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Exposing corruption acts is one of the most important duties of watchdog journalism. Nonetheless, approaches to their coverage vary depending on the media and political systems. This study aims to put forth the systemic dimensions of these approaches by comparing how Chile and Mexico's most influential newspapers respectively covered corruption-related scandals during the 2017 and 2018 presidential elections. In doing so, this article draws on quantitative and qualitative content analysis of news stories. The results suggest that, despite the similarities between the countries' media systems, there are significant differences in the visibility and depth of corruption coverage, and that media systems matter in this topic. The fact that Chile is ranked as one of the least corrupt nations in Latin America, whereas Mexico is not, and that the Chilean media system is more independent, concentrated and commercialised, means that there is less reporting on this issue, but the stories are more heavily highlighted though somewhat depoliticised. On the other hand, Mexican newspapers continuously publish this type of news, but rather than being the product of journalistic investigations, they reflect the routine political coverage and the instrumentalization of the press by the political elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the legitimacy, legality, legacy and meaning of U.S. democracy in light of the voter fraud claims of former President Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election. Topics discussed include the declaration of Christopher Krebs as head of the Department of Homeland Security Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency that the election was fraud-free, reason why majoritarianism is only a part of democracy, and evidence of the strength of democracy during the election.

The article analyzes from a diachronic point of view the way in which foreign policy issues evolved during the presidential elections in post-communist Romania. In this chronological demarcation, the author opted to start with 1990, when Ion Iliescu,the first president after the revolution, promoted a form of isolation of the country, proposing a local model of democracy building, and to end with 2004, when the NATO and European Union (EU) accession became realities assumed by all political parties. During this 14-year period, the presidential election was the type of vote that caught most people’s attention, and foreign policy gradually found its place among the topics of interest, along with economic reform and the fight against corruption. Romania’s exit from the “grey zone” was slow and involved several stages, such as the abandonment of the conservative discourse of Ion Iliescu and its replacement with a Euro-enthusiast one, the assumption by political parties of the “spirit of Snagov,” and the reconciliation with neighboring states. The main primary sources of the study are electoral programs, debate shows, and especially articles from the press of the time, such as Adevărul, România liberă, Evenimentul zilei, Ziua, România Mare, and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a number of studies reveal that incumbent members of the House of Representatives are adversely affected by scandal, rarely do these studies analyze a scandal's impact both on election outcomes and the decision to run for reelection. Studies of retirements in particular, moreover, rarely analyze separately the effects of private (i.e., sex and other moral scandals) and public (i.e., corruption and procedural) scandals or consider media coverage of the scandal. This research proposes that members of Congress involved in private and public scandals will be more likely to retire and win a smaller percentage of the vote than members not involved in a scandal, that private scandals will be more impactful than public scandals, and that the higher level of media coverage further harms an incumbent's congressional career. Also explored is whether the consequences of sex and other scandals were greater for accused members in the 115th Congress than in past Congresses because of heighted awareness and attention to sexual assault in the workplace since the 2016 presidential election and subsequent #MeToo campaign. From data collected over 10 Congresses (106th–115th Congresses) and elections (2000 through 2018), the results show that incumbents who are involved in a sex scandal or other private scandal are substantially more likely to retire than members not involved in a scandal but that public scandals do not matter. In addition, both sex scandals and corruption scandals reduce the incumbent's vote share in the general election but that sex scandals matter slightly more. Higher media coverage affects both the decision to retire and the share of the vote. There is no evidence of a more pronounced direct effect of sex scandals on retirement decisions in the 115th Congress and scandals more generally on the share of the vote in the 2018 elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Austral Comunicacion is the property of Austral Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This text analyzes how Jair Bolsonaro's TV campaign, in the second round of the 2018 presidential election, mobilized the fight against corruption as a strategy for electoral adhesion. We investigated the hypothesis that the theme is central to the campaign, driven by the impact of the Lava Jato (Carwash operation) on the political system and its strategy of winning over public opinion. To do so, we present, on the one hand, the main lines of the Operation, and on the other, how their narratives were portrayed in the electoral programs broadcast by Bolsonaro's campaign in the second round. In the analysis of Lava Jato operators, we found that the 2018 election is seen as the next step for the realization of its project for renewing and cleaning up the political system. We argue that there was strategic coordination in the fight against corruption, in the search for a convergence between horizontal, societal and vertical accountabilities. In the treatment of HGPE data, we identified four discursive axes and the predominance of the Anticorruption /Anti-system axis, with approximately 57.2% of the mentions. Our analysis shows that Bolsonaro took advantage of the discursive brands that strongly aligned with Lava Jato: antipetism, anti-system and the candidate's association with the fight anti-corruption, presenting himself as his genuine representative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brazilian Journalism Research is the property of Sur le journalisme, About journalism, Sobre jornalismo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of F@ro: Revista Teórica del Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicación y de la Información is the property of Universidad de Playa Ancha de Ciencias de la Educacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines how economic hardship and income inequality affect voter turnout across 41 elections from 22 countries. Research on how these factors affect voter turnout has routinely produced uneven results. Furthermore, recent rises in income inequality have led many to revisit how the distribution of resources in society may affect voting. Using multilevel modeling techniques, I find strong evidence that economic hardship negatively affects participation rates for those mainly from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, while income inequality has only marginal effects on overall voter turnout. Related Articles: Stockemer, Daniel. 2013. "Corruption and Turnout in Presidential Elections: A Macro‐Level Quantitative Analysis." Politics & Policy 41 (2): 189‐212. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12012 Stockemer, Daniel. 2016. "Is the Turnout Function in Democracies and Nondemocracies Alike or Different?" Politics & Policy 44 (5): 889‐915. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12174 Stockemer, Daniel, and Stephanie Parent. 2013. "The Inequality Turnout Nexus: New Evidence from Presidential Elections." Politics & Policy 42 (2): 221‐245. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12067 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive lawlessness has been one of the major sources of the crisis of constitutionalism in Africa. After a 9 year tenure marked by allegations of corruption and complicity in the capture of the state by an Indian business family, the South African president, Jacob Zuma was forced to resign on 14 February 2018. This came hard on the heels of the rare and bold decision by the Kenyan Supreme Court in September 2017, to declare null and void the results of a presidential election that resulted in the incumbent's winning a second term. Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, dozens of people have died in protests as Joseph Kabila refuses to step down or hold elections after the end of his second and final term, claiming that this is due to lack of funds and logistical obstacles such as an incomplete and unreliable electoral roll. These and numerous other recent events have not only called into question the prospects for sustaining the democratic transition from the corrupt, repressive and incompetent authoritarian governance of yesteryear that Africa began to witness in the 1990s. More pertinently, this has raised the question of whether the accountability mechanisms in the constitutions that African states revised or adopted in the 1990s and thereafter, are sufficiently effective for checking the continent's unruly executives? Africa's 'big men' and their cronies are well known for their insatiable capacity to misuse their privileged positions to enrich themselves and their supporters almost with impunity. The Zuma case, however, underscores just how challenging it is to enforce the fundamental principle that all citizens, regardless of their status, are not only equal before, and bound to obey and act in accordance with the law, but that the law also applies to all without fear, favour or prejudice. This paper examines, from a comparative perspective, the manner in which attempts are being made to ensure that the executive branch, especially presidents, are accountable for their actions and inactions. The issue of executive accountability is situated within the broader context of the extensive powers usually conferred on the executive branch. The operation of two main accountability mechanisms and institutions to check against abuses of executive power: horizontal accountability processes and vertical ones, adopted in African jurisdictions, are critically reviewed. The paper shows that, in spite of the numerous innovative measures and institutions introduced to check abuse of powers in Africa, executive accountability is generally in decline. More needs to be done to sustain the transition to transparent and accountable systems of governance on the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, Nigeria held one of the most fiercely contested presidential elections in the nation's recent democratic history. The outcome of the election was expected to exert significant influence on democratic practices on the African continent. The stiffness of the contest also meant that it was difficult to predict the likely winner of the election. This paper summarizes how an empirical approach was used to forecast the outcome of the election by modeling public sentiment data-set using a geodemographic framework. Results indicate that the main electorates that determined the outcome of the election were situated in thirteen battleground states. Additionally, results showed that two years before the presidential election, Goodluck Jonathan's public approval ratings on corruption, insecurity, and the economy (the main drivers of the 2015 election) had nose-dived across many of the battleground states. This eventually contributed toward his loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/context: The objective of this article is to analyze the results of the anti-corruption referendum in Colombia in 2018. Colombia is a country with a significant corruption problem. More than 99% of the voters who came to the polls voted in favor of the proposals. However, the anti-corruption referendum nonetheless failed because not enough citizens were mobilized to participate. The article addresses the reasons why turnout was very low. Methodology: I examine the results at the municipal level. I present an original dataset of 1,101 Colombian municipalities. I use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models to test theories based on the literature on referendums, corruption, and transparency. I also analyze voter turnout in the 2018 presidential election in order to compare it with participation in the referendum. Conclusions: I find that the more transparent a municipality, the higher the percentage of the municipal electorate that voted for proposals in the anti-corruption referendum. Moreover, I find that in municipalities where support for Sergio Fajardo in the presidential election was higher and support for Iván Duque was lower, support for the referendum proposals was higher. Also, turnout was lower in municipalities with higher poverty rates and higher homicide rates. Originality: This article contributes to the current global debate on direct democracy. As the anti-corruption referendum was held only recently, a proper analysis has not yet been carried out. Moreover, because of the nature of the referendum questions, the topic is closely connected with research on corruption. Therefore, this research represents a unique opportunity to examine corruption and direct democracy at one and the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Co-operative Republic of Guyana has become one of the most interesting and dynamic oil producing countries in the world at the start of the 21st century. The country already holds 5 billion barrels of proved reserves, which will certainly grow with new discoveries. Exxon leads a consortium of four companies that have the concession of the Stabroek Block (Liza Field), where nine discoveries have been made so far. Five FPSOs will be operating in the future, one of which is due to arrive in Guyana before the end of 2019 and another is due for 2020. By then, the country will be producing 340,000 barrels a day. This production will double and then reach 1 million barrels a day before the end of the next decade. The challenges and opportunities regarding the Guyanese people are dire. The lack of proper infrastructure is certainly one of the biggest challenges. But it is important to stress that the oil proceeds will transform Guyana into the highest GDP per capita of South America. The political stage is also analysed, since political instability might raise concerns for long-term investors. The Venezuela–Guyana differences regarding the sovereignty of the Essequibo Region are again a cause for concern. Brazil is a key player in supporting the geopolitical stability of South America. Presidential elections will be held in 2019/2020: the dispute will probably be between the current President Granger and the Opposition candidate Irfaan Ali. Guyana has a lot to profit from the wealth brought by oil exploitation, but its people fear the risk of growing corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comunicação, Mídia e Consumo is the property of Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the public messages of the leaders of six Pentecostal Charismatic Evangelical Churches (PCE) in South Africa during the six months leading up to the 2019 presidential elections in that country. All six leaders presented themselves as knowledgeable about politics and as having solutions to 'fix' the political corruption and the failing economy that plagued South Africa in 2019. In this analysis it becomes apparent that the leaders had different attitudes to and understanding of politics and political activism. Some strongly advocated political activism among their members, others merely encouraged their members to vote on election day, while a third group did not directly mention politics or voting and did not endorse any form of political activism among the members of their churches. Four reasons explain these differences: (a) the theology of the different churches and their respective understandings of the relationship between faith/spirituality and politics, (b) the PCE leader's personal perceptions of politics in South Africa, (c) the leaders' own status as a South African citizen or foreign national, and (d) the socioeconomic situation of the different churches and their members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost half of African conflicts are "post-electoral", aroused by disputed claims over legitimacy of the elections, including leaders staying in power past a designated two-term limit. Substantial proportions of the population in Africa are skeptical about the quality of their elections. They talk about vote manipulation, lack of transparency of election monitoring bodies and corruption. Poor electoral process produces public mistrust, protest, and violence. The most serious problem is interference of external forces into election process. The US brings "democracy" to Africa through a network of non-profit organizations and the experts in political quarters. The Beijing Model is known for its non-interference in policy of other countries. China advocates strong economic and political leadership, which is essential to growth and stability, while the West model places a premium on human rights and democracy. Most Africans believe that food, shelter and health are more important than the right to vote. So they make a choice for the Beijing Model instead of the Washington Consensus. But Zambia has become one of the first African countries where China's role turned into potent political issue. Michael Sata anti-Chinese sentiment helped him to defeat President Rupiah Banda on the elections of 2011. On the eve of Zambia's presidential elections one of the most common tropes about the vote was to describe it as a referendum on China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates the 2018 Brazilian presidential election of Jair Bolsonaro within the rise of fascist politics globally and historically and within the specific historico-cultural context in Brazil. It is widely believed that Bolsonaro is a "reactionary political figure" to the large corruption scandal that ravaged the Partidos Dos Trabalhadores (Worker's Party, PT) alongside the economic recession of 2014-2016. While this is true, I situate Bolsonaro within a longue durée of the Brazilian state's configuration along racialized, patriarchal, heteronormative violence. The contradictions of Brazil's "racial democracy," its positivist and liberal politics, coincided with the double haunting in the country's history: first, from its silenced racist past, and second, from the unreconciled trauma of its military past. I draw on both the anthropology of fascism in Europe, as well as the anthropology of Brazil, to argue that Bolsonaro represents an uncertain, yet plausible alternative to class identification for many Brazilians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article systematically assesses the 2014 Afghanistan Presidential Election, the first transfer of power from President Hamid Karzai to an elected successor, using provincial voting data as well as explicit data from polling centers. The analysis finds unusual voting results in the April election, where no candidate received 50%+1 votes required by the Afghan constitution, versus the voting results realized for the June 'runoff election.' As in other Afghan voting analyses, this article finds voting based on ethno-linguistic preferences, and interestingly found Dr. Ashraf Ghani receiving almost all the swing votes in the runoff election even though the other leading candidate from the April election all endorsed Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. More importantly, however, the research presented here clearly finds extremely strange voting patterns. For example, the polling data center analysis finds 606 polling places where Ghani received all 600 votes and Abdullah received none and another 900 polling centers that gave virtually all its votes to Ghani. These results in combination with other analyses raise the very real possibility that the election results were illegitimate. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research to future Afghan elections and their processes as well as to the longstanding conflict in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sheds new light on whether responses to public opinion polls, namely, preference falsification, can affect the level of election fraud by employing Kuran's model of preference falsification, which is empirically tested on the data collected from the most recent presidential campaign in Russia (2012). My research findings reveal the presence of a statistically significant effect of preference falsification on election fraud, thus enabling me to conclude that preference falsification is, indeed, conducive to election fraud. My findings can be generalised to a broad set of electoral autocracies, enabling scholars to get a better understanding of the mechanism by which survey polls can incentivise officials to commit election fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most electoral fraud is not conducted centrally by incumbents but rather locally by a multitude of political operatives. How does an incumbent ensure that his agents deliver fraud when needed and as much as is needed? We address this and related puzzles in the political organization of electoral fraud by studying the perverse consequences of incentive conflicts between incumbents and their local agents. These incentive conflicts result in a herd dynamic among the agents that tends to either oversupply or undersupply fraud, rarely delivering the amount of fraud that would be optimal from the incumbent’s point of view. Our analysis of the political organization of electoral fraud explains why even popular incumbents often preside over seemingly unnecessary fraud, why fraud sometimes fails to deliver victories, and it predicts that the extent of fraud should be increasing in both the incumbent’s genuine support and reported results across precincts. A statistical analysis of anomalies in precinct-level results from the 2011–2012 Russian legislative and presidential elections provides preliminary support for our key claims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Romanian presidential elections which were held on 2014 were characterized by political turmoil and criticism pertaining to the organization of voting, both in the country and abroad. This emphasized the necessity of revising electoral legislation in order to meet requirements of the legal certainty principle and to respond to the need for integrity and accessibility in the electoral process. This paper's objective is to evaluate Law no 370/2004 on the election of the President of Romania against international standards and to formulate proposals for the reform of the legal framework, starting from the imperfections and irregularities found during the 2014 presidential elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Special Counsel Robert Mueller heads the most aggressive of five investigations of possible collusion between US President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 US presidential election. Trump has continued to pursue a conspicuously friendly relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump will probably continue to attack the special counsel’s legitimacy and avoid unequivocally acknowledging Russian interference for as long as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Incumbency advantage and corruption are persistent features of Malawi politics, yet the incumbent Joyce Banda lost the 2014 elections. Drawing on national public opinion surveys and focus groups, we explore why incumbency advantage did not accrue to Banda. We argue that faced with a major corruption scandal, "Cashgate," Banda paid a heavier price than male incumbents facing corruption scandals before and after her. Her electoral fate is consistent with studies demonstrating that women holding political offices are scrutinized more heavily than men, and when they transgress female gender stereotypes of incorruptibility, they are judged using a higher standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between the Christian church and the politics in Uganda. It mentions the plans of President Yoweri Museveni to increase the presidential age through alleged unconstitutional means. It also mentions the statement by the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, a nonprofit organization, condemning the scrapping of presidential age limits. According to the author the Christian leadership have failed to provide guidance for peaceful political transition.

The rapid growth of user interactions in social media sites gives useful insights in many areas. Facebook is the most popular social media site lately, with the highest number of active users, which is a valuable and hassle-free source in obtaining data. Despite its enthusiastic nature, it is a mere fact that people use Facebook to gain instant updates on the current state of affairs. The ability of getting updates from several sources of news channels in a single user news feed, the extreme ease of providing feedbacks on those news posts using gesture-based reactions, send and share messages among people are some of the main reasons for its increasing popularity in the perspective of attaining news. Politics has always been a ubiquitous topic in the world. Sri Lanka was in a war on terrorism for nearly three decades, followed by a governance (2005–2015) led by the same political party which was alleged for autocracy and lasted for nearly a decade has influenced the citizens' political conviction heavily. On such a background, the "Good-Governance" (2015–2019) which is a coalition government, trounced the ruling government at the presidential election held by then, which they claimed to direct Sri Lanka towards a sustainable, stable, responsible and moral society with necessary constitutional amendments guaranteeing democracy to all ethnic groups eradicating corruption, wastage and fraud. The interest and motivation of this study builds up to discover whether there are any significant trends in the Sri Lankan political context following this transformation, in the perspective of the general public. Facebook user reactions on news posts have been used for this study as the data source. The analysis of this study reveals an increasing trend of user reactions in politics from 2011 to 2018. Further, it is identified that the present government (2015–2019) has a decreasing trend of user reactions over the past years (2011–2015) in the sight of its citizens, although they pledged for a better governance. On the contrary, the previous government has an increasing trend even though they were overpowered by the "Good-Governance" for its alleged unscrupulous ruling. • The trend of Politics of a country can be identified by Online Social Media such as Facebook. • Data analysis can be done to compare governing bodies using social media reactions. • Conclusions obtained from social media analysis is almost aligning with the actual situation of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that Comoros held its partial re-run of the presidential election on May 11, 2016 after receiving a constitutional court order because of the irregularities in the second round of the vote in April.