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This page is an archive of articles featured on the Politics Portal.

Today is December 12, 2024, week 50.

Archive

2006, 2007

2008

Week 1

The United States presidential election of 2008, scheduled to be held on November 4, 2008, will be the 55th consecutive quadrennial election for president and vice president of the United States. This presidential election schedule coincides with the 2008 Senate elections, House of Representatives elections, and gubernatorial elections, as well as many state and local elections.

Under Article Two of the United States Constitution, as amended by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, an Electoral College will elect the president. These electors are appointed by mechanisms chosen by each state's legislature (prevailingly, by popular vote of the voters of each state). The individual who receives a majority of votes for president — 270 votes are needed for a majority — will be the president-elect of the United States; and the individual who receives a majority of electoral votes for vice president will be the vice president-elect of the United States. If no presidential candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College, then the president-elect will be selected by a vote of the House of Representatives, with each state receiving a single vote. If no vice presidential candidate receives a majority, then the vice president-elect will be selected by a vote of the Senate. Although rare, these latter scenarios have occurred twice in America's history, in 1825 and 1837.

As in the 2004 presidential election, the allocation of electoral votes to each state will be partially based on the 2000 Census. The president-elect and vice president-elect are scheduled to be inaugurated on Tuesday, January 20, 2009.

Week 2

A swing state (also, battleground state) in United States presidential politics is a state in which no candidate has overwhelming support, meaning that any of the major candidates have a reasonable chance of winning the state's electoral college votes. Such states are targets of both major political parties in presidential elections, since winning these states is the best opportunity for a party to gain votes. Non-swing states are sometimes called safe states, because one candidate has strong enough support that they can safely assume they will win the state's votes.

Week 3

The United States Electoral College is a term used to describe the 538 President Electors who meet every 4 years to cast the electoral votes for President and Vice President of the United States. The Presidential Electors are elected by the popular vote on the day traditionally called election day. Presidential Electors meet in their respective state capitol buildings (or in the District of Columbia) on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (per 3 U.S.C. 7), never as a national body. At the 51 meetings, held on the same day, the Electors cast the electoral votes. The electoral college, like the national convention, is an indirect element in the process of electing the president.

Week 4

Indirect election is a process in which voters in an election do not actually choose between candidates for an office but rather elect persons who will then make the choice. This process is used in many union elections and sometimes in professional, civic, and fraternal organizations, as well as in the election for President of the United States.

In the United States, the President is elected indirectly. Voters elect a slate of candidates for the Electoral College, which in turn elects the President. A similar process has been used in the past in emerging democracies, i.e., South Korea and the Republic of the Philippines, but it was soon dismantled in favor of direct election. Only in the United States has a process of indirect presidential election persisted for over two centuries. The Senate was elected by the legislatures of the states until 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment instituted direct elections.

Week 5

Seventeenth Amendment (the Seventeenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution was passed by the Senate on June 12, 1911 and by the House on May 13, 1912. It was ratified on April 8, 1913 and was first put into effect for the election of 1914. It amends Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution to provide for the direct election of Senators by the people of a state rather than their election or appointment by a state legislature. Also, it allows the governor or executive authority of each state, if authorized by that state's legislature, to appoint a senator in the event of an opening, until an election occurs. It was passed and ratified during the Progressive Era.

Week 6

Portal:Politics/Selected article/2008, week 6

Week 7

Portal:Politics/Selected article/2008, week 7

Week 8

Portal:Politics/Selected article/2008, week 8

Week 9

The Santer Commission was the European Commission in office between 1995-01-23 and 1999-03-15. The administration was led by Jacques Santer (former Prime Minister of Luxembourg).

The body had 20 members and oversaw the introduction of the euro. It was cut short when the Commission became the first to resign en masse due to allegations of corruption. Some members continued under Manuel Marín until the Prodi Commission was appointed.

Week 10

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi - TBMM, usually referred to simply as Meclis - "the Parliament") is the unicameral parliament of Turkey which is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by the Turkish Constitution. It was founded in Ankara on 23 April 1920 in the midst of the Turkish War of Independence. The parliament was fundamental in the efforts of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to found a new state out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the World War I.

Week 11

The President of Brazil is both the head of state and head of government of the Federative Republic of Brazil. The presidential system was established in 1889, upon the proclamation of the republic in a military coup d'etât against the Emperor Pedro II. Since then, Brazil had six constitutions, two dictatorships and three democratic periods. During these democratic periods, voting has always been compulsory.

The current president is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party), elected in 2002 for the 2003–2006 term, re-elected for the 2007–2011 term. He received the most votes of any president in Brazil until then, receiving 56.7 million votes. In the 2006 presidential elections held on October 1, 2006, he received 58.2 million votes.

Week 12

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States of America, along with the Democratic Party. It is often referred to as the Grand Old Party or the GOP.

Founded in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, the Republican Party rose to prominence with the election of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president. The party presided over the American Civil War and Reconstruction and was harried by internal factions and scandals towards the end of the 19th century. Today, the Republican Party supports a conservative platform (as far as American politics are concerned), with further foundations in economic liberalism and social conservatism.

The current U.S. President, George W. Bush, is the 19th Republican to hold office. Republicans currently fill a minority of seats in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, hold a minority of state governorships, and control a minority of state legislatures. It is currently the second largest party with 55 million registered members, encompassing roughly one third of the electorate.

Week 13

The rule of law, in its most basic form, is the principle that no one is above the law. It has been said that the rule follows logically from the idea that truth, and therefore law, is based upon fundamental principles which can be discovered, but which cannot be created through an act of will. But human law is not necessarily based on truth.

In England, the issuing of the Magna Carta was a prime example of the "rule of law." The Great Charter forced King John to submit to the law and succeeded in putting limits on feudal fees and duties.

Perhaps the most important application of the rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedural steps that are referred to as due process. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance, whether by a totalitarian leader or by mob rule. Thus, the rule of law is hostile both to dictatorship and to anarchy. Samuel Rutherford was one of the first modern authors to give the principle theoretical foundations, in Lex, Rex (1644), and later Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws (1748).

Week 14

Montesquieu (January 18, 1689 in Bordeaux – February 10, 1755), was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Era of the Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He was largely responsible for the popularization of the terms feudalism and Byzantine Empire.

Montesquieu's most influential work divided French society into three classes (or trias politica, a term he coined): the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the commons. Montesquieu saw two types of governmental power existing: the sovereign and the administrative. The administrative powers were the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. These should be separate from and dependent upon each other so that the influence of any one power would not be able to exceed that of the other two, either singly or in combination. This was radical because it completely eliminated the three Estates structure of the French Monarchy: the clergy, the aristocracy, and the people at large represented by the Estates-General, thereby erasing the last vestige of a feudalistic structure.

Week 15

In general, liberalization (or liberalisation) refers to a relaxation of previous government restrictions, usually in areas of social or economic policy. Liberalization of autocratic regimes may precede democratization (or not, as in the case of the Prague Spring).

In the arena of social policy it may refer to a relaxation of laws restricting for example divorce, abortion, homosexuality or drugs.

Most often, the term is used to refer to economic liberalization, especially trade liberalization or capital market liberalization.

Week 16

Minoritarianism is a neologism, closely related to the term minority rule, both of which describe a political philosophy or agenda which asserts that a segment of a country's population, often an ethnic group delineated by religion, language or some other identifying factor, to which a minority of its citizens belong is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in that country's society, giving it the right to make decisions that affect the society.

Week 17

Robert Nozick (November 16, 1938 – January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher and Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. Nozick, schooled at Columbia, Oxford and Princeton, was a prominent American political philosopher in the 1970s and 1980s. He did additional but less influential work in such subjects as decision theory and epistemology. His Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) was a libertarian answer to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, published in 1971. He was born in Brooklyn, the son of a Jewish entrepreneur from Russia, and married the American poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg. Nozick died in 2002 after a prolonged struggle with cancer. His remains are interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Week 18

In political science, the initiative (also known as popular or citizen's initiative) provides a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote on a proposed statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment or ordinance, or, in its minimal form, to simply oblige the executive or legislative bodies to consider the subject by submitting it to the order of the day. It is a form of direct democracy. It has also been referred to as "minority initiative," thus relating it to minority influence. Furthermore, it is, in itself, a politically neutral tool, despite its name which refers it to the "people." It can be used as well for conservative proposal as for progressive ends.

Week 19

The Schulze method is a voting system developed in 1997 by Markus Schulze that selects a single winner using votes that express preferences. The method can also be used to create a sorted list of winners. The Schulze method is also known as Schwartz Sequential Dropping (SSD), Cloneproof Schwartz Sequential Dropping (CSSD), Beatpath Method, Beatpath Winner, Path Voting, and Path Winner.

If there is a candidate who is preferred pairwise over the other candidates, when compared in turn with each of the others, the Schulze method guarantees that candidate will win. Because of this property, the Schulze method is (by definition) a Condorcet method.

Currently, the Schulze method is the most wide-spread Condorcet method. The Schulze method is used e.g. by Debian, Gentoo, TopCoder, and Software in the Public Interest.

Many different heuristics for the Schulze method have been proposed. The most important heuristics are the path heuristic and the Schwartz set heuristic.

Week 20

The politics of the Republic of China (ROC) takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President is head of state and the premier (President of the Executive Yuan) is head of government, and of a dominant party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The party system is dominated by the liberal, pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party and the conservative, pro-reunification Kuomintang (KMT). The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The Republic of China (ROC) currently has jurisdiction over Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, and the Pescadores Islands (Penghu) and several smaller islands. Taiwan's two major cities, Taipei and Kaohsiung, are centrally administered municipalities. The rest of Taiwan and the Penghu Islands are administered together as the Province of Taiwan. Kinmen, Matsu, and smaller nearby islands are administered as counties of Fukien (Fujian) Province.

Week 21

Politics of Norway takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Executive power is exercised by the King and his council, the cabinet, led by the Prime Minister of Norway. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Storting, elected within a multi-party system. The Judiciary is independent of the executive branch and the legislature.

Week 22

Soft power is a term used in international relations theory to describe the ability of a political body, such as a state, to indirectly influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies through cultural or ideological means. The term was first coined by Harvard University professor Joseph Nye, who remains its most prominent proponent, in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. Its usefulness as a descriptive theory has been challenged often, but soft power is still being used as a term that distinguishes the subtle effects of culture, values, and ideas on others' behavior from more direct coercive measures called hard power such as military action (hard power) or economic incentives.

Week 23

Politics of the Republic of Korea takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the head of state, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature and comprises a Supreme Court, appellate courts, and a Constitutional Court. Since 1948, the constitution has undergone five major revisions, each signifying a new republic. The current Sixth Republic began with the last major constitutional revision in 1988.

Week 24

Televoting is a method of opinion polling usually conducted by telephone, which incorporates deliberative democratic principles.

A televote is initiated by random sampling of a population by means of random digit dialling. Those contacted are requested to volunteer to receive written background briefing materials regarding a particular issue, that have been prepared by a panel of representatives of different stakeholder groups affected by that issue, and incorporating various views or perspectives. Volunteers are requested to discuss the issue amongst their families and friends until they have reached a decision. At the conclusion of this period they are polled again by telephone in order to determine their views.

Week 25

Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a term used by some political theorists, to refer to any system of political decisions based on some tradeoff of consensus decision making and representative democracy. In contrast to the traditional theory of democracy, which emphasizes voting as the central institution in democracy, deliberative democracy theorists argue that legitimate lawmaking can only arise from the public deliberation of the citizenry.

The term "deliberative democracy" was originally coined by Joseph M. Bessette, in "Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government," in 1980, and he subsequently elaborated and defended the notion in "The Mild Voice of Reason" (1994). Others contributing to the notion of deliberative democracy include Jon Elster, Jürgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen, John Rawls, Amy Gutmann, James Fishkin, Dennis Thompson, and Seyla Benhabib.

Week 26

Religious democracy means that the values of religion play a role in the public arena in a society populated by religious people. Religious democracy is an example of how democratic values can exist in a different cultural elaboration than what is usually known before. But, in a secular society, some other characteristic is deemed important and focused on, and that becomes the basis for democracy.

Week 27

Max Weber (German pronunciation: [maks ˈveːbɐ]) (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German political economist and sociologist who was considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration. He began his career at the University of Berlin, and later worked at Freiburg University, University of Heidelberg, University of Vienna and University of Munich. He was influential in contemporary German politics, being an advisor to Germany's negotiators at the Treaty of Versailles and to the commission charged with drafting the Weimar Constitution.