Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
The General Election and the Formation of Government in Denmark 1971
The Economic Stabilization Programmes and their Political Consequences in Finland, 1967–1970
The 1972 Parliamentary Election in Finland
Norway: Local Elections in the Shadow of the Common Market
Sweden: The First Year of the One-Chamber Riksdag     

BOOK NOTES

D. C. PEARCE (ed.), The Australian Administrative Law Service
DAVID BLACK and MICHAEL WOOD, Western Australian Elections and Politics 1965–1978: A Handbook and Guide, South Bentley     

Gender and citizenship

She is the author of Media Messages in American Presidential Elections.     

Reviews

Books Reviewed: Marian Sawer, Elections Full Free and Fair John Wanna, Christine Ryan and Chew Ng, From Accounting to Accountability: A Centenary History of the Australian National Audit Office Kathy Eagar, Pamela Garrett and Vivian Lin, Health Planning Australian Perspectives Patrick Weller, Australia’s Mandarins: The Frank and the Fearless?     

The procedural presidency of George Bush

He is author of Searching for Safety; Risk and Culture; Budgeting; Speaking Truth to Power; The Beleaguered Presidency;and coauthor of Presidential Elections.     

South Africa’s troubled outlook

Elections to Ukraine's parliament should result in a new government that reflects the political changes that have occurred in the country since late 2013. But if it is not able to implement long-overdue institutional reforms, there is a substantial risk of another political crisis in the next few years.     

Ballot Layout Effects in the 1995 Elections of the Brussels' Government

Analysing data for the 1995 Regional Elections in Brussels weshow how the layout of the ballot affects voting behaviour asreflected by the candidates' preferential votes. We discusshow this special case of Ballot Position Effects can bereconciled with existing models of (expressive) voting.     

A Danish Party Cohesion Cycle

The aim is to analyze short-term fluctuations in Danish parliamentary party cohesion on the backdrop of an American electoral pattern in party cohesion. A Danish cycle is documented: party cohesion in relation to voting behavior is especially high just after an election, then it drops to rise again as election time approaches. A rational choice re-election model predicts the rise in party cohesion, but an obligation actualization model predicts the full cycle. Elections actualize Danish MPs' moral obligation to their party. Where American party cohesion drops in an election year, Danish party cohesion rises when an election approaches. This may be explained by different preferences in the American and Danish electorates: Danish voters value party cohesion per se , American voters do not.     

How (not) to operationalise subnational political opportunity structures: A critique of Kestilä and Söderlund's study of regional elections

Based on an aggregate analysis of the French regional elections of 2004, Kestilä and Söderlund, in their 2007 article, 'Subnational Political Opportunity Structures and the Success of the Radical Right: Evidence from the March 2004 Regional Elections in France', examine the impact of subnational political opportunity structures on the success of the radical right and argue that such an approach can control for a wider range of factors and provide more reliable results than cross-national analyses. The present article disputes this claim on theoretical, conceptual and methodological grounds and demonstrates that their empirical findings are spurious.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Vernon Bogdanor (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Institutions .
David Held, Models of Democracy .
David Held and Christopher Pollitt (eds), New Forms of Democracy .
David Miller, Janet Coleman, William Connolly and Alan Ryan (eds), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought .
A. J. M. Milne, Human Rights and Human Diversity .
R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations .
Stephen Padgett and Tony Burkett, Political Parties and Elections in West Germany: The Search for a New Stability .
Marshall Shulman (ed.), East-West Tensions in the Third World .
Caroline Thomas, In Search of Security: the Third World in International Relations .     

Expected closeness and turnout: An empirical analysis for the German General Elections, 1983--1994

This paper investigates whether expected closeness had a significant impact on turnout in the different electoral districts of the German General Elections, 1983-1994. We find no closeness effect for the 1983 but a significant positive one for the 1987 election. The 1990 election revealed an asymmetry: In West Germany we find a positive and statistically significant closeness effect, in East Germany a negative but also significant one. This result is lacking a theoretical explanation so far. For 1994 we find a positive significant effect in West and a positive but not significant one in East Germany.     

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.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
John Agnew, Place and Politics: The Geographical Mediation of State and Society .
Don Foster with Dennis Davis and Diane Sandler, Detention and Torture in South Africa .
Kenneth W. Grundy, The Militarization of South African Politics .
Harold Wolpe, Race, Class and the Apartheid State .
Fred Halliday and Hamza Alavi (eds), State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan .
Joseph LaPalombara, Democracy Italian Style .
Howard Penniman (ed.), Italy at the Polls, 1983: A Study of the National Elections .
Harald Müller (ed.), A European Non-Proliferation Policy: Prospects and Problems .
Ronald E. Powaski, March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1939 to the Present .
John Simpson (ed.), Nuclear Non-Proliferation: An Agenda for the 1990s .
Patrick Seyd, The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left .
Hilary Wainwright, Labour—A Tale of Two Parties .     

Voting for ‘Sin’ in Kansas

We would like to thank our colleagues Nancy Snyder and William Terrell for comments and suggestions. The assistance of Ron Farha and Michael Webb is gratefully acknowledged, as is the patience of the staff in the Elections Office of the Office of the Secretary of State, Topeka, Kansas. Any errors or omissions are, of course, the responsibility of the authors.     

About voting and non-voting in the European elections of June 1989

Abstract: This article reviews conventional wisdom about determinants of electoral participation in general, and of participation in European elections in particular. A model of European electoral participation is proposed which relates indicators of general political involvement, European attitudes and orientations and social-structural background characteristics to both intended and reported participation. In contrast to the findings of earlier research, it appears that the participation of EC citizens in the European elections of June 1989 - as reported in the post-electoral surveys of the European Elections Study 1989 - was primarily the result of 'habitual voting'. Irrespective of their EC related attitudes and more general political involvement, those who participated went to the polls just because they are used to doing so on election day.     

AMBIGUITY, CONTRADICTIONS, AND FRUSTRATIONS AT THE BALLOT BOX: A PUBLIC CHOICE PERSPECTIVE

A theoretical analysis of citizen participation in politics from a public choice perspective indicates that widespread apathy and disinterest are not aberrations in citizen behavior due to civic irresponsibility or the personal failings of individuals. Rather such responses are highly rational adapta- tions to a political system and political decision-making process over which the individual has little control and participation in which, while demand- ing, yields few tangible returns. Elections and voting are poor mechanisms for aggregating choice, allocating resources or directing public policy.     

Determinants of polling accuracy: the effect of opt-in Internet surveys

With the changing polling environment and the difficulties in correctly measuring public opinion, it is crucial to study the effects of polling practices. Elections provide an opportunity to examine how well polls measure support for political parties and how polling practices influence the accuracy of polls. Based on 110 pre-election polls conducted in Sweden, a multiparty system, we find that probability-based samples yield more accurate polls compared to opt-in Internet samples. Thus, our results point to a tradeoff between inexpensive online polls and accuracy.     

The effects of local campaigning in Great Britain

Political parties devote many resources to local campaigning to contact voters directly. But parties do not choose to contact voters at random; they contact those voters they believe more likely to be swayed. This strategic behaviour introduces an empirical challenge: separating the effect of contact itself from the selection effect — the fact that contacted voters may be more likely to be swayed in the first place. I rely on the panel structure of the British Election Study to separate the effect of contact itself from the selection effect for the 2015, 2017, and 2019 General Elections. My findings show that parties successfully increase their support through local campaigning by a combination of conversion and mobilization. The effectiveness of local campaigning is relative similar throughout the three elections, despite the very different electoral environments.     

Mistrust prevents formation of Iraqi government

Almost seven months after Iraq's parliamentary elections on 7 March, negotiations between political parties have yet to produce a new government. Baghdad is dominated by rumour and intrigue. Elections which should have been a landmark in Iraq's reconstruction following the 2003 US-led invasion have instead highlighted the weakness of the rule of law, the fluid and unstable nature of Iraqi politics and the profound mistrust among the political elite.     

The impact of early media election calls on Republican voting rates in Florida’s western Panhandle counties in 2000

Using voting data for presidential elections from 1976 to 2000, this paper documents an unusual and large drop off in Republican voting rates for Florida’s western Panhandle during the 2000 General Elections. Little change appears to have occurred in the rate that non-Republicans voted. The results appear more consistent with the early call reducing Republican voting rates than the networks discouraging all voters from voting by incorrectly calling the polls closed in the western Panhandle.