Government-Electoral Systems Other

Proportionality, disproportionality and electoral systems

by Michael Gallagher 3/91 ScienceDirect

Different PR methods should be seen not as being more proportional or less proportional than each other but as embodying different ideas as to what maximizing proportionality means and, by extension, what minimizing disproportionality means. Each of the main methods of PR (d'Hondt, Sainte-Laguë, largest remainders) generates its own index of proportionality and, thus, its own way of measuring disproportionality. Applying these indices to competitive elections of the period 1979–1989 shows a high correlation between the rankings produced by the various methods, but the ordering of countries is sufficiently different to require a choice to be made between the indices.

Models of electoral system change

by Kenneth Benoit 9/04 ScienceDirect

Electoral systems are commonly treated as exogenous determinants of political party systems, yet our theoretical understanding remains limited as to how these institutions themselves are determined. Part of the problem lies with the subject matter itself: electoral system change is frequently idiosyncratic, often occurring during episodes of exceptional political change. Yet another aspect of the problem is that explanations of electoral system change frequently occur piecemeal in application to specific cases, without systematic or comparative development.

‘People were repressed into silence’: the Spanish artist creating a visual memory of fascism’s horrors

by Sam Jones 5/6/25 The Guardian

Roca, whose comics have explored such varied themes as Francoist reprisals, the exiled Spanish republicans who helped liberate Paris from the Nazis, family histories and the depredations of Alzheimer’s, is the subject of a new show at the Instituto Cervantes called Memory: An Emotional Journey Through the Comics of Paco Roca.

Mass Protests Force South Korean President to Revoke Shocking Martial Law Declaration After 6 Hours

by Amy Goodman 12/04/2024 Democracy Now

And I think what’s extraordinary is that a lot of ordinary people came out. I think I’ve heard that people were saying that there were delivery people that just stopped working. And when they heard the news, they just like rushed to the National Assembly. There were people that were at home just relaxing, and then they rushed.
And a lot of the people, when they gathered, they were able to block and prevent the armored trucks from entering the grounds of the National Assembly. They were able — a lot of them were chanting to abolish the martial law and to — and, yeah, basically, abolish martial law and to — down with the dictatorship.

Ivan Ilyin The obscure 'Russian Christian Fascist' philosopher motivating Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine

Dartagnan March 09, 2022 The DailyKos

Little known in the West and largely forgotten in Russia until the early 2000s, Ilyin (1883-1954) had actually been expelled by the Bolshevik state shortly after the Revolution. His early writings, relying on a novel interpretation of the Biblical creation myth, demonstrated antipathy to secular human society and held that all efforts by mankind to impose a pluralistic political order were simply deepening man’s estrangement from God, and that this estrangement could only be corrected by the intervention of a unifying political leader. The means such a leader employed to “unify” the sinful, impure secular world were beside the point, as the end goal (generally speaking) was reunification with the original Divine plan. Since nothing could possibly be more important than that, any means to achieve it were permissible (including, presumably, violence, murder, and genocide).

Global democracy has a very bad year

The Economist Feb 2 2021

Interactive map rating all the world's political systems.

Can The Forces Unleashed By Trump's Big Election Lie Be Undone?

NPR 1/18/21 MELISSA BLOCK

As for where big lies lead, Snyder writes: "Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president."
"When I say pre-fascism, I mean when you take away facts, you're opening the way for something else," Snyder tells NPR. "You're opening the way for someone who says 'I am the truth. I am your voice,' to quote Mr. Trump — which is something that fascists said, as a matter of fact. The three-word chants, the idea that the press are the enemy of the people: These are all fascist concepts."
"It doesn't mean that Trump is quite a fascist himself," Snyder adds. "Imagine what comes after that, right? Imagine if the big lie continues. Imagine if there's someone who's more skillful in using it than he is. Then we're starting to move into clearly fascist territory."

It may seem Putin controls the Russian state personally. The reality is more dangerous

Yana Gorokhovskaia Tue 25 Aug 2020 09.41 EDT [1]

Popular narratives about Russia are infused with the idea that Putin sits atop a highly centralised system that he controls manually. While Putin is certainly Russia’s most important decision-maker, the political system is not his personal well-oiled machine. Instead, the system has a set of operating principles – chief among them a lack of the rule of law – and perverse accountability, which sometimes produce outcomes that are less than optimal for the Kremlin.

We often see evidence of this during elections when some regions in Russia report official results that strain credulity as local poll workers strive to please superiors with a good showing for pro-regime candidates. The problem, of course, is that while these results get the job done, they cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election and provide ammunition for critics.

Russian democracy is a farce. Putin wants the same fate for America

[2] Opinion by Garry Kasparov

Along with the fear-mongering and violence, Putin exploited the legitimate grievances of the Russian people for his own gain. His themes were familiar ones: security, cultural preservation, ethnic tension. Twitter didn't exist then, but if it had, Putin would have been tweeting "Law & order!" in Russian. Those of us in the Russian pro-democracy movement had the dual challenge of protesting Putin's crackdowns while acknowledging the other problems the country faced.
I watched as Putin destroyed our fragile democracy by focusing only on his own power and wealth while mouthing nationalist rhetoric and attacking the free press. Now I'm watching Trump use many of the same techniques to chip away at democracy in my new home, although I cannot complain of exile when some of my Russian colleagues have been jailed or killed.

Ballot Fraud Gave Russia's Putin 22 Million Extra Votes, Says Expert

[3]

Examining 88 million votes, he shared graphs of his findings on Facebook, telling Forbes Russia he believed abnormalities suggested that up to 22 million votes may have been fraudulently cast in favor of the changes Putin had backed.
"There has been no manipulation of votes in Russian elections on this scale in the recent past. In absolute terms, this is unprecedented," he told the publication.
"In relative terms, a similar situation was seen at the 2016 State Duma elections," Shpilkin said, referring to elections for Russia's lower house of parliament.