Elections in Western European parliaments

Parliaments often elect holders of important extra‐parliamentary offices such as heads of state, constitutional judges, heads of audit institutions and ombudsmen. What drives the behaviour of parliamentary actors and the outcome of such elections? This article explains actor behaviour theoretically, drawing on spatial factors, principal‐agent arguments about the importance of nonspatial candidate characteristics and signaling arguments about competitive considerations beyond the specific election. Empirically, it provides the first comparative analysis of such elections outside the United States Senate using original data on 100 elections for four external offices in 14 Western European parliaments. The findings show that spatial variables, nonspatial candidate characteristics and features of the competitive context systematically affect the election outcome. The article contributes to comparative parliamentary research in general by demonstrating how parliamentary activities, other than lawmaking, can be analysed using established theories and by showing that consensual aggregate outcomes can be explained within a competition‐based rational choice model.     

Explaining Split-Ticket Voting at the 1979 and 1997 General and Local Elections in England

Only in 1979, 1997 and 2001 have British general elections coincided with the annual local government elections. Uniquely, this study uses both survey and aggregate data to examine aspects of split-ticket voting at the simultaneous elections in 1979 and 1997. Through the use of bi- and multi-variate analysis, it suggests that ticket-splitting is a product of both voter attitudes and party strategies: although it is almost wholly confined to the less partisan, the electoral context in which those votes are being cast can play an additional and significant role in stimulating such behaviour.     

The Generational Effect in Turnout in the Swedish General Elections, 1960–2010

Recent analyses have reported a generational pattern in electoral participation both in national and the European Parliament elections which suggests that a lower voting propensity among the younger cohorts remains relatively stable over time. Based on the Swedish national election studies 1960–2010, this article examines the magnitude of generational differences in a high‐turnout context. It contributes to earlier studies by using multilevel modeling to estimate the impacts of life cycle, generation and period on turnout and by aiming to account for the generational effect with institutional‐ and individual‐level factors. The results show a fairly modest generational effect. When controlling for the proportion of party members in the electorate and the effective number of parties, the differences between generations in their propensities to vote are substantially reduced.     

The Italian General Elections: Something New or More of the Same Thing?

Since the Second World War, Italy has been ruled by shifting coalitions dominated by the Christian Democrat Party to the exclusion of the main opposition, the Communist Party. The continuity in power of the government coalitions and inter party/faction negotiations created the conditions for the abuses of state resources which came to light with the investigations of the Milan magistrates. Electoral reforms intended to break the stranglehold of the partyocracy by encouraging the formation of two main alternative political blocs have been implemented. However, the 1994 elections have returned a right wing coalition to power, and the opposition remains deeply divided.     

United Nations General Assembly Resolutions in the Formation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967

ABSTRACT

The launch of Sputnik in 1957 followed by Explorer in 1958 showcased the potential of space and stressed the need for a robust body of law legislating space as beneficial to all states. Following the launches, a series of resolutions by the United Nations’ General Assembly developed the core principles of international space law. This article conducts an analysis of resolutions passed from 1957 to 1967 to understand the genesis of space law principles as reflected in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. These principles include sovereign equality, peaceful purposes and international cooperation, non-appropriation of space, common heritage of mankind, environmental protection, and how to address non-governmental entities engaged in space activities.     

Multicandidate Equilibrium in American Elections

The United States presidential election of 1992 is anexample of a multicandidate contest involving bothDemocratic and Republican candidates. Using a spatialmodelling approach, I analyze candidate policystrategy for such elections, under the assumption thatvoters choose according to the multivariate votingmodel of behavioral research. This model representsvoters' decisions as probabilistic functions of theirpolicy preferences and political partisanship. Isuggest reasons why partisan voting motivatescandidates to locate near their party's partisans inthe policy space, and illustrate this argument withrespect to the 1992 presidential election. The resultsof computer simulations suggest that these motivationslead to multicandidate spatial equilibria, which arerobust to changes in the model's parameters.Partisanship appears to be an important source ofstability in multicandidate electoral competition.     

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.     

Elections and Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes

When do elections in authoritarian regimes lead to democracy? Building from the distinction between competitive and hegemonic authoritarian regimes, I argue that presence of relatively weaker incumbents renders competitive authoritarian elections more prone to democratization, but only when domestic and international actors choose to actively pressure the regime. The effects of two forms of pressure—opposition electoral coalitions and international conditionality—are theorized. Propositions are tested using a comprehensive dataset of elections in authoritarian regimes from 1990 to 2007. Results support two core claims: that the effect of electoral pressure is conditional on the type of authoritarianism and that this greater vulnerability to pressure is the reason why competitive authoritarian elections are more likely to lead to democracy. In contrast, several alternative explanations—that differences across regime type are explained by alternation in power, better electoral conduct, or ongoing processes of liberalization—are not supported by the evidence.