When Do the Rich Vote Less Than the Poor and Why? Explaining Turnout Inequality across the World

The conventional wisdom that the poor are less likely to vote than the rich is based upon research on voting behavior in advanced industrialized countries. However, in some places, the relationship between turnout and socioeconomic status is reversed. We argue that the potential tax exposure of the rich explains the positive relationship between income and voting in some places and not others. Where the rich anticipate taxation, they have a greater incentive to participate in politics, and politicians are more likely to use fiscal policy to gain support. We explore two factors affecting the tax exposure of the rich—the political salience of redistribution in party politics and the state's extractive capacity. Using survey data from developed and developing countries, we demonstrate that the rich turn out to vote at higher rates when the political preferences of the rich and poor diverge and where bureaucratic capacity is high.     

When Do the Ends Justify the Means? Evaluating Procedural Fairness

How do people decide whether a political process is fair or unfair? Concerned about principles of justice, people might carefully evaluate procedural fairness based on the facts of the case. Alternately, people could be guided by their prior preferences, endorsing the procedures that produce favored policy outcomes as fair and rating those that generate disliked outcomes as unfair. Using an experimental design, we consider the conditions under which people use accuracy goals versus directional goals in evaluating political processes. We find that when procedures are clearly fair or unfair, people make unbiased assessments of procedural justice. When the fairness of a process is ambiguous, people are more likely to use their prior attitudes as a guide.     

When Do Voters Support the European Union’s Involvement in Gay Rights?

Commitment to the European Union’s gay rights standards remains weak in new EU members and countries applying for EU membership. If the EU’s standards have minimal consequences, then when do voters support the EU’s involvement in gay rights? The existing research misses a comparison of opinions between those who identify with gay people, and those who do not. Sexuality-based marginalization carried out by state institutions (political homophobia) motivates those who identify with gay people to support alternatives to their state’s authority. Using an original survey of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I find that those who identify more closely with gay people are more likely to support transferring control of gay rights to the EU. Using twenty-one surveys of EU member states, I find that in countries with high levels of political homophobia, those who report discrimination on the basis of sexuality exhibit higher levels of support for the EU.     

Do Voters Polarize When Radical Parties Enter Parliament?

Do voters polarize ideologically when radical views gain political legitimacy, or does the rise of radical voices merely reflect societal conflict? We argue that elite polarization as signaled by radical parties' first entrance into parliament leads to voter divergence. Immediately after the election, legitimization and backlash effects mean that voters on both ideological sides move toward the extremes. In the longer term, this polarization is solidified because of radical parties' parliamentary presence. A panel study of Dutch voters shows that the 2002 parliamentary entrance of a radical‐right party indeed led to immediate ideological polarization across the political spectrum. Estimating time‐series cross‐sectional models on Eurobarometer data from 17 countries (1973–2016) shows an additional long‐term impact of radical‐right party entry on polarization. The presence of radical voices on the right has polarizing effects, illustrating how such institutional recognition and legitimization can have a far‐reaching impact on society.     

When Do Municipal Consolidations Reduce Government Expenditures? Evidence on the Role of Local Involvement

Higher levels of government motivate municipal consolidations as a tool to increase efficiency in the local government sector, yet research shows that consolidations typically fail to deliver the promised spending reductions. Since mergers often require significant changes to institutional structures, one explanation is that local decision makers can substantially influence the outcomes of the consolidation process. To explore this possibility, this article contrasts “encouraged but voluntary” mergers with those that were “forced” on local governments in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Results show that voluntary mergers resulted in a 10 percent decline in total per capita expenditures, but forced consolidations failed to reduce spending across the board. The policy conclusion is that decision makers considering structural reform should invest in obtaining the support and participation of local government decision makers.     

When Do Leaders Free-Ride? Business Experience and Contributions to Collective Defense

The logic of free-riding expects that individuals will underinvest in public goods, but people often behave in ways that are inconsistent with this prediction. Why do we observe variation in free-riding behavior? This study addresses this question by examining contributions to an important international public good—collective defense in military alliances. It develops a behavioral theory of free-riding in which the beliefs of world leaders are important for explaining investments in public goods. The argument holds that leaders with business experience make smaller contributions to collective defense because they are egoistic and more comfortable relying on a powerful ally for their defense. An analysis of defense expenditures in 17 non-U.S. members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from 1952 to 2014 provides evidence consistent with the theory. The findings suggest that leaders with business experience are more likely than other heads of government to act as self-interested utility maximizers.     

When Do Displaced Persons Return? Postwar Migration among Christians in Mount Lebanon

Under what conditions will forcibly displaced persons return to their original homes after wars end? We draw on theories of labor migration to show that even displaced persons who have positive feelings toward their original location may nevertheless choose to return as regular visitors rather than permanent residents unless the location offers attractive economic opportunities. Furthermore, we argue that violence can create negative emotions not only toward geographic locations of bloodshed but also against its perpetrators. After ethnic wars, the displaced may be unwilling to return to intermixed locations, exacerbating ethnic separation. We study postwar migration among Lebanese Christians displaced during the 1980s and identify economic conditions using exogenous price shocks for olive oil, a major local export. Among policy implications for economic reconstruction and transitional justice, our most important insight is that sometimes we should help the displaced in their new location rather than induce permanent return to their old homes.     

Do the IMF and the World Bank influence voting in?the?UN General Assembly?

Using panel data for 188 countries over the 1970–2008 period, this paper analyzes empirically the influence of the IMF and the World Bank on voting patterns in the UN General Assembly. Countries receiving adjustment projects and larger non-concessional loans from the World Bank vote more frequently in line with the average G7 country. The same is true for countries obtaining non-concessional IMF programs. Regarding voting coincidence with the United States, World Bank non-concessional loans have a significant impact, while IMF loans do not. This overall pattern of results is robust to the choice of control variables and method of estimation.     

The Good,the Bad and the Ugly: Do Attractive Politicians Get a ‘Break’ When They are Involved in Scandals?

Political Behavior - In general, politicians involved in scandals of various natures are punished by voters. Good-looking politicians, on the contrary, are rewarded by voters. Almost fifty years of...     

Do the Japanese Have a Sense of Humor?

Although the Japanese appear humorless in the eyes of the Westerners, we have a long tradition of presenting humor in various forms. This paper demonstrates one of the most famous examples of Japanese humor called “Chojyu-giga,” a set of scrolls depicting animated animals frolicking. It is a parody drawn around the 12^th century and is said to be a root of Japanese comics termed “manga.”     

Do the polls affect elections? Some 1980 evidence

This paper finds that the relatively favorable standing of Ronald Reagan in the preelection polls helped to generate a bandwagon effect in the 1980 presidential election. The models tested here suggest that this effect was most pronounced among voters who had the weakest prior political opinions and hence were most susceptible to suggestion through the media. While the bandwagon effect that is generated is modest, after controlling for an array of other political biases, it is substantial enough to warrant further attention as the dissemination of poll results becomes an increasingly attractive news event.     

When does inequality demobilize? New evidence from the American states

Income inequality has been rising throughout the industrialized world, particularly in the United States. This long been thought to depress turnout, but extant research has yielded mixed findings. Here, I argue that the inequality-turnout relationship is conditional, depending crucially on election salience. I test this by using three decades (1984–2014) of panel data from the U.S. states and by leveraging the fixed and exogenous occurrence of presidential (higher-salience) and midterm (lower-salience) elections. Overall, I find a negative and statistically significant relationship between income inequality and voter turnout in midterm election years, but a substantively small and non-significant relationship in presidential election years. I attribute this to the ability of presidential contests, relative to midterms, to counteract the demobilizing influence of high inequality, by piquing voters’ interest and activating citizens who would otherwise abstain. Overall, these findings help us to better understand of the politics of electoral participation in an era of high, and rising economic inequality.     

Do impact fees raise the price of existing housing?

Abstract

This article uses 1991–2000 data on single‐family housing sales from King County, WA, to provide new evidence relating to the effects of impact fees on housing prices. The hedonic regression method is used to examine the effects of these fees on existing housing as well as their differential effects on price as determined by housing quality.

Impact fees raise existing home prices by about 83 percent of the amount of the fee. The increase is 103 percent for high‐quality homes and is not statistically significant for low‐quality homes. The owners of high‐quality homes realize capital gains from impact fees. However, such fees do not raise the price of low‐quality homes. To the extent that low‐quality housing is more likely to be owned by low‐ and moderate‐income households, which are often composed of racial and ethnic minorities, this finding has significant policy implications for the supporters of impact fees.     

Do We Want a Referendum on the Common Market?

In March 1975 Britain quarrelled about whether to hold a referendum on membership of the European Community. The Hansard Society organised an important debate about it between Enoch Powell, Geoffrey Howe, John Mackintosh and Keith Kyle. This is a report on that event drawn from a recently discovered recording. Many of the arguments deployed then are being repeated in today's debate about a ‘people's vote'—including the long‐term effects on the UK's constitution of having recourse to the referendum device.     

Do the elderly “vote with their feet?”

This research explores whether the elderly vote with their feet by migrating to states with government policies that treat them favorably. A theoretical model is presented that clarifies the effects of cost-of-living, amenities and the public sector on migration decisions and that informs our empirical analysis. Using state-level migration data from the 1990 Census, we estimate out-migration and in-migration equations that suggest that the public sector is an important determinant of elderly migration, but in sometimes unexpected ways. Our results lend some support for the Tiebout hypothesis, but they also raise serious questions about the nature of the elderly's preferences for government policy.     

The Sovereignty Dodge and the Responsibility to Control: Should the US Do What Pakistan Won't Do?1

The killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was justified by the Obama administration as an act of self-defense. Proponents of an expanded notion of self-defense argue that sovereignty implies responsibility not only for the protection of human rights, but also for the provision of public goods more generally, including effective territorial control. States which are unable to control their territory frequently become safe havens for militants who threaten the security of other states. Pakistan is a paradigmatic case of a ‘sovereignty dodge’ who, in the eyes of the United States, has forfeited its sovereign right to non-interference because of its failure to live up to its responsibility to control. In this article I explore the legality of US strikes against militant targets in Pakistan. I conclude that while international jurisprudence continues to adhere to a conservative reading of the rules on the use of force, states themselves have interpreted the law on self-defense more broadly, evincing a desire to keep the rules as indeterminate as possible.     

Do Belgian parties undermine the democratic chain of delegation?

The Belgian party-archy violates the ideal-type chain of parliamentary delegation in many ways, insofar as political parties play a predominant role at each stage. They channel the delegation of power from voters to MPs, from Parliament to the cabinet, from the collective cabinet to individual ministers, and from ministers to their civil servants. Hence, they can be considered the effective principals in the polity, and many actors of the parliamentary chain of delegation, such as MPs, ministers, and civil servants have been reduced to mere party agents. The extreme fragmentation of the Belgian party system in combination with its increasing need for multilevel coordination have further enhanced the position of political parties in the Belgian polity. Yet, at the same time (since the early 1990s), Belgium has also witnessed a gradual decline in the informal system of partitocratic delegation and clientelistic excesses, thereby giving back part of their autonomy to some formal agents, such as the cabinet, top civil servants and some MPs. Still, one can wonder whether these corrections are sufficient to counter the strong outburst of public dissatisfaction with the way parties have run the country in past decades.     

When Are Agenda Setters Valuable?

Why do industries donate money to legislative campaigns when roll‐call votes suggest that donors gain nothing in return? I argue that corporate donors may shape policy outcomes by influencing powerful agenda setters in the early stages of lawmaking. On the basis of a new data set of more than 45,000 individual state legislator sessions (1988–2012), I document how agenda control is deemed valuable to legislators and groups seeking influence on policy. Employing a difference‐in‐differences design, I assess the revealed price, as measured by campaign contributions, that firms are willing to pay for access to committee and party leaders and document how this price varies across industries and institutions. The results indicate that industries systematically funnel money to the legislative agenda setters by whom they are regulated, and to those endowed with important procedural powers. I document that the value of agenda‐setter positions has increased dramatically in recent years. Finally, exploiting changes in state laws, I show that relaxing contribution limits significantly benefits committee chairs and party leaders more so than it does other legislators, suggesting that agenda setters have strong incentives to obstruct restrictive campaign finance reforms.     

Do more flexible lists increase the take-up of preference voting?

In many preferential-list proportional representation systems, voting for a candidate is voluntary. Previous studies suggest a positive relationship between the impact of preference votes on seat allocation and how often they are used. However, existing work uses indirect measures on the right-hand side or suffers from the reverse causality problem. Focusing on electoral reform, this study argues that a change in rules affects the extent of personal voting if it alters the beliefs about which types of seat allocation are possible. These types are captured using a new trichotomous measure of list flexibility. The anticipated changes to seat allocation induced by a reform in Sweden allow us to carry out an over-time analysis with appropriate counterfactuals. The results show that moderate increases in list flexibility lead to more preference voting, whereas strong increases cause a drop. Additional analyses suggest that the unexpected decrease results from local parties adjusting their candidate selection strategies.