About one month before the 2019 North Macedonian presidential election, the State Election Commission's key information and communication systems did not function properly, which affected the timely accessibility of information; the publication of session minutes, instructions and decisions; the online verification of voters' data in the voter register; and the online register of complaints. This raised questions related to the commission's ICT security. According to the election commission, systems affected by the ransomware GEFEST 3.0 included the file and email servers, which also impacted the accessibility of the voter register and the database of public employees used to appoint the Electoral Boards (OSCE/ODIHR 2019).
AbstractLiving in a globalised world, with its inherent easier movement of people between nations, imposes new challenges for representative democracy and for party politics specifically. Political parties have traditionally operated at a domestic level, yet, with the large number of people moving around the globe, this is now changing. This special section, deriving from a workshop on the topic, is one of the first attempts to systematically address this issue. It offers a theoretical framework and five empirical studies on the party abroad. The collection provides evidence of varied levels of existence of the party abroad in different contexts. It illustrates that the party abroad as a new modus operandi for parties that exist in all corners of the world; yet, it is most distinctly developed where the electoral stimuli and the type and size of the diaspora group give strategic incentive to political parties to do so.
Despite proliferating research on party politics and notable media engagement with the issues of migration and refugee flows, we know little about the existence and operation of ‘the party abroad’. The latest UN migration report states that more than 270 million people reside outside their country of origin. osce recognizes the need for representation of varied political views as one means to maintain democratic stability within states. This study unravels the notion of the ‘party abroad’, develops a theoretical legal framework within which it can exist, and empirically exams parties that operate abroad. The case studies show the potential for political engagement with the diaspora, that such operations are not systematically regulated at the moment, and that parties operating abroad have different financing models. These findings, coupled with increasing migration, call for more future work on the party abroad, both by academics and by professionals.
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