Mixed electoral rules’ impact on party systems

The growing literature about mixed electoral systems has addressed their effect on party systems, voting behavior, campaign strategies, legislative roll-call voting, and other issues in a handful of countries. But, the effect of mixed systems has not been fully evaluated cross-nationally or longitudinally. Using data from the World Bank’s Database of Political Institutions, we address this gap in the literature by investigating two related questions. First, do mixed electoral rules produce different election outcomes than other election rules? Second, are these results attenuated by the definitions of mixed systems that scholars employ? We find that mixed systems generate outcomes that are distinct from other electoral systems and that these findings are generally robust across different definitions.     

Manufactured Responsiveness: The Impact of State Electoral Laws on Unified Party Control of the Presidency and House of Representatives, 1840–1940

The modern history of divided government in America suggests that the framers succeeded in creating a government unresponsive to popular passions. Yet in the nineteenth century the party winning the presidency almost always captured control of the House of Representatives. Why and how could nineteenth century national elections be so responsive that they resemble parliamentary outcomes? We identify electoral institutions present in the states that directly linked congressional elections to presidential coattails. Specifically, we estimate the impact of state ballot laws and the strategic design of congressional districts on presidential coattail voting from 1840 to 1940. We find that presidential elections, as mediated by state electoral laws, strongly account for unified party control of the House and the presidency throughout the nineteenth century.     

Hague Case Law — Latest Developments

Netherlands International Law Review -     

The Capitalist Peace

It is widely accepted that democracies are less conflict prone, if only with other democracies. Debate persists, however, about the causes underlying liberal peace. This article offers a contrarian account based on liberal political economy. Economic development, free markets, and similar interstate interests all anticipate a lessening of militarized disputes or wars. This "capitalist peace" also accounts for the effect commonly attributed to regime type in standard statistical tests of the democratic peace.     

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.     

An extension of Black's theorem on voting orders to the successive procedure

Duncan Black (1958) stated his voting order theorem — ‘the later any motion enters the voting order, the greater its chance of adoption’ — exclusively for the amendment procedure. Niemi and Gretlein's (1985) extension is similarly limited. Here we show that with a change in the focus from social preferences to individual preferences, both Black's theorem and that proved by Niemi and Gretlein apply as well to the successive procedure.     

Comparison of Anonymous Versus Confidential Survey Procedures: Effects on Health Indicators in Dutch Adolescents

Self-report questionnaires are frequently used in youth research, but doubt remains whether total anonymity affects the results. This study compared the responses of 704 mainly 16–17-year-old adolescents to self-report measures of various health indicators in 2 groups: anonymous and confidential collection. For most health indicators no significant differences were found. Perceived health, use of alcohol, and aggressive behavior (for boys) were reported significantly less frequently in the confidential group (small effect size). It appeared that pupils with high scores on social desirability do not respond differently at most health indicators in the 2 conditions. For most health characteristics, epidemiologically useful outcomes may be derived from confidential self-report measures, which are also valuable for detecting individual at-risk children. Similar studies in lower grades and other types of education should confirm the results.Youth Department, Municipal Health Service Rotterdam area. Main research interests are emotional and behavioral problems of adolescents, youth health care, monitoring.Youth Department, Municipal Health Service Rotterdam area. Main research interests are emotional and behavioral problems of adolescents, youth health care, monitoring.Research Department, Municipal Health Service Rotterdam area. Major research interests include emotional and behavioral problems of adolescents, suicidal behavior, youth health care, monitoring.