Measuring Issue Ownership: A Comparative Question Wording Experiment

Issue ownership, or the idea that some parties are considered by the public to be better able or more committed to dealing with specific issues, is increasingly used in studies of electoral choice. Yet, various scholars have argued that if measures of issue ownership are confounded with party choice, this raises concerns regarding their usability to predict electoral choice. This research note examines to what extent various measures of issue ownership are confounded with voters’ party preferences and voters’ agreement with the party's position on the issue. Relying on an online survey‐embedded question wording experiment fielded in two countries (Belgium and Denmark), question wording effects for two dimension of issue ownership are examined: competence issue ownership and associative issue ownership. It is found that, in both countries, the two associative issue ownership measures were less affected by party preference and positional agreement. The most used competence issue ownership measures are most confounded with party choice and positional agreement in the experiment. Results in the two countries are largely similar, the main exception being that one of the two associative measures performs worse in Denmark. The results imply that scholars should take care in using measures of especially competence issue ownership to predict the vote, but that also country differences affect the validity of issue ownership measures.     

What is Issue Ownership and How Should We Measure It?

Recently, the concept of issue ownership has attracted increasing attention by students of electoral behaviour as well as party competition. However, both the definition and measurement of issue ownership—often drawn from Petrocik’s seminal 1996-article—is unclear. This constitutes a serious drawback to the further development and understanding of issue ownership itself and its purported effects. The paper addresses these problems by, first, establishing a definition of issue ownership at the individual level. On this basis, the standard ‘which party is best at handling issue X’ measure of issue ownership is assessed. The analyses using experiments embedded in a nationally representative panel survey indicate that the measure lacks validity and is partially redundant. Consequently, its replacement with a better performing alternative is recommended.     

Organizational Behavior and Economic Growth: A Norwegian Perspective*

By using game-theory, it is indicated that encompassing organizations may participate in dilemma games with free-rider problems. Next, examinations of institutional details of Norwegian corporatism point out that creative or productive strategies may be quite likely even among small interest organizations. In the last section it is argued that the assumption of economic growth being a collective good is more acceptable the larger the public sector. Again, institutional details need to be in focus. The model closing the paper dwells on whether comprehensive organizations really have stronger incentives to choose creativity rather than to fight for redistributions. A general affirmative answer cannot be provided.     

The barely revealed preference behind road investment priorities

An attempt is made to reveal the preference of decision makers within the regional Norwegian public roads administration. The order of priority assigned to the respective, competing public road investment opportunities within the various counties (provinces) is studied by means of a rank order multinomial logit model. Explanatory variables used include cost, benefit, and a variety of attributes characterizing the individual investment projects. Although statistically significant, cost and benefit appear to be of only marginal importance for the priorities set. More weight is attached to cost than to benefit. Smaller projects are preferred to larger, given the benefit-cost ratio. In general, the models estimated are able to explain only a relatively small share of the priority setting made.     

Coping with Poverty: The Impact of Fiscal Austerity on the Local Budgetary Process in Norway

This article examines the impact of public sector austerity on the budgetary process in local government. We initially propose that resource squeeze influences the criteria of resource allocation. More specifically, we suggest that austerity tends to generate a greater emphasis on performance-based criteria such as cost-benefit assessments, while arguments relating to production costs, previous commitments and relative standards of service supply tend to carry less weight. A regression model is developed to test these hypotheses. Response variables, drawn from a survey conducted among Norwegian local government officials, measure the success of a menu of arguments which justify increased appropriations, and we examine whether austerity affects the perceived success of these arguments. Consistent with previous studies, we find no impact of stress on decision-making behavior in local government. We do not believe that this result can be dismissed as merely a by-product of our research design. This conclusion leaves us with at least two possible interpretations. One suggests that austerity affects the criteria of resource allocation if, and only if, decision-makers perceive the squeeze to exert a persistent and inescapable pressure which requires a fundamental redefinition of managerial style. This has hardly been the case in Norwegian local government. The other interpretation suggests that the criteria for resource allocation in fact remain unchanged, even in situations when austerity is believed to be persistent. Inertia can be caused by (a) the disproportional disutility attributed to budgetary cut-backs compared to the benefits of appropriation increases, (b) the propensity to attribute austerity to "external" rather than "internal" causes, and (c), problems related to aggregating individual preferences and criteria into a coherent organizational policy of resource allocation.     

The civilian's visual security paradox: how open source intelligence practices create insecurity for civilians in warzones

ABSTRACT

Images taken by civilians and shared online have become an important source of conflict intelligence. This article explores issues around how states and non-state actors appropriate civilians’ images to produce intelligence about conflict, critically scrutinizing a practice often called open source or social media intelligence. It argues that image appropriation for open-source intelligence production creates a new kind of visual security paradox in which civilians can be endangered by their everyday visual practices because their digital images can be appropriated by outside actors as conflict intelligence. The transformation of everyday images into conflict evidence relies on what Barthes termed the photographic paradox, the paradox that while a photograph is clearly not the reality it depicts, the photograph is casually interpreted as a copy of that reality. When images are appropriated as conflict intelligence this photographic paradox translates into a security paradox. A visual security argument can be made without the intention or knowledge of the image producer, who then comes to perform the role on an intelligence agent. Yet civilians in warzones can hardly refrain from producing any images when they need to call attention to their plight, and to stay in contact with friends and relatives. The paradox, then, is that such vital visual signs of life can rapidly become sources of danger for the civilian. This civilian visual security paradox, it is argued, demands that intelligence actors respect the protected status of civilians in their online collection practices. So far, however, there is little sign of such respect.     

Certified or branded?

While often considered a purely financial institution, the IMF has throughout its history performed non-financial services for its membership. The latest example is the Policy Support Instrument (PSI), a certification mechanism established in 2005 for which only poor members are eligible. Based on a formal game-theoretic model, I argue that it is unlikely that the PSI will serve well the intention of facilitating capital market access for members requesting the service. Their low income, the lack of significant consequences for markets, the IMF’s traditional reluctance to criticize members, as well as the need to promote the use of the new arrangement indicate that the Fund could emphasize participants’ welfare over the interests of private lenders. The continued importance of foreign aid in eligible countries also puts the IMF in the role of gatekeeping such flows, which might conflict with sending clear signals to commercial actors. All these reasons imply that in many cases its seal of approval will be of little use to third-parties, despite the high standards to which PSI-countries are supposed to adhere. The best argument in favor of the PSI being a useful addition to the Fund’s tool kit for low-income members is the fact that several countries have already signed a second one.     

Successful STR and SNP typing of FTA Card samples with low amounts of DNA after DNA extraction using a Qiagen BioRobot EZ1 Workstation

FTA Cards (GE Healthcare) have been used for more than 4 years in Denmark for the collection of buccal cells as reference samples in crime cases. Semi-automated protocols for STR typing of DNA on punches of FTA Cards are routinely used. In average, full STR profiles were generated from approximately 95% of the FTA Cards with a standard punching protocol, while partial or no STR profile were obtained from 5% of the samples. Here, the Qiagen BioRobot^® EZ1 Workstation (Qiagen) and the EZ1 DNA Investigator Kit (Qiagen) was used to extract DNA from 29 FTA Cards from which a complete STR profile was not generated with the standard punching protocol. All 29 samples were successfully typed with the AmpF?STR^® Identifiler™ PCR Amplification Kit (Applied Biosystems) and with the SNPforID 49plex SNP assay. The lowest amount of DNA that resulted in complete STR and SNP profiles was 80 pg. The STR and SNP profiles were identical to those generated from another sample collected from each of the 29 individuals.     

The spy who loved me? Cross‐partisans in the core executive

Political appointees from different parties from that of their minister—cross‐partisan appointees (CPAs)—are increasingly found in the core executive. Ministerial advisory scholarship has overlooked CPAs, while the coalition governance literature sees them as ‘spies’ and ‘coalition watchdogs’. This article argues theoretically and demonstrates empirically that this conceptualization is overly limited. The empirical basis is a large‐N survey of political appointees from two Norwegian coalitions, and a qualitative follow‐up survey of CPAs. The results show that CPAs monitor on behalf of their party, provide cross‐partisan advice to their minister and perform many of the same tasks as regular partisan appointees, including exercising independent decision‐making power. In this research context, most CPAs act as coalition liaison officers who, rather than create tension and negative dynamics, contribute to building trust between coalition partners.