The 2015 Norwegian Local Elections: Support for Governing Radical Right Progress Party Plummets and Great Gains for Greens in ‘Second-Order’ Elections

Two years into the first term of the right wing Conservative/Progress Party coalition government, the 2015 Norwegian local elections displayed many features of a ‘second-order’ election: the governing parties lost considerable support, minor parties did well and voter turnout was low. For the second local elections in a row, political circumstances prevented the far right Progress Party from mobilizing on the anti-immigration issue, adding to the burdens of governing nationally for the first time. The Green Party leveraged its 2013 entry into the national parliament into record support, consolidating the progress made in the 2011 local elections. Although the elections were shaped by national politics, municipal and county variation shows that local political factors did matter.     

Biometric Elections in Poor Countries: Wasteful or a Worthwhile Investment?

Elections have emerged as a leading area for the application of biometric technology in developing countries, despite its high costs and uncertainty over its effectiveness. Why then do countries pursue such programs, often with the support of donors? The paper considers the costs and benefits of technology, where the latter involves its potential to reduce the probability of seriously disputed elections that escalate into violence. Based on the limited data available, it finds that a reduction in the probability of postelection violence by only a few percentage points could offset the cost of the technology. However, this is far from assured; we argue that biometric technology can only contribute to less disputed and less violent elections in particular settings, those where democracy is not yet well institutionalized but where political parties value the legitimacy conferred by elections that are sufficiently credible for their results to be accepted. One priority is therefore to screen potential cases carefully, before investing in costly programs that have a low probability of success. Another step toward using technology more effectively to underpin sustainable elections would be to build on voter registration drives to strengthen permanent identification assets such as civil registration and national ID programs that can serve as the basis for the voter roll.     

Do parties respond? How electoral context influences party responsiveness

How responsive are political parties to the issue priorities of voters? While there are numerous studies that examine policy position congruence between parties and voters or government responsiveness, we know little about the extent to which parties adjust their policy priorities to the issue concerns of voters. Following saliency and issue ownership theory, we argue that political parties listen to their voters by emphasizing policy issues in their election manifestos that have been prioritized by citizens. However, in line with second-order election theory, we expect that issue responsiveness varies with the electoral context. To test our theoretical expectations, we generated a novel dataset that combines data on issue attention of political parties from the Comparative Manifesto and the Euromanifesto projects with data on policy priorities of voters from the European Election Studies, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and various national election studies. We empirically test our theoretical claims based on a comprehensive analysis of 104 parties from 17 countries competing in 84 national and European elections from 1986 to 2011. Our findings have important implications for political representation in Europe.     

Same Considerations,Different Decisions: Motivations for Split‐ticket Voting among Swedish Feminist Initiative Supporters

This article explores why supporters of small, non‐established parties choose to vote for different parties in the elections to the European Parliament (EP) and elections to the national parliament. It uses individual‐level data with open‐ended questions from an online survey on supporters of Feminist Initiative (Fi) – a comparatively small and new Swedish feminist party – to map voters’ own motivations for split‐ticket voting in the 2014 elections. Contrary to expectations based on second‐order election theory, it is found that voters ticket‐split in both directions: there are those voting for Fi in the EP election but not in the national election, and those voting for Fi in the national election but not in the EP election. These voters take the same types of considerations into account but nevertheless end up making opposite voting decisions. Voters clearly distinguish between the two levels – for example, by prioritizing different issues.     

Censors Get Smart: Evidence from Psiphon in Iran

Information controls are actions intended to deny, disrupt, monitor, or secure information for political ends. They can be implemented using a wide variety of technical and nontechnical means. Political contests over the control of information are heightened around important events, such as major anniversaries, armed conflicts, protests, and elections. In this paper, we offer a comparative case study of online censorship of the circumvention tool Psiphon during the Iranian elections in 2016 and 2013, drawing on unique access to analytics data from Psiphon. We find that the Iranian regime developed its censorship approach in two ways, deploying blocking that was more targeted and strategically timed in the more recent case. Evidence suggests that the regime relaxed censorship of Psiphon during the official campaign period for the 2016 election. The apparent objective of this new approach was to control access to information while minimizing the political consequences of doing so.     

Opposing Energy Transitions: Modeling the Contested Nature of Energy Transitions in the Electricity Sector

Energy transitions are fiercely contested. The incumbents of the fossil‐ and nuclear‐based energy systems have much to lose from a transition to a sustainable and decentralized energy system. They therefore employ their material and political resources to reverse, halt, or slow down this transition. They also attempt to stop and reverse the decentralization of energy production. This article provides a framework that can be used to analyze the contestation that surrounds energy transitions. The analytical framework breaks apart the macro paths of energy transitions, and differentiates between three meso‐paths (political, economic‐technological, and legitimation), emphasizes the feedback processes between these paths, and acknowledges the crucial role that actors play in engendering these feedback processes. It uses Germany as a case study to illustrate the analytical model. It also provides hypotheses that will be tested in the subsequent contributions to this special issue.     

Dynamic Responsiveness in the U.S. Senate

I develop a theory of dynamic responsiveness that suggests that parties that win elections choose candidates who are more extreme and parties that lose elections choose candidates who are more moderate. Moreover, the size of past victories matters. Close elections yield little change, but landslides yield larger changes in the candidates offered by both parties. I test this theory by analyzing the relationship between Republican vote share in U.S. Senate elections and the ideology of candidates offered in the subsequent election. The results show that Republican (Democratic) victories in past elections yield candidates who are more (less) conservative in subsequent elections, and the effect is proportional to the margin of victory. This suggests that parties or candidates pay attention to past election returns. One major implication is that parties may remain polarized in spite of their responsiveness to the median voter .     

Issue cross-pressures and time of voting decision

Undecided voters are often regarded by political parties and candidates as the group that determines the outcome of an election. This paper discusses the concept and measurement of issue cross-pressures and explores to what extent they influence the time of voting decision in different political systems. Using survey data from national election studies in the Netherlands (1994–2012), Germany (1994–2013) and the United Kingdom (1992–2010), this study finds that issue cross-pressures do influence the time of voting decision regardless of voters' personal consideration set size, demographic background and political attribute. The effect of issue cross-pressures in the Netherlands is most pronounced. In the United Kingdom it is more moderate, while it is least prevalent in Germany. This partially demonstrates that party systems may constrain the role of issue cross-pressures.     

Candidates’ policy strategies in primary elections: does strategic voting by the primary electorate matter?

Empirical research reports conflicting conclusions about whether primary election voters strategically account for candidates’ general election prospects when casting their votes. We model the strategic calculations of office-seeking candidates facing two-stage elections beginning with a primary, and we compare candidates’ policy strategies in situations where primary voters strategically support the most viable general election candidate against candidate strategies when voters expressively support their preferred primary candidate regardless of electability. Our analyses—in which the candidates’ appeal is based on their policy positions and their campaigning skills—suggest a surprising conclusion: namely, that strategic and expressive primary voting typically support identical equilibrium configurations in candidate strategies. Our conclusions are relevant to candidates facing contested primaries, and also to political parties facing the strategic decision about whether or not to use primary elections to select their candidates—a common dilemma for Latin American (and some European) parties.     

Candidate and Party Strategies in Two-Stage Elections Beginning with a Primary

In the United States and Latin America, candidates for national and state-level office frequently must win primary elections in order to advance to the general election. We model policy and valence issues for office-seeking candidates facing such two-stage elections. We determine a Nash equilibrium for the candidates' optimal strategies, and we find that holding a primary is likely to increase a party's chances of winning the general election, particularly in situations where valence issues that involve the candidates' campaigning skills and that are not known prior to the campaign are more salient than policy issues. Furthermore, we find that primary elections are especially likely to benefit parties that expect to be underdogs in the general election. Our conclusions are directly relevant to U.S. politics and by extension to the strategic decisions that many Latin American parties currently confront, about whether it is strategically desirable to hold primaries.     

The Political Viability of Carbon Pricing: Policy Design and Framing in British Columbia and California

The adoption of climate policies with visible, substantial costs for households is uncommon because of expected political backlash, but British Columbia's carbon tax and California's cap‐and‐trade program imposed such costs and still survived vigorous opposition. To explain these outcomes, this article tests hypotheses concerning policy design, framing, energy prices, and elections. It conducts universalizing and variation‐finding comparisons across three subcases in the two jurisdictions and uses primary sources to carry out process tracing involving mechanisms of public opinion and elite position‐taking. The article finds strong support for the timing of independent energy price changes, exogenous causes of election results, reducing the visibility of carbon pricing, and using public‐benefit justifications, as well as some support for making concessions to voters. By contrast, the effects of the use of revenue, industry exemptions/compensations, and making polluters pay are not uniform, because the effects of revenue use depend on how it is embedded in coalition building efforts and a middle path between exempting or compensating industry and burdening it appears to be more effective than pursuing just one or the other approach.     

PCC Elections as a ‘Failed Experiment’: What Lessons can be Learned?

The low turnout of the 2012 police and crime commissioner (PCC) elections have led to questions surrounding their legitimacy and have even led to the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg describing the elections—elections his party helped to introduce—as a ‘failed experiment’. Despite this, the election of a majority Conservative government in May 2015 appears to offer some longevity to the role of police and crime commissioners and cements next year's PCC elections in the political diary. Concerns in the immediate aftermath of the elections focused upon the costs of the elections. In this article I offer some suggestions as to what lessons could be learned from this experiment and, through exploring the attitudes of voters, political parties and the media, suggest that we can learn four lessons: (1) that spoilt ballots cannot be ignored; that (2) political parties and (3) the media's attitudes toward elections are important in encouraging people to vote; and (4) that high numbers of independent candidates cannot simply be welcomed at times of elections.     

Estimating voter migration in Canada using generalized maximum entropy

As voters switch political preferences from election to election, understanding the magnitude of voter flows among parties and transitions between voters and non-voters is an essential element of political analysis. As exit polls are uncommon in Canada, voter migration can also be estimated using suitable statistical techniques. Backing out micro-level voter migration probabilities from macro-level election data is a problem of ‘ecological inference.’ This paper uses the method of generalized maximum entropy (GME) to estimate voter migration patterns for the two most recent Canadian federal elections (2004 and 2006) and two most recent provincial elections in British Columbia (2001 and 2005). The estimation results answer important questions about voter behaviour in Canada. These results will be of interest to political scientists, historians, and politicians, as well as econometric practitioners who wish to estimate voter migration.     

National electoral cycles and European elections 1979 and 1984

How were the results of the European Elections related to national political patterns? This article adopts a cross-national comparative perspective. It concludes that government parties, irrespective of being on the right or on the left of the political spectrum, and irrespective of representing the more ‘pro-European’ or the more ‘anti-European’ forces of their country, lost the European election of 1984. European elections have proved to be additional second-order elections (like local or provincial elections), important for the ripples they create on the national political scene. The systematic relationship between voting in firstorder and second-order elections is explored in detail. On the whole, it appears that the 1984 European elections have to be seen largely as tests of opinion on domestic politics.     

Electoral Success Versus Party Maintenance: National, State, and Local Party Contributions to Illinois Legislative Races

The need for political parties both to expand their legislativebase by winning elections and to maintain their organizationbetween elections is translated into two kinds of campaign contributionstrategies. Federalism affects how political parties choosebetween the two objectives and their related strategies. Contributionsto Illinois legislative races reveal that expansive strategiesaimed at candidates with reasonable chances of winning are mostprominently used by state organizations. Maintenance strategies,concerned with ensuring a continued party presence, are mostconsistently pursued by local parties. In general, except forthe national parties, differences between Democratic and Republicanorganizations are comparatively minor.     

The Strategic Importance of State-Level Factors in Presidential Elections

While political scientists usually rely on national models ofpresidential elections, the candidates and their campaign staffstend to focus on state-by-state strategies. This study testshypotheses that presidential candidates and their parties canincrease their support in specific states through the strategicselection of their national-party convention sites and theirvice-presidential running mates. This study also assesses thecommon assertion that candidates receive an electoral boostin states with incumbent governors from the same party. Utilizinga normed model of the presidential vote in the states that servesas a baseline for assessing the importance of these strategicfactors, the study finds that presidential and vice-presidentialcandidates receive an electoral advantage in their home statesand regions. Generally, parties do not derive significant electoralbenefits in states selected to host the national conventionor those in which they control the governorship. Important differencesare found over time and between the two political parties.     

The effect of electoral outcomes on political trust: A multi–level analysis of 23 countries

Competing theoretical claims exist in the literature on the effect of proportionality on political trust. To date, empirical studies yielded mixed results. In this paper, we examine a curvilinear effect of the proportionality of election outcomes on political trust using data from the European Social Survey (2006–2009). The findings show that political trust is indeed highest in countries with very proportional as well as in countries with very disproportional election outcomes and lowest in countries that fall in between. Election outcomes that are more fully inclusive and those that provide more accountability can both lead to higher levels of political trust. Next to the proportionality of the translation of votes into seats, this study investigates a broad range of election outcomes that are associated with (dis)proportionality i.e. the effect of the number of parties in elections, parliament and government, voting for the winning or losing party under different levels of proportionality and the clarity of responsibility.     

Attention! The meanings of attention to politics in surveys

This research note explores the role of reported attention to politics in survey overclaiming about politics. Using recognition of real and fictitious political parties in the context of the UK's 2019 European Parliament elections, we find that people who report higher attention to politics are more likely to over-report recognition of fictitious parties, and are also more likely to recognize new real political parties - those that emerged around the issue of ‘Brexit’ in the months before the election. To resolve these patterns, we show that political attention makes little difference to the accuracy of responses for people who have high political knowledge, or if it does so, it increases accuracy. However, for those with lower political knowledge, high reported political attention is a source of potential survey error and bias. These findings are consistent with higher survey satisficing and norm compliance among those who report having greater attention to politics, particularly among those who have lower knowledge. The implications are important for understanding the meaning and consequences of ‘attention to politics’ in surveys.     

Factors Driving the Promotion of Hydroelectricity: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis

In the wake of the COP21 conference in Paris, the transition to a low‐carbon energy supply remains a central issue on the political agenda. The deployment of renewable energies is often challenged by multiple issues (e.g., public acceptance, landscape protection, and so forth). Political actors try to overcome such challenges with various measures; however, the policy instruments used vary greatly in their strength. This article questions what factors lead to the adoption of strong policy instruments promoting hydroelectricity. Explanatory factors are derived from Kingdon's multiple streams framework and are analyzed with fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis within the Swiss cantons. The findings show that the strength of policy promoting hydroelectricity depends on the conjunction of mainly two factors: ambitious climate targets and an already well‐established hydroelectricity sector that generates large tax revenues for the cantons. Depending on the context, the strength of left‐wing and green parties as well as the current level of exploitation play an important role with the aforementioned factors.     

Responding to the crisis: Eurosceptic parties of the left and right and their changing position towards the European Union

At the time of the election of the European Parliament (EP) in 2014, the European Union (EU) was heavily affected by a multifaceted crisis that had – and still has – far-reaching implications for the political system of its member countries, but also for the European level of governance. Against the background of the strong Eurosceptic vote in the 2014 EP elections, this study aims to investigate in which way Eurosceptic parties of the left and the right respond to the multiple crises of the EU. Using data from the Euromanifesto Project from 2004/2009 and 2014, changes in the party positions towards the EU are analysed in the shadow of the multiple crises and the reasons thereof are explored. The findings show a general anti-European shift among the two types of Eurosceptic parties. Nevertheless, the changes in the EU polity tone are not determined by issue-based repercussions of the multiple crises, but by the EU-related evaluation – the polity mood – of the national citizenry. For far-right Eurosceptic parties, the shift is moderated by the level of public support for EU integration in their national environment. Among far-left Eurosceptic parties, by contrast, it is moderated by the more specific public attitudes about the monetary union policy of the EU. Consequently, political parties when drafting their manifestos for EP elections are not so much guided by the objective severity of political problems or by the evaluations of these problems by the citizenry. What matters in the end is the link that citizens themselves are able to establish between the severity of political problems, on the one hand, and the responsibility of the EU for these problems on the other. This has important consequences for understanding of the nature and substance of political responsiveness within the EU system of multilevel governance.