The electoral effectiveness of constituency campaigning in the 2010 British general election: The ‘triumph’ of Labour?

This article establishes a model of likely campaign effectiveness, before examining the intensity of constituency campaigning at the 2010 general election in Britain and its subsequent impact on electoral outcomes, using both aggregate and individual level data. It shows that constituency campaigning yielded benefits in varying degrees for all three main parties and that Labour’s constituency campaign efforts were effective despite the electoral context, and ultimately affected the overall outcome of the election. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the circumstances under which campaigns are likely to be more or less effective, and provide further evidence that a carefully managed campaign stands the most chance of delivering tangible electoral payoffs.     

Democracy for the youth? The impact of mock elections on voting age attitudes

Should 16-year-olds be entitled to participate in elections? We theorize that mock elections for adolescents, who are not eligible to vote, affect the short-term support among the general public for lowering the voting age. To test our theoretical expectation, we utilize variation among municipalities in the organization of mock elections during the Danish local elections in 2009. Difference-in-difference estimates with data from the subsequent local elections in 2013 demonstrate that citizens in municipalities with mock elections for adolescents were more supportive of lowering the voting age and that their support was strongly rooted in ideological differences.     

Turning against the Union? The impact of the crisis on the Eurosceptic vote in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European Parliament elections were held against the backdrop of the worst economic crisis in post-war Europe. The elections saw an unprecedented surge in support for Eurosceptic parties. This raises the question of whether the crisis, and the EU’s response to it, can explain the rise of Eurosceptic parties. Our analysis of the 2014 European Election Study demonstrates that the degree to which individuals were adversely affected by the crisis and their discontent with the EU’s handling of the crisis are major factors in explaining defection from mainstream pro-European to Eurosceptic parties in these elections. This suggests that far from being second-order national elections concerned only with domestic politics, European issues had a significant impact on vote choices.     

Why bother campaigning? Campaign effectiveness in the 2009 European Parliament elections

This paper explores the effectiveness of European Parliament candidates' campaigns. We analyze the relationship between candidates' spending and their likelihood of success, controlling for a range of relevant co-varying factors. We then investigate whether the effects of electoral spending are conditioned by two variables: ballot design and incumbency. We find that, ceteris paribus, spending was positively related to a candidate's likelihood of electoral success in the 2009 campaign, though this effect is small in scale. We also reveal that the electorally positive effects of spending are observable across both 'party-centered' and ‘candidate-centered’ ballot structures, and that there is some evidence that incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending.     

Campaigning on an upper level? Individual campaigning in the 2009 European Parliament elections in its determinants

Election campaigns are not only party campaigns, but depend to a significant degree on the efforts and activities of individual candidates. While some country-specific analyses of candidate campaigning have been done, large-N comparative studies are missing. The 2009 European Election Candidate Study, conducted in all 27 EU countries, does allow for such a comparative analysis. On the basis of this data, the article takes a closer look at three core components of individual campaigns and their respective determinants: duration, intensity, and the use of different campaign tools. Our findings show that only a combination of factors on the individual, party, and country level is able to explain significant amounts of the observed variance in each of the core components.     

Red Europe versus no Europe? The impact of attitudes towards the EU and the economic crisis on radical-left voting

The 2014 European Parliament election saw a relatively large increase in the size of radical-left parties (RLPs), particularly in Western Europe. This article aims to provide new ways of thinking about the dynamics of radical-left voting by analysing the changing role of attitudes towards the European Union in explaining support for RLPs at European Parliament elections during the Great Recession. It is argued that the Europeanisation of economic issues during the financial crisis, together with the particular kind of Euroscepticism advocated by these parties, have enabled them to successfully attract a heterogeneous pool of voters. Using the 2009 and 2014 European Election Studies, it is shown that the effect of negative opinions about the EU on support for RLPs increased significantly during the crisis. In addition, support for RLPs also increased among voters with positive views of the EU who were nevertheless highly dissatisfied with the economic situation.     

Parliament without Government: The Belgian Parliament and the Government Formation Processes of 2007–2011

Parliamentary systems are characterised by strong links between the executive and the legislature. While the importance of executive–legislative relationships is well-known, the extent to which executive dominance affects parliamentary behaviour is hard to grasp. This study uses the recent institutional crises in Belgium to study parliamentary behaviour in the absence of a government with full powers. Cabinet formation in Belgium has proved to be protracted in recent years, leading to long periods of government formation in both 2007–2008 and 2010–2011. Such circumstances provide a unique comparison between normal situations of parliament in the presence of government, and exceptional situations of prolonged periods of caretaker government. In particular the article looks at three aspects of parliamentary behaviour that are usually linked to executive–legislative relations: legislative initiatives, voting behaviour and party unity. The general hypothesis is that prolonged periods of government formation gave parliamentarians more opportunities to influence the legislative process and more (ideological) freedom. The results show a nuanced picture: parliament became more pro-active, the salience of the government–opposition divide declined, while party unity remained as strong as ever. It is concluded that government formation processes did not lead to drastic changes in the legislative–executive relationship, but rather permitted a modest correction to the extremely weak position of parliament.     

A banana republic? The effects of inconsistencies in the counting of votes on voting behavior

Public Choice - We examine whether local inconsistencies in the counting of votes influence voting behavior. We exploit the case of the second ballot of the 2016 presidential election in Austria....     

Politics as usual? Assessing the extent and content of candidate-level online campaigning at the 2015 UK general election

There has been much work done investigating the adoption of online campaigns in UK general election campaigns. Although some research has focussed on the candidate-level (Gibson, R., W. Lusoli, and S. Ward. 2008. “Nationalizing and Normalizing the Local? A Comparative Analysis of Online Candidate Campaigning in Australia and Britain.” Journal of Information Technology and Politics 4: 15–30; Lee, B. 2014. “Window Dressing 2.0: Constituency-level Web Campaigns in the 2010 UK General Election.” Politics 34 (1): 45–57; Southern, R. 2015. “Is Web 2.0 Providing a Voice for Outsiders? A Comparison of Personal Web Site and Social Media Use by Candidates at the 2010 UK General Election.” Journal of Information Technology &; Politics 12 (1): 1–17), this is an under-researched area. This is despite early web-campaign scholars (Margolis, M., and D. Resnick. 2000. Politics as Usual: The Cyberspace Revolution. Sage) maintaining that e-campaigning could provide the most important advantages to campaigns at the candidate level. In light of this, the paper aims to provide the most comprehensive study of candidate-level online campaigning carried out in the UK to date. This paper employs original data, measuring website and social media use by candidates during the 2015 UK general election campaign. These data allow for a detailed explanation of the normalization thesis, one of the leading theories in the field of e-campaigns. The findings here are significant as there are several instances where normalization does not hold, suggesting that online tools are contributing to campaign change. Green Party candidates subverted normalization to a significant degree, particularly on social media. Assessing the campaign content, a quarter of candidates adopted more than one interactive feature on their website and furthermore, interactive use of Twitter was the most common type of Twitter use.     

Greasing the wheels? The impact of regulations and corruption on firm entry

This paper investigates the question of whether corruption might ‘grease the wheels’ of an economy. We investigate whether and to what extent the impact of regulations on entrepreneurship is dependent on corruption. We first test whether regulations robustly deter firm entry into markets. Our results show that the existence of a larger number of procedures required to start a business, as well as larger minimum capital requirements are detrimental to entrepreneurship. Second, we test whether corruption reduces the negative impact of regulations on entrepreneurship in highly regulated economies. Our empirical analysis, covering a maximum of 43 countries over the 2003–2005 period, shows that corruption facilitates firm entry in highly regulated economies. For example, the ‘greasing’ effect of corruption kicks in at around 50 days required to start a new business. Our results thus provide support for the ‘grease the wheels’ hypothesis.     

A mixed blessing for the left? Early voting,turnout and election outcomes in Norway

Is there a relationship between turnout and election outcomes? Although this is a classic topic in political science, most studies on multiparty systems have important theoretical and empirical shortcomings. First, we argue that the proper implication of the theoretical argument that underpins research on the turnout-vote nexus is that high levels of turnout should typically benefit both traditional social democratic parties and parties of the radical right relative to other types of parties, including not only those of the traditional right, but also ‘left-libertarian’ parties. Second, few have studied the relationship between turnout and election outcomes with a research design that is appropriate for causal inference. In our empirical study, our identification strategy is to exploit a Norwegian reform of early voting rules as an exogenous source of variation in turnout. Our theoretical expectations are largely borne out in our empirical results.     

Be there or be square – The impact of participation and performance in the 2017 Dutch TV debates and its coverage on voting behaviour

TV debates are often seen as the most important events that provide the electorate with information about leading candidates and key issues during electoral campaigns. Research provides evidence for various debate effects, showing both a direct and indirect influence on voting decisions. There is, however, only scant evidence on the relative impact of TV debates when examining these effects at the same time. To fill this gap, our study aims to analyse whether and to what extent a candidate's participation in a debate, their performance in the debate or the related media coverage influence the electorate when examined simultaneously. We consider the case of the 2017 Dutch general elections, which offers an almost ideal setting due to the broadcast of several TV debates of different formats and candidate compositions throughout the campaign period. To distinguish the effects of single debates, we use original Dutch panel survey data. We find a weak overall influence of the debates; the most significant effects are decreasing vote intentions for the two main competitors (VVD and PVV) after both candidates refused to participate in the first TV debate, and a ‘winner-effect’ for one of the two main candidates in a head-to-head debate.     

A perfect match? The impact of statement selection on voting advice applications' ability to match voters and parties

This study examines how statement selection systematically affects the output of voting advice applications (VAAs). Does the statement selection influence how often voters are matched with parties that ‘should be’ close to them? Our benchmark is a classic account of issue voting, the proximity left–right model. We analyze the Belgian VAA Do the Vote Test and find that the output resembles the left–right model. When more left–right statements are included, more left-wing voters get the advice to vote for left-wing parties and the same is true on the right, while simultaneously advantaging parties with more extreme positions on this dimension. We also analyze issue saliency and find that parties are disadvantaged when more statements about salient issues are included. These findings imply tough choices for VAA builders.     

Trading old errors for new errors? The impact of electronic voting technology on party label votes in Brazil

In the mid-1990s, Brazil introduced electronic voting technology that reduced residual ballots and consequently expanded de facto enfranchisement. We employ a regression discontinuity design similar to that of previous studies of the Brazilian electronic voting technology to show that electronic technology also caused a sharp rise in party label votes (votos de legenda) that can only be explained by voting error. We show that this error offsets a large portion of the gains in enfranchisement, highlighting the fact that even generally positive changes in voting procedures can have negative effects. Our results also suggest that party label votes should not be considered a measure of party strength in the Brazilian context.     

The more,the better? Counterfactual evidence on the effect of compulsory voting on the consistency of party choice

Compulsory voting (CV) undoubtedly raises electoral turnout. Yet does it also affect individual party choices and aggregate election outcomes? Previous studies have focused on partisan or ‘directional’ effects of CV in favour of, for example, social‐democratic or anti‐establishment parties. These effects are usually small, however. Using survey data from the Belgian General Elections Study, this article finds that CV primarily affects the consistency, rather than the direction, of party choices. In particular, the analyses suggest that CV compels a substantial share of uninterested and less knowledgeable voters to the polls. These voters, in turn, cast votes that are clearly less consistent with their own political preferences than those of the more informed and motivated voluntary voters. Claims that CV promotes equal representation of political interests are therefore questionable.     

The European Parliament in the External Dimension of EU Counter-terrorism: More Actorness,Accountability and Oversight 10 Years on?

The Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in 2009, considerably reinforced the powers of the European Parliament. This article examines to what extent the European Parliament has become an important actor in EU counter-terrorism by focusing on the external dimension of this policy. It also analyses the impact that this potentially changing role has had on the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism. This article puts forward two inter-related claims. Firstly, the role of the European Parliament in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism has significantly grown in recent years. Following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, the European Parliament has become a fully-fledged actor in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism. Secondly, the reinforcement of the role of the European Parliament has also led to a strengthening of both accountability and oversight in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism, although there are still some limitations in that respect.     

The (dis)continuation of Scottish nationalism? A discursive comparison of the Scottish National Party and National Collective

The Scottish independence referendum in 2014 was propelled by the Scottish National Party (SNP), but the referendum also saw the emergence of a plethora of pro-independence groups. One of the most prominent was National Collective (NC), a cultural movement emphasizing the empowerment of the younger electorate. NC has been described as part of a radical pro-independence movement, heralding the end of the nationalist hegemony and the arrival of a new post-nationalist politics in Scotland. This article investigates that claim from a political discourse perspective by analysing interviews conducted with NC and SNP representatives. The analysis of the interview data is framed by Gorski’s conception of nationalism as discourse and mobilization, and the ideological presentation of these two organizations are analysed by drawing on Freeden’s morphological approach. The findings suggest a great degree of discursive overlap between NC and the SNP but wide divergences in terms of imagined recipient scope.     

What's the point of voting advice applications? Competing perspectives on democracy and citizenship

Voting advice applications (VAAs) are interactive online tools designed to assist voters by improving the basis on which they decide how to vote. Current VAAs typically aim to do so by matching users' policy-preferences with the positions of parties or candidates. But this ‘matching model’ depends crucially on implicit, contestable presuppositions about the proper functioning of the electoral process and about the forms of competence required for good citizenship—presuppositions associated with the social choice conception of democracy. This paper aims to make those presuppositions explicit and to contrast them with two possible alternative perspectives on VAAs, associated with deliberative and agonistic conceptions of democracy and citizenship.