Download or read book Strengthening Ghana s Electoral System written by Mike Oquaye and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Strengthening Electoral Integrity written by Pippa Norris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today a general mood of pessimism surrounds Western efforts to strengthen elections and democracy abroad. If elections are often deeply flawed or even broken in many countries around the world, can anything be done to fix them? To counter the prevailing ethos, Pippa Norris presents new evidence for why programs of international electoral assistance work. She evaluates the effectiveness of several practical remedies, including efforts designed to reform electoral laws, strengthen women's representation, build effective electoral management bodies, promote balanced campaign communications, regulate political money, and improve voter registration. Pippa Norris argues that it would be a tragedy to undermine progress by withdrawing from international engagement. Instead, the international community needs to learn the lessons of what works best to strengthen electoral integrity, to focus activities and resources upon the most effective programs, and to innovate after a quarter century of efforts to strengthen electoral integrity.
Download or read book Electoral System Design written by Andrew Reynolds and published by Stockholm : International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. This book was released on 2005 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Democratisation and Electoral Conflict Management In Sub Saharan Africa The Ghanaian Experience written by Osei Baffour Frimpong and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elections are undoubtedly a quintessential of democratization process and Africa is not an exception to this. Elections have thus been a preeminent factor in Africas democracy since the 1990s. Indeed, it has been the medium through which African people participate in the decision making process in their respective states. Apart from this, elections have played a key role in democratic transitions in Africa and opened the political space in most African States. This notwithstanding, elections have also been a source of cataclysmic conflicts, tensions, polarization and hostilities among others in sub Saharan African states such as Kenya, Cote dIvoire, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Togo, Sierra Leone and central African Republic among others. For this reason, while elections are important, they are not in themselves conducive to emerging democracies in Africa.Ghana is geographically located in the West African sub region which has been a scene of preponderant electoral conflicts. Therefore, political observers have been concerned about the spill over effect of these electoral conflicts on Ghana. In spite of this, Ghana has successfully organised six competitive elections over the past two decades. These elections have led to power alternation and smooth transfer of power between Ghanas two major political parties, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2000 and 2008. This significant achievement has earned Ghana both international and domestic recognition as a beacon of democracy and a bastion of peace and stability in Africa. However, elections in Ghana have not been conflict free. Ghana has witnessed disputes, tensions and violent conflicts at hotspots in almost all the elections the country has had. In spite of this, Ghana has been relatively successful in managing its electoral conflicts.Against this background, the study seeks to investigate democratisation and electoral conflict management in sub Saharan Africa with the Ghanaian experience as a case study. In the case of Ghana, the study specifically examines the role of Ghanas Electoral Commission in the management and prevention of electoral conflict. The study further investigates the challenges confronting the EC in its quest to manage and prevent electoral conflict in Ghanas nascent democracy. More importantly, the study looks at how to strengthen the capacity of the EC in order to make it efficient in the management and prevention of electoral conflict. The study is predicated on the hypothesis that an independent, transparent, credible electoral administration and involvement of stakeholders in the electoral process are critical to the management and prevention of electoral conflicts. Also, the study is hinged on the liberal democratic theoretical matrix which explains the role of democratic institutions such as the electoral management body in the management and prevention of conflict in a democratic dispensation.The thematic concerns of the study were achieved through in depth analysis of secondary data which constitutes the findings of the study. The study has established that the constitutional autonomy of the EC granted by the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, ECs ability to assert its autonomy, introduction of confidence, trust and transparent measures are the main conflict management tools employed by the EC in the management of electoral conflict in Ghana. The study particularly discovered that the establishment of Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) to create the platform for the EC, political parties and civil society organisations to dialogue on issues regarding the electoral process and involvement of both domestic and international election observer groups in the electoral process by the EC have been a catalyst in the ECs role in the management of electoral conflicts in Ghana. The study however notes bloated voter register, inadequate civic education, weak early warning system, insufficient resources and institutional weaknesses among others as the challenges militating against the ECs quest to manage and prevent electoral conflict in Ghana.In the concluding reflections, the need for adequate funding, investment in civic education, establishment of conflict management panels, thorough cleaning of the voter register and establishment of early warning systems are proposed by the study to enhance the ECs role in the management of electoral conflict in Ghana.
Download or read book Election related Violence written by Clementina Amankwaah and published by Nordic Africa Institute. This book was released on 2013 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Current African Issue gives an overview of the causes and experiences of election related violence in relation to patronage politics in Ghana. Ghana has been framed by the international community as a unique bastion of democracy and peace on the African continent. Nevertheless, the country has come from a military regime like many of its democratic African counterparts and is still prone to some of the problems faced by its more turbulent neighbours. The three main guiding issues that this publication will address in relation to election-related violence in Ghana are: The causes of election-related violence in Ghana Who the people most likely to cause election-related violence are The role that "big men" play in election-related violence
Download or read book Electoral Management Design written by International IDEA and published by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). This book was released on 2014-12-20 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook was developed for electoral administrators and those involved in reforming EMBs. It provides comparative experience of and best practices on EMB structures and funding models, as well as means for evaluating performance. A range of case studies illustrate examples from specific contexts in Afghanistan, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Haiti, India, Kenya, the Republic of Korea, Liberia, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Senegal, Republic of Seychelles, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tunisia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States. This new and revised edition of the 2006 International IDEA Handbook includes updated country-level data and case studies and significantly expanded sections on the role of gender, professional development and technology in elections.
Download or read book Elections and Conflict Management in Africa written by Timothy D. Sisk and published by US Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elections have emerged as one of the most important, and most contentious, features of political life on the African continent. In the first half of this decade, there were more than 20 national elections, serving largely as capstones of peace processes or transitions to democracies. The outcomes of these and more recent elections have been remarkably varied, and the relationship between elections and conflict management is widely debated throughout Africa and among international observers. Elections can either help reduce tensions by reconstituting legitimate government, or they can exacerbate them by further polarizing highly conflictual societies. This timely volume examines the relationship between elections, especially electoral systems, and conflict management in Africa, while also serving as an important reference for other regions. The book brings together for the first time the latest thinking on the many different roles elections can play in democratization and conflict management.
Download or read book Making Votes Count written by Gary W. Cox and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-03-28 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular elections are at the heart of representative democracy. Thus, understanding the laws and practices that govern such elections is essential to understanding modern democracy. In this book, Cox views electoral laws as posing a variety of coordination problems that political forces must solve. Coordination problems - and with them the necessity of negotiating withdrawals, strategic voting, and other species of strategic coordination - arise in all electoral systems. This book employs a unified game-theoretic model to study strategic coordination worldwide and that relies primarily on constituency-level rather than national aggregate data in testing theoretical propositions about the effects of electoral laws. This book also considers not just what happens when political forces succeed in solving the coordination problems inherent in the electoral system they face but also what happens when they fail.
Download or read book Parties Movements and Democracy in the Developing World written by Nancy Bermeo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-12 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comparative study of the role of political parties and movements in the founding and survival of developing world democracies.
Download or read book Election Management Bodies in West Africa written by Ismaïla Madior Fall and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Issues in Ghanas Electoral Politics written by A. Ninsin and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2016-12-29 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghana attained independence in 1957. From 1992, when a new constitution came into force and established a new democratic framework for governing the country, elections have been organized every four years to choose the governing elites. The essays in this volume are about those elections because elections give meaning to the role of citizens in democratic governance. The chapters depart from the study of formal structures by which the electorate choose their representatives. They evaluate the institutional forms that representation take in the Ghanaian context, and study elections outside the specific institutional forms that according to democratic theory are necessary for arriving at the nature of the relationships that are formed between the voters and their representatives and the nature and quality of their contribution to the democratic process.
Download or read book Cybersecurity in Elections written by Sam van der Staak and published by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). This book was released on 2019-07-19 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information and communication technologies are increasingly prevalent in electoral management and democratic processes, even for countries without any form of electronic voting. These technologies offer numerous new opportunities, but also new threats. Cybersecurity is currently one of the greatest electoral challenges. It involves a broad range of actors, including electoral management bodies, cybersecurity expert bodies and security agencies. Many countries have found that interagency collaboration is essential for defending elections against digital threats. In recent years significant advances have been made in organizing such collaboration at the domestic and international levels. This guide tracks how countries are making progress on improving cybersecurity in elections. Based on an extensive collection of 20 case studies from all over the world, it provides lessons for those wanting to strengthen their defences against cyberattacks.
Download or read book Electoral Engineering written by Pippa Norris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-02-09 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ?electoral engineering?. Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. The study compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contracting expectations. One popular approach claims that formal rules define electoral incentives facing parties, politicians and citizens. By changing these rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we have the capacity to shape political behavior. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.
Download or read book Introducing Electronic Voting written by Peter Wolf and published by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electronic voting is often seen as a tool for making the electoral process more efficient and for increasing trust in its management. Properly implemented, e-voting solutions can increase the security of the ballot, speed up the processing of results and make voting easier. However, the challenges are considerable. If not carefully planned and designed, e-voting can undermine the confidence in the whole electoral process. Technology upgrades in elections are always challenging projects that require careful deliberation and planning. Introducing e-voting is probably the most difficult upgrade as this technology touches the core of the entire electoral process—the casting and counting of the votes. E-voting greatly reduces direct human control and influence in this process. This provides an opportunity for solving some old electoral problems, but also introduces a whole range of new concerns. Consequently, e-voting usually triggers more criticism and opposition and is more disputed than any other information technology application in elections. This Policy Paper outlines contextual factors that can influence the success of e-voting solutions and highlights the importance of considering these factors before choosing to introduce new voting technologies.
Download or read book Competitive Authoritarianism written by Steven Levitsky and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-16 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.
Download or read book Technology Integration and Transformation of Elections in Africa written by Cosmas Uchenna Nwokeafor and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-02-22 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technology Integration and Transformation of Elections in Africa serves as a standard textbook and a reference guide to students in both undergraduate and graduate programs in tertiary institutions where elaborate discourse on the impact of technology to political elections and advancements across the continental Africa have continued to gain weight. The rationale in publishing this textbook far more outweighs its timeliness but speaks highly of its significance because it deals with technology integration and transformation of elections in Africa, a region whose elections has been continuously marred by corruption and incessant fraudulent activities perpetrated by both the citizens, various political parties and the umpires whose responsibilities were to present a credible election. Elections in Africa draws international attention and the news is seldom good. For instance, the elections in Kenya, fueled violence that left 1,500 dead and 300,000 displaced, while elections in Zimbabwe suffered from massive fraud and brutal suppression. In Nigeria in 1999, and 2011, the result of the elections were in shambles and some of the parties that lost the election took to the street resulting in the death of significant percentage of innocent people.
Download or read book Issues in Ghana s Electoral Politics written by Ninsin, Kwame A. and published by CODESRIA. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghana attained independence in 1957. From 1992, when a new constitution came into force and established a new – democratic – framework for governing the country, elections have been organized every four years to choose the governing elites. The essays in this volume are about those elections because elections give meaning to the role of citizens in democratic governance. The chapters depart from the study of formal structures by which the electorate choose their representatives. They evaluate the institutional forms that representation take in the Ghanaian context, and study elections outside the specific institutional forms that according to democratic theory are necessary for arriving at the nature of the relationships that are formed between the voters and their representatives and the nature and quality of their contribution to the democratic process.
