Resource disparity and multi-level elections in competitive authoritarian regimes: Regression discontinuity evidence from Hong Kong

Much research has been done to study how competitive elections affect autocracies and their opposition. Electoral institutions, however, may have different social and political effects. In this paper, I examine the effect of an understudied electoral institution: lower-level elections. I argue that elections at grassroots levels tend to favor the ruling party by allowing it to more fully utilize its resource advantage to buy political support, which would in turn undermine the opposition's ability to develop a local support network that is important to its struggle for democratization as well as for elected offices. Evaluating the effect of lower-level elections is empirically challenging because the effect is likely to be confounded with voter preference. I tackle this identification problem by taking advantage of a quasi-experiment afforded by the electoral formula of Hong Kong, which allows me to use a regression discontinuity design to test my causal argument. I find strong statistical evidence supporting my argument; the ruling elite's aggressive expansion in the District Councils, the lowest elected tier, aims to drive out the opposition elites, who, by occupying a District Council seat, are able to increase their vote share of that constituency by 4–5 percentage points in a subsequent legislative election.     

From ballots to bullets: an empirical assessment of how national elections influence state uses of political repression

This paper explores the complex relationship between national elections and repression (specifically instances of censorship and political restrictions). I do this while controlling for different contextual effects (various system types), different units of analysis (yearly as well as monthly data), and different types of relationships (lagged as well as immediate). Results indicate that within the yearly aggregated data (N = 1715), elections are only statistically significant in non-democracies, where they effect repressive behavior immediately as well as negatively. Monthly aggregated data (N = 5460), investigating only full democracies, did not reveal any significant relationships between national elections and repression. The degree/level of suffrage restrictions does have an effect however. I conclude with numerous suggestions for future research.     

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.     

Money,candidates, and mayoral elections

In this paper, we extend a well-trod line of research from congressional and state-level elections—the electoral impact of campaign expenditures and candidate characteristics—to a relatively understudied context, urban mayoral elections. Using a sample of large U.S. cities, we provide evidence that mayoral elections are very similar to elections at other levels of office: there is a tremendous incumbency advantage, one that is overcome only with great effort; campaign spending is closely tied to incumbent vote share but it is challenger rather than incumbent spending that seems to drive outcomes; and challengers are hopelessly outspent. In addition, we find that the effect of local economic conditions on incumbent success is mediated by challenger spending and that incumbent candidates fare better in racially diverse settings.     

Gubernatorial elections and attitudes toward the police: State elections as focusing events

Traditional views hold that citizens’ attitudes toward the police are driven by local concerns. We contend that public attitudes toward the police are also responsive to systematic and periodic state-level political factors. We show that state elections as a focusing event alter periodically the determinants of attitudes toward the police. Using an ordered logistic regression model and data from national public policy surveys from 1998 and 1999, we find that gubernatorial elections have a significant effect on the state/police relationship. State elections create conditions that separate the bureaucratic and partisan functions of the state government. In turn, the bureaucratic performance of the state government is less related to police approval, while partisan contestation for control of the governor office (control of the state) is significantly and positively related to police approval. During gubernatorial election years, attitudes toward the state government account for more of the variation in police attitudes.     

Regression Discontinuity diagnostics reveal statistical anomalies in Turkish elections

Using Regression Discontinuity diagnostics we document a number of statistical anomalies in the 2004 Turkish mayoral elections. The governing party that controls the parliament is much more likely to win close races than lose. Moreover, compared to close governing party losses, there is a sharp drop in turnout and contending party votes in close governing party wins. Finally, the parties that disproportionately lose very close races are exclusively ideological competitors of the governing party. Among the potential mechanisms that may create those anomalies, electoral manipulation seems to a plausible explanation. Those anomalies show that the outcomes of very close popular elections can be non-random and that the assumption of the continuity of the expected potential outcomes at the threshold could be violated. We discuss implications of our findings for Regression Discontinuity Designs and for understanding the consolidation of the right-wing electorate in Turkey during the last decade.     

Black knights and elections in authoritarian regimes: Why and how Russia supports authoritarian incumbents in post‐Soviet states

In the last decade, studies have documented how autocrats use elections as a way of legitimising and stabilising their regimes. Simultaneously, a literature on negative external actors (also known as ‘black knights’) has developed, emphasising how various international actors use anti‐democracy promotion strategies to undergird authoritarian regimes. In this article, these two literatures are fused in an attempt to shed light on the external dimension of authoritarian elections and what is termed ‘black knight election bolstering’. First, five mechanisms are elucidated, through which external assistance increases the chances of ‘winning’ elections in authoritarian settings (signaling invincibility, deterring elite defection, undermining opposition activities, dealing with popular protests, and countervailing pressure from foreign democracy promoters). Second, it is argued that external actors are most likely to offer election bolstering when they face a particularly acquiescent partner or when electoral defeat is perceived to lead to radical and undesired regime change. The relevance of both factors is augmented when uncertainty of the electoral outcome is high. Finally, four cases of Russian intervention during elections in three authoritarian neighbour countries (Ukraine in 2004, Belarus in 2006, and Moldova in 2005 and 2009) are analysed. The case studies corroborate the theoretical arguments: not only does Russia engage in all five types of black knight election bolstering, but it does so only when one or more of the three explanatory factors are present.     

Not always second order: Subnational elections,national-level vote intentions,and volatility spillovers in a multi-level electoral system

The widespread second-order view on subnational elections leaves little room for the idea that subnational election campaigns matter for national-level electoral preferences. I challenge this perspective and explore the context-conditional role of subnational election campaigns for national-level vote intentions in multi-level systems. Campaigns direct citizens’ attention to the political and economic “fundamentals” that determine their electoral preferences. Subnational election campaigns and the major campaign issues receive nation-wide media coverage. This induces all citizens in a country to evaluate parties at the national level even if they themselves are not eligible to vote in the upcoming subnational election. Thereby, subnational election campaigns may lead to a reduction in the uncertainty of voters’ national-level electoral preferences throughout the country, which is reflected by a decrease in the volatility of national-level vote intentions. I explore weekly vote intention data from Germany (1992–2007) within a conditional volatility model. Subnational elections reduce uncertainty in nation-wide federal-level vote intentions for major parties. However, patterns of incumbency and coalitional shifts moderate this volatility-reducing effect.     

The relationship between bias and swing ratio in the Electoral College and the outcome of presidential elections

In this paper, I assess how the outcomes of presidential elections are affected by the presence (or lack) of partisan bias in the Electoral College. There have been three instances (1876, 1888 and 2000) since the end of the Civil War where the party that lost the popular vote won the Electoral College. These instances raise the question of whether partisan bias consistently influences presidential election outcomes? I answer this question by first measuring partisan bias and then using these estimates to assess how partisan bias affects a party's odds of winning a presidential election. I find that the presence of partisan bias provides a sizable, but not insurmountable, obstacle for the disadvantaged party.     

Presidential coattails and electoral coordination in multilevel elections: Comparative lessons from Brazil

This article seeks to understand how concurrent presidential and gubernatorial elections in strong federal systems affect electoral coordination and coattails voting between national and subnational levels of government. We seek to determine whether the nationalizing effect of presidential elections can overcome the strong incentives for regionalization that can arise in federal systems. We use individual-level survey data and time-series cross-sectional electoral data from Brazil, a federal country with decentralized electoral institutions that has recently adopted concurrent presidential and gubernatorial elections. We find that the congruence between national and subnational elections increases when elections are temporally proximate and the effective number of presidential candidates is low. In short, the coattails effect can not only operate “horizontally,” by shaping national legislative elections, but also “vertically,” by shaping subnational elections.     

Trust in elections,vote buying,and turnout in Latin America

Although national elections in Latin America are now described as reasonably free and fair by international observations teams, electoral processes are still affected by a series of malpractices (unequal access to the media and public resources, registration problems, vote buying). These irregularities negatively affect citizens' trust in elections. In this paper, we analyze the consequences of low trust in elections and exposure to vote buying practices on electoral participation in Latin America. Using data from the 2010 wave of LAPOP surveys, we find that perceiving that the election is unfair reduces the willingness to participate in national elections, but receiving material incentives during the campaign has the opposite effect of increasing electoral participation. We also show that the effect of trust in elections on turnout is larger in countries where voting is not mandatory.     

Domestic migrants' responsiveness to electoral mobilization under authoritarianism: Evidence from China's grassroots elections

This study examines citizens' responsiveness to electoral mobilization under authoritarianism by studying the turnout of domestic migrants in China's grassroots elections. While a large literature on authoritarian elections has focused on coercion and material benefits as tactics dictators often use to promote turnout, we argue that social pressure from the community and its leaders plays a crucial role in mobilizing authoritarian constituents. Employing data from the China Labor Dynamics Survey (2012), we show that migrants who share traits with local residents, such as dialect, are more likely to be mobilized to vote, because they are more responsive to local cadres' mobilization efforts and feel more connected to the community. Conversely, we find no support for an explanation rooted in channels of communication. We confirm the findings using an instrumental variable approach. Our findings imply that street-level mobilization for authoritarian elections takes advantage of various social factors in more subtle and embedded ways than is typically assumed.     

Coattails and spillover-effects: Quasi-experimental evidence from concurrent executive and legislative elections

Concurrent elections are widely used to increase turnout. We theorize and show empirically how concurrency affects electoral outcomes. First, concurrency increases turnout and thereby the participation of peripheral voters. Second, in combined elections, one electoral arena affects the other. In our case of majoritarian executive elections concurrent to proportional representation (PR) legislative elections, the centripetal tendency of majoritarian elections colors off to the concurrent PR race. Third, concurrency also entails spillovers of the incumbency advantage of executive officeholders to the concurrent legislative race. Drawing on quasi-random variation in local election timing in Germany, we show that concurrency increases turnout as well as council votes for the incumbent mayor's party and centrist parties more generally, with slightly more pronounced gains for the political left. As a consequence, concurrent elections consolidate party systems and political power by leading to less fragmented municipal councils and more unified local governments.     

Signalling issue salience: Explaining niche party support in second-order elections

Why do many mainstream party voters switch to voting for niche parties in second-order elections? I develop a simple framework to explain niche party switching in second-order elections and propose that some voters defect strategically to niche parties as a way to signal the salience of an otherwise overlooked issue to their preferred mainstream party. Using panel data from the United Kingdom and Germany, I find that vote switching in second-order elections is more common among those who perceive a mismatch between the party they feel close to and the party perceived as best able to handle an issue of importance to them, as well as when they believe less is at stake and when they place much importance on an overlooked issue.     

Social media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

Social media play an increasingly important part in the communication strategies of political campaigns by reflecting information about the policy preferences and opinions of political actors and their public followers. In addition, the content of the messages provides rich information about the political issues and the framing of those issues during elections, such as whether contested issues concern Europe or rather extend pre-existing national debates. In this study, we survey the European landscape of social media using tweets originating from and referring to political actors during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign. We describe the language and national distribution of the messages, the relative volume of different types of communications, and the factors that determine the adoption and use of social media by the candidates. We also analyze the dynamics of the volume and content of the communications over the duration of the campaign with reference to both the EU integration dimension of the debate and the prominence of the most visible list-leading candidates. Our findings indicate that the lead candidates and their televised debate had a prominent influence on the volume and content of communications, and that the content and emotional tone of communications more reflects preferences along the EU dimension of political contestation rather than classic national issues relating to left-right differences.     

The house size effect and the referendum paradox in U.S. presidential elections

Barthélémy et al. (2014), extending the work of Neubauer and Zeitlin (2003), show that some U.S. presidential elections are subject to a ‘House size effect’ in that the winner of the election, i.e., the candidate who wins a majority of electoral votes, depends on the size of the House of Representatives. The conditions for the effect relate to the number of ‘Senate’ versus ‘House’ electoral votes won by each candidate, but the relationship is not straightforward due to ‘locally chaotic’ effects in the apportionment of House seats among the states as House size changes. Clearly a Presidential election that is subject to the House size effect exhibits the referendum paradox, i.e., the electoral vote winner is the popular vote loser, for some House sizes but not for others.     

The impact of motivational and contextual factors on turnout in first- and second-order elections

Based on voter survey from European election study 2009, we examine the impact of one individual-level motivational factor, i.e. interest in politics, and its interactions with institutional and contextual factors such as compulsory voting, electoral competition and the number of parties on participation in 2009 EP elections and previous national elections. The results show that political interest is more closely connected to turnout in second-order elections which are usually considered less salient. Correspondingly, also the contingent effect of compulsory voting and competition is more evident in EP elections. While compulsory voting substantially decreases the turnout gap between the most and least politically attentive voters in both types of elections, the moderating effect of competitiveness is found only in EP elections.     

Voter preferences and party loyalty under cumulative voting: Political behaviour after electoral reform in Bremen and Hamburg

Many electoral systems constrain voters to one or two votes at election time. Reformers often see this as a failing because voters' preferences are both broader and more varied than the number of choices allowed. New electoral systems therefore often permit more preferences to be expressed. In this paper we examine what happens when cumulative voting is introduced in two German states. Even when we allow for tactical considerations, we find that the principle of unconstrained choice is not widely embraced by voters, although in practice, too, many seem to have preferences for more than just one party. This finding has implications for arguments relating to electoral reform as well as how to conceive of party affiliations in multi-party systems.     

Ideological representation and competitive congressional elections

Competitive elections do not produce representation. We demonstrate that elections in which incumbents win by landslides yield Representatives who are ideologically closer to their voters than elections with narrow margins. Furthermore, we demonstrate that ideological proximity to one's Representative creates feelings of trust and efficacy, but that competitive elections do not. In fact, since competitive elections produce ideological distance between voters and their Representatives, and that distance produces dissatisfaction, competitive elections indirectly reduce voters' feelings of trust and efficacy. Thus, competitive elections are paradoxically harmful to representation.     

Racial attitudes & political cross-pressures in nationalized elections: The case of the Republican coalition in the Trump era

While scholars have found that Trump was able to capitalize on the racial attitudes of white voters, it is less clear how these racial attitudes influenced vote-choice across partisan and ideological cleavages in the electorate. It is also unclear whether racial attitudes affected voting at the congressional level or electoral outcomes at the aggregate level. Using a novel measure of racial attitudes at the subnational level and survey data, we make three clear findings: (1) Trump and Republican congressional candidates benefited from conservative racial attitudes both at the aggregate level and among white voters, (2) this electoral benefit for Republicans persisted during the 2018 midterm elections, and (3) the effect of attitudes on vote-choice did not significantly vary across partisan and ideological cleavages in the white electorate. Our findings suggest that, even during the era of highly nationalized and partisan elections, racial attitudes are still a mechanism by which Republicans can win significant electoral support among Democrats and relatively liberal voters in the white electorate. These findings have implications for the growing salience of race in the Republican electoral coalition.