Taking Cues on Europe? Voter competence and party endorsements in referendums on European integration

Abstract.  One of the criticisms often levelled against direct democracy is that citizens lack sufficient knowledge to vote directly on policy issues. The 'No' votes in the French and Dutch referendums on the Constitutional Treaty have highlighted the importance of examining voter competence in referendums. This article proposes a theoretical framework for evaluating competence in EU referendums. It suggests that competent voting in EU referendums is based on issue-specific preferences and requires political information. Since most voters have little detailed knowledge of European integration, they rely on heuristics and cues when deciding how to vote. The important question is how much and which type of information voters require to make competent choices. This article examines whether and under what conditions the use of party endorsements as information cues can enhance competent voting in EU referendums. These theoretical questions are examined in an analysis of the 1994 Norwegian referendum on EU membership.     

FRAGMENTED OR CONNECTIVE PROFESSIONALISM? STRATEGIES FOR PROFESSIONALIZING THE WORK OF STRATEGISTS AND OTHER (ORGANIZATIONAL) PROFESSIONALS

Many professionals, especially organizational ones (managers, controllers, strategists), face difficulties in organizing their professional fields. Work ambiguities and dependencies on outsiders make it difficult to set homogeneous standards and shelter occupational domains. Professionalism tends to be fragmented. It is questionable, however, whether professionalization is a matter of either enforced regulation or fragmented regulatory forms. More connective forms of professional control might enable groups to establish professional domains, despite ambiguities and dependencies. In order to understand professionalization dynamics in public domains and the relevance of connective professionalism, we study the development of one particular field, strategists in government. We show that the professionalization of Dutch strategists is fragmented: strategists are a varied and mobile group; they have different ideas about work; they depend on many other actors and factors. We also show that strategists opt for either more enforced forms of professionalism, or less professional control. Finally, we show how they might establish connective professionalism. By enacting embedded work spaces, strategists can reconfigure their work. This is also relevant for other (organizational) professionals.     

ASSESSING POLICY DIVERGENCE: HOW TO INVESTIGATE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A LAW AND A CORRESPONDING REGULATION

Policy designs are selected to achieve specific policy outcomes. The policy process, however, contains multiple junctures when a policy's design may diverge from its original intents. Despite this fact, few theoretically valid and methodologically reliable approaches exist to assess policy divergence as it occurs during the policy process. This article presents a method for assessing policy divergence during implementation with a comparative analysis of a legislative law and corresponding regulation. The case analysed is US organic food policy in the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act and 2002 National Organic Program regulation. The article draws theoretical leverage from Mazmanian and Sabatier's implementation framework and methodological leverage from the institutional analysis and development framework. The analysis indicates that the designs of both policies are fairly robust with relatively minor divergence. The conclusion discusses the gains and challenges in developing a comparative approach to studying policy designs and assessing policy divergence.     

Corporate Ownership by Industrial Foundations

Industrial foundations are self-governing, non-profit institutions that own business companies. This ownership structure is found in a fair number of Northern European companies, some of them successful world-class competitors. Standard agency theory would predict foundation-owned companies to be relatively inefficient since they lack monitoring by residual claimants and access to equity finance from the stock market. Nevertheless, empirical research (Thomsen 1996) has found that Danish foundation-owned companies do no worse in terms of profitability and growth than companies with dispersed ownership or family ownership. The paper considers and tests alternative explanations of this paradox. Explanations based on tax incentives, alternative control mechanisms and product-market advantages are rejected, but some support is found for performance advantages related to family control and long-term business commitment.     

How to Win the UK Referendum on the European Constitution

Opinion polls suggest the UK Government faces an uphill task in winning the forthcoming referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty. This article provides a detailed analysis of the factors that are likely to decide the referendum outcome. Using recent survey data, we analyze the factors that influence individual-level support for the Constitutional Treaty. These results show that it is not only general attitudes towards European integration which are likely to play an important role, but also partisanship and satisfaction with the government. Given the low levels of information about the Constitution and the large number of undecided voters, the campaign itself will be crucial to the outcome. We argue that while information alone will not necessarily persuade voters, a successful campaign strategy by the yes-camp could make a decisive difference by motivating and informing voters, as well as setting the agenda for the debate.     

'SUPRANATIONALISM' IN QUESTION: BELIEFS,VALUES, AND THE SOCIALIZING POWER OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION REVISITED

Do international organizations affect the views of the people who work for them? Although increasingly sophisticated methods have been used to address this question, disagreement persists about whether the beliefs of staff are formed before they join, after they enter the institution, or are shaped by instrumental calculation. Drawing on an original dataset based on the first fully representative survey of the European Commission's workforce, this article breaks new ground by putting different definitions of ‘supranationalism’ to the test and by capturing multiple ways in which individuals may be affected by the experience of working for the organization. For the first time, it demonstrates that commitment to ‘supranationalism’ varies between Commission staff groupings, that the influences on belief vary with the measure of ‘supranationalism’ used, and that both post‐recruitment experience and pre‐recruitment roles play a part in shaping beliefs.     

WILLINGNESS‐TO‐PAY FOR CRIME CONTROL PROGRAMS*

This paper reports on a new methodology to estimate the “cost of crime.” It is adapted from the contingent valuation method used in the environmental economics literature and is itself used to estimate the public's willingness to pay for crime control programs. In a nationally representative sample of 1,300 U.S. residents, we found that the typical household would be willing to pay between $100 and $150 per year for programs that reduced specific crimes by 10 percent in their communities. This willingness amounts, collectively, to approximately $25,000 per burglary, $70,000 per serious assault, $232,000 per armed     

Motivating the European voter: Parties,issues and campaigns in European Parliament elections

Voters behave differently in European Parliament (EP) elections compared to national elections because less is at stake in these ‘second‐order’ elections. While this explains the primary characteristic of EP elections, it has often led to a conflation of distinct motivations for changing behaviour – namely sincere and protest voting. By distinguishing these motivations, this article addresses the question of when and why voters alter their behaviour in EP elections. In addition, it argues that the degree of politicisation of the EU in the domestic debate shapes the extent to which voters rely on EU, rather than national, considerations. These propositions are tested in a multilevel analysis in 27 countries in the 2009 EP elections. The findings have important implications for understanding why voters change their behaviour between different types of elections.