A map-based place-browser for a PDA

This article describes PlaceBrowser, a PDA based application that allows the user of the application to navigate around an area of geographical interest, such as a city, using a zoomable, panable hierarchy of aerial images, in a fashion similar to Google Maps. The novel aspect to the work is that an area of precise interest within the map can be pin-pointed by the user by directly dragging out a rectangular area on the map. This forms the source to a spatial search that returns landmarks that are then used to trigger a Web based query. The results of this query are displayed to the user. The net effect is that, in response to dragging out a rectangular area, web pages that are relevant to this area but have not been explicitly geo-spatially tagged with metadata (longitude,latitude) are shown to the user

The democratic role of campaign journalism: partisan representation and public participation

Campaign journalism is a distinctive but under-researched form of editorialised news reporting that aims to influence politicians rather than inform voters. In this it diverges from liberal norms of social responsibility, but instead campaigning newspapers make claims to represent the interests or opinions of publics such as their readers or groups affected by the issue. This could be understood as democratically valid in relation to alternative models such as participatory or corporatist democracy. This essay examines journalists’ understanding of the identity and views of these publics, and how their professional norms are operationalised in their journalistic practice in relation to five case studies in the Scottish press. The campaigns are analysed in terms of four normative criteria associated with corporatist and participatory democracy: firstly, the extent to which subjective advocacy is combined with objectivity and accuracy; secondly, the extent to which civic society organisations are accorded access; thirdly, whether the disadvantage of resource-poor groups in society is compensated for; and finally, to what extent the mobilisation of public support for the campaigns aims to encourage an active citizenry

Evaluating the Implementation of Indiana Area ‘Communities That Care’

‘Communities That Care’ (CTC) is a research-based operating system designed to help communities identify and reduce risk factors, enhance protective factors, and prevent a number of adolescent problem behaviors, including delinquency, violence, substance abuse, school drop-out, and teen pregnancy. Indiana, PA, is one of approximately 125 communities throughout Pennsylvania that have chosen to use the CTC approach to promote the positive development of children and youth in the local area. This paper presents an initial review of Indiana Area CTC, in terms of the planning and implementation efforts that have taken place during the past five years

‘Importing’ the personal vote to maximise the party vote? ‘Parachute personalization’ in an intraparty preference electoral system

This article seeks to contribute to the electoral and party politics debate in three main ways. The first is the claim that parachuting politicians into districts in which they have no prior connections is not a nomination practice that is the exclusive preserve of plurality electoral systems, nor does it necessarily engender the critical reaction of carpetbagging in the United States or ‘captain’s picks’ in Australia. Second, the practice of parachutage is tied to the personalisation literature but, in contrast to this literature, the article views [parachute] personalisation and party as complementary and mutually reinforcing rather than contradictory. Parachute personalisation serves party-based representative democracy rather than attenuates it. Third, the article questions the undue focus in the personal vote literature on a candidate’s personal-vote-seeking attributes. Rather, in concentrating on the transferability of the parachute vote as an electoral resource, the generic term ‘personal vote’ is viewed as comprising a mélange of party-vote-earning attributes – inter alia name-recognition and reputational status as a party office-holder – and personal-vote-earning attributes – name-recognition from outside party politics (sport, music, etc.). The central question addressed runs: When and why in an intraparty preference voting system – Finland is the focus – is parachute personalisation practised and with what result?publishedVersio

W(h)ither religious-niche parties? The Nordic Christians’ search for the mainstream through an ‘unsecular politics’ strategy

With the pun intended, this article asks whether, in overwhelmingly secular societies, the four Nordic religious-niche parties created by revivalist Christians before and after the Second World War, and whose strength has been in their countries’ Bible Belt regions, have a future as broad-based, religious-mainstream parties or are destined to ‘wither on the vine’? If, as the parties’ literature suggests, niche-party ‘nicheness’ is variable, can the ‘pure type’ of religious-niche party modify its nicheness and, if so, how, and with what result? The argument made is that i) the Nordic Christian parties have sought to expand beyond their revivalist core by ‘importing’ continental Christian Democracy as an ‘unsecular politics’ strategy and ii) that whilst, outside Denmark, support for the Nordic Christians is no longer a proxy for religiosity, and charismatic leadership has enabled the Christian parties intermittently to attract a wider body of ‘unsecular voters’, they have struggled to retain them in face of competition from a populist radical right playing the ‘Christian heritage’ card.Peer reviewe

Idiosyncratic, Technocratic, Democratic or Simply Pragmatic? A Parties’ Perspective on Electoral System Change in Finland, 1906-1969

Whilst in Klaus Törnudd’s (1968, 57) words “converting the Finnish electoral system into a unique list system with votes for individual candidates”, the extent of electoral system change in 1955 was relatively limited. In Carey and Shugart’s (1995) terms, Finland shifted from the 1906 system of ‘open lists with open endorsement and multiple votes’ – voters could rank order candidates – to a system in 1955 of ‘open lists with open endorsement and a single vote’. Indeed, the scholarly debate about this electoral system change has revolved not so much around its scale as i) the contemporary perception of its long-term significance and ii) the extent to which the reform was party politicised. Was the 1955 reform a case of ‘idiosyncratic change’ (Benoit 2004, 372) that emerged more by default than design (Karvonen 2011, 130, Railo 2016, 76); ‘technocratic change’ (Sundberg 2002, Renwick and Pilet 2016, 115), driven by legal experts rather than the political parties; ‘democratic change’ initiated primarily out of concern to enhance the proportionality of the electoral system – or what? I make the case that the 1955 reform represented ‘simply pragmatic change’. I argue that, when viewed from a parties’ standpoint, the 1955 legislation gave statutory force to a progressive de facto reduction in the preferential element in the electoral system that the parties had engineered over the previous half century. In a real sense the parties, in running singlecandidate ‘lists,’ had fostered a personalisation of electoral politics and an individualisation of candidate campaigning. Equally, in reducing the number of candidate preference votes, the 1955 legislation, when viewed from a voter standpoint, gave de jure force to a de facto de-personalisation of the electoral system. Paradoxically, a personalisation of electoral politics was in no small measure driven by a de-personalisation of the electoral rules