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In the midst of the extraordinary challenges and uncertainty stemming from COVID-19, decision-makers are under increasing pressure to determine how to manage the pandemic’s immediate impact on, and consequences for, the timing and sequencing of elections. These decisions cannot be taken lightly, as they could jeopardize public health and shape the state of democracy in their countries, states or territories for years to come. The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly challenged elections, making new and pressing demands on how they are managed. The main public health threat associated with elections arises from the requirement for voters to cast their ballots in person at a polling station, most often on a single day. Having to converge to polling stations and handle voting materials that have been touched by many others, while being confined in crowded spaces where maintaining a safe distance from others may be difficult has suddenly become a new challenge. By devising timely, appropriate and sustainable solutions, drawn from own or others’ experience, electoral democracy frameworks can be gradually strengthened to withstand undue pressure.
Elections often have to be held in emergency situations. The Covid-19 pandemic was one of the most serious emergency situations that the world has seen. The rapid spread of the virus presented a huge humanitarian threat—but also an unparalleled challenge to electoral stakeholders globally seeking to protect electoral integrity during times of uncertainty. This volume identifies how the pandemic affected electoral integrity, what measures were put in place to protect elections and what worked in defending them. It brings together a comprehensive set of 26 country case studies to explore how elections were affected on the ground, what measures were put in place and what worked. These case studies are of elections which took place in the eye of the storm when practitioners and policymakers were operating under uncertainty and without the benefit of hindsight. To learn lessons in a more systematic way, this volume also provides a thematic analysis of electoral integrity during the pandemic using crossnational studies. This provides the big picture for policymakers, practitioners and academics looking back at the crisis. The volume therefore seeks to contribute towards the future development of policy and practice. However, it does so by using academic research methods and concepts which enable greater confidence in the policy lessons, as well as contributing directly to the scholarship on democracy, democratization and elections. The volume includes 11 areas of recommendation based on the evidence collected in this volume to protect electoral integrity in any future emergency situation.
In the autumn of 2014, thousands of people, young and educated in their majority, occupied the chief business district and seat of the government in Hong Kong. The protest, known as the Umbrella Movement, called for ‘genuine democracy’, as well as a fairer social and economic system. The book aims to provide a dynamic framework to explain why socioeconomic forces converged to produce such a situation. Examining increasing inequality, rising prices and stagnating incomes, it stresses the role of economic and social factors, as opposed to the domestic political and constitutional issues often assumed to be the root cause behind the protests. It first argues that globalization and the increasing influence of China’s economy in Hong Kong has weighted on salaries. Second, it shows that the oligopolistic nature of the local economy has generated rents, which have reinforced inequality. The book demonstrates that the younger generation, which is still finding its place in society, has been particularly affected by these phenomena, especially with social mobility at a low point. Offering a new approach to studying the Umbrella Movement, this book will appeal to students and scholars interested in Hong Kong's political landscape, as well Chinese politics more broadly.
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.
This book, by Sonja Zmerli and Marc Hooghe, presents cutting-edge empirical research on political trust as a relational concept. From a European comparative perspective it addresses a broad range of contested issues. Can political trust be conceived as a one-dimensional concept and to what extent do international population surveys warrant the culturally equivalent measurement of political trust across European societies? Is there indeed an observable general trend of declining levels of political trust? What are the individual, societal and political prerequisites of political trust and how do they translate into trustful attitudes? Why do so many Eastern European citizens still distrust their political institutions and how does the implementation of welfare state policies both enhance and benefit from political trust? The comprehensive empirical evidence presented in this book by leading scholars provides valuable insights into the relational aspects of political trust and will certainly stimulate future research. This book features: a state-of-the-art European perspective on political trust; an analysis of the most recent trends with regard to the development of political trust; a comparison of traditional and emerging democracies in Europe; the consequences of political trust on political stability and the welfare state; a counterbalance to the gloomy American picture of declining political trust levels.
When electoral risks are not understood and addressed, they can undermine the credibility of the process and the results it yields. Electoral management bodies (EMBs) encounter numerous risks across all phases of the electoral cycle. They operate in environments that are increasingly complex and volatile and where factors such as technology, demographics, insecurity, inaccurate or incomplete information and natural calamities, create increasing uncertainty. The experiences of EMBs show that when formal risk management processes are successfully implemented, the benefits are profound. Greater risk awareness helps organizations to focus their resources on where they are most needed, thus achieving cost-effectiveness. Over the last decade it has been observed that EMBs are increasingly moving from informal to formal risk management processes. The purpose of this Guide is to lay out a set of practical steps for EMBs on how to establish or advance their risk management framework. The Guide’s chapters reflect the breadth of key considerations in the implementation process and offer basic resources to assist in the process.
Elections around the world are plagued with the problem of unequal levels of participation. This can have profound consequences for election results, representation and policies. This book focuses on the interventions that can be used to redress the turnout gap and other inequalities within the electoral process. The book defines the concept of inclusive voting practices to refer to policy instruments which can reduce turnout inequality between groups and mitigate other inequalities within the electoral process. Studies from around the world then examine how policies can affect inclusivity on election day. This includes research on enfranchising felons and migrant communities; compulsory voting; voter ID requirements; voter registration practices; investment in electoral management; gendered electoral violence; accessible voting practices; and overseas voting. As a result, this book will be of interest to scholars of democracy, democratic theory and elections, as well as having major policy implications worldwide. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Policy Studies.
This book offers the first comparative monograph on the management of elections. The book defines electoral management as a new, inter-disciplinary area and advances a realist sociological approach to study it. A series of new, original frameworks are introduced, including the PROSeS framework, which can be used by academics and practitioners around the world to evaluate electoral management quality. A networked governance approach is also introduced to understand the full range of collaborative actors involved in delivering elections, including civil society and the international community. Finally, the book evaluates some of the policy instruments used to improve the integrity of elections, including voter registration reform, training and the funding of elections. Extensive mixed methods are used throughout including thematic analysis of interviews, (auto-)ethnography, comparative historical analysis and, cross-national and national surveys of electoral officials. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners interested and involved in electoral integrity and elections, and more broadly to comparative politics, public administration, international relations and democracy studies. Chapters 1 and 4 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.