Month: October 2014

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Back to Bosnia, on France24

Based on earlier posts here, France24’s Les Observateurs shared this version on their web site.

Back to Bosnia

By Team Observers on 30/10/2014 – 16:18.

All photos taken by our Observer Jim Quirk in Bosnia.
By Jim Quirk
After 17 years away, I returned to Bosnia in October as part of the OSCE Election Observation Mission. It was in part exciting, rewarding, and disheartening.With the ballots counted, the presidents named, and the parliamentary coalitions in the making, we can begin to make notes about the future of Bosnia.

Continue reading “Back to Bosnia, on France24”

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Airlines and Sick Passengers – updated

Update:  United Airlines responded as well, with the following email.  The reply from Austrian Airlines, posted here earlier, is further below.

“Thank you for contacting United Airlines; we appreciate your sharing your concern.

“To answer your question, yes we do have records in place of all incidents that happen on the aircraft and have methods in place for tracking.

“If in fact that an individual from your flights on October 7th were found to be contagious, and it affected any passengers direct health you would have received a phone call directly from United Airlines.

Continue reading “Airlines and Sick Passengers – updated”

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In Response to the Perception of Electoral Integrity Index

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Voters in Bosnia, Oct 2014

In the current issue of PS: Political Science and Politics (47:4, October 2014), Pippa Norris, Richard W. Frank, and Ferran Martinez i Coma announce a new dataset for “Measuring Electoral Integrity around the World.”  In the spirit of Freedom House, Transparency International, and other global indices, the Electoral Integrity Project surveys experts on 49 indicators for a particular election, and generates a PEI index on a 100-point scale.

The authors anticipated relationships between electoral integrity and liberal democracy, democratic history, and  economic development.  They found these, with some interesting exceptions.  They also find that media and campaign finance, not just ballot box integrity, are important.  To be sure, this effort will become an important contribution to the study of elections, political development, democratization, and more.  But it risks suffering from a serious flaw – one that might have a simple, partial solution.  Continue reading “In Response to the Perception of Electoral Integrity Index”

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Back to Bosnia, Part I

After 17 years away, I returned to Bosnia last week as part of the OSCE Election Observation Mission.  It was in part exciting, rewarding, and disheartening.

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Baščaršija, the lively old part of Sarajevo.

Much was improved from 1997, to be sure.  In Sarajevo, there were not tanks on the street corners.  The library has reopened, and one Wednesday night in the old part of the city, Baščaršija, dozens of small and medium-sized restaurants were crowded with customers.  Across much of the country there is very good mobile phone service, and in even small hotels and cafes outside Sarajevo is plenty of free Wi-Fi. Continue reading “Back to Bosnia, Part I”