By Wouter Veenendaal (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) On 20 November 2016, elections were held for San Marino’s sixty-member legislature, the Consiglio Grande e Generale. Three electoral coalitions composed of various political parties contested the elections, as well as two minor independent parties. The previous elections had been held in 2012, [...]

By Annalisa Cappellini (King's College London) The Italian Constitution seems to be the biggest winner of the referendum on constitutional reforms that took place yesterday in Italy: in an era of political disengagement and low electoral participation 70% of Italian voters went to the polling station to have their say on its proposed modifications; over [...]

By Ghia Abashidze (Tblisi State University) On Saturday, November 26, after lengthy debates, the Parliament of Georgia has approved a renewed Cabinet. Out of 150 MPs, 110 voted in favour of the new Government. After a landslide victory of incumbent Georgian Dream (GD) party in last October's parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili [PM Since [...]

By Juan Rodríguez-Teruel (University of Valencia) and Patricia Correa Vila (University of Exeter) After ten months of caretaker government, Spain has a new executive, again with Mariano Rajoy (leader of the conservative Popular Party, PP) as prime minister. Over the last year, Spanish politics has been revolving around the enormous difficulties to form a government, [...]

By Martin Mölder (Central European University) The change in the leadership of the Estonian Centre Party on November 5th 2016 that led to the rapid formation of a new coalition between the Centre Party (CP) as the new party of the Prime Minister, the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (PPRU) and the Social Democrats [...]

By Ólafur Th. Hardarson (University of Iceland) On October 29th 2016, an early election took place in Iceland. This was a result of the revelation of the Panama Papers last spring, which in April lead to the resignation of Progressive Party Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson – his walking out of a TV interview when [...]

By Olivera Komar (University of Montenegro) On October 16th Montenegrins had an opportunity to vote at the tenth parliamentary elections since pluralism was officially introduced. Montenegrin Parliament consists of one chamber that includes 81 members. According to the preliminary results 387.765 people turned out to vote, which makes for a quite high turnout of 73.3%. [...]

By Ioseb Jorjoliani (Georgian Institute of Politics) The Republic of Georgia held its Parliamentary elections on October 8th. With a voter turnout of about 52 percent, the ruling party- Georgian Dream (GD) secured a victory of 48.67 percent. The main opposition party - United National Movement (UNM) came in second with 27.11 percent. Unlike the [...]

By Bonnie N. Field (Bentley University) and Kerstin Hamann (University of Central Florida) Multinational democracies typically have territorially-concentrated minority groups who may seek to alter the existing patterns of political authority. This may include changing which political institutions have the authority to make (which) decisions that affect their territory, for example governments at the national, [...]

By Oscar Barberà Aresté (University of Valencia) The number of parties in a party system can be linked to its main issue dimensions filtered by other factors such the proportionality of the electoral system. The number of parties and their relevance is also tied to the cabinet bargaining process: the more parties are involved in [...]