Search Results

Democratic elections in South Africa have been held using a closed-list PR system since 1994. Despite significant debate on whether the system should be reformed, the 1994 system has been retained. The South African electoral system is the most proportional system used in any democratic state, given that seat allocations are ultimately determined in one national constituency with 400 members. There is widespread agreement that it has performed well on most criteria, the exception being a perceived lack of ‘accountability’ between MPs and voters. Some critics feel that the closed-list system without districts gives too much power to party leaders, and does not give MPs incentives to represent distinct geographical areas.

This chapter examines two dimensions of conversion/affiliation: the cultural and social structural factors affecting NRM growth; and conversion processes and models. The second section explores the research on disengagement or disaffiliation. Finally, the third section outlines ways to teach a college course on NRMs, and suggests research exercises that can be conducted within the framework of the course and help illustrate key concepts, models, and theories.

Political parties are such a fundamental part of democratic political life that they take on an appearance of stability and solidity that is rarely questioned—hence, when a political party collapses, political scientists are usually taken by surprise. In this context, the remarkable collapse in 1982 of Spain's governing party, the Union de Centro Democrático (UCD), long regarded as an exception to the rule of party stability, may provide some clues as to the causes of recent cases of party crisis. The catastrophic defeat of the UCD in the 1982 general election was primarily the result of a reaction by the electorate against the highly visible internal struggles and schisms, which beset the party during the preceding two years, and in many respects, represented a ‘punishment vote’ by an electorate that had become fed up with squabbles that had even reached the point (in an attempted military coup in 1981) of threatening the survival of the new democratic regime itself. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the origins of these destructive intra‐party conflicts, for which several different explanations have been set forth by scholars and journalists, and by UCD leaders themselves, the most important being that the UCD was insufficiently ‘institutionalized’. The first part looks at the concept of institutionalization, and further sections look at: the creation of the UCD—factions, incompatibilities, and the transition to democracy; the cost of constitutional consensus; the model of the party—catch‐all, factional or holding‐company; and internal conflict and external opportunities—a discussion of rational exits (defections) from the UCD.

This chapter examines the propensity to strategically defect from one's preferred party. The study uses CSES module 2 and covers twenty-five democratic lower house elections. This chapter finds that nonpartisans and supporters of weak parties are more prone to cast a strategic vote and that the less informed are as likely to strategically defect as the most informed. The electoral system, the degree of disproportionality and polarization, and the number of parties have no direct effect. The only significant contextual effect is a conditional one. While strategic desertion is almost exclusively at the expense of weak parties in the most disproportional systems, the bias is much more muted in the most proportional systems.

This chapter begins by discussing the breakup of Germany into several parts, the expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe, and the establishment of Communist systems, resulting in a huge mass flight. It explains the importance of Berlin as the escape hatch from Stalin's empire. It narrates the refugees' experiences during their migration, particularly the full interrogation in order to identify a valuable source to provide economic and political intelligence or a security suspect. It discusses that these interrogations served the West's two main policies designed to weaken the East German economy: embargo and induced defection. It defines defection as a product of the Soviet system itself, which is a natural consequence of disaffection with Communist totalitarianism and the wretchedness of life in Stalin's USSR. It also explains the reason behind the adoption of the policy of induced defection by the American and British intelligence services.

This chapter begins by discussing that until the mid-1950s, the principal targets of induced defection were the scientists, engineers, and technicians deported to the Soviet Union in the years 1945-8 who were returned to their homeland between 1949 and 1958 in a series of transports that the SED officials who met them called the Spezialistenaktionen. It explains that in order to avoid defection, the Soviets adopted a policy of bribing the returnees to remain in the DDR and this was a job for the East German government. It adds that the government prized the returnees' skills by giving them lavish provisions. This chapter also discusses that defection was induced as a means of obtaining intelligence and diminishing scientific potential. It reveals the main target of the secret services was to recruit all skilled people working in the science and industry by putting more effort into induced defection.

This chapter focuses on the increased suspicion of British and Americans and the effect on the character of their containment policy by the threat posed by Stalin's arms build-up. It adds that the West's demand for more intelligence on the Soviet build-up and decision to induce the defection of East German scientific workers so as to deny them to their rival resulted in the exploitation of the scientific returnees of the 1950s. It assumes that the defectors reduced the scientific potential available. It explains that a mass of intelligence was acquired from refugees about the activities of factories and research institutes, particularly their production, and that it was used for embargo. It adds that mass flight caused serious damage to East German research and development and supplied the west with sources who reported on its difficulties. It explains that refugee interrogation was a great technique of obtaining information.

Develops the author's argument that the motivation of the priestly editors of the Pentateuch, and in particular of Numbers and Leviticus, was strictly professional and priestly. The author asks why, in the Book of Numbers, does the editor keep listing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob), and puts forward the thesis that they were using the stories of the patriarchs as an allegory of their own concerns about the unity of the cult of the Hebrew God: their choice to write about fraternal rivalry was not arbitrary. The first section of the chapter looks specifically at the strife between the brothers Joseph and Judah, the founding patriarchs of Samaria and Judah, and the precarious relations between those countries. The following sections look at other aspects of the Pentateuch in the same way – as allegory, and as a way of addressing contemporary problems affecting the editors themselves: editors who believed that all the sons of Joseph were co‐heirs of the Covenant, and that authority rested with the Aaronite priesthood. In this context, the discussion covers the different manifestations of God as angry and forgiving in Numbers and Leviticus, the issue of unity and defection between the brother tribes and brother priests of Israel, and the story of Jacob himself, his favourite son Joseph, and Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

This chapter reports analyses drawn from the 2006 American National Election Studies Pilot Study. It focuses on the extent to which defensive confidence influences partisan defection and affects other political behaviors. In addition, also considers several interrelated issues: whether or not the levels of defensive confidence differ across demographic and ethnic groups; what we can learn about citizens' attention to politics and government affairs and to the news and if these forms of attention are related to defensive confidence and partisan defection; and if people with higher levels of defensive confidence are more likely to participate in politics than people with lower levels of defensive confidence. The chapter first provides an overview of defensive confidence and its development in the literature. It then presents an analysis of the influence of defensive confidence on partisan defection, attention to government and politics, attention to the news, and political participation.

This chapter examines serious breaches of discipline in both Nationalist and Republican armies. These threatened their systems of recruitment and their capacity to retain conscripted men within the armed forces. It examines the motivation behind decisions to defect and desert, and also looks at the opportunities outwardly to conform to mobilization, while simultaneously procuring the safest possible posting within both armies. The chapter also focuses on both sides’ attempts to limit the number of men avoiding military service, including via self-mutilation, and examines the measures for ‘recycling’ deserters and prisoners of war. These men were monitored and, if their conduct and background checks allowed it, they were enlisted to fight in their captors’ army. While this was practiced by both sides, it was particularly important for the Nationalists because they captured more enemy soldiers than the Republic.

This chapter criticises Speaker of the Lok Sabha Shivraj Patil's thoughts about the expulsion of Janata Dal's twenty-five members in Lok Sabha from December 1990 to July 1992. Patil argued that the move by the expelled Janada Dal members should be not considered defection but a split since they made up one-third of the membership. The chapter suggests that if Patil is to treat it all as a split, he has to abandon the settled law on expulsions and propound new doctrines. It explains the relevant provisions of the anti-defection and the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution.

Examines the motives for Republikflucht or ‘flight from the Republic’, the GDR's term for defection to the West. After a brief discussion of the merits of political and economic explanations for the exodus, which accounted for one in six East Germans, the chapter charts the flights using the detailed statistics compiled by the GDR's Volkspolizei. The impact is explored of political campaigns, for instance ahead of the insurrection of 1953 or accompanying the 1958 economic campaigns outlined above. Particular weight is given to economic motivations, especially from the mid‐1950s. Finally, the author suggests that ‘situational factors', regarding an individual's fortunes during and after the Second World War, one's subsequent political exposure within the party and state apparatus, and one's personal psychology, were an often ignored trigger for the final decision to leave. The chapter uses a mixture of official GDR police and Stasi reports, as well as letters from leavers and West German interviews. Collectively, East Germans were able to blackmail the system with the threat of flight, even if they did not choose to leave.

Developing tremendous momentum during the winter of 1850–1, the Union party movement challenged Millard Fillmore's hope of saving the Whig party as much as did the defiance he encountered from northern anti-Compromise Whigs. Their defection would abdicate control of northern Whig organizations to anti-Compromise men and possibly drive them into an explicitly anti-southern alliance with Free Soilers that could provoke the disunion he sought to avert. To Fillmore, therefore, the dangers from the South included both the secession movement and the Union party movement formed to prevent it. To demonstrate that neither secession nor a new party was necessary, he set out to prove that the Whig party was reliably pro-Union and could win elections on those grounds. This course enormously enhanced Fillmore's popularity among southern Whigs, who by 1852 clearly wanted him as the party's presidential nominee.

Entangling alliances were crucial to the outbreak of war in 1914 Germany and England had few military rivalries after Britain won the Dreadnought race and should have been able to avoid facing each other. Yet they were drawn in by weaker allies. In future the same could happen to China and the United States.

This chapter lays out the analytic framework for the study by introducing readers to theories of revolutions and strategic nonviolence. It reviews recent research on this topic, focusing on the factors that may shape the emergence and outcomes of armed and unarmed revolutionary movements. This chapter concludes with five questions that the author explores throughout the book: (1) Which forms of civil resistance have the greatest impact on regimes? (2) What strategies do rulers use to preserve their power? (3) What effect do international sanctions have? (4) Why do security force members defect or remain loyal? and (5) What factors can derail a well-planned nonviolent revolt?

Ferdinand Marcos ruled the Philippines for two decades, using his position to amass a personal fortune. When Benigno Aquino—Marcos’s key political rival—was assassinated in 1983, cross-class opposition to the regime erupted. Opposition protests drew international attention, and under mounting pressure, Marcos agreed to hold elections in 1986. Aquino’s widow, Cory, ran against Marcos; no one was surprised when Marcos rigged the election. Just as Cory Aquino announced a plan for nonviolent civil resistance, two military leaders defected. The cardinal of the Filipino Catholic Church asked citizens to protect the two defectors. Millions responded, forming a human barricade between Marcos’s troops and the officers. Civil resisters encouraged the advancing soldiers to defect. After several days, the majority of troops joined the opposition movement. With no sanctioning power left, Marcos fled, and Aquino assumed the presidency.

This chapter provides an overview of the factors that distinguished the successful cases from the failed ones. Comparing the effects of various nonviolent techniques, this chapter emphasizes that one had the greatest impact on regimes: the undermining of regimes’ sanctioning power. In all three of the successful cases (East Germany, Chile, and the Philippines), soldiers defected, leaving the dictators impotent to impose their rule by force; in all of the failed cases (China, Panama, Kenya), troops largely remained loyal. This book suggests that soldiers are most likely to defect when they receive few to no benefits from the regime, when they share an identity with civil resisters, and when activists remain nonviolent, thereby making repression difficult to justify. This chapter also addresses other factors that can undermine nonviolent revolts, including internal movement divisions, the inability to maintain nonviolent discipline, and international sanctions. This chapter discusses the implications of these findings and sets forth policy considerations for civil resisters.

This chapter focuses on criticism on the impartiality of G. M. C. Balayogi, who was elected to as speaker of the Twelfth Lok Sabha in March 1998. It argues that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's doubts on Balayogi have negatively affected the prestige of the government, the speaker's office, and the parliament itself. It recommends that Vajpayee institute two reforms in order to address the issue. One is to vest the jurisdiction to try disputes under the anti-defection law in the election commission and the other is to force an all-party accord on the speaker.