Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political behaviour and election studies'

Since the 1970s voting behaviour has changed. Party identification and class voting has declined. As the electorate becomes more volatile, campaign strategy and party image becomes essential. Political communication and mass media now play an important role in election campaigns. Therefore, researchers take an interest in the impact of media on public opinion. The agenda-setting theory maintains that media influence what voters think about and that there is a link between media coverage and voting intentions. This minor thesis focuses on the early election campaign prior to the French presidential election in 2007. For the first time, the socialist party organised a primary election in order to nominate their candidate. The aim is to study if media has an impact on public opinion in election campaigns. To reach the aim, I posed the two following research questions: Did the primary election of the socialist party result in higher media coverage of the party than of other political parties? If the media favoured the socialist party during this time, did this have an impact on the voting intentions for the socialist candidate Ségolène Royal?  In order to reach the aim and answer the questions, I performed a quantitative study. I measured the media coverage of the different political parties in the newspapers during the socialist primary campaign, to find out if the socialist party was favoured by the media. The primary source of information was the two French newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro, complemented by opinion polls performed by the institute Ipsos. The results show that the socialist party was privileged by the press coverage prior to the presidential election. The newspapers wrote more and longer articles about the socialist party than of any other political party at the time of this study. At the same time, voting intentions for Ségolène Royal increased. The media exposure seems to have had a short effect on the public opinion in favour of the socialist candidate. By the results of this study, I conclude that the socialist party was able to influence the agenda-setting in the media by organizing primary elections. I find support for the hypothesis that media coverage during an election campaign has an effect on public opinion.

Social media is playing a significant role in our everyday life. New tools are emerging everyday and offer the users exciting opportunities. Not just ordinary people use social media.It became very popular among companies, politicians and government. But using social media does not guarantee one instant success and benefits. The right appliance of social media technologies can do wonders. Barack Obama brilliantly illustrated that during his presidential campaign in 2008.In 2012 social media technology was yet again at the heart of the Obama’s campaign. His challenger, Mitt Romney, also engaged digital technology into his campaigning process. However, the attention and participation Romney generated online was more humble compared to Obama, who yet again mastered the technology. This thesis studies the differences in social media use between the two campaigns and aims to find out how different use of social media can influence behavior and participation of the online audience. The study addresses the theory of communicative action, new social movements theory and agenda setting.

The European Parliament election is one of the most extensive elections in the world and affects more than 500 million people within the European Union. Prior research have mainly been using two different frameworks to explain voting behaviour in the European Parliament elections, namely the second-order election theory and the Europe-matters framework. The second-order theory states that national issues play a major role in the voting behaviour and the Europe-matters frameworks basically imply that European issues play a major role in the citizens’ voting behaviour. Prior research has relied too much on aggregate data, has operationalised the frameworks wrongly and has not given equal weight to the frameworks. In this study, I tried to come to terms with these problems and the research question was to test which of the frameworks that best explains the voting behaviour in the European Parliament election of 2014. The results are mixed and no framework seem to explain the voting behaviour better than the other. Nevertheless, other interesting results are possible to find and two of these results are that people tend to cast protest votes against their government if they disapprove it and that EU disapproval affects abstaining from voting more than government disapproval does, in the European Parliament election of 2014.

This dissertation provides an analysis of the 1999 election campaign and considers how each of the main parties appealed to the politically salient groups in South Africa. The case is put forward that the electoral system--closed-list proportional representation-rewards parties that appeal to a particular race group (or groups) at the expense of others. Parties that adopt a conciliatory tone and attempt a 'catch-all' strategy are punished at the polls. The persistence of this phenomenon means that politics in South Africa is likely to remain racialised, as political entrepreneurs maximise votes by making narrow sectional appeals.

Many scholars have noted the increasingly widespread combination of politically-relevant information and entertaining or sensational media formats and presentational styles over the past several decades, falling broadly under the umbrella term of ‘infotainment.’ However, in spite of this burgeoning infotainment literature very little research has been done on the nature and dynamics of infotainment within the Canadian context. This is especially true of research on infotainment within Canada’s traditional news media outlets. To being filling this gap, this study undertakes a mixed-methods content analysis of Canadian newspapers’ coverage of the 2019 federal election to evaluate the scope and nature of infotainment therein. Building off of a systematic review and mapping of the existing infotainment literature, this study develops a comprehensive conceptual and analytical framework for defining and evaluating infotainment characteristics within ‘hard news’ coverage. The quantitative and qualitative results are outlined in detail before being evaluated for their potential implications on citizens’ information processing and political knowledge, as well as some broader evaluations of potential implications for Canadian politics. These ethico-political considerations are developed by drawing on insights from a number of literatures, including political psychology and decision-making, strategic voting, and broader media and infotainment research.

Despite analysts' predictions and assertions prior to the 2016 presidential election, the Hispanic vote did not prove decisive. Donald Trump's victory elucidates a new electoral calculus, one that will be ruled simultaneously by changing demographics and the backlash against such change. While Hispanic voters largely supported Hillary Clinton, structural and individual impediments hinder their access to the voting booth and their turnout on election day. This thesis explores the reasons why the Hispanic electorate did not prove decisive in the 2016 presidential election. It further illuminates the changing Electoral College map, in which the Midwest and the Rustbelt are determined by an older white electorate and the South and Southwest are determined by an influx of minorities and immigrants, namely the Hispanic electorate. The 2016 presidential election illustrates the demographic changes and subsequent backlash that will persist over the next decade. A growing Hispanic population and electorate will eventually alter the political calculus of national and state elections, but turnout among white voters will continue to prove decisive in the near future. White backlash and transactional voting (e.g. economic, religious) clearly clinched Trump's success in crucial swing states, ultimately securing his Electoral College win. A review of polling prior to the 2016 election, as well as case studies of economic transactional and Hispanic Trump voters, demonstrates the breakdown across party and state lines that ensured Trump's Electoral College victory, despite a large and expanding Hispanic electorate. While it will continue to grow exponentially, it is unlikely that the Hispanic electorate will prove decisive as soon as the 2020 presidential election, but it will inevitably determine national and state elections within the next decade.

Aim: Over the years, marketing has become a more and more important tool in politics in general. In order to campaign successfully – and become the President-elect - in the U.S. Presidential Election, marketing is indispensable. This lead to enormous amounts of money spent on marketing. The aim of this research is to contribute to existing knowledge in the field of political marketing through the analysis of how marketing is done throughout a political campaign. The 2008 U.S. Presidential Primary Elections, together with a few key candidates have served as the empirical example of this investigation. Four research questions have been asked; what marketing strategies are of decisive outcome in the primary season of the 2008 political campaigning, how is political marketing differentiated depending on the candidate and the demographics of the voter, and finally where does the money come from to fund this gigantic political industry.

Method: The exploratory method and case study as well as the qualitative research method have been used in this work. Internet has been an important tool in the search for, and collection of data. Sources used have been scientific articles, other relevant literature, home pages, online newspapers, TV, etc. The questions have been researched in detail and several main conclusions have been drawn from a marketing perspective. Correlations with theory have also been made.

Result & Conclusion: In the primary season, the product the candidates have been selling is change. The Obama campaign successfully coined and later implemented this product into a grassroots movement that involved bottom-up branding of the candidate. This large base allowed for a different marketing strategy that implemented earlier and better organization in the caucus voting primary states resulting in an untouchable lead for the Obama campaign. The successful utilization of the Internet and social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube led to enormous support, not least among the important group of young (first time) voters. It also served as the main base for funding throughout both the primary and the presidential season, effectively outspending the Clinton, and later, the McCain campaigns. This study has shown that there are differences in marketing when it comes to different presidential candidates even within the same party. Marketing activities and efforts also look different for different marketing groups.

Suggestions for future research: This study was limited to the primary season; it would have been interesting to include the whole U.S. Presidential campaigning process from start to finish. In future research projects, it would also be interesting to see comparisons between political marketing in the U.S. and political marketing elsewhere, in Europe for example.

Contribution of the thesis: This study contributes to increased knowledge when it comes to understanding the role of social media, grassroots movement, and bottom-up branding as a political marketing strategy. It also contributes to increased knowledge about political marketing in general. Furthermore, it shows the importance of marketing - and money - in American politics. Political parties as well as individual candidates may also find the results of this research useful for future campaigning.

In the Swedish general elections of 2010, the party the Sweden Democrats for the first time entered the parliament. In an election otherwise characterised by competition between two explicit political blocs, the Sweden Democrats profiled itself as a party free from ideological blinders, ready to represent the will of the people. Commonly referred to as a populist party, there is considerable disagreement about where in the Swedish political space the party actually belongs. At the same time, there exist within political science a multitude of methodological approaches aimed at answering such questions. By combining election manifesto content analysis and survey-based approaches, the study of this paper presents cross-validated estimates of where in Swedish political space the Sweden Democrats belong. The study also evaluates strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches to the estimation of policy positions in the specific context of the Sweden Democrats. The party is found to be economically centrist but highly authoritarian, making it an outlier along both a "traditional" and a Swedish left-right continuum. Some methodological difficulties that may be particularly important to consider when analyzing parties such as the Sweden Democrats, e.g. bias, dimensional salience and linguistic volatility, are suggested.

With the development of science and technology, political communication is not only through television, radio and other traditional media in 21st century and political communication through the Internet become an inevitable trend. It is worth noting that Twitter has become a popular tool in political campaigning. Political candidates, political parties, journalists and the public can be free to express political attitudes and opinions through Twitter, which also attracts the academic community on Twitter research. It is undeniable that, from the perspective of discourses rhetoric, the study of the process of political communication on social media is also very important. For the modern political movement, the Internet has become the latest media used by presidential candidates, and Donald Trump is one of the most influential politicians on Twitter. In this thesis, I focused on the rhetorical elements of Trump's tweets. The aim of this thesis is to analyze how Trump persuade the followers as well as convey the emotion for followers through rhetorical means and rhetorical techniques on Twitter, so that he successfully became the 45th president of the United States. In order to work out the questions of the thesis, I chose some of Trump’s tweets that can be considered the most representative parts. The time span was from October 9, 2016 to November 9, 2016. During this period, all the tweets, which were posted on Donald Trump’s official Twitter page (@realDonaldTrump) be analyzed. I used Rhetorical Theory and Rhetorical Method as well as the Rhetoric and Metaphor instrument of Critical Discourse Analysis theory to make a detailed study. Trump knew he needed to establish a close relationship with American citizens: connect with voters, show his political personality, and share his goals through the rhetoric. In this large -scale campaign, the Trump shaped the unprecedented 'Trump phenomenon' with his unique communication skills. Meanwhile, it shows that proficient language and rhetoric skills are enough to make a politician who has no advantage in any respect become an idol of politics and the public.

Recent developments in Internet technology have opened up new doors for political campaigning and related news information with video and social networking applications. These have created new spaces that the voting public can politically participate in. This study explores the extent to which such participation takes place, in order to contribute to the wider question of whether changes in the media can rejuvenate a growing apathetic electorate that has become increasingly isolated from the more traditional methods of political participation (Putnam 2000). There are now many unanswered questions regarding how this new technology will play a role in influencing voter preferences and behaviour compared to other forms of traditional mass media. The exponential growth of Internet technology and its use means that the majority of literature written on the subject becomes time-bound leaving large gaps of research and analysis that needs to be done. This thesis examined the opportunities made available for political campaigning by the Internet and how widening political knowledge can ultimately influence Internet consumers at the voting booth. The research undertaken was a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis using participatory groups in a controlled environment. Participants consumed different forms of mass media and any significant changes in preferences and behaviour was noted. The overall hypothesis of this thesis is that the Internet does have an effect on potential voters by providing a wider and more in-depth look at politics that broadens political knowledge, leading to greater political participation.

This thesis is focused on Australian citizens who are not interested in politics and finds that there are at least twenty percent of Australians who are politically uninterested. The major finding is that uninterested voters determined the outcome of the 1987, 1993 and 2010 elections in favour of Labor. They also decide around eight House of Representative seats at each election. We are all affected as major political parties focus on uninterested swinging voters in order to attract their attention resulting in fringe issues hijacking politics.

This study seeks to investigate perceptions on education’s effect on political efficacy among university students at University of Pristhina, Kosovo; as well as how that seems to inform political behavior. Education is believed to have important implications on political behavior, an important factor for this is internal and external political efficacy, which allows research to disentangle educational effects on the individual’s political behavior. In-depth interviews were conducted during a minor field study to examine these perceptions. Three ideal personality types were detected among the respondents in regard to their respective level of internal and external political efficacy, while the perception of how education informed these two components on the contrary was portrayed as uniform regardless of level of perceived political efficacy. It is found, in line with previous research, that education is perceived to increase internal political efficacy, making the individuals more confident in their capacity to understand and participate in politics. External political efficacy seems to be less informed by education and more so by the societal context in which the students find themselves. In a context such as Kosovo, which still struggles with its democratization process, this leads to low levels of external political confidence. Further studies are recommended to increase the understanding of, in particular, the external political efficacy among youths in Kosovo.

Participation in the European Parliament Election has steadily declined since the start in 1979. In 2004 less than half (47.8%) of the voting-age population of the European Union used their right to vote. This has actualized questions asking if the European Parliament is a good representation of the European citizens. The paradigm when it comes to explaining the electoral turnout in the European Parliament Election is the second-order theory. Though the theory explains the low voter participation, it does not explain why the European Parliament Election has become a second-order election. Thus, in this thesis will search for the underlying variable explaining why the European Parliament Election is a second-order election. Through our research we find that distances are important in the European Union, and they create centres and peripheries within the European Union. By looking at Rokkan and Urwin‟s horizontal and vertical types of peripheries, where the vertical type consists of Rokkan and Urwin‟s three domain of social life, our research concludes that centre-periphery structures within the European Union are the underlying variable, explaining why the European Parliament Election is a second-order election.

This study explores the relative importance of the media in influencing the electoral choices of a small group of Zambians, namely Evelyn Hone College students in Lusaka who participated in the December 2001 elections in Zambia. The study investigates the interplay of mediation between the lived cultural experiences of the sample of students and the impact of media messages. Students at Evelyn Hone College come from different ethnic groupings, social classes, religions and regions. They are exposed to both the state and the privately owned media, which represent a range of political viewpoints. The outcome of the December 2001 elections in Zambia gave the impression that people in urban areas in Zambia were less likely to vote on ethnic lines because they had easy access to different media, ranging from print to electronic, which provided them with diverse information about the political scene, and probably shaped their electoral choices. Conversely, their counterparts in the rural areas appeared to vote along ethnic lines, seemingly because of lack of exposure to the media. It was also assumed that most people in rural areas were not as modernized as their urban counterparts who were more exposed to enlightened sources of information such as professional groups and other elite social institutions which helped them to shape their political opinions than most rural people. The study attempts to establish to what extent the media impacted on the selected sample of urban students in the choice of their presidential candidates in the December 2001 elections in Zambia. The study further investigates to what extent other factors such as ethnic inclinations and other social predispositions influenced them in their choice of the candidates. The interviewees for this study were randomly drawn from a population of Evelyn Hone College students that voted in the December 2001 presidential elections in Zambia. The sample consisted of 30 randomly selected students who were purposely stratified in three focus groups of ten each. Each stratum represented the approximate ethnic equivalence of one of the presidential candidates who contested the December 2001 elections.

Abstract

Title: From old rightwing-ghost to the new labour party – The new conservatives political communication during the Swedish election 2006

Authors: Pontus Caresten

Aim: The aim of the essay is to study how the conservative party communicated during the election campaign in 2006. I wish to find out how political parties work in todays society and how the communication has changed over time. To get relevant results I will also see how the theories and empirics interact. The purpose is further to illustrate the new conservatives’ campaign work from a senders point of view.

Method/Material: I have chosen a qualitative method which consists of three interviews with relevant key persons. I also did an content analysis of the campaign material. In order to carry out the empirical study I chose to depart from existing theories and compare these with the empirics.

Main results: The new conservatives have altered their political communication to fit todays society, and the market is increasingly important. The conservatives have gone though a major internal change since Fredrik Reinfeldt was elected to be head of the party. Today, the conservatives campaign work is professional and the party uses external experts to maximize the efficiency of the communication.

Number of pages: 38

Course: Media- and communication studies C

University: Division of Media and Communication, department of information science, Uppsala University,

Period: HT 2006

Tutor: Lowe Hedman

Keywords: Political communication, political marketing, election campaign

Twitter, a microblogging platform, has been increasingly used as a tool for political election campaigns. In an attempt to persuade people to vote for them, candidates and political parties worldwide have begun to incorporate Twitter in their campaigns to disseminate campaign information, promote themselves, and mobilize voters. In the 2016 U.S presidential election, Donald Trump had actively utilized Twitter to promote his campaign and convince voters to support him, which helped him earn a strong presence and huge popularity on Twitter. Eventually Trump even successfully got elected as the 45th US president. Although the rise of Twitter in political campaigns has been studied by researches from different disciplines, there have been very few studies focusing on Donald Trump or his communication performance on social media in the 2016 US presidential campaign. Besides, it is found that there is a lack of studying candidates’ social media use from the perspective of persuasive communication. In order to reveal how Donald Trump was making use of Twitter to influence audiences’ attitudes, this paper will present a content analysis of Donald Trump’s Twitter use from the perspective of persuasive communication. Specifically, the study will investigate the characteristics of messages demonstrated from Donald Trump’s tweets, and examine whether his messages placed an emphasis on certain aspects. The aim of this study is to offer insights into Donald Trump’s Twitter use, particularly about his persuasive communication on Twitter during the political election campaign.

The purpose of the thesis is to identify relationships between economic factors and the probability to vote on populist parties. The results are in turn based on the populist parties’ outcome in the 2006 Swedish election to parliament. Parties below the 4 percent margin, prior to the election, which is the percentage point required to enter the parliament, are defined as populist parties. Furthermore, based on theoretical and previous empirical research, seven economic variables are chosen; disposable income, income distribution, municipal tax rate, unemployment and higher education. In addition to these five, are the number of crime incidents reported, and the share of people born outside of the European Union also included. Moreover, the study is conducted at a regional, or more explicitly, at a municipal level, implying that 290 observations are used for each variable, in a total of five regressions. These are performed to test the diversity of populist parties.

The findings confirm that there are obvious relationships between the chosen variables and the probability of voting on populist parties, as the majority of the regressions explain 25 to 35 percent of the variation in the voting decision. These figures seem consistent, since ideological and factual issues are more important to populist party sympathizers.

Nevertheless, the results show that when it comes to the economic variables - unemployment, education, disposable income and consequently the municipal tax rate are the ones which concerns people the most when voting on populist parties. Additionally, as the share of people born outside of the European Union increases, the probability of voting in favor of Sverigedemokraterna also increases.

Finally, the growth of populist parties or of Sverigedemokraterna in particular, forces the conventional parties to adopt similar political standpoints in order to gain votes. Implying that if the present economic and political situation persists, populist parties’, especially Sverigedemokraterna’s policies will thrive in Swedish politics.

Avsikten med denna studie är att identifiera samband mellan ekonomiska faktorer och sannolikheten att rösta på populistpartier. Genomförandet är i sin tur baserat på 2006 års riksdagsvalresultat. Partier som innan valet befann sig under 4 procentsmarginalen definieras som populistiska partier. Grundat i tidigare forskning och teori, har sju ekonomiska variabler valts; disponibel inkomst, inkomstfördelning, kommunskatt, arbetslöshet och högre utbildning. Förutom dessa fem, är även antalet anmälda brott och andelen människor födda utanför den Europiska Unionen inkluderade. Vidare utförs studien på regional, närmare bestämt kommunalnivå, där 290 observationer används för varje variabel, i totalt fem regressioner. Detta med syfte att testa populistpartiers mångfald.

De empiriska resultaten bekräftar att det finns uppenbara samband mellan de valda variablerna och sannolikheten att rösta på populistpartier, då en majoritet av regressionerna förklarar 25 till 35 procent av variationen i röstningsavgörandet. Dessa siffror verkar stämma överens med verkligheten, eftersom ideologi och sakfrågor är viktigare för populistpartianhängare.

Gällande de ekonomiska variablerna är det arbetslösheten, utbildningsnivån, disponibla inkomsten och kommunalskatten som påverkar människor mest när de röstar på populistpartier. Det visar sig även att när andelen människor födda utanför den Europiska Unionen ökar, ökar även sannolikheten att man röstar på Sverigedemokraterna.

Till sist, tillväxten av populistpartier, speciellt av Sverigedemokraterna, har på senare tid tilltagit, vilket leder till att de konventionella partierna måste anamma likartade politiska ståndpunkter för att kunna få fler röster. Innebärande att om den rådande ekonomiska och politiska situationen består, kommer populistpartiers och i synnerhet Sverigedemokraternas riktlinjer att i framtiden få ett mycket större utrymme i den svenska politiken.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to examine the ways two Swedish tabloid newspapers portray and describe the non-Socialist parties during the Swedish election of 2006.

Material/Method: We have been studying 388 articles about the non-Socialist parties, derived from the two largest tabloid newspapers in Sweden, Aftonbladet and Expressen, during the month before the election. The method for the study is quantitative content analysis.

Main results: The main conclusions drawn from this study are that Aftonbladet had twice as much written material about the non-Socialist parties, despite the fact that the paper is traditionally Socialist, while Expressen had consistently larger headlines. Both tabloids function to a higher degree as political actors than arenas for politics. The results are in accordance with earlier research, which shows that the degree of attention the non-Socialist parties acquired as a whole in the 2006 election, is remarkable. More than half of the articles in both tabloids portrayed the non-Socialist parties as a single political actor. The results indicate that both tabloids were in accordance with their respective traditional political “colours”.

The present study aims to explore how deictic personal pronouns are used in political speeches by the two American presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, during the 2020 United States presidential election. Donald Trump’s usage of the personal pronouns I, you, he/she, we and they is analysed and compared to Joe Biden’s usage of the same personal pronouns. The study has shown that Joe Biden has a preference for the first-person singular pronoun I while Donald Trump has a similar preference towards the third-person plural pronoun they. Both candidates also use the pronoun we just as often, however, Joe Biden’s we is mostly the universal we, referring to all Americans, while Donald Trump’s we is mostly the royal we, referring to his government. This study shows that the same deictic pronouns can be used to indicate inclusion and exclusion.

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in instances of Republican-dominated state legislatures proposing changes to election law that some see as protecting electoral integrity and others understand as intended to suppress votes of traditionally Democratic constituencies. This thesis is a detailed collection of the rationales used to justify these changes, as examined through a case study of North Carolina’s enactment of the omnibus Voter Information Verification Act of 2013 (VIVA). By also including the arguments proffered during the legislative process by opponents of the law, and after evaluating the merits of the arguments on both sides, I find the rationales used to justify the law’s provisions to be unconvincing and misleading. This study confirms the speculation that new election law restrictions are first and foremost a Republican attempt to gain partisan advantage. Given this conclusion, I offer suggestions as to what factors might eventually shift the current era of election law legislation from one of restrictions, to one focused on creating efficient, accessible, modernized electoral systems that inspire citizen confidence regardless of partisanship.

In 2004, the clothing retailer Urban Outfitters sold a t-shirt with the slogan, “Voting is for Old People”. Did Urban Outfitters step over the line, or were they a reflection of the sate of our democracy and the demographics of current voters? Many organizations have developed to combat the problem of low youth voter turnout and disengagement. One of the most well-known organizations is Rock the Vote. In its 18 year existence, has youth turnout increased? Have their efforts been futile or on the other side, have they been successful in paving the way for the youth to demand attention from the government and be heard? The purpose of this research is to measure the effects of the efforts targeted toward youth voters over the past 18 years, in terms of voter turnout using American National Election Studies Data. The results show that voting is not just for old people.

This dissertation examines ethnic patronage, local conflict, and election fraud in Kenya in three separate essays. Fraud, violence, and ethnicity are difficult to measure, and they often play a central role in narratives and theories about African politics. The essays in this dissertation draw on natural language processing, spatial statistics, and demography to improve measurement of these concepts and, in turn, our understanding of how they function in Kenya. The approaches developed here can be generalized to conflict, ethnicity, and fraud in other contexts. The first essay presents a method for extracting ethnic information from names. Existing methods give biased estimates by ignoring uncertainly in the mapping between names and ethnicity. I apply my improved, approximately unbiased method to data on political appointments from 1963 to 2010 in Kenya, and find that existing narratives about distributive politics do not accord with empirical patterns. The second essay examines patterns of violent ethnic targeting during Kenya's 2007-2008 post-election violence. I focus on patterns of arson, one of the key types of violence used in the Rift Valley. I find that incidence of arson is related to the presence of ethnic outsiders, and even more strongly related to measures of land quality, accessibility, and electoral competition. Using a difference-in-differences design, I show that arson caused a significant decrease in the number of Kikuyu and other immigrant ethnic groups registered to vote; no such decline is observed in indigenous ethnic groups. The third essay documents the prevalence of dead voters on Kenya's voter register prior to the contentious 2007 presidential elections, and shows how dead registered voters may have facilitated electoral fraud. Simply accounting for the number of dead voters demonstrates that turnout was greater than 100% in several opposition constituencies, and implausibly high in most of the incumbent president's home province. Ecological inference suggests that ballot-stuffing occurred in candidate strongholds, rather than competitive constituencies. These results are consistent with the opposition party's allegations of fraud.
Government

The purpose of this essay is to examine the importance of personal election for candidates of foreign background. I made this, first, by map and comparing the candidates of foreign background in the recent Swedish and Finnish parliamentary election. Second, I analyze what conceptions candidates of foreign background, who was nominated in the 2006 municipal election in Örebro, have about the personal election. The result from the first study shows that personal election had a negative impact on candidates of foreign background in both the Swedish and Finnish parliamentary elections. The result from the second study shows that candidates of foreign background have both positive and negative conceptions about the personal election.

In a broad sense, public relations is the communication between an organization and its audience. Public relations helps create and maintain a relationship between the two. When an organization experiences a success or failure public relations is put into place to help rally public support. The intent of this thesis aims to determine the tone of President Obama in U.S. newspapers and social media in association with the capturing and killing of terrorist Osama bin Laden. This thesis examines a variety of U.S. newspapers by region and social media. Newspaper articles related to the topic were retrieved from six regional newspapers: Columbus Dispatch, Houston Chronicle, Charlotte Observer, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. From these papers, a specific time period was chosen to examine articles. The months of April, June, and August 2012 were chosen. During these months, a keyword search for “osama bin laden” was used. Articles that contained this keyword were then examined and coded. Blogs and Facebook pages of the Republican and Democratic Party were examined. Two political blogs, Daily Kos and Red State, were chosen. From these blogs and Facebook pages, the same time period was chosen as for the newspapers. The keyword search was also the same, “osama bin laden”.

The debate about a possible crisis of democracy has been present over 30 years. Questionable is what researchers mean when talking about a potential crisis. What are the factors that are causing it? Are we in a crisis of democracy in Western European countries?The goal of this thesis is to evaluate how different authors characterize what some call a crisis of democracy, to define core topics and to test one of these on empirical data. This will be achieved by firstly, analyzing pieces of literature related to the scientific crisis of democracy debate. Secondly, using Hirschmann’s theory of exit and voice, mass data from will be categorized and analyzed under the light of participation and trust in political institutions.Issues that return are overload on government, individualism, participation and a new culture versus old structure. Analyzing people’s trust in political institutions depending on their intention to go to national elections shows trends: people lose trust in the institutions government, parliament and political parties. Separating the data into groups of potential voters, non-voters and blank voters shows that the latter two show a greater mistrust in political institutions and less interest in politics.Overall, the debate on a potential crisis of democracy is multifaceted and varies between different authors. People are less active in traditional ways of participating, but that does not mean that Western European democracies stand before collapse. It could however mean that new forms of participation are needed to engage people in politics again.

The aim of this study is to investigate how non-profit engagement influence voting in school election, but also how the school has influenced the pupils to vote and if there are any differences between a big and a small town.

The methods which have been used for this study are quantitative and qualitative, both questionnaires and interviews. To be able to see differences between a big and a small town the study was carried out in one school from each category of town.

By examine the empirical material and analyse it with theories which are used for this study we have come to the conclusion that there are no obvious differences between pupils in the big town and the small town. Pupils in both schools were pretty engaged in associations, though had the pupils from the small town some higher level of engagement. Moreover, both schools had a high participation for the election. The result of the study showed that there were no noticeable tendencies on if the pupils choose to vote depending on engagement in associations.

Furthermore, both schools were very engaged in the school election indeed. The small town school did not give a connection between the school’s engagement and the pupils’ willingness to vote. However the big town school had a greater connection between the school’s engagement and the pupils’ willingness to vote.

This study uses variables derived from Rational Choice Theory to examine the theory’s predicted covariancebetween public opinion and the parties’ policies. The collection of material has been guided by three arenas: the parliamentarian, the media and the voter’s. It has categorized the analysis based on the strategy concept, using ends, means and ways. It asks how the Moderate Party and the Social Democratic Party changed their strategy within the period of 31 May 2013 and 14 September 2014, and how this can be understood from a rational choice perspective. The purpose of the study is to examine the assumptions of Rational Choice Theory in the Swedish context in front of the election in 2014, and to understand this from the perspective of the theory. This can help in our understanding of defense policy formation and to our understanding of states’ relations on the international arena. The results show that there has been a more ambitious change in defense policy which covariates with the indicated positive change in public opinion on defense issues, but this did not make defense issues one of the 2014 election’s most important questions for the voters in choice of party to vote for. This can be understood as rational, seen from a RCT-perspective, since the other issues renders more support, a circumstance that is in line with the history of Swedish elections.

This thesis compares two theories of voter behavior in the 2019 European Parliament election (EP election). The second-order national contest theory claims that the European Parliament elections are basically seen as unimportant and are predominantly about national issues. In contrast, the competing Europe matters theory (or EU matters) claims that voters to a significant degree are motivated by European issues. Research on earlier elections has presented evidence strongly in favor of the second-order national contests theory, however, the most recent elections show more ambiguous results. With Europe having gone through a refugee crisis since the last EP election, and with Brexit taking place in the run-up to the election in 2019 making the future of the Union uncertain, there are strong reasons to challenge the second-order theory, and examine if voters did care more about European affairs in the 2019 EP election to substantially make this election about Europe. This thesis will focus on political parties and the predictions the different theories make on the electoral outcome. The study will use a quantitative research design to investigate if changes in voter support for parties in the 2019 EP election compared to the preceding national general election (national election), are the result of national or European issues. The findings suggest that the EP elections are still primarily about national issues and the expectations from the second-order national contest theory can largely explain the outcome of the 2019 EP election. For instance, in the 2019 EP election, the popularity of governing parties in the national arena seems to significantly affect their electoral performance in the EP election. Furthermore, small parties overperform, suggesting voters do not vote strategically and have little interest in the EP election. At the same time party position on European integration only had minor effect on the outcome, which is expected to be substantial if the elections are about Europe. This study shows that it is too early to dismiss the long-held notion of European Parliament elections as being second-order national contests. More research is, however, needed to examine different aspect of the EP election and the different mechanisms at play for a more complete understanding of the nature of the EP elections.

Den här studien fokuserar på hur Vänsterpartiet och Sverigedemokraterna konstruerat en av sina valfilmer inför valet 2018. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur visuella och retoriska medel används och samverkar samt hur respektive partis ideologi tydliggörs i valfilmerna. Detta görs för att klargöra vilket/vilka budskap samt vilken bild av verkligheten som sänds ut när partierna själva får styra den politiska kommunikationen. För att kunna se hur valfilmerna konstruerats används semiotik, retorik och ideologi som både teori och metod eftersom dessa i kombination med varandra kan ge ett sammanhållet resultat.   Studiens analysgenomförande grundar sig i begrepp hämtade från semiotiken, retoriken och ideologin i kombination med en kvalitativ textanalys. Med hjälp av den kvalitativa textanalysen gjordes först en närläsning av texten för att därefter få fram det mest väsentliga i respektive valfilm och på så sätt få fram de underliggande budskapen i valfilmerna. Resultatet av analysen visar att med hjälp av semiotiska och retoriska medel konstruerar Vänsterpartiets valfilm en verklighet som består av ett splittrat samhälle, men också hur denna splittring kan överkommas gemensamt. Budskapet är hoppfullt och framåtsträvande. Vänsterpartiets socialistiska värderingar är även tydliga i valfilmen. Sverigedemokraternas valfilm målar upp en verklighet som är kaotisk, mörk och hotfull. Budskapet som sänds ut är att Sverigedemokraterna och deras partiledare Jimmie Åkesson är de enda som kan rädda Sverige från totalt förfall. Sverigedemokraternas valfilm fokuserar till största del på sakfrågor men vissa nationalistiska och konservativa värderingar framträder.
This study focuses on how the Left Party and the Sweden Democrats constructed one of their election films for the 2018 election. The purpose of the study is to investigate how visual and rhetorical means are used and collaborate, as well as how each party's ideology is clarified. This is done to explain what message and what image of reality that are being sent out when the parties themselves control the political communication. To be able to understand how the electoral films have been constructed, semiotics, rhetoric, and ideology are used both as theory and method because these, in combination with each other, can give a coherent result. The study's analysis implementation is based on concepts derived from semiotics, rhetoric, and ideology in combination with qualitative text analysis. With help from the qualitative text analysis, a close reading of the text was first made to be able to find the most important aspects of each election films, leading to the hidden constructed meanings. The result of the analysis shows that with the help of semiotic and rhetorical means, the Left Party's election film constructs a reality that consists of a divided society, but also how this split can be overcome jointly. The message is hopeful and forward-looking. The Left Party's socialist values are also clear in the election film. The Swedish Democrats' election film paints a reality that is chaotic, dark and threatening. The message sent out is that the Sweden Democrats and their party leader Jimmie Åkesson are the only ones who can save Sweden from total decay. The Swedish Democrats' election film focuses mainly on issues of fact, but certain nationalist and conservative values emerge.

This essay examines to what extent institutional factors can explain the variation among EU-countries regarding the differences between their turnout in the 2014 European election and their latest national parliamentary elections. On different levels, the countries of the European Union tend to have smaller turnouts in the European elections than in their national parliamentary election. Can separate formal political institutions on a system level among member countries of the European Union explain the variation of turnout differences in elections to the European parliament and national general elections?  Through a regression analysis the study is testing theories based on what fields that are investigated in related studies. Hypothesises are created from each theory to reach a conclusion. The result proves that only compulsory voting, by itself and interacting with other variables, along with the difference between the number of parties in a country’s representation in the European parliament and its national parliament, interacting with other variables, decreases this variation. All the other theories are falsified to the due to insignificance. It is not possible to say that institutional factors in general give an explanation to the variation among EU-countries regarding the differences between their turnout in the 2014 European election and their latest national parliamentary elections.

The interaction of Community and European Political Cooperation (EPC) affairs is a subject which has been neglected in the research on European integration. While legal scholars have partially taken up the complex task of treaty exegesis, there has been a dearth of research from the political perspective. This thesis fills a major gap in the discussion of EPC from theoretical, analytical and empirical aspects. Thus, it explores from a Community perspective not only the normative question of whether the European Community (EC) requires or even desires an institutionalised, external political voice to fulfil its role as an international trade alliance; but also, and more important, it examines the political linkages implicit in and inseparable from economic decisions and actions. In this context the thesis examines, through a series of case studies, the issues and tensions that have come about and still exist in the European Community in the interplay between forces of integration, external relations, and EPC: the aspiration for political integration on one hand, and the desire by the member states of the Community to retain independence on the other. The resulting tension from these forces is best reflected in the relationship between EC external economic relations, and European Political Cooperation, manifested in the quest for actorness by the Community.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study aims to understand the motivations underlying the activities of Chinese agricultural enterprises operating on the African continent as well as the way in which institutional contexts – the physical and legal environments – shape their behaviours and/or modes of entry into local industries. Understanding the strategic motives of Chinese agricultural enterprises operating in Africa as well as the extent to which they implement those motives on the ground and the way in which they respond to local laws is crucial for assessing the medium- to long-term impacts of their activities on the welfare of African populations and forests. This dissertation relies on Dunning‟s eclectic paradigm to understand the motivations informing the activities of Chinese agricultural enterprises as well as on new institutional theory to study the behaviours and/or modes of entry of Chinese agricultural enterprises into local industries. This research is based on two case studies: Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As far as data collection is concerned, it relied on secondary sources of data such as scholarly articles and books; official documents and legislation; and newspaper articles. This study also drew on primary sources of data, which consisted of documents obtained during the fieldwork such as contracts between Chinese agricultural enterprises and African governments, official documents from Chinese agricultural enterprises as well as semi-structured interviews. Thirty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with various stakeholders – including managers of Chinese agricultural enterprises, employees of these enterprises, farmers, officials from ministries of agriculture and researchers – in Mozambique and the DRC between April to June 2011. The data collected were analysed with the help of the qualitative analysis software: atlas.ti. The preliminary results collected and analysed in this study suggest that the motivations of Chinese agricultural enterprises operating in Mozambique and the DRC are: 1) to acquire farmlands in order to grow food crops and sell them mainly in local markets; 2) to supply agricultural commodities – cash and food crops – for Chinese markets; and 3) to provide agricultural aid by introducing new varieties of crops imported from China and offering training to farmers, students and technicians. However, the provision of agricultural aid is a secondary motivation of Chinese agricultural enterprises. The motivations informing the activities of Chinese agricultural enterprises operating in Mozambique and the DRC are globally consistent with China‟s foreign policy as these enterprises primarily aim to better position themselves in local markets and to access agricultural commodities for the benefit of Chinese markets. Furthermore, the preliminary results of this study also indicate that the institutional contexts in Mozambique and the DRC appear to affect the behaviours and/or modes of entry of Chinese agricultural enterprises into local industries. As such, the poor provision of infrastructure in rural areas appears to delay further investments by Chinese agricultural enterprises. Also, the complex process of gaining access to land and the weak regulatory capacity in the monitoring and implementation of the land laws appear to hinder investments by Chinese agricultural enterprises and in some instances lead to the cancellation of investments. In the specific case of the DRC, the weak enforcement of land titles appears to discourage further investments. The unfavourable institutional context depicted above has prompted Chinese agricultural enterprises operating in the DRC to adopt new models of business revolving around less risky or smaller agricultural projects.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ontleed die motiewe van Chinese landbou-ondernemings werksaam op die Afrika-vasteland, asook hoe die institusionele konteks, te wete die fisiese en wetlike raamwerke, sulke ondernemings se werkverrigtinge en/of toetreewyses tot plaaslike industrieë beïnvloed. 'n Begrip van wat die strategiese motiewe van Chinese landbou-ondernemings is, hoe hulle daardie motiewe op voetsoolvlak implementeer, en hoe hulle aan landswette gehoor gee, is noodsaaklik om die middel- tot lang-termyn impakte wat die ondernemings op die welstand van Afrika bevolkinge en op woudgebiede het, te peil. Hierdie studie maak gebruik van Dunning se eklektiese paradigma om Chinese landbou-ondernemings se motiewe te ontleed. Dit pas ook die nieu-institusionele teorie toe om die werksaamhede en marktoetredes van die ondernemings na te spoor. Die navorsing is op twee gevallestudies gebaseer: Mosambiek en die Demokratiese Republiek van die Kongo (DRK). Dit het van sekondêre bronne soos vakwetenskaplike referate en boeke; amptelike dokumentasie en wetsakte; en persartikels gebruik gemaak. Die studie het ook primêre databronne gebruik. Laasgenoemde bestaan uit dokumentasie wat deur die loop van die veldnavorsing ingesamel is, onder meer kontrakte tussen Chinese landbou-ondernemings en Afrika staatslui; amptelike dokumentasie van Chinese landbou-ondernemings; en semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude. Daar is met verskeie belangegroepe in Mosambiek en die DRK - soos die bestuurders van Chinese landbou-ondernemings en hul werknemers, boere, landbou-amptenare en navorsers – onderhoude gevoer. In geheel is 32 semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude in die periode April – Junie 2011 gevoer. Die data is met behulp van die kwalitatiewe ontledingsprogrammatuur atlas.ti ontleed. Die voorlopige bevindinge en ontledings stel voor dat die volgende motiewe die werksaamhede van Chinese landbou-ondernemings in Mosambiek en die DRK bepaal: 1) om landerye te bekom om sodoende kos aan te kweek en dit veral aan plaaslike markte te verkoop; 2) om landbouware, te wete kontant en kos, aan Chinese markte te voorsien; 3) om hulpverlening te verskaf deur die bekendstelling van nuwe tipes gewasse uit China, en deur die opleiding van boere, studente en tegnici. Die verskaffing van hulpverlening in die landbou bedryf is egter van sekondêre belang vir Chinese landbou-ondernemings. Die motiewe van Chinese landbou-ondernemings werksaam in Mosambiek en die DRK strook met China se oorhoofse buitelandse beleid omdat hierdie ondernemings primêr daarop uit is om hulself beter in plaaslike markte te posisioneer en om tot die voordeel van Chinese markte landbouware te bekom. Voorts, die voorlopige bevindinge dui ook aan dat die institusionele kontekste in Mosambiek en die DRK die werksaamhede en/of die toetrede van Chinese landbou-ondernemings in plaaslike industrieë beïnvloed. Swak infrastruktuur in landelike gebiede blyk meer beleggings deur Chinese landbou-ondernemings te striem. Die ingewikkelde proses om grond te bekom en gebrekkigheid in die regulering, monitering en implementering van landbouwette blyk ook Chinese beleggings te kortwiek, en in sommige gevalle lei dit tot die opskorting van beleggings. In die geval van die DRK, wil dit voorkom asof gebrekkige afdwinging van grondaktes verdere belegging ontmoedig. Die ongunstige institutionele konteks wat hier geskets is, het Chinese landbou-ondernemings werksaam in die DRK aangemoedig om nuwe sakemodelle toe te pas, wat belegging in kleiner landbou projekte of met minder risiko's, beteken.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the political material published before the parliamentary elections 2018 from two party leaders who were competing for the prime minister's role in 2018. Stefan Löfven and Ulf Kristersson are the two political actors who present themselves and  their party for the parliamentary elections in 2018. The two social media that has been selected are Facebook and Instagram, which at the time of the study were the most widely used around the world. This study use Aristotle's philosophy about the rhetoric’s ethos, logos and pathos and Walter Lippman's research on agenda theory. These two theories explain that people communicate through different rhetorical arguments and agendas, especially in political communication where the goal is often to convince the people what the society looks like. The goal is to gain their trust for the election. The survey shows that this indeed is used by both Löfven and Kristersson, though in different ways. The differences may be different due to the high probability of party leaders ahead of the parliamentary elections. Löfven is already prime minister and is running for second term, while Kristersson is newly elected party leader and new candidate to become Sweden's prime minister. What became surprising during the study was to see how they both benefit from using ethos, logos and pathos in a way that truly represent the party’s political statements. The conclusion that can be drawn from the results is that during the parliamentary elections 2018 Kristersson focused on sending a more persuasive message that the Moderates are the obvious choice and through his ways of painting the reality sent a signal that he, as the future party leader, is fully ready to responsible address Sweden. Löfven, on the other hand, focused on to channel a more relaxed presentation of himself as well as a message aimed to the working class in society. Much of his speech consisted of his proximity to the people and understanding of their everyday problems.

In 2001 the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) was created by some of the world’s leading natural gas producing and exporting countries in order to promote their mutual interests through cooperation, in particular with regard to extracting the maximum value from their natural gas exports. My core research question is: Does cooperation among GECF member countries explain those exporters’ market power in highly import-dependent natural gas consuming countries? To determine the influence of the GECF’s cooperative actions and policies, I study the GECF’s cooperative behaviour and measure the role of (collusive) producer conduct in terms of its contribution to achieving the main GECF objective: attaining gas prices that are measurably above the cost of production and hence help producers earn significant economic rents. I employ a variety of methods from the international relations literature on cooperation and cartelisation, collective action theory and an economic measurement model in three case studies. I find that cooperation among GECF members partly explains their market power in a number of import-dependent gas markets. This is so despite the GECF’s weak degree of institutionalisation. The reasons for the GECF’s influence on effective cooperative results are: first, conducive structural conditions in many gas importing markets favouring cartelisation; second, GECF members use methods such as artificial market entry barriers (e.g. long-term term contracts negotiated in a non-transparent way) to secure their market power and third, the GECF faces less severe internal procedural challenges that plague other cartels such as collective action problems, especially cheating. Cooperation among GECF exporters hence contributes to high(er) prices of natural gas. This causes economic inefficiencies and a transfer of wealth—and political power—from gas consumers to producers. It also hinders climate change mitigation as cleanerburning gas remains too expensive to replace ‘dirty’ coal in power generation.

This thesis takes a conversation-analytic approach examining the pragmatic functions of the linguistic marker "first (off/of all)" in second-pair-part (i.e., responsive) position relative to questions. Using data from question-answer sequences in the 2015-2016 U.S. Presidential Republican primary debates, I propose six claims regarding the composition, position, and action of what is referred to as the practice of "First"-prefacing. Analysis reveals that "First"-prefacing projects the displacement of a response (conforming or non-conforming) to a question. In projecting the displacement of a response, "First"-prefacing does two things: (1) it projects that the unit(s) of talk to come immediately next will be something other than a response, and thus this "first" matter should not be heard as being designedly "responsive" to the question; and (2) it claims that a conditionally relevant response to the question is forthcoming after the "first" matter is resolved. Debaters largely used "First"-prefacing to temporarily "get out from under" a question's conditional relevancies in order to "reach back" beyond the question and perform actions more properly sequentially fitted to earlier portions of the debate (e.g., defend themselves, make additional comments, counter-criticize other debaters). The more general function of "First"-prefacing as a misplacement marker is discussed, and its existence in ordinary conversation is briefly demonstrated.

The objective of the thesis is to explore if the European Union membership has changed the Swedish Green Party’s use of parlance, ideology and political content. To explore this, a quantitative content analysis has been done on election manifestos during a 30-year period on national parliamentary manifestos as well as European Parliament manifestos. A framework of green ideology as well as previous research of the Swedish Green’s is used to further the findings from the manifestos. The thesis has found that the European Union membership has affected the Swedish Greens which is seen in the change of how they use language, their transformation of ideas throughout the years as well as their views on political areas and how that has expanded. Further research is recommended to additionally explore the subject, a suggestion is to increase the material because that was an issue in this essay.

Valaffischer är ett gammalt traditionellt medium för politiska partier att nå ut med sin kommunikation med. Men trots de nya tillvägagångssätten att nå ut med sin kommunikation tack vare digitaliseringen, är valaffischer fortfarande ett aktuellt medium trots att de har använts under så pass lång tid. Sverigedemokraterna är ett relativt “ungt” parti. De blirintressanta att studera då de har sina rötter i nazismen och därifrån har de snabbt vuxit till att bli Sveriges tredje största parti. Studien redovisar en analys av Sverigedemokraternas professionalisering och hur deras utveckling av valaffischer sett ut under valrörelserna 2006, 2010, 2014 och 2018. Totalt har det analyserats femton valaffischer som ingått i Sverigedemokraternas valkampanjer under de fyra senaste valrörelserna. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vad professionaliseringen av politiken har haft för betydelse för Sverigedemokraternas visuella politiska kommunikation, i form av deras valaffischer. Därav formades frågeställningar för att svara påsyftet: “Hur har Sverigedemokraternas kommunikation genom valaffischer förändrats från2006 till 2018?” och “Hur har professionaliseringen av visuell politisk kommunikation tagit form i Sverigedemokraternas valaffischer?” Valaffischerna i denna studie utgår från en kvalitativ textanalys och med fokus på ett parti. Den kvalitativa textanalysen utgår från en semiotisk analys, där den analysmodell som använts är en sammansättning av 5 teman, 14 kategorier och 1 underkategori. Valaffischerna i studien har framförallt analyserat med hjälp av tidigare forskning av Nicklas Håkansson, Bengt Johansson och Orla Vigsø (2014), som ofta ses som referenser i samband med studier av valaffischer. Teorierna politisk kommunikation och professionalisering ligger till grunden för denna studie. Resultatet av analysen har applicerats på fyra tidsperioder i valaffischernas utveckling och slutsatsen visar på att Sverigedemokraterna har genomgått en förändring i professionaliseringen av valaffischer mellan åren 2006 och 2018, fast under kortare tid än de fyra tidsperioderna. Det är en förändring som anpassats i takt med utvecklingen i samhället, bland annat i form av den digitala utvecklingen och utvecklingen av specialistyrken inom marknadsföring och visuell kommunikation. Förändringen av Sverigedemokraternas kommunikation i valaffischer har bland att visats i att de har gått från att använda tydliga budskap och starka åsikter, till att deras budskap har blivit mer och mer abstrakt och att de inte längre behöver argumentera för sin sak. Deras åsikter har normaliserats till den grad att de inte längre behöver övertyga väljarna på samma sätt genom sina valaffischer.
Election posters are an old traditional medium for political parties to reach out with their communication. Despite the new approaches to reach out with political communication thanks to digitalization, election posters are still a relevant medium despite having been used for a long time. Sverigedemokraterna are a relatively "young" party. They became interesting for this study as they have their roots in nazism and therefrom quickly grew to become Sweden's third largest party. This study presents an analysis of Sverigedemokraterna’s professionalization of electionposters during the electoral campaigns 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018. A total of fifteen electionposters were analyzed, all of which were included in Sverigedemokraterna’s electioncampaigns during four different electoral movements. The purpose of this study is to investigate the importance of professionalization of politics for Sverigedemokraterna’s visualpolitical communication, in form of their election posters. From this, questions at issue were formulated to answer the purpose: How has the communication through election posters from Sverigdemokraterna changed from 2006 to 2018? and How has the professionalization of visual political communication shown in Sverigedemokraternas election posters? The election posters in this study are processed on the basis of a qualitative textanalysis and with focus on one party. The qualitative textanalysis is based on a semiotic analysis, where a analysis model is used. The analysis model is a composition of 5 themes, 14 categories and 1 subcategory. The results of the study have primarily been analyzed with the help of previous research by Nicklas Håkansson, Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø (2014), who are often seen as references in connection with studies of election posters. The theories of political communication and professionalization form the basis of this study. The result of the analysis has been applied to a four time period in the development of the election posters and the conclusion shows that Sverigedemokraterna has gone through a change in the professionalization of election posters between 2006 and 2018, though for shorter periods than the four time periods of election posters. It is a change that has been adapted in line with developments in society, including in the form of digital development and the development of specialist professions in marketing and visual communication. The professionalization has also shown through the normalization of the party. The change inSverigedemokraterna’s communication in election posters has among other things been shown in their use of clear messages and strong opinions in their election posters to that their message has become more and more abstract and that they no longer need to argue for their cause. Their opinions have been normalized to the point that they no longer need to convince voters and other parties with their election posters.

The purpose of this essay has been to describe and compare the personal qualities that the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) tried to associate Barack Obama and John McCain with during the American presidential election campaign 2008. The main question to be answered is: What social and physical characters as well as what personal experiences, interest and resources did DN tried to emphasize regarding John McCain and Barack Obama during the American presidential election campaign 2008. The theoretical starting-point has been John B Thompson’s theory of the mediated publicity and John Corner´s theory of political persona and spheres of action. Various DN news texts, in all 38 articles, have been examined by content analysis from 25th of august to the 4th of November. The main results show that the most frequent mentioned qualities about Barack Obamas was his skin colour, ethnicity and speech talents. The most frequent mentioned qualities about John McCain was his age and his military experiences from the Vietnam War. The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that the qualities described in DN created a picture of two different politicians. Many of the qualities that was mentioned have no connection to politics and even if they was just mentioned one time can they play a significant role in trying to build confidence. Many of the qualities that was mentioned are qualities that necessary not have to be seen as positive.

This dissertation deals with court-executive relations in post-authoritarian Argentina (1983-2006). Specifically, I analyse Supreme Court behaviour in highly sensitive cases to determine whether the tribunal has cooperated with or obstructed the government’s policy preferences in three key policy areas: human rights, economic emergency and pensions. This innovative type of approach – i.e., focusing on a small number of highly sensitive decisions – allows me to concentrate on cases that are genuinely important for the government or, more precisely, for the country’s political administration. There are cases that are significant for the State apparatus but irrelevant for the president (thinking of politicians as self-interested actors). My research uses a rational choice approach to courts, underscoring the strategic nature of judicial behaviour. This vision of judges provides a more accurate account of judicial-executive relations by bringing politics into the study of courts. By focusing exclusively on attitudes and apolitical jurisprudence, other visions take for granted the institutional context. Political stability, for example, cannot be assumed in many developing democracies. My findings indicate that the Argentine Supreme Court has consistently avoided obstructing the president’s policy preferences. Such behaviour is motivated by strategic considerations: judges are risk-averse actors that avoid clashing with the executive. For most of the time, the Supreme Court has operated under unified government, which increases the chances of being punished for anti-government decisions. Two other factors also account for the court’s risk-averse behaviour. First, procedural rules grant the Supreme Court wide discretion over its docket. The tribunal has used such discretion to strategically select the timing of its decisions. Second, recurrent democratic breakdowns have repeatedly led to attacks against the court, such as impeachment, irregular dismissals, and/or enlargements. Third, politicians exert broad control of judicial promotions, allowing them to block the careers of independent, courageous judges that act as a check on political power.

Purpose The purpose is to analyze the parliamentary parties political communication in the social media channels before the election 2010.

Methodology This essay is a descriptive study from nine interviews of the responsible people in the parliamentary parties. In addition to that two more interviews were done with social media experts

Theoretical perspective This essay is based on two-way communication and communication strategies

Conclusions The parliamentary parties use social media as a complement to traditional media. The purpose is to create dialog and to minimize the gap to the voters, but in many ways it is being used as a one-way communication channel.  The parliamentary parties are trying to use the social media channels in Swedish conditions, but in many ways they try to imitate an American used strategy.

In this work, I present a conceptual framework for understanding how international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) become powerful international organizations (IOs), and how their pursuit of legitimacy leads to the formation of specific kinds of organizational cultural proclivities and dysfunctional tendencies that shape how these groups behave as international actors. Despite their increasing prominence in international affairs, INGOs remain largely understudied by International Relations (IR) scholars; my work provides a theoretically driven and empirically supported analysis of the power and performance of these actors, thus filling the existing gap in the IR literature. Relying on the basic tenets of sociological institutionalism, I argue that there is an indissoluble relationship between the ways in which an INGO becomes powerful and its ultimate performance outcomes.

The following essay can be described as an election pledge research where the presidential pledges are compared to the politics they implement when in power. The purpose is to see if they are genuine with their promises or just seeking the votes of the public. The study will focus on three election campaigns, 2008, 2012 and 2016. This essay will implement two theories: Rational choice theory and the Mandate Model. To answer this two questions will be dealt with. They are as follows: How likely is it that the promises made during a presidential campaign are kept? What category of pledges are kept to the most extent and in what way does this influence the voter?  To deal with those questions this essay will apply a case study design that implement the methods of a theory consuming- and qualitative text analysis.  The result of the study showed that for the three studied elections a minority of the pledges were fulfilled. But as previous studies also have done is adding fulfilled pledges and compromises. In that case 71,18% of the election pledges were at least partly fulfilled. The pledges that were kept to the greatest extent was economic aid and financial support. The influence on the voter depends if they are satisfied by compromises or just want pledges to be kept.