Introduction:
Kuwait has a
strong parliament dating back to 1962. The Kuwait National Assembly مجلس الآمة - has 50 elected Members of
Parliament from the five districts of Kuwait, and the members of the cabinet
are appointed. Parliament has had a tumultuous history of being dissolved and restored
over the years. In 2005, women gained their political rights, and since then four
Kuwaiti women have been elected. In 2012, the opposition boycotted the
elections because the system was changed to prevent people voting in blocs.
There are three main political blocs – the liberal bloc, the shaabi bloc, and
the Islamist bloc.
Research Questions:
To what extent
do the Kuwaiti Members of Parliament vote in similar ways according to their networks
(district, tribe, and religion)?
How has the
voting trend changed since the emir changed the electoral system to a single
non-transferable vote (SNTV) (comparing the votes from 2009-2014)?
Hypotheses:
I would expect
there to be a lack of overlap between the Shia and Sunni voting records. This
would support the common notion that Kuwaiti politics is divided according to
sectarian grounds.
Data Collection and Analysis:
I will analyze one-mode datasets of political parties and groups. I will be gathering data
from records of past Members of Parliament voting records, the Kuwait’s
National Assembly website (http://www.kna.kw/clt/run.asp?id=1835#sthash.SKzPTBgc.dpbs)
and other publicly available records of voting behavior and Members of
Parliament.
1 comment:
As discussed, this is a good idea, and there are lots of similar studies (mostly of the US) which you can use as models. It's also good that you have a date that you can use as a benchmark (change to SNTV). I expect you'll refine your Q further once you start getting into the data collection
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