Anti-incumbency is sentiment in favor of voting out incumbent politicians , for the specific reason of being incumbent politicians. It is sometimes referred to as a "throw the bums out" sentiment. Periods of anti-incumbent sentiment are typically characterized by wave elections . This sentiment can also lead to support for term limits .
31-415: The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election , the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election. There may or may not be an incumbent on the ballot : the previous holder may have died, retired, resigned; they may not seek re-election, be barred from re-election due to term limits , or
62-521: A ceremony . A public official is an official of central or local government . Max Weber gave as definition of a bureaucratic official: An official must exercise their judgment and their skills, but their duty is to place these at the service of a higher authority; ultimately they are responsible only for the impartial execution of assigned tasks and must sacrifice their personal judgment if it runs counter to their official duties. As an adjective , "official" often, but not always, means pertaining to
93-441: A multi-party system , public mood , i.e., the tendency of opinions held by voters over a set of related policy issues, can determine which parties receive the anti-incumbent vote. When voters perceive times as bad, this can cause anti-incumbent sentiment. However, this is subject to biases. Perceptions of whether, e.g., economic conditions have worsened during a politician's term are influenced by partisan bias , for instance. In
124-666: A coherent narrative or to identify heroic leaders in that era's messy and inconclusive political scene." The 1992 United States elections were also characterized by anti-incumbent sentiment, as a stubborn recession and persistently high unemployment fuelled voter dissatisfaction. A 2013 poll found that 60% of Americans would vote to "defeat and replace every single member of Congress, including [their] own representative" if that option were available. The 2024 United States presidential election also has fueled considerable anti-incumbent sentiment, particularly among Generation Z , primarily due to immigration policy , post-COVID inflation ,
155-464: A diocese that did much of its administration, comprising the vicariate-general , an adjoined secretariat, a registry office and a chancery. In Catholicism, the vicar-general was originally called the "official" ( officialis ). The title of official principal , together with that of vicar-general, has in Anglicanism been merged in that of diocesan chancellor of a diocese. In sports ,
186-515: A new electoral division or position may have been created, at which point the office or position is regarded as vacant or open. In the United States , an election without an incumbent on the ballot is an open seat or open contest . The word "incumbent" is derived from the Latin verb incumbere , literally meaning "to lean or lay upon" with the present participle stem incumbent- , "leaning
217-514: A shock. Nick Panagakis, a pollster, coined what he dubbed the incumbent rule in 1989—that any voter who claims to be undecided towards the end of the election will probably end up voting for a challenger. In France, the phenomenon is known by the catchphrase Sortez les sortants ("Get out the outgoing [representatives]!"), which was the slogan of the Poujadist movement in the 1956 French legislative election . Official An official
248-420: A specified capacity, such as presiding, advisory, secretary). Some official positions may be inherited . A person who currently holds an office is referred to as an incumbent . Something "official" refers to something endowed with governmental or other authoritative recognition or mandate, as in official language , official gazette , or official scorer . The word official as a noun has been recorded since
279-401: A variant of encumber, while encumber is derived from the root cumber , most appropriately defined: "To occupy obstructively or inconveniently; to block fill up with what hinders freedom of motion or action; to burden, load." In general, an incumbent has a political advantage over challengers at elections . Except when the timing of elections is determined by a constitution or by legislation,
310-407: Is close to being a synonym (but has more military connotations ). A functionary is someone who carries out a particular role within an organization; this again is quite a close synonym for official, as a noun , but with connotations closer to bureaucrat . Any such person acts in their official capacity , in carrying out the duties of their office; they are also said to officiate , for example, in
341-911: Is first attested in English in 1533 via the Old French oficial . The informal term officialese , the jargon of "officialdom", was first recorded in 1884. An officialis ( plural officiales ) was the official term (somewhat comparable to a modern civil servant) for any member of the officium (staff) of a high dignitary such as a governor. Jus novum ( c. 1140 -1563) Jus novissimum ( c. 1563 -1918) Jus codicis (1918-present) Other Sacraments Sacramentals Sacred places Sacred times Supra-diocesan/eparchal structures Particular churches Juridic persons Philosophy, theology, and fundamental theory of Catholic canon law Clerics Office Juridic and physical persons Associations of
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#1732786923278372-455: Is someone who holds an office (function or mandate , regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of their superior or employer, public or legally private). An elected official is a person who is an official by virtue of an election . Officials may also be appointed ex officio (by virtue of another office, often in
403-525: Is the opposition pre-poll alliance since 1982 assembly elections . Voter turnout does not appear correlated with incumbents' electoral performance. In 2018, India's period of anti-incumbency was accompanied by acute rural distress, multiple farmer agitations and serious joblessness. In the 2010 Mexican gubernatorial elections , incumbents from the Institutional Revolutionary Party , National Action Party , and Party of
434-507: The Journal of Politics found that incumbents have "a far larger advantage" in on-cycle elections than in off-cycle elections . In relation to business operations and competition , an incumbent supplier is usually the supplier who currently supplies the needs of a customer and therefore has an advantageous position in relation to maintaining this role or agreeing a new contract, in comparison with competing businesses. Political analysts in
465-599: The Israel–Palestine conflict , and the age of the incumbent president at the time. The concept of anti-incumbency, at least with regard to U.S. elections, is controversial, since more often voters will punish only one party. Three organizations that supported voting out incumbents were Throw the Hypocritical Rascals Out, Vote Out Incumbents Democracy and Tenure Corrupts. A perceived disadvantage of anti-incumbency, with regard to judicial elections,
496-612: The Middle English period, first seen in 1314. It comes from the Old French official (12th century), from the Latin officialis ("attendant to a magistrate, government official"), the noun use of the original adjective officialis ("of or belonging to duty, service, or office") from officium ("office"). The meaning "person in charge of some public work or duty" was first recorded in 1555. The adjective
527-547: The Democratic Revolution were rejected. Eras of anti-incumbent sentiment included the Gilded Age , in which the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives shifted six times in the 15 Congressional elections between 1870 and 1900, with three of those shifts involving losses of more than 70 seats by the majority party. David M. Kennedy notes, "Generations of American scholars have struggled to find
558-591: The U.S., reliance on partisan media, as opposed to mainstream media, is associated with anti-incumbent attitudes toward Congress. New democracies' elections, such as those in Central and Eastern Europe, and in Latin America and Asia, often are characterized by anti-incumbency. In Bulgaria, virtually every government has been ousted from power after one legislative period. The 2018 Bhutanese National Assembly election had an anti-incumbent result. India has
589-532: The United States and United Kingdom have noted the existence of a sophomore surge (not known as such in the United Kingdom) in which first term representatives see an increase in votes after their first election. This phenomenon is said to bring an advantage of up to 10% for first-term representatives, which increases the incumbency advantage. However, the extent of the surge is a biased estimate of
620-455: The United States, an election (especially for a single-member constituency in a legislature ) in which an incumbent is not seeking re-election is often called an open seat ; because of the lack of incumbency advantage, these are often amongst the most hotly contested races in any election. Also, an open contest is created when the term of office is limited, as in the case of terms of the U.S. president being restricted to two four-year terms, and
651-491: The bishop's ordinary judicial power over the diocese and presides over the diocesan ecclesiastical court . The 1983 Code of Canon Law gives precedence to the title judicial vicar, rather than that of officialis (canon 1420). The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches uses only the title judicial vicar (canon 191). In German, the related noun Offizialat was also used for an official bureau in
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#1732786923278682-404: The candidates' qualifications, positions on political issues, and personal characteristics in a relatively straightforward way. Elections featuring an incumbent, on the other hand, are, as Guy Molyneux puts it, "fundamentally a referendum on the incumbent." Voters will first grapple with the record of the incumbent. Only if they decide to "fire" the incumbent do they begin to evaluate whether each of
713-474: The challengers is an acceptable alternative. A 2017 study in the British Journal of Political Science argues that the incumbency advantage stems from the fact that voters evaluate the incumbent's ideology individually whereas they assume that any challenger shares his party's ideology. This means that the incumbency advantage gets more significant as political polarization increases. A 2017 study in
744-536: The electoral advantage of incumbency. However, there exist scenarios in which the incumbency factor itself leads to the downfall of the incumbent. Popularly known as the anti-incumbency factor , situations of this kind occur when the incumbent has proven themself not worthy of office during their tenure and the challengers demonstrate this to the voters. An anti-incumbency factor can also be responsible for bringing down incumbents who have been in office for many successive terms despite performance indicators, simply because
775-489: The faithful Pars dynamica (trial procedure) Canonization Election of the Roman Pontiff Academic degrees Journals and Professional Societies Faculties of canon law Canonists Institute of consecrated life Society of apostolic life In canon law , the word or its Latin original officialis is used absolutely as the legal title of a diocesan bishop's judicial vicar who shares
806-401: The government, as state employee or having state recognition, or analogous to governance or to a formal (especially legally regulated) proceeding as opposed to informal business. In summary, that has authenticity emanates from an authority. Some examples: Anti-incumbency In a two-party system , anti-incumbent voters have only one party to vote for, when voting against the incumbent; in
837-643: The highest rate of anti-incumbency in the world, with incumbents from the ruling party having only a fifty-fifty shot at returning to parliament. For example, since 1985, the electorate in Assam, India has oscillated between voting the Asom Gana Parishad and the Indian National Congress to power. In Karnataka , the last time the ruling government was re-elected was in the 1985 Indian elections. Kerala has always voted in whichever
868-413: The incumbent in some countries may have the right to determine the date of an election. For most political offices, the incumbent often has more name recognition due to their previous work in the office. Incumbents also have easier access to campaign finance , as well as government resources (such as the franking privilege ) that can be indirectly used to boost the incumbent's re-election campaign. In
899-468: The incumbent is prohibited from recontesting. Although the expected advantage of incumbency has gone from about two percentage points in the 1950s, to ten percentage points in the 1980s and 1990s, and then back to about two percentage points in the 2010s and 2020s, the probability that an incumbent will lose his or her seat has remained approximately the same over the entire period. When newcomers look to fill an open office, voters tend to compare and contrast
930-492: The term official is used to describe a person enforcing playing rules in the capacity of an assistant referee , referee and umpire ; also specified by the discipline, e.g. American football official , ice hockey official . An official competition is created or recognized as valid by the competent body, is agreed to or arranged by people in positions of authority. It is synonymous, among others, with approved, certified, recognized, endorsed, and legitimate. The term officer
961-553: The voters are convinced by the challengers of a need for change. It is also argued that the holders of extensively powerful offices are subject to immense pressure which leaves them politically impotent and unable to command enough public confidence for re-election; such is the case, for example, with the Presidency of France . Voters who experience the negative economic shock of a loss of income are less likely to vote for an incumbent candidate than those who have not experienced such