured content analysis of 120 appellate rulings issued between 2015 and 2023 and by qualitative insights drawn from anonymized interviews with judicial personnel engaged in electoral dispute resolution. Although Jordan’s legal framework formally empowers the judiciary to adjudicate electoral disputes, five structural limitations persist: narrow standing rules, rigid evidentiary thresholds, judicial reluctance to exercise investigatory powers, opaque reasoning in judgments, and the absence of specialized electoral courts. These constraints reflect systemic tensions between formal judicial independence and the realities of constrained discretion in hybrid regimes. An empirical analysis of 127 Jordanian electoral appeal cases from 2013 to 2020 reveals that a mere 7% of disputed electoral outcomes were overturned, whereas 73% of allegations were disregarded due to insufficient evidence. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that only 31% of rulings were publicly accessible, in stark contrast to the 89% accessibility rate observed in Tunisia. By identifying and addressing these systemic limitations, the study contributes to ongoing discourse on institutional reform and democratic resilience. In doing so, it underscores the importance of robust electoral justice mechanisms for sustaining public trust, rule of law, and inclusive governance—principles central to political and institutional sustainability as reflected in Sustainable Development Goal 16. Full article

Electoral abstention has emerged as a critical challenge to democratic legitimacy, with rising rates observed globally. For example, in Portugal, the turnout declined from 91.5% in 1975 to 51.4% in 2022. This systematic review synthesizes multidisciplinary literature to identify key determinants of voter nonparticipation and their interactions, aiming to inform adaptive strategies to enhance civic engagement amid social, organizational, and technological changes. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched five databases (Academic Search Complete, MEDLINE, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, and Web of Science) from 2000 to August 2025 using terms such as “electoral abstention” and “non-voting.” Inclusion criteria prioritized quantitative empirical studies in peer-reviewed journals in English, Portuguese, Spanish, or French, yielding 23 high-quality studies (assessed via MMAT, with scores ≥ 60%) from 13 countries, predominantly the USA and France. Results reveal abstention as a multidimensional phenomenon driven by three interconnected categories: individual factors (e.g., health issues like smoking and mental health trajectories, institutional distrust); institutional factors (e.g., electoral reforms such as biometric registration reducing abstention by up to 50% in local contexts, but with mixed outcomes in voluntary voting systems); and contextual factors (e.g., economic inequalities and urbanization correlating with lower turnout, exacerbated by events like COVID-19). This review underscores the need for integrated public policies addressing these factors to boost participation, particularly among youth and marginalized groups. By framing abstention as an adaptive response to contemporary challenges, this work contributes to the political psychology and democratic reform literature, advocating interdisciplinary approaches to resilient electoral systems. Full article

Electoral abstention is a growing phenomenon in contemporary democracies, raising concerns about the representativeness and legitimacy of elected governments, particularly in Portugal where youth participation remains low. This study explores the heterogeneity of non-voting behavior by comparing insights from voters and non-voters through online focus groups. Employing content analysis on qualitative data from 42 participants, the research identifies distinct non-voter profiles, systemic barriers, and potential pathways to increased participation. Key findings reveal heterogeneous abstainer types—including disbelieving citizens, disinterested youth, pragmatic non-voters, and protest non-voters—driven by distrust, practical obstacles, and insufficient political literacy. Despite non-voting, many express conditional willingness to participate in high-stakes scenarios or following reforms. The study concludes that addressing these barriers requires holistic measures, such as enhanced civic education, technological voting modernization, and improved political representation, to foster trust and democratic engagement. These insights offer actionable recommendations for policymakers to enhance voter turnout and strengthen democratic legitimacy. Full article

Selective voter mobilization dominates U.S. elections, with campaigns prioritizing swing voters to win critical states. While effective for a short-term period, this strategy deepens policy polarization, marginalizes minorities, and undermines representative democracy. This paper investigates voter turnout disparities and policy manipulation using advanced time series forecasting models (ARIMA, LSTM, and seasonal decomposition). Analyzing demographic and geographic data, we uncover significant turnout inequities, particularly for marginalized groups, and propose actionable reforms to enhance equitable voter participation. By integrating data-driven insights with theoretical perspectives, this study offers practical recommendations for campaigns and policymakers to counter polarization and foster inclusive democratic representation. Full article

Zimbabwe’s 2008 electoral violence created lasting societal impacts, yet the psychological consequences for youth, particularly through intergenerational effects, remain under-explored. This study examines how memories of this violence are transmitted to contemporary youth, including those born after 2008, and influence their political attitudes and participation. The study employed a qualitative approach in Harare’s Mbare suburb, utilising 20 in-depth interviews and four (4) focus groups, which were analysed through a trauma-informed lens. Findings indicate that youth inherit ‘traumascapes’ from elders, which cultivate fear, silence, and political apathy. Parental warnings and experiences link activism directly to vulnerability, prompting youth to adopt disengagement or performative allegiance as survival strategies amidst structural impunity and socio-economic precarity. Unresolved, intergenerationally transmitted trauma perpetuates cycles of civic disempowerment. The study concludes that post-conflict recovery in Zimbabwe requires moving beyond institutional reforms to prioritise psychosocial healing and demands that transitional justice frameworks explicitly address these inherited psychological wounds. Full article

In terms of their political and ideological success, Pakistani Islamists have had several ups and downs since Pakistan became the Islamic Republic in 1956. Islamists strive to safeguard the Islamic state’s status quo while simultaneously expanding the reach of Sharia. Despite insignificant electoral victories, Islamists have largely been able to dictate national identity policies to civilian and military governments. A major hurdle to the promotion of pluralism in Pakistan is noticeable through persistent opposition to secularism by major political actors. Despite different political ideologies, major political parties refrain from promoting secularism in Pakistan; however, such views are more rigid in the case of Islamists. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to examine and compare the discourses of Islamists and other political parties in relation to Pakistan’s identity, reforms and anti-Westernism, religious minorities, and secularism. Based on the analysis, this paper argues that the views of Islamists and non-religious political parties are very similar regarding Islam and Pakistan’s identity, secularism, and minority rights in Pakistan. Full article

In this article, a case study is utilized to determine how personal relations and individual life events were used as tools in religious politics in the sixteenth century. The correspondence of sixteenth-century reformer Martin Luther is examined between 1528–1530 regarding Wolf and Katharina Hornung’s marriage and the role of Luther’s opponent, Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg (1484–1535), in their case. By investigating Luther’s representation of this marital strife, the relationship between personal and political is examined to determine if and how he used the case as means of religious–political influencing. The main method used is careful close reading. At the explicit level, Luther’s aim in the case was to restore the Hornung marriage by bringing Wolf and Katharina back together. His letters suggest there was competition for Katharina between Wolf and Joachim, which actually, in his rhetoric, turned out to be a competition of two men representing different religious views: an evangelical one and a Catholic one. I will argue that in Luther’s efforts to maintain the marriage and the prevailing gender system, the underlying goal was to gain power over an opposing religious–political figure and to prove one’s own supremacy. Full article

This study explores how natural language processing (NLP) can supplement content analyses of political documents, particularly the manifestos of political parties. NLP is particularly useful for tasks such as: estimating the similarity between documents, identifying the topics discussed in documents (topic modeling), and sentiment analysis. This study applies each of these techniques to the study of political party manifestos. Document similarity may be used to gain some insight into the way parties change over time and which political parties are successful at bringing attention to their policy agenda. Categorizing text into topics may help objectively categorize and visualize the ideas political parties are discussing. Finally, sentiment analysis has the potential to show each political party’s attitude towards a policy area/topic. This study specifically applies these techniques to the manifestos produced by the political parties of New Zealand, from 1987 to 2017 (a period of significant party system change in New Zealand). It finds that NLP techniques provide valuable insights, although there is a need for significant fine-tuning. Full article

Evidence suggests that, on average, younger citizens in advanced industrial democracies tend to have different policy preferences to those aged 65 and over. Population ageing and relatively lower levels of electoral participation among young people amplify the political voice of older citizens and contribute to policymakers being more responsive to their preferences. This paper presents qualitative evidence on whether young adults and older Australians recognise a need to increase young people’s influence on policymaking in the context of intergenerational inequality. The paper considers possible responses to this need, such as voting age reform. Results indicate that there is reasonable support, including from the older participants, to enhance young people’s political voice and influence over policymaking. Growing awareness of intergenerational inequality in ageing democracies may make public opinion more favourable towards voting age reform and other measures to increase the political voice of young people. Full article

In recent years, a wide range of techniques has been developed to predict electoral results and to measure the influence of different factors in these results. In this paper, we analyze the influence of the political profile of candidates (characterized by personal and political features) and their campaign effort (characterized by electoral expenditure and by territorial deployment strategies retrieved from social networks activity) on the electoral results. This analysis is carried out by using three of the most frequent data analyitcs algorithms in the literature. For our analysis, we consider the 2017 Parliamentary elections in Chile, which are the first elections after a major reform of the electoral system, that encompassed a transition from a binomial to a proportional system, a modification of the districts’ structure, an increase in the number of seats, and the requirement of gender parity in the lists of the different coalitions. The obtained results reveal that, regardless of the political coalition, the electoral experience of candidates, in particular in the same seat they are running for (even when the corresponding district is modified), is by large the most influential factor to explain the electoral results. However, the attained results show that the influence of other features, such as campaign expenditures, depends on the political coalition. Additionally, by means of a simulation procedure, we show how different levels of territorial deployment efforts might impact on the results of candidates. This procedure could be used by parties and coalitions when planning their campaign strategies. Full article

Electoral systems are modified by individuals who have incentives to bias the rules for their political advantage (i.e., gerrymandering). To prevent gerrymandering, legislative institutions can rely on mathematical tools to guarantee democratic fairness and territorial contiguity. These tools have been successfully used in the past; however, there is a need to accommodate additional meanings of the term fairness within the electoral systems of modern democracies. In this paper, we present an optimization framework that considers multiple criteria for drawing districts and assigning the number of representatives. Besides some typical districting criteria (malapportionment and contiguity), we introduce novel criteria for ensuring territorial equilibrium and incentives for candidates to deploy their representation efforts fairly during their campaign and period in office. We test the method, which we denote as Multi-criteria Pen, in a recent and a forthcoming reform of the Chilean electoral system. The results show the potential of our tool to improve the current territorial design and offers insights on the motivations, objectives, and deficiencies of both reform plans. Full article

Taxation has been suggested as a possible preventive strategy to address the serious public health concern of childhood obesity. Understanding the public’s viewpoint on the potential role of taxation is vital to inform policy decisions if they are to be acceptable to the wider community. A Citizens’ Jury is a deliberative method for engaging the public in decision making and can assist in setting policy agendas. A Citizens’ Jury was conducted in Brisbane, Australia in May 2013 to answer the question: Is taxation on food and drinks an acceptable strategy to the public in order to reduce rates of childhood obesity? Citizens were randomly selected from the electoral roll and invited to participate. Thirteen members were purposively sampled from those expressing interest to broadly reflect the diversity of the Australian public. Over two days, participants were presented with evidence on the topic by experts, were able to question witnesses and deliberate on the evidence. The jurors unanimously supported taxation on sugar-sweetened drinks but generally did not support taxation on processed meats, snack foods and foods eaten/ purchased outside the home. They also supported taxation on snack foods on the condition that traffic light labelling was also introduced. Though they were not specifically asked to deliberate strategies outside of taxation, the jurors strongly recommended more nutritional information on all food packaging using the traffic light and teaspoon labelling systems for sugar, salt and fat content. The Citizens’ Jury suggests that the general public may support taxation on sugar-sweetened drinks to reduce rates of obesity in children. Regulatory reforms of taxation on sugar-sweetened drinks and improved labelling of nutritional information on product packaging were strongly supported by all members of the jury. These reforms should be considered by governments to prevent childhood obesity and the future burden on society from the consequences of obesity. Full article