New party challenges and partisan change: The effects of party competition on party loyalty

It has long been established that changes in the electorate can have an impact on party systems, sometimes leading to the creation of new parties and the elimination of old ones. We contend, however, that changes in the party system may cause voters to reassess their party identification absent of any long-term change in the overall makeup or attitudes of the electorate. As a case in point, we demonstrate that changes in the Canadian party system in the late 1980s (specifically the advent of the right-wing Reform Party) led to a decline in party loyalty among supporters of the right-center Progressive Conservative Party. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of party systems and partisan change.     

The incentive effects of property taxes on local governments

This paper applies the ideas of Brennan and Buchanan (1977, 1978, 1980) to local property taxes. When local governments maximize their revenues, property taxes provide incentives for adequate amenity provision. Local amenity provision determines property values which then determine local tax revenues. As long as the demand for housing is inelastic, property-taxes will provide stronger incentives for local governments than lump-sum taxes. As current property values reflect expectations about future amenity levels, property taxes create incentives for even the most myopic government to invest for the future. Local property taxes can also act to limit the incentives of localities to tax; there are cases where higher levels of local property taxes lead to lower overall tax burdens. These ideas are applied to the tax reform in the late 1970s; one reason that tax reform may have been so successful is that in a period where land prices are driven by many forces other than government amenities, property taxes lose their value as incentive devices.     

The cartelization of local governments

Intergovernmental competition can enhance efficiency. Centralization of government expenditures inhibits intergovernmental competition because it makes governments more homogeneous, and so cartelizes local governments. Cartelization reduces Tiebout competition, and limits benchmark competition in which one government??s performance can be compared with neighboring governments. Measuring fiscal centralization as the ratio of local to state and local government expenditures within the state, the evidence shows that more fiscal decentralization is associated with higher levels of state per capita income. Cartelization of local governments negatively impacts income.     

The median voter hypothesis: Evidence from general purpose local governments

The median voter hypothesis (MVH) represents a much-used as well as much-criticized tool in the hands of public finance economists. To evaluate the MVH, this paper applies the Cox specification test using data from general purpose municipal governments. The Cox test allows for possible simultaneous rejection of the MVH and all tested models, thus providing stricter criteria than applied to date in empirical MVH analyses. The test results reveal that the MVH is appropriate for explaining the aggregate behavior of municipal governments, but not specific services. Further, the single service and single tax base assumptions are not critical to the empirical MVH performance.     

Fiscal effects of budget referendums: evidence from New York school districts

This paper provides empirical evidence on how budget referendums affect school inputs by taking advantage of an exogenous enactment of budget referendums for small city school districts (SCSDs) in New York State in 1998. The paper shows that SCSDs reduce instructional spending and increase student-teacher ratios while preserving administrative spending in response to budget referendums. These empirical findings are obtained by difference-in-differences estimations on data processed with propensity score matching, and the results are robust to sensitivity analysis.     

转型期我国地方政府间恶性竞争的制度分析

行政性分权造成的中央政府与地方政府的事权、财权体制的不完善扭曲了地方政府作为利益主体的竞争意识.但在同时,由于激励机制的缺陷和约束机制的孱弱,导致了地方政府间的恶性竞争,并出现了不容忽视的负面效应.     

The selection of party leaders in Spain

Abstract. Few parties apart from the PSOE have enjoyed stable and cohesive leaderships. A comparison between the PSOE and the AP/PP shows how much more stable the experience of the former has been. Both elect leaders at delegate congesses, although in practice there is little real involvement by rank and file members. Political culture, cleavages and the role of TV all account for this instability.     

Third party voting and the rational voter model: Empirical evidence from recent presidential elections

This paper attempted to demonstrate that a rational voter model as derived by Barzel and Silberberg (1973) can be used (with modifications) to explain third party voting in presidential elections. The empirical findings strongly suggest that the rational voter model is applicable in explaining third party voting. This conclusion likewise suggests that people who vote for third parties do so under similar motivations as people who vote for the major parties. Thus, people do not appear to regard votes for third parties as wasted votes or engage in the voting process in an irrational fashion. Lastly, votes for third parties represent the transmission of individual preferences by people who believe that their vote is important and that in the aggregate their signal may be interpreted as a signal to alter the direction of current policies as run by the major parties. Therefore, it does not appear from the evidence presented here that we should distinguish between or treat differently voting participation for the major parties versus the minor or third parties in presidential elections.The author expresses appreciation to Charles Campbell, Gary Pecquet, Paul W. Grimes, and James E. McClure for comments and criticisms. The usual caveat applies.     

科学发展观视野下的地方政府竞争

地方政府竞争是基于中央政府与地方政府关系、地方政府间的法制环境,在我国,主要包括地方政府的法律地位、地方财税制度、政绩考核制度、反垄断制度.由于法制环境的不完善,导致地方政府竞争处于困境,不适应科学发展观的新要求.而要充分发挥地方政府竞争的正效应,克服负外部性,有必要从法制途径进行规范.其基本思路是:完善中央与地方权限的划分制度;改革户籍制度和选举制度;完善地方财政税收制度;建立以提供公共服务能力为中心的多元标准的绩效评定机制;完善反垄断制度和司法监督制度.     

The business firm model of party organisation: Cases from Spain and Italy

Abstract. Discussion of new forms of party organisation have largely focused on the ways in which institutionalised parties have adapted to pressures towards 'catch–all' or 'electoral–professional' behaviour. This article examines the ways in which new parties respond to these pressures. A model of the 'party as business firm' is generated from rational choice assumptions and it is suggested that such a model can emerge when new party systems are created in advanced societies. Two cases of political parties which resemble the business firm model in important ways are analysed in order to gauge the consequences of this type of party organisation: UCD in Spain and Forza Italia in Italy. On the basis of this analysis it is argued that business firm parties are likely to be electorally unstable and politically incoherent, and also prone to serving particularistic interests.     

Government termination in multilevel settings. How party congruence affects the survival of sub-national governments in Germany and Spain

ABSTRACT

Past studies on government survival in parliamentary democracies have been limited to national governments. However, most societies live in a multilevel polity where different policies are decided at distinct governmental layers. So far, the conditions triggering sub-national governments’ termination have remained unexplored. Our paper makes a twofold contribution to the literature. First, we explicitly focus our analysis on the sub-national government level. Second, we expand the analytical scope by assuming a multilevel setting, in which the survival of sub-national governments is dependent on both the party composition of the national government (vertical congruence) and their sub-national peers (horizontal congruence). We test the impact of both congruence measures on the early termination risk of regional governments. Our analysis is complemented by including “traditional” factors from national government termination literature, such as structural attributes of governments and their bargaining environment, into empirical modelling. Analysing a novel dataset on 494 regional governments in Germany and Spain we find that the risk of sub-national government termination is related to varying levels of vertical congruence. Furthermore, we find interesting explanatory variation between the two countries with regard to the effect size of economic performance, regional authority and congruence.     

Managing local development: lessons from Spain

This paper analyzes an operational method that regional government agencies can use to enable locally-based firms to compete effectively in their industries. This method, which emerged in southern Spain after the transition to democracy, embodies many precepts found in the contemporary public management literature. The paper begins the task of cumulating the clinical knowledge needed to translate action plan precepts into specific managerial decisions.     

我国地方政府间合作研究:进展与问题

近年来,地方政府间合作成为我国府际关系研究的新热点.本文通过对该领域研究的透视,分析未来我国该领域研究需要重点加强的方向.指出深入展开地方政府间合作研究,探讨新时期有效的地方政府间合作模式与途径,为我国地方政府间新型合作关系的建立提出既具有理论深度,而又能指导实践的理论支持和政策建议,成为新世纪我国府际关系研究的重要课胚.     

The effects of personal campaign financing on party defection: Evidence from Brazil

Scholars suggest that personalism in the electoral arena may reinforce legislators' autonomy from their political parties, increasing their chances of party defection. Our aim is to investigate the role of one fundamental factor that can strengthen personalism: the personal financial capacity to fund electoral campaigns. We seek to answer whether legislators who have more financial resources coming from either personal wealth or individual donations are more inclined to leave their parties during their terms. Through data from Brazilian federal deputies, we show using multivariate regression models that the share of personal resources (especially the share of resources coming from candidate's personal wealth) has positive effects on the chances of defection. Being part of the government coalition and the regulatory framework in place also influence the relationships at play.     

Exploring uniformity and variability in local electoral outcomes: Some evidence from English local elections 1985–1991

A detailed analysis of English local elections between 1985 and 1991 seems to support the propositions that a proportion of electors hold contradictory local and national voting preferences at one and the same time; and that there is significant variation in party performance both between and within local authorities. The paper concludes that the stimuli to which electors respond in local elections are often those most relevant to the ‘context’ in which their vote is cast. If partisan dealignment has led to a greater willingness on the part of the electorate to regard voting as a matter of ‘horses for courses’, there may not only be a further fragmentation in the results of elections of all kinds but the parties may experience different degrees of success depending on the nature of the contest.     

Public spending interactions and local politics. Empirical evidence from French municipalities

This paper aims at testing whether there exist spending interactions between French municipalities by estimating a dynamic panel data model. Our results suggest that there are some interactions between neighbouring municipalities as regards primary and investment expenditures. A positive relationship between municipalities’ wage bill and unemployment rates is likely to stress a rise of temporary employment in those municipalities that suffer from social troubles. Further, the estimation results show that these interdependences also exist between cities whose mayors have the same partisan affiliation. Finally, our results confirm the opportunistic behaviour of local governments, which increase all categories of public spending in pre-electoral periods     

Determinants of success in African local governments: An overview

A potentially useful method for determining how to design viable and competent local government systems is to examine local authorities that function effectively. This paper synthesizes the major findings of seven case studies of ‘successful’ local governments in Sub-saharan Africa, highlighting the principal factors contributing to their success and exploring ways in which they could further improve their performance. The determinants of success identified in the studies include: location in an area with an adequate economic base; well-defined responsibilities in a satisfactory legal framework; capacity to mobilize sufficient resources; supportive central government activities; and appropriate management practices, including development of productive internal and external relations and satisfactory responsiveness to constituents. All of these factors are considered to be necessary, but none is independently sufficient to guarantee success, which is a multidimensional and cumulative process of achievement.