Voting for extreme right parties in Israel: Evidence from the 2009 elections

In recent years, extreme right parties have received considerable electoral support in Europe. Accordingly, many scholars have examined the factors attracting voters in many Western democracies to extreme right parties. In this study, we sought to determine what factors are responsible for the support of extreme right parties in Israel. Using Israel National Election Studies micro-data for the 2009 elections, we found evidence that political dissatisfaction and security issues significantly contribute to support for extreme right parties. In contrast to other countries where economic issues are more salient, our results suggest that economic views do not significantly explain one's support for extreme right parties.     

Newspaper markets and municipal politics: how audience and congruence increase turnout in local elections

Media coverage of politics is widely considered essential to political participation. However, studies on local elections do not yet generally take the effect of the media environment into account. This article posits that the territorial fit between newspaper markets and municipal boundaries makes citizens’ exposure to locally relevant news more likely. We use fine-grained data on newspaper readership in order to assess the effect of the territorial structure of the newspaper market on turnout in municipal elections in Switzerland. The analysis shows that newspaper audience in a municipality and the congruence of newspaper markets with municipal territories both have substantial positive effects on levels of turnout in municipal elections. The findings suggest that future research on local political behavior should better acknowledge the influence of the media environment – which can be adequately measured by newspaper audience and congruence. Implications are that current structural changes in the media system bear threats to local democracy via the territorial upscaling of media markets.     

Confident and cautious candidates: Explaining under-representation of women in Danish municipal politics

Why are women under-represented even in democratic and egalitarian countries? Previous research considers either demand-side or supply-side explanations. We integrate both perspectives in a least-likely case for the under-representation of women, namely the municipal councils in Denmark. The data stems from a candidate choice conjoint experiment, a survey among potential candidates, and data on the actual pool of nominated candidates. On the voter demand-side, we show that there is no pro-male bias in general or in combination with other candidate traits nor that traits evaluated positively by voters appear more frequently among actual male candidates. On the supply-side, we find that women are less likely to be interested in running for political office. This is primarily because women assess their own political qualifications significantly lower than men. The under-supply of female candidates seem to drive the disparity suggesting that we should focus more on supply-side factors to overcome the gender imbalance.     

Economic voting in Portuguese municipal elections

This paper analyses the impact of economic conditions on Portuguese municipal electoral outcomes. We use two extensive datasets to estimate an economic voting model which accounts for the possibility that different levels of government have different levels of responsibility for economic outcomes and for clarity of government responsibility. The empirical results indicate that the performance of the national economy is important especially if local governments are of the same party as the central government. The municipal situation is also relevant particularly in scenarios of greater clarity of national and sub-national government responsibility.     

Running for office again: evidence from Portuguese municipal elections

Using a data set that covers all Portuguese mainland municipalities for the period 1979–2005, this study performs an empirical analysis of the economic determinants of mayors’ decisions to run for another term in office. The literature on the subject is mainly centered on the United States and, as far as we know, there are no papers addressing the economic factors influencing those choices. Probit panel estimations show that local economic conditions matter more than the national or regional economic environment. The results also confirm that political variables are important and that they influence the likelihood of seeking reelection in much the same way as they affect vote and popularity functions.     

Departmental elections and the changing landscape of French politics

The departmental elections of March 2015 redrew the French political landscape, setting the new terms of electoral competition in advance of the regional elections of December 2015 and, more critically, the presidential election of April–May 2017. These elections saw the far-right National Front (FN) come top in both rounds only to be outmanoeuvred by the mainstream parties and prevented from winning a single department. As a case study in vote–seat distortion, the elections highlighted a voting system effective in keeping the FN out of executive power but deficient in terms of democratic representation and inadequate as a response to the new tripartite realities of France's changing political landscape.     

Pay for politicians and campaign spending: evidence from the French municipal elections

Public Choice - This paper investigates the relationship between taxation and firm performance in developing countries. Combining firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and tax data...     

Non-competitive elections and national politics: The USSR Supreme Soviet elections of 1984

Elections to the ‘eleventh convocation’ of the USSR Supreme Soviet took place on 4 March 1984. The process by which the elections took place is examined in detail, from the calling of the election on 16 December 1983, through the nomination, approval and registration of the candidates, to the pre-election meetings with constituents and the poll itself. The level of turnout (99.99 per cent) and the vote in favour of the single list of candidates (99.94 and 99.95 per cent respectively for the two chambers) were in each case the highest in Soviet history; they must, however, be adjusted for the use of ‘absentee certificates’ and an apparent increase in the number of citizens not recorded on the electoral register. Elections without choice, as in the USSR. are not necessarily elections without political significance. Soviet elections appear in fact to perform at least three important functions: legitimation; political communication between regime and citizenry; and political mobilization and socialization. Given the increasing economic difficulties they are likely to face in the later 1980s and beyond, the Soviet authorities may be expected to make even more use of such mechanisms in the future in order to secure acceptance of their decisions without resort to overtly coercive means.     

Distance and Voting: Evidence from Danish Municipalities

Living far from the assigned polling station possibly renders voting less convenient than if the polls are right around the corner. Using a cross‐sectional dataset of about 2.3 million potential voters, including the distances between each household and the assigned polling station, a substantial impact of distance on the propensity to vote is found. An individual living five kilometers from the polling station has a ten percentage‐point lower propensity to turnout than an individual living right next to it. The relationship between distance and turnout is found to be approximately logarithmic. Additionally, the impact of distance appears to be conditional on the availability of cars in the household. The policy implications of the results are discussed in the concluding section.     

Voter information and power dilution: Evidence from Sicilian provincial elections

Public Choice - It is generally accepted that an increase in the amount of voter information is desirable. As Reisman (1990) points out, a well-informed and committed electorate is better able to...     

When politics prevails: Parties,elections and loyalty in the European Parliament

In many political systems, legislators serve multiple principals who compete for their loyalty in legislative votes. This article explores the political conditions under which legislators choose between their competing principals in multilevel systems, with a focus on how election proximity shapes legislative behaviour across democratic arenas. Empirically, the effect of electoral cycles on national party delegations’ ‘collective disloyalty’ with their political groups in the European Parliament (EP) is analysed. It is argued that election proximity changes the time horizons, political incentives and risk perceptions of both delegations and their principals, ‘punctuating’ cost‐benefit calculations around defection as well as around controlling, sanctioning and accommodating. Under the shadow of elections, national delegations’ collective disloyalty with their transnational groups should, therefore, increase. Using a new dataset with roll‐call votes cast under legislative codecision by delegations between July 1999 and July 2014, the article shows that the proximity of planned national and European elections drives up disloyalty in the EP, particularly by delegations from member states with party‐centred electoral rules. The results also support a ‘politicisation’ effect: overall, delegations become more loyal over time, but the impact of election proximity as a driver of disloyalty is strongest in the latest parliament analysed (i.e., 2009–2014). Furthermore, disloyalty is more likely in votes on contested and salient legislation, and under conditions of Euroscepticism; by contrast, disloyalty is less likely in votes on codification files, when a delegation holds the rapporteurship and when the national party participates in government. The analysis sheds new light on electoral politics as a determinant of legislative choice under competing principals, and on the conditions under which politics ‘travels’ across democratic arenas in the European Union's multilevel polity.