Abstract: A group of peers must choose one of them to receive a prize; everyone cares only about winning, not about who gets the prize if someone else. An award rule is impartial if one's message never influences whether or not one wins the prize. We explore the consequences of impartiality when each agent nominates a single (other) agent for the prize. On the positive side, we construct impartial nomination rules where both the influence of individual messages and the requirements to win the prize are not very different across agents. Partition the agents in two or more districts, each of size at least 3, and call an agent a local winner if he is nominated by a majority of members of his own district; the rule selects a local winner with the largest support from nonlocal winners, or a fixed default agent in case there is no local winner. On the negative side, impartiality implies that ballots cannot be processed anonymously as in plurality voting. Moreover, we cannot simultaneously guarantee that the winner always gets at least one nomination, and that an agent nominated by everyone else always wins.

Abstract: Deliberative democracy by the people themselves is a distinctive form of democratic practice It can be distinguished from deliberative democracy practiced by elites or representatives as well as from other forms of democracy that do not emphasize deliberation In this article I explore ways this kind of democracy can be realized and then inserted into our current democratic institutions The idea is to explore possible entry points in our political system for deliberative democratic designs involving ordinary citizens In doing so I draw on recent experiments with Deliberative Polls and other mini-publics I focus on four entry points: a) the evaluation and/or selection of candidates in the nomination phase; b) the evaluation and/or formulation of ballot propositions; c) public input into policy and legislation; and d) public input into processes of constitutional change

Abstract: Suppose that a graph is realized from a stochastic block model where one of the blocks is of interest, but many or all of the vertices' block labels are unobserved The task is to order the vertices with unobserved block labels into a ``nomination list'' such that, with high probability, vertices from the interesting block are concentrated near the list's beginning We propose several vertex nomination schemes Our basic - but principled - setting and development yields a best nomination scheme (which is a Bayes-Optimal analogue), and also a likelihood maximization nomination scheme that is practical to implement when there are a thousand vertices, and which is empirically near-optimal when the number of vertices is small enough to allow comparison to the best nomination scheme We then illustrate the robustness of the likelihood maximization nomination scheme to the modeling challenges inherent in real data, using examples which include a social network involving human trafficking, the Enron Graph, a worm brain connectome and a political blog network

Abstract: This study investigates the role of language in the communication and interpretation of intentions by examining selected political speeches as pieces of discourse with specific goals. It presents and documents some of the significant illocutionary acts that convey the intentions of speakers in the acceptance of nomination speeches of presidential candidates in Nigeria. The acceptance of nomination speeches of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief M.K.O. Abiola form the bulk of our data. The study is based on insight from J.L. Austin (1962) speech act theory. Five categories of speech acts identified by Searle’s (1969, 1976) are significant in the speeches. They include assertive acts (27.3%), expressive acts (22.70%), commissive acts (22.70%), directive acts (18.2%) and declarative acts which account for 9.1% of the total data. The study has revealed that the acceptance of nomination speeches are characterised by illocutionary acts that are used to achieve persuasion. Hence, the data are characterised by a preponderance of assertive, expressive and commissive acts that are mostly used as mobilization strategies, especially in political campaigns, where it is essential for candidates to persuade their listeners to win elections. The acts performed in the speeches examined are essentially similar; however, they were encoded more explicitly by Chief Abiola than Chief Awolowo.

Abstract: The president's representational responsibilities are unique and varied. Because a national constituency elects the president, the centrist model of representation contends that presidents must respond to and lead the entire nation. Woodrow Wilson (1961, 67-68) observed this when he wrote that as "political leader of the nation," the president is "representative of no constituency but of the whole people." James MacGregor Burns (1973, 106) echoed this perception: "the President is custodian of popular safety, national destiny, and the conscience of the people." Consistent with the centrist view of representation, numerous scholars have found that presidents are highly responsive to changes in national public mood (Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson 2002; Jacobs 1992; Stimson, Erikson, and MacKuen 1995), respond to the national public concerns about foreign and economic issues (Cohen 1999), and respond to national public preferences conditionally, by issue area, popularity, and the president's electoral cycle (Canes-Wrone and Shorts 2004; Rottinghaus 2006). Being a partisan political figure, the president also represents party interests (Skinner 2008). This partisan model of representation holds that presidents must consider their partisan's policy preferences to win their party's nomination (see Key 1964), and the president's success in Congress is predicated on party control (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Edwards 1989). Unsurprisingly, party predicts presidential liberalism and contributes to presidential representation of public opinion (Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson 1995). Wlezien (1996), in particular, finds that the president's party affiliation is a strong indicator of representation on defense spending in the 1970s and 1980s. Wood (2009) not only shows that the partisan model best explains the relationship between presidential liberalism and public mood, but, consistent with Wlezien's (1995) thermostatic model of representation, he also demonstrates that the national public does not follow, but rather tends to move away from the president's policy liberalism over time. Yet, debate persists on two levels regarding the president's responsiveness to public opinion. First, despite the plausibility that presidents may prefer taking positions on partisan issues and recent evidence that confirms this tendency (Wood 2009), most research that considers presidential-public relationships builds upon the centrist model of representation, that presidents represent the nation. Canes-Wrone's (2006) strategic model of going public, for example, hinges on presidential leadership of issues that are popular with the mass public. Canes-Wrone and Shotts (2004) also develop a model of centrist presidential representation. Still others argue that presidents may try to satisfy both constituencies by switching their support between mass and partisan public opinion (Druckman and Jacobs 2006; Pious 1996, 184), but this is not without costs, as the public shifts its support away from the president when he takes partisan positions (Wood 2009, 158). Second, public opinion is measured in both aggregated, ideological ways (Simson, MacKuen, and Erikson 1995; Wood 2009; Wood and Lee 2009) and directly through public opinion polling (Canes-Wrone and Shorts 2004; Rottinghaus 2006). Despite having certain advantages, these alternative measures may produce different conclusions about presidential representation. Since presidents have myriad reasons to represent partisans and there are multiple ways to measure representation, reexamining presidential representation may clarify the role presidential partisans play in the president's policy positions. The purpose of this article is to build on the existing literature by analyzing the impact of mass and partisan opinion on the representational position taking of several presidents. We ask, do presidents tend to be more representative of mass or partisan publics on their specific policy positions? …

Abstract: Free prior informed consent is a critical concept in enacting the rights of Indigenous People according to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This paper outlines a case for the inclusion of free prior informed consent in World Heritage nomination processes and examines issues that are problematic when enacting free prior informed consent. Case research was used to analyse current issues in the potential nomination of certain areas of Cape York Peninsula, Australia. The authors’ reflexive engagement within this case offers insights into the praxis of developing a World Heritage nomination consent process. The outcomes of this research were: preconditions need to be addressed to avoid self-exclusion by indigenous representative organisations; the nature of consent needs to account for issues of representation and Indigenous ways of decision making; the power of veto needs to have formal recognition in the nomination process; and prioritising self-determination within free pr...

Abstract: This paper analyzes the utility of using information contained within Twitter posts in predicting electoral outcomes. Particularly, we are interested in patterns in Twitter communications that can help explain differences between published opinion polls and the actual vote. We consider three categories of models. The first is a mentions model that examines the correspondence between the prevalence of communications about a candidate and electoral outcomes. The second series of models treat Twitter similar to a prediction market, aggregating not candidate preferences but predictions of the electoral result. Last, we consider whether the rediffusion of tweets about a candidate is a reliable predictor of the candidate's performance. The results find inconsistent support for the predictive value of Twitter mentions as an estimate of the overall vote, but these communications provide some evidence of otherwise undetected shifts in momentum with respect to the aggregated predictions of candidate performance and message rediffusion via retweets containing information about a particular candidate. Given the nature of the information extractable, these data are most sensitive to detecting changes in momentum.

Abstract: This article studies the processes of nomination and appointment to the Supreme Federal Tribunal in Brazil made by Presidents Sarney through Lula da Silva. It shows that in relations with the Senate, presidential anticipation prevails over presidential dominance. Brazilian presidents are successful appointers because they invest great effort in the moment of selection, when potential candidates are tested in the juridical and political communities. As a consequence, a uniform Senate approval of candidates coexists with a differential pattern of candidate recruitment. Sometimes presidents can select close candidates from their government; sometimes first-choice candidates are ruled out for lack of consensus. The type of coalition the president heads and the number of vacancies available affect the president's chances of imposing a candidate. The filter posed by center-right parties in the Senate induces the selection of nominees with centrist preferences.

Abstract: *This article analyses the wealth of data released by the Labour Party on its 2010 leadership election. We uncover the way in which the list of candidates was expanded via the initial nomination process in the parliamentary Labour Party and highlight the artificiality of some candidacies. We find little evidence in the voting data to support the belief that the Miliband brothers represented two sides of an ideological divide but highlight the profound importance of union nominations in the overall outcome. In the process, our analysis raises significant questions about the practical viability and normative desirability of the electoral college.

Abstract: The March/April 2013 issue of the Global Campaign for Peace Education newsletter features a reflection on the evolution of the field of peace education in the spotlight of the nomination of Betty Reardon, renowned peace educator, for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. The article notes that the field of peace education, in its early years, “was viewed by research scholars and peace activists as a positive complement to, but not an essential and integral part of the larger movement.” This marginalization of the field, and general separation of areas of peace knowledge (research, studies, education, activism), is a major obstacle impeding possibilities for transdisciplinary efforts to cooperatively and collaboratively affect and transform systems and cultures of violence. Fortunately, in the past decade, peace education scholars have been slowly moving the field out of the shadows, and, as the Global Campaign for Peace Education newsletter goes on to note, these scholar/practitioners have ”illuminated learning itself as the essential peace process, seeking ways to design and deliver peacelearning experiences most appropriate to particular learning audiences and the substance to be learned.” Pedagogical methods and strategies for personal and social transformation have emerged as critical realms of knowledge and action in peace scholar and activist communities. It is the hopeful observation of the author that the discrete separation of realms of peace

Abstract: The time frame at which presidential nominations can be forecast accurately provides us with a clue about when a winning nominating coalition coalesces in a political party, which in turn provides insights about political power in the nomination process. This article uses updated forecasts of the contested vote in presidential primaries to assess competing hypotheses from different theoretical approaches to the study of presidential nominations. One theoretical perspective holds that presidential nominations are largely determined during the invisible primary (e.g., Cohen et al., 2003, 2008; Hadley 1976; Haynes et al. 2004; Mayer 1996; Steger 2000). In this scenario the caucuses and primaries play a plebiscitary role, confirming the results of the campaign occurring before the primaries when party elites, activists, donors, and groups evaluate candidates and coordinate among themselves in order to unify behind a presidential candidate--before the mass membership of the party weigh in on the selection of the nominee. The other theoretical approach focuses on candidates' campaign momentum during the caucuses and primaries (e.g., Aldrich 1980; Bartels 1988; Norrander 1993, 2006; Popkin 1991). We can get a sense of which argument is correct by assessing the accuracy of presidential primary vote forecasts that use information from different points in time. Forecasts of the presidential primary vote differ from general election forecasts and other kinds of static explanatory models in a critical respect. Since presidential nominees are chosen through a sequential process that begins years before and continues through a series of caucuses and primaries, the process can be thought of as a Bayesian updating model (e.g., Morton and Williams 1999). In Bayesian terms, the nomination campaign leading up to the caucuses and primaries establishes an expectation for the outcome of the campaign, and this baseline expectation is updated through successive caucuses and primaries. As such, it is possible to use forecast models to assess the relative impact of conditions and events at different points in time to determine which phases of the campaign are critical to the determination of the outcome. This article estimates forecast models using information known at the end of the invisible primary period and compares these with forecast models using information from the earliest caucuses and primaries--the events considered to have the greatest impact on subsequent primary vote. If the nominee can be predicted accurately using information from the invisible primary, then the caucuses and primaries would appear to confirm the results of the earlier processes. However, if pre-primary forecasts have substantial error and that error is reduced by information about the results of the earliest nominating elections, then the caucuses and primaries can be said to have an independent influence on the outcome and thus campaign momentum affects the outcome. Rather than affirming one perspective or the other, this study shows that both patterns exist in different presidential nomination campaigns. One pattern is evidenced by substantial coalescence of party elites and mass partisans during the invisible primary behind a "front-runner" who goes on to win the nomination. Party elites, activists, and groups, however, do not always unify behind a candidate before the caucuses and primaries. These campaigns are distinguishable in forecasting models by larger errors in the prediction of candidate vote shares. In these nomination cycles, models incorporating information from the results of early caucuses and primaries substantially improve predictive accuracy. The occurrence of both patterns raises an important question about why political party elites and mass identifiers unify during the invisible primary period in some election cycles more than during others. The next section briefly reviews models of presidential primary vote forecasts. …

Abstract: Purpose To explore the importance of the board of director nomination process (that is, who nominates a given director for a position on the firm’s board) for the voting outcomes, disciplining of management, and overall monitoring quality of the board of directors. Design/methodology/approach We exploit a recent regulation passed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requiring disclosure of the board nomination process. In particular, we focus on firms’ use of executive search firms versus allowing internal members (often simply the CEO) to nominate new directors to serve on the board of directors. Findings We show that companies that use search firms to find board members pay their CEOs significantly higher salaries and significantly higher total compensations. Further, companies with search firm-identified independent directors are significantly less likely to fire their CEOs following negative performance. In addition, companies with search firm-identified independent directors are significantly more likely to engage in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and see abnormally low returns from this M&A activity. We instrument the endogenous choice of using an executive search through the varying geographic distance of companies to executive search firms. Using this instrumental variable framework, we show search firm-identified independent directors’ negative impact on firm performance, consistent with firm behavior and governance consequences we document. Originality/value Given the recent law passage, we are the first to directly analyze the nomination process, and show a surprisingly large predictive effect of seemingly arm’s-length nominations. This has clear implications for thinking carefully through how independence is defined in the director nomination process.

Abstract: A first attempt at politicizing the European elections occurred in 2014. Its main pillar was the selection and indication of party candidates to the post of Commission president by the main European political parties and groups. If the Parliament obtains that the first nomination be given to the party candidate of the group with the most seats in the EP, namely Jean-Claude Juncker, it would probably also rally behind that candidate and ensure his election. This would have long-lasting short-, medium- and long-term effects on inter- institutional relations and European integration that need to be considered. The nomination of the next Commission President is thus a fateful choice. It will not only have very significant political and institutional consequences, but will also set up or prevent a social and political dynamics towards the democratization of the EU.

Abstract: A central challenge for scholars of party politics is to explain parties' electoral success or failure. Campaign strategies, candidate personalities, electoral systems, parties' issue emphasis and policy positions all receive extensive coverage in the literature. One variable that has been neglected is the role of nomination systems in election results. This is surprising considering how politicians often blame candidate selection failures for disappointing electoral outcomes and then reform nomination mechanisms in the hope of improving future election prospects. In this study I examine the relationship between nomination systems and electoral results in Taiwan before and after the change in electoral systems. I show that candidate selection methods have played an important role in shaping Taiwan's party system under the old and new electoral systems.

Abstract: In the summer of 2012, two candidates faced off for the Republican nomination to the US Senate from Texas: a Cuban-American with limited Spanish-language skills and a bilingual Anglo. How important...

Abstract: The campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination involved 27 "debate events" from May 2011 until March 2012. These debates drew large audiences--more than 3 times the size of the audience for the primary debates during the 2008 presidential campaign--and according to the Washington Times, viewership was more than 8 times the average primary debate audience for the nationally televised debates broadcast by CNN. Michael Shear (2011) of the New York Times Politics and Government blog wrote that each debate "seems to have more influence over the course of the campaign than the last one" (p. 1). To understand how the debates preceding various state primaries may have affected the political fortunes of the candidates in the primary campaign, we examined the content of nine debates held before the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Arizona state primaries. Examining the debates in these pivotal state campaigns gives us a glimpse into the dynamics of the race to win the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. The candidates featured in these events were Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, John Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Of this group, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum held the greatest hope of gaining support for their nomination. Santorum won the Iowa primary, leaving Romney a very close second; Romney regained momentum after his Iowa setback, but Gingrich surged later after a strong performance in the South Carolina debates. Clearly, the debates played a major role in shaping the outcome of the nomination in the 2012 campaign. A substantial number of studies have found that primary debates make a difference in campaigns. Pfau (1988) found that intra-party political debates produced significant learning about the general campaign issues including issue learning that was specific for each of the three major candidates in the debate studied. Research has also found that primary debates affect voting intentions in several ways. Benoit, McKinney, and Stephenson (2002) found that viewers of primary debates "learn about the candidates' policy positions, form or change their evaluations of the candidates' character, change vote choice, and increase confidence in their vote choice" (p. 329). Benoit and Stephenson (2004) found that two thirds of their sample of viewers of a primary debate changed voting intentions and expressed greater confidence in their voting intentions. Primary debates differ from general election presidential debates in important ways. Benoit and Stephenson (2004) have argued that primary debates feature messages directed to the base rather than a national community, exchanged between members of the same party rather than an opposing party, and focused on regional audiences and concerns rather than national issues. Depending on the campaign, primary debates can function as turning points for different camps as potential candidates assess the field and sometimes decide to toss their hat in the ring, changing the dynamics of the campaign. McKinney, Kaid, and Robertson (2001) have found that front-runners often become the target of attacks in primary debates as lesser contenders try to assert their candidacy at the expense of the current leader in the polls. The nature of the arguments in primary debates merits consideration. Some political debate scholars believe that the content of primary debates often focuses less on differences in policy positions because the candidates are drawn from the same party. Yawn, Ellsworth, Beatty, and Kahn (1998), for example, have argued that "ideological and issue differences among candidates are of a lower magnitude in primaries than in general election campaigns" (p. 156). Drawing on the research of Gopoian (1982); Often (1985); and Hellweg, Pfau, and Brydon (1992), Yawn et al. (1998) have argued that "the absence of party labels leads voters to abandon the standard criterion and forces them to rely on short-term influences--often candidate image--when making vote decisions" (p. …

Abstract: Even though political parties maintain control of presidential nominations, little is known about what leads individual party members to participate in the process. Party elites have a collective incentive to nominate an electorally viable and ideologically unifying candidate, and they also have personal, strategic incentives that may foster or prevent their participation in the nominating process. Using endorsement data on a subset of party elites—members of the U.S. House of Representatives—this article finds that individual members of the extended party are strategic with their decision to participate in or abstain from the nomination process.

Abstract: This study explores how different institutional configurations affect the impact that partisan considerations have on gubernatorial appointments to state supreme courts. It does this by examining how the incidence of cross-party appointments is affected by various institutional variables. Most significantly, the results show that governors typically appoint judges who are members of the same political party, but that the probability of a cross-party appointment increases if the state uses a judicial nominating commission and if an opposition party controls the body that must confirm the nomination.

Abstract: During his first bid for president in 2000, George W. Bush gave three key speeches: his nomination acceptance, his victory speech, and his inaugural address. This essay examines these speeches through the lens of the inaugural genre and finds that each of the three contains the goals, themes, and style expected of an inaugural address. This finding demonstrates the potential utility of expanding the informative value of this de facto genre beyond its ontological boundaries, encourages an alternate view of nomination acceptance addresses, and invites an expansion of the boundaries of the rhetorical presidency. It also provides support for heterodox applications of genres in an effort to better understand changes in political rhetoric.

Abstract: When can a party insider feel safe from an outside challenge for a future nomination? In most countries, parties can choose whether to hold a primary election where the rank-and-file members take a vote, or to allow party leaders to directly appoint an insider candidate of their liking. The cost of primaries forces candidates to drift away from the party leader’s policy preferences in order to cater to primary voters. This paper postulates a benefit: primary elections can reveal information about the electability of potential candidates. I refine the formal model in Serra (2011) by making the realistic assumption that such information is revealed partially rather than fully. A signaling mechanism is introduced whereby candidates send noisy information that is used by primary voters to update their beliefs. This leads to surprising insights about the behavior of primary voters: under some circumstances they will use the information provided by primary campaigns, but under other circumstances, they will choose to completely ignore such information. In addition, the results predict that popular incumbents will not be challenged in a primary election, which is consistent with empirical observation. Finally, a prescription for parties is to allow their primaries to be tough given that stiff competition will improve the expected ability of the nominee.

Abstract: The president of the United States is the most powerful politician in the world. Therefore, the process of choosing a president is important both to the U.S. and the world. Since at least the 1870s, only candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties have been elected president. This situation confers great importance on the primary race for a major-party nomination. In 2012, President Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic candidate was not contested, so only the Republican Party had a primary campaign. (Of course, Obama used the primary period to campaign for himself and against the Republicans generally.) The economy was seen by many as relatively weak in 2011, leading many Republican politicians to seek their party's nomination. As President Obama appeared vulnerable, many candidates vied for the chance to challenge the incumbent Democratic president. These candidates and their messages clearly deserve scholarly attention. Since 1948, when Thomas E. Dewey and Harold Stassen participated in a debate on radio during the Oregon Republican primary campaign, presidential primary debates have been employed to help U.S. voters make a choice about who should be their party's nominee. In recent years, primary debates have been more numerous than debates in the general election campaign. In 2004 (the most recent campaign with a contested primary in only one political party), for instance, the campaign featured 21 primary, 3 presidential, and 1 vice presidential debates (Benoit et al., 2007). In 2008, 20 Democratic and 16 Republican primary debates were held (Benoit, Henson, & Sudbrock, 2011). Various studies have found that voters can be influenced by presidential primary debates (Benoit, McKinney, & Stephenson, 2002; Benoit & Stephenson, 2004; Lanoue & Schrott, 1989; Lemert, Elliot, Nestfold, & Rarick, 1983; Pfau, 1984, 1987, 1988; Wall, Golden, & James, 1988; Yawn, Ellsworth, Beatty, & Kahn, 1998). Meta-analysis has also established that watching televised presidential primary debates can increase issue knowledge, affect perceptions of candidate character, and change vote choice (Benoit, Hansen, & Verser, 2003); and these effects are even larger in primary than general debates, probably because voters have less knowledge, fewer candidate character perceptions, and weaker commitment to vote choice early in the campaign. Although the average viewership for primary debates is far less than that of general election debates, many voters do watch primary debates. For example, in 2008, 24 of the Democratic and Republican primary debates attracted a total of 90 million viewers (Kurtz, 2008; Memmott & Carnia, 2007; Page, 2008). Balz (2012) argued that the Republican primary debates of 2012 made a difference: The debates "shaped the campaign and the fortunes of many of the candidates. Think Rick Perry" (para.1). There is no question that presidential primary debates merit scholarly attention. LITERATURE REVIEW Relatively few studies have used content analysis to examine U.S. presidential primary debates (for other kinds of research on this message form, see Berquist, 1960; Best & Hubbard, 2000; Blankenship, Fine, & Davis, 1983; Hellweg & Phillips, 1981; Kane, 1987; Ray, 1961; Stelzner, 1971). A study of U.S. presidential primary debates from 1948-2000 employing Functional Theory offers several insights into the content of these messages (Benoit, Pier, et al., 2002). Acclaims were the most common function of these primary debates (63%), followed by attacks (32%) and defenses (4%). When candidates did attack in primary debates, they were more likely to attack members of their own political party (47%) than candidates in the opposing party (30%) or to attack the status quo (criticisms that include members of both major political parties, 24%). The candidates in primary debates discussed policy (63%) more frequently than character (37%). More of these policy utterances concerned general goals (40%) or past deeds (37%) than future plans (24%). …

Abstract: This study sought to establish the level of relationship between teachers’ nomination of gifted and talented children and their demographic variables; (gender, age, qualification, teaching experience and type of school) Four hundred teachers made up of 215 males and 185 females were selected from the Senior High and the Basic schools from the Central Region of Ghana through a multistage simple random sampling method An Adapted and simplified version with a Chronbach reliability coefficient of 86 for the Scale for Rating Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS) was the instrument used for data collection Multiple Regression analysis was utilized to analyze the research questions The results revealed that the teachers’ demographic variables such as gender, age, type of school, qualification and teaching experience were not good predictors of their nomination skills It is recommended that teachers learn more about the characteristics of the gifted and talented through in-service education to enable them develop skills in recognizing these children Key words : gifted, talented, children, nomination , basic schools, senior high schools

Abstract: The system of Bologna porticoes, included in 2006 in the Italian tentative list of World heritage sites of UNESCO, will undergo a definitive recognition of the nomination as part of the program of the current municipal council. The nomination is aimed at highlighting the portico, not only as a high-quality architectural work, which in the past centuries has become a distinctive feature of the town, but also in its social, community and anthropological meanings, as a meeting place, a protected space. The nomination project refers to different subjects and is divided into many levels of action. Among them we are going to develop a platform conceived for on-line accessing the wealth of data and resources related to the Bolognese porticoes system, such as historical, artistic, architectural resources, besides all those data regarding its actual management. The platform will perform the harvesting of several already existing databases, making the data available to citizens, tourists and scholars thanks to a graphic interface allowing a navigation in space and time. Therefore our system will facilitate the development of further cultural and promotional cross-medial applications, such as apps for mobile devices, augmented graphics and 3D architectural mapping events. Through social media tools, citizens will be invited not only to enjoy and share the proposed contents, but also to take an active stance in the project by uploading contents and comments. The core of our platform will consist of reality-based high quality 3D models usable and navigable within the system as main user interface. Uniform quality and consistency of our reality-based 3D digital models along the more than 40 km of porticoes was ensured by a controlled, low-cost process starting from photo-modeling techniques.

Abstract: This study has explored the US and Korean newspapers' election coverage in regard to their respective nations' female candidates relative to male rivals during the 2007–2008 presidential nomination campaigns. The findings reveal that both US and Korean newspapers displayed no bias in adopting personal, issue, and viability frames to cover the female candidates versus the male candidates. Additionally, the US dailies gave Clinton as much attention as Obama, as can be seen in the similar amount of articles, headlines, and primary coverage; however, Park, the female candidate in Korea, garnered a lower amount of articles and headlines, and was featured much less as the primary focus when compared to Lee, her male rival, in the Korean dailies. Evidence of biased coverage in the USA is found in the slant of coverage Clinton received. The overall tone of campaign coverage was less positive toward Clinton. While there was no tonal difference between Park and Lee in overall stories and headlines, the tone of Park...

Abstract: The study examined the factors that determined the emergence of party’s candidates and the impacts of party’s lack of internal democracy on democratic consolidation in Nigeria These were with a view to examining party politics and the challenge of democratic consolidation in Nigeria This area of political process has be a clog on the wheel of democratic consolidation in Nigeria since independence, 1960 Most research studies emphasize theories of democracy and political party and with little attention on party politics (intra-politics) and vis-a-vis democratic consolidation in Nigeria However, the findings of the study showed that 95% of respondents agreed that money and class were the major factors that undermined or determined the position of candidates in Nigerian election, while 90% of respondents also agreed that the power of incumbency and godfatherism greatly determined the emergence of party’s candidates Almost 90% of respondents agreed that tribalism, ethnicity, nepotism and sectionalism were major factors that have caused party’s lack of internal democracy in Nigeria The study concluded that party politics in the area of nomination, selection and elections have negative implications on democratic consolidation in Nigeria Among other things, the study also concluded that lack of internal democracy within political parties as a limiting factor in Nigeria’s attempt to deepen democracy Keywords: Party politics, Political party, Elections, Democratic Consolidation, Elite Theory

Abstract: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act increased the individual donor limit to $2,000 per candidate per election and indexed the limit for inflation every two years. The primary research question guiding this study is how has the increase in the donor limit affected donor behavior. Answering this question should allow a determination to be made about how donors have responded to the increased donor limit. Understanding how donors responded to the doubled limit is important because it provides evidence on the intersection of wealth inequality and political influence. To answer the research question this study considers how the increased donor limit has changed patterns of participation among donors. The focus is on the preprimary period of the presidential race because it is the most important period to campaign fundraising and the stage that provides the sharpest control of several important political variables given no contest is held in this period and most candidates enter in this stage but few drop out before the start of the primary and there is usually no clear frontrunner. The evaluation covers the 2000 election, representing one period before the increase went into effect, and elections of 2004, 2008, and 2012, representing three periods after the increase went into effect. Descriptive and analytic statistics are used to determine if the increased limit is leading to a distortion in the distribution of donations and widening the gap between the bottom and top donors and states. The findings of this study should provide important information about how the donors responded to the law.

Abstract: The 2014 European elections will be the first to take place under the Lisbon Treaty. The nomination of presidential candidates by European political parties will personalise the campaign and will trigger the interest of the European public.