With more and more political candidates using social media for campaigning, researchers are looking at measuring the effectiveness of this medium. Most research, however, concentrates on the bare count of likes (or twitter mentions) in an attempt to correlate social media presence and winning. In this paper, we propose a novel method, Interaction Strength Plot (IntS) to measure the passive interactions between a candidate's posts on Facebook and the users (liking the posts). Using this method on original Malaysian General Election (MGE13) and Australian Federal Elections (AFE13) Facebook Pages (FP) campaign data, we label an FP as performing well if both the posting frequency and the likes gathered are above average. Our method shows that over 60% of the MGE13 candidates and 85% of the AFE13 candidates studied in this paper had under-performing FP. Some of these FP owners would have been identified as popular based on bare count. Thus our performance chart is a vital step forward in measuring the effectiveness of online campaigning.
This study analyses the relationship between democracy and environmental pollution in the MINT countries using a panel data spanning 1971-2016. It also investigates the interactive effect of income and democracy on CO2 emissions. We used various estimation techniques for the analysis, ranging from the quantile regression, OLS-fixed effect and GLS-random effect regressions with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors to control for cross-sectional dependence while a panel threshold regression is used for robustness check. The results showed existence of long-run relationship between CO2 emissions and the explanatory variables. The quantile regression results for interaction model indicate that economic growth, democracy and trade openness promote environmental pollution via their positive effects on CO2 emissions. Primary energy however reduces pollution across the lower and middle quantiles but enhances it in higher quantiles. The interaction effect is negative and statistically significant across all quantiles. This implies that democracy has a significant role in moderating the impact of income on CO2 emission in the MINT countries. It thus follows that if the MINT countries radically strengthen democracy and enhance income, it would be possible for them to achieve greater economic development and reduce CO2. In addition, a single threshold model is used to identify the asymmetry in response to CO2 emissions at lower and upper levels of democratic regimes. The results showed that once the degree of democracy is above the threshold level, an increase in income would reduce CO2 emissions but once it is below the threshold level, the effect of income becomes insignificant. Based on these results, the MINT countries need to strengthen democracy, enhance income level and relax trade barriers.
Background and Objective: Countries all over the world respect the election process as one of the fundamental steps in forming a government. However, the exponential spread of COVID-19 has been deeply alarming, with a high number of positive cases and total deaths, forcing World Health Organization to declare it as a pandemic on 11thMarch 2020. During these unprecedented events, governments have had a tough decision to balance between the constitutional obligation to hold an election and the safety of the people. As such, electoral commissions have implemented numerous approaches to allow election to proceed in a safe and controlled setting during the pandemic.
Methods: The preventative measures and standard operating procedures in the Sabah state of Malaysia, NewZealand and the United States elections are discussed, as well as COVID-19 post-election situation in respective countries. Innovative approaches and election flexibilities shall be considered to allow voting in the safest way possible, following the new normal.
Discussion:Nevertheless, countries need to evaluate its strength of public health response when deciding to hold elections due to potential devastating outbreaks following elections despite measures taken.
Conclusion: The election is a fundamental process in a democracy. Countries are required to be flexible and innovative in their approach to hold a safe election. Nevertheless, it may be prudent for countries with fewer resources and poor pandemic control to postpone election as a rise in cases will be catastrophic, putting many lives at risk.
Fabian Society is a type of political think tank which was founded by a group of students and
intellectuals at London School of Economics (LSE), United Kingdom in the late of 19 centuries. The
Fabian political thought is a new manifestation of socialist ideology in United Kingdom emerged through the role of Labour Party Partiat that time. After the World War II, the influence of this political
thought began to widespread throughout Malaya via British-educated Malayan students. This
development brought about a new form of political idealism based on social-democrat orientation
which emphasized on class struggles and civil issues in Malaya. Thus, the aim of this article is to
scrutinize objectively and descriptively the influence of the Fabian political thought in the Malaysian
political development from 1952 to 1970. Using the approach of history reconstructionist, the analysis
discussion was developed based on the use of primary sources as the argument base. The research
findings indicate that the influence of the Fabian political thought developed in Malaya by the role of
the socialist intellectual-progressive group throughout the research. The development did not only
involve labour movements and left-wing political parties such as Malayan Democratic Union (MDU)
and the Malayan Labour Party, but it also influenced students movements at universities through
University of Malaya Socialist Club in Singapore around 1950s and students societies in Universiti
Malaya, Kuala Lumpur around 1960s. In fact, at the same time the progressive Fabian group slipped in
right-conservative group through their direct involvement in UMNO and the Perikatan regime at the
time. This indirectly proves that there is a different side of the socialist role through the role of the
Fabian group in the development of democracy and politics in Malaysia.