Voter Behaviour of Local Community in Indonesia: Evidence from The Ambaipua Village Community in Regional Head Elections of South Konawe 2020

The research aims to determine and analyze the voter behavior of the Ambaipua Village community in regional head elections of South Konawe in 2020. This research uses political participation and voter behavior concept to see what underlying the community in determining the choice of their regional head, whether influenced by sociological, psychological or rational aspects. The data collection techniques used were interviews, literature studies and documentation. The results showed that the voting pattern of the Ambaipua Village community could be understood from three approaches, namely sociology, psychology and rational. A sociological approach in which the majority of informants stated that the religious aspect greatly affects who the candidate will be elected, that they will choose a candidate who has the same belief/religion. Meanwhile, from the psychological approach, it was found that the informants were not influenced by the political parties carrying the regional head candidates, but the majority would choose the incumbent with the assumption that they had succeeded in developing the region in the previous period. On the other hand, the rational approach was seen from the tendency of informants to choose candidate who have good political experience. Based on the results by the writers, it can be concluded that the sociological approach especially religion is more prominent than the other two approaches. This is because religious knowledge will have a great influence on aspects of people's lives, including their political choices.

Perspectives on Women in Plutarch’s Apophthegmata Laconica

The paper analyzes role and reputation, words and behaviors, duties and activities of the female figures described and quoted in Plutarch’s Apophthegmata Laconica. Depending on status and context, the role played by women in Spartan families and society seems to be fundamental for several reasons, in crucial situations and in different historical periods. And Plutarch, relating anecdotes, customs and sayings of the Spartans, allows to identify a remarkable variety of perspectives on women and their field of action. So, the internal and external focus on Spartan women’s everyday life helps to show the female loyalty to a Spartan ‘system of values’, through a series of aphorisms that outline the contribution of women to the historical and political experience, tradition and literary narration of Sparta over the centuries.

The relationship between the professional, social, and political experience and leadership style of mayors and organisational culture in local government. Empirical evidence from Poland

This paper aims to identify the organisational culture profiles of Polish municipalities and examine the influence of the professional, social and political experience and place-based leadership style of mayors on municipalities’ organisational culture profiles. The Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument was selected due to its suitability in assessing the organisation’s underlying culture. In the study, 917 mayors of municipalities in Poland, completing an on-line questionnaire. It was found that most of the Polish municipalities’ organisational culture is characterised by a clan type which is reflected in how employees are managed, how the organisation is held together, and how the organisation’s strategy is defined. The leadership style and the organisation’s success are hierarchy-focused, while the dominant characteristic is market type. The ANOVA and UNIANOVA analysis results suggest that the type of organisational culture depends on the type of municipality. The clan culture is dominant in rural municipalities. In urban municipalities, market culture and adhocracy are stronger than in rural municipalities, while clan culture is weaker. There is also an association between the dominant type of organisational culture and the mayors’ work experience in local administration and their membership in an NGO. The length of the mayor’s seniority in local government administration differentiates the importance of hierarchy culture, while his experience in the NGO sector strengthens the clan characteristics of the organisational culture of the office he heads. These findings provide important implications for the initiation and implementation of cultural change in local government administration and cooperation projects and local experiments. A cultural change is difficult to implement, and a change of mayor is not enough to initiate it. It requires planning and management. Cultural change may contribute to the increase of municipalities’ activity in cooperation’s projects and experiments. There is a need for more research on this topic to determine to what extent the organisational culture supports local cooperation projects.

Enacting Candor

Most citizens of representative democracies do not take political decisions in their everyday lives. Although participation in periodic elections, political parties, or social movements varies, above all, according to socio-economic status, taking a political decision is, in general, a relatively extraordinary event for the vast majority of citizens. The everyday political experience of these citizens is rather structured by watching and listening to political elites. Unlike the tenor of democratic theory, this quotidian mode of passively following politics is ocular democracy’s starting point. So far, the debate on ocular democracy has emphasized its shortcomings as a normative theory. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, this article illustrates the potential of ocular democracy as an analytical tool in the context of intra-party democracy. Podemos’ intra-party procedures are analyzed by complementing an institutional perspective with ocular democracy, thus showing how a party leader inclined to appear particularly venturesome undermines ambitious forms of intra-party democracy.

Women and Kinship Politics in the 2020 Regional Head Elections in Central Java

One of the entrances for women in politics is through kinship. In the 2020 regional head elections in Central Java, the nomination of women from incumbent families or political elites took place in various regions. Some have political experience; some have less experience. This paper examines how the nomination and victory of female candidates, whether because of kinship, or the need for experience, personal qualities, or other reasons. This research is descriptive with a qualitative approach, using data from the results of the vote, candidate data, and some related information. This study found that female candidates with kinship relations do not always win elections, but must have political capital, social capital, and competence, as well as support from political parties.

Breaking the Cabinet’s Glass Ceiling: The Gendered Effect of Political Experience in Presidential Democracies

Do ministers face gender discrimination in their career paths after entering presidential cabinets? Departing from past studies, which find little evidence of gender discrimination in more established democracies in Europe and the Americas, we argue that political experience can have a gendered effect on cabinet careers in newer democracies outside the West. Using fixed effects and matching designs, we analyze original data on the careers of 1,374 ministers from all major presidential democracies in Asia. Investigating the patterns of “cabinet promotions,” where ministers transfer from their initial cabinet appointment to a higher-prestige post, we confirm the null direct effect of gender in this new context. However, we also find important gender differences based on political experience, which helps women’s upward mobility in cabinets more than men. The finding that pathways to higher office differ by gender adds to our understanding of women’s representation in society.

Non-Institutional Forms of Political Participation of Muslim Youth in Modern Scotland

The article examines the main forms and socio-cultural features of the participation of Muslim youth in Scotland in non-institutional politics. As their research goal, the authors chose to identify the mechanisms through which political processes specific to the Scottish context (different from the general British or, for example, the English context) generate various forms of political participation of young adherents of Islam. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study was a significant layer of empirical data (mainly Scottish), comprehended through an interpretive paradigm, which allowed the authors to analyze the non-institutionalized political experience of young Muslims, finding patterns in how Muslim youth perceive and construct the social world around them. The result of the study was an understanding that the strengthening of the “Islamic factor” in the social and political life of Scotland is explained not only by the growth of the Muslim population, but also by the obvious support that the Scottish authorities provide to adherents of Islam. According to the authors, the issue of national and state independence, the specificity of Scottish nationalism, the attractiveness of the political platform of the Scottish National Party for ethno-confessional minorities became the most important primary factors that predetermined the active entry of Scottish Muslim youth into politics. The main conclusion in this article was the idea that the specific socio-political and sociocultural contexts of Scotland create appropriate forms of political participation of young Muslims. Despite the prevailing opinion that Scottish Muslim youth are interested mainly in international events, the authors show a clearly traceable institutional and non-institutional involvement of young Muslims in national and local political issues in Scotland. According to the authors, the non-institutional political participation of young Scottish followers of Islam is manifested in such forms as social movements, activism and charity, and volunteer work.