Political trust and the vote in multiparty elections: The Canadian case

Abstract.  While the causes of declining political trust have been investigated extensively in the literature, much less empirical effort has been devoted to the study of its behavioural implications. This article focuses on the decline of trust in Canada during the period 1984 to 1993, and on its effect on Canadian voting behaviour. We build upon M.J. Hetherington's ('The effect of political trust on the presidential vote, 1968–1996', American Political Science Review 93 (1999): 311–326) work to explore the impact of political trust on the vote and on abstention in a multiparty electoral context. Multinomial logit estimations are performed using individual-level survey data from three Canadian federal elections. While distrust is shown to significantly affect electoral participation, thus acting as an alienating factor, the results indicate that decreasing trust acts more as a motivation to support third-party alternatives. The study further demonstrates that, in a multiple party setting, 'old-line' major parties electorally suffer from declining political trust, but some third parties benefit more from this phenomenon than others. Contrary to what was the case in the previous two elections, distrustful individuals in 1993 were more likely to vote for the Reform Party or the Bloc Québécois than support the New Democratic Party.     

Alternative models of issue voting: The case of the 1991 and 1995 elections in Belgium

Abstract. Previous research has indicated that the success of the directional model of issue voting depends on levels of political sophistication and how party position is measured. Using 1991 and 1995 Belgian Election Surveys, the predictive power of proximity and directional measures are compared controlling for both variables. It is shown that when one uses overall mean placements, instead of mean placements by level of political sophistication, the proximity effect declines most among the highly sophisticated voters. The article also compares the performance of the proximity and directional measures across party systems. Contrary to theoretical expectations, party–system differences between Flanders and Wallonia do not affect the explanatory power of either of these measures. It is only in the cases of the liberal, socialist and extreme right parties that the directional measure is clearly superior. A closer analysis of this result indicates that the relative success of the directional measure is due to the limited number of issues from which those parties draw support.     

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.     

Native participation in free elections: The case of the Northwest Territories (Canada)

The administrator of elections in Canada's Northwest Territories is faced with a variety of special circumstances which make the electoral process less straightforward than in other parts of the country. Examples are: an extremely low population density, at least ten languages split among three distinct cultures, considerable illiteracy, a high migratory population, and a harsh climate. This paper examines the means by which elections to the Council of the Northwest Territories are carried out and describes some of the particular techniques which have enabled elections in this area to achieve a rate of participation comparable to that of the other provinces in Canada.     

Time for a change: The French elections of 1981 : II. The National Assembly elections

The Socialist Mitterrand won the French presidency by 52 per cent to the conservative Giscard's 48 per cent. To exercise real power, Mitterrand immediately dissolved the conservative Assembly, elected in 1978. The bonus of legitimacy enjoyed by the newly elected President, together with the constitutional arrangements which make effective, stable government dependent on an Assembly majority sympathetic to the President and the decline of the Communist party and the divisions within the Right all amplified Mittrrand's victory in the Assembly elections, won by the Left with 55 per cent to the Right's 44 per cent on the decisive ballot. With 38 per cent of the vote on the first ballot, the Socialists emerged with 268 seats after the second. That landslide (for France) was won on a low poll, thanks to the abstention and indiscipline of conservative and Communist supporters. It gives the Socialists a majority in the Assembly, only the second time in the Fifth Republic that a single party has had a majority by itself.     

Economic crisis and elections: The European periphery

This paper introduces the articles in the symposium which address the issue of democratic accountability and economic voting in polities on the European periphery. The economic crisis that hit the world economy in 2008 has severely challenged the capacity of governments to steer the national economy and has had a strong impact on their electoral support. The papers discuss whether economic voting and democratic accountability are increasing or, on the other hand, they could be depressed by globalisation and by shifts of ruling competence from the national to the supranational European arena.     

The 1989 European elections: Campaigns and results

Abstract: This article gives an overview discussion of the electoral campaigns and the results of the European elections of 1989. The role of national as well as European actors and issues during the campaigns are highlighted, and the results are discussed, both in view of turnout and party strength, in terms of its likely implications for the national and European political process.     

The emergence of stable racially and ethnically diverse urban communities: A case study of nine U.S. cities

Abstract

We examine the characteristics of 14 stable racially and ethnically diverse urban communities in 9 U.S. cities and point to policies that could strengthen these communities and encourage the growth of more diverse neighborhoods in American cities. The cities examined are Chicago; Denver; Houston; Memphis, TN; Milwaukee; New York; Oakland, CA; Philadelphia; and Seattle. University researchers and community leaders in each city collaborated on the research for this project.

We identify two types of stable diverse communities, “self‐conscious” and “laissez‐faire,” which have evolved for different reasons and with different characteristics. Stable diverse communities will not just happen, but they can be influenced by a number of policy recommendations stemming from our research. These include helping individuals and organizations take leadership roles in their communities, strengthening and enforcing fair housing and antidiscrimination laws, earmarking economic resources to encourage neighborhood diversity, and creating community safety and jobs programs.     

The social sub-optimality of competitive elections: comment

Buchler (Public Choice 133(3-4): 439–456, 2007) models elections as methods of making social choices among different options, and argues that increased electoral competition may produce inferior outcomes. However, competitive elections also play a role in affecting the behavior of candidates, and of elected officials in office. Once this role is recognized, competitive elections must be seen as a necessary (but not sufficient) ingredient in the production of socially-optimal government.     

The impact of the electoral system on post-communist party development: The case of the 1993 Russian parliamentary elections

This paper uses a case study of the 1993 Russian parliamentary elections to explore the influence of proportional representation and plurality electoral systems on party formation in a post-communist regime. The mixed PR-plurality electoral system used by Russia in the 1993 elections is a particularly useful case for such analysis for it allows the simultaneous study of these two electoral systems under the same set of social, economic, and cultural conditions. This study found that common emphasis placed on the number of parties allowed by PR versus plurality systems is misplaced in the context of Russian politics. The vital impact of electoral systems under post-communist conditions is their permeability to independent candidates. PR systems tend to impose party labels on the electorate and elites and thus bolster the status of parties as electoral agents. Plurality systems allow independents to compete on a level playing field with partisan candidates, robbing parties of the preferential treatment they need to get established in the initial years of democratic governance.     

Turnout and weather disruptions: Survey evidence from the 2012 presidential elections in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

This paper examines the rational choice reasoning that is used to explain the correlation between low voter turnout and the disruptions caused by weather related phenomena in the United States. Using in-person as well as phone survey data collected in New York City where the damage and disruption caused by Hurricane Sandy varied by district and even by city blocks, we explore, more directly than one can with aggregate data, whether individuals who were more affected by the disruptions caused by Hurricane Sandy were more or less likely to vote in the 2012 Presidential Election that took place while voters still struggled with the devastation of the hurricane and unusually low temperatures. Contrary to the findings of other scholars who use aggregate data to examine similar questions, we find that there is no difference in the likelihood to vote between citizens who experienced greater discomfort and those who experienced no discomfort even in non-competitive districts. We theorize that this is in part due to the resilience to costs and higher levels of political engagement that vulnerable groups develop under certain institutional conditions.     

The 2011 general and presidential elections in Singapore

For the first time in Singapore's history, two elections were held in a year. In 2011, Singaporeans voted in a general election on 7 May and in another competitive presidential election on 27 August. Faced with a stronger opposition force and an emboldened electorate, the ruling People's Action Party won the elections but achieved the worst results since the country's independence.