Muffling the swing: STV and the Irish general election of 1981

This article explores alternative hypotheses for variation in the political salience of unemployment. The differences between the political opinions of employed and unemployed people are used as a proxy for the qualitative importance of unemployment. Unemployment is not found to be more politically salient when government support of the unemployed is more generous or when jobless spells are shorter. Far more important is the character of employment. Unemployment is more politically salient in countries where employment guarantees a basic livelihood. The data also suggest that unemployment has greater salience in countries where the unemployed are more likely to use state employment exchanges in searching for work. Two conclusions are suggested. First, public toleration of high unemployment in recent decades may be partly the result of the rise of atypical work arrangements. Second, while it is debatable whether social‐democratic protections of employment standards increase unemployment rates, such efforts may inadvertently increase the political costs of high unemployment.     

The Danish parliamentary election of 1981

The parliamentary election of 8 December 1981 brought no solution to Denmark's perennial problem of unstable minority government. On the contrary, the election weakened the Social Democratic government without significantly strengthening the Liberal-Conservative opposition. Electoral victory went to two relatively small parties, the People's Socialists on the left and Centre Democrats to the right of the centre. The election was followed by a two weeks' government crisis, after which the Prime Minister Anker Jørgensen reassumed the office which he has occupied continuously since January 1975.     

Time for a change: The French elections of 1981: I. The presidency

The French presidential election of 1981 saw a collapse of the Communist vote to 15 per cent (its 1936 score) on the first ballot and partly thanks to that decline, the election of the Socialist candidate, François Mitterrand, on the second round. President Giscard lost support because of economic difficulties and because he was unable to sustain the cohesion of his own coalition. The Left thus won the presidency for the first time in the Fifth Republic; but in order to rule effectively, the chief of state needs a majority in the National Assembly. Mitterrand thus dissolved the Assembly and called elections, which the Socialists won, again for the first time since 1958.     

The rise of Pasok: The Greek election of 1981

Presidents and Prime Ministers. Edited by Richard Rose and Ezra N. Suleiman. Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1980. Pp. 347. £4.75.

Western European Party Systems. Edited by Peter H. Merkl. New York: Collier Macmillan, 1980. Pp. 676. £25.95.

Government and Administration in Western Europe. Edited by F. F. Ridley. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979. Pp. 244. £15 (hardback), £4.95 (paperback).

The Politics of Grandeur: Ideological Aspects of de Gaulle's Foreign Policy. By Philip G. Cerny Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980 Pp. 319. £1250.

Contemporary France. Politics and Society Since 1945. By D. L. Hanley, A. P. Kerr and N. H. Waites. London: Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1979. Pp. ix + 325. £8.50.

Social Change in France. By M. Vaughan, M. Kolinsky and P. Sheriff. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980. Pp. vii + 216. £9.95.

French Politics and Public Policy. Edited by Philip G. Cerny and Martin A. Schain. London: Frances Pinter, 1980. Pp. xxii + 300. £12.50.

The Unexpected Rebellion: Ethnic Activism in Contemporary France. By William B. Beer. Foreword by Nicolas Wahl. New York and London: New York University Press, 1980. Pp. 150.

La Décadence: 1932–1939. By J.‐B. Duroselle. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, ‘Politique Etrangère de la France’ Collection, 1979. Pp. 568.

French Conservatism in Crisis. The Republican Federation of France in 1930s. By William D. Irvine. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Pp. xx + 256. Bibliography. Index. $17.50.

Vichy et La Corporation Paysanne. By Isabel Boussard. Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1980. Pp. 415.

L'aventure algérienne, 1940–1944: Pétain, Giraud, de Gaulle. By Lucien Adès. Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1979. Pp. 258.

France and the United States. By Jean‐Baptiste Duroselle. The University of Chicago Press, 1978. Translation. Pp. 276. £12.60.

Dualism and Discontinuity in Industrial Societies. By Suzanne Berger and Michael J. Piore. Cambridge: CUP, 1980. Pp. xi + 159. £10.50.

Mobilità senza movimento: Le elezioni del 3 giugno 1979. Edited by Arturo Parisi. Bologna: II Mulino, 1980. Pp. 160. 29 tables. L.8,000.

Eminenza Rossa. By Giancarlo Galli. Milan: Sugar Co Edizioni, 1976. Pp. 232. L.3,200

Maurizio Valenzi—Sindaco a Napoli. Interview by Massimo Ghiara. Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1978. Pp. 190. L. 2,000.

L'Albero in Piazza: storia, cronaca e leggenda delle feste dell ‘Unità. By Claudio Bernieri. Milan: Gabrielle Mazzotta editore, 1977. Pp. 167. L. 2,000.

Le origini dello stalinismo nel PCI: storia della ‘svolta’ comunista degli anni trenta. By Ferdinando ORMEA. Milan: Feltrinelli Editore, 1978. Pp. 344. L.9,000.

Berlinguer. By Vittorio Gorresio. Milan: Feltrinelli Editore, 1976. Pp. 200. L.2,500.

Capital Markets and Industrial Investment in Germany and France. By B. T. Bayliss and A. A. S. Butt Philip. London: Saxon House, 1980. Pp. xiii + 198. £10.50.

Britain in Europe. Edited, by William Wallace. London: Heinemann, 1980. Pp. x + 213. £4.95 (paperback) £10.50 (hardback).

British Foreign Policy and the Atlantic Area. By ARTHUR Cyr. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1979. Pp. 172. £10.00.

The Reluctant Party: Labour and the EEC, 1961–1975. By L.J. Robins. Ormskirk: G. W. and A. Hesketh, 1979. Pp. 155.

Budgetary Politics: The Finances of the European Communities. By Helen Wallace. London: George Allen &; Unwin, 1980. Pp. 120. £6.95 (hardback), £2.95 (paperback).

The Economics of International Integration. By Peter Robson. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1980. Pp. ix + 197. £12.50. £4.95 (paperback).

Agriculture and the European Community. By John S. Marsh and Pamela J. Swanney. London: George Allen &; Unwin, 1980. Pp. 98. £6.95 (hardback), £2.95 (paperback).

The European Community and the Third World: The Lome Convention and its Impact. By Ellen Frey‐Wouters. Eastbourne: Hall‐Saunders Ltd., Praeger Special Studies, 1980. Pp. xii+290. £15.50.

The International Division of Labour and Multinational Companies. A study by P. K. M. Tharakan and a symposium at ECSIM. Farnborough: Saxon House, 1979. Pp. 152.

Regional Policy: Past Experience and New Directions. Edited by Duncan Macklennan and John B. Parr. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979. Pp. xviii + 334. £17.50 (hardback), £6.95 (paperback).

Regional Policy in the European Community. Edited by D. Yuill, K. Allen and C. Hull. London: Croom Helm, 1980. Pp. 251. £12.95.

A Political and Electoral Handbook for Wales. By Denis Balsom and Martin Burch. Farnborough: Gower, 1980. Pp. x + 195. £12.50.

Western European Cities in Crisis. Edited by Michael C. Romanos. Lexington, Mass: Lexington Books, 1979. Pp. xviii + 243.

A Tale of Five Cities: Life in Provincial Europe Today. By John Ardagh, London: Secker and Warburg, 1979. Pp. 457. £8.95.     

Norway: The 1981 election confirms trend to the right

The Storting election of 13 and 14 September 1981 resulted in a marked swing to the right, a trend which has been evident since the middle of the 1970s (Valen, 1976; Valen, 1978; Kristiansen & Holbæk Hansen, 1980). The socialist parties lost their majority in the Storting, and the Labour minority government which had been in power since 1973, resigned. After an unsuccessful attempt to form a coalition government between the three leading bourgeois parties, the Conservative party, the Agrarian Centre party and the Christian People's party, the Conservatives formed a minority government with parliamentary support from the two other parties.     

The winning of the 1995 French presidential election

The article analyses the processes which conditioned the outcome of the 1995 presidential election in France. By a fresh evaluation of four frequently made propositions, namely (1) the presidential contest is above party politics, (2) presidential candidacy is pre‐eminently about individual leadership, (3) the confrontation is between the incumbent (or his surrogates) and one or more ‘challengers’, and (4) this confrontation reinforces political polarisation, the unique configuration of the current French polity is delineated. In conclusion, the interaction between social and political fractures is shown to have been crucial to Chirac's victory.     

Time for a change: The French elections of 1981 : II. The National Assembly elections

The Socialist Mitterrand won the French presidency by 52 per cent to the conservative Giscard's 48 per cent. To exercise real power, Mitterrand immediately dissolved the conservative Assembly, elected in 1978. The bonus of legitimacy enjoyed by the newly elected President, together with the constitutional arrangements which make effective, stable government dependent on an Assembly majority sympathetic to the President and the decline of the Communist party and the divisions within the Right all amplified Mittrrand's victory in the Assembly elections, won by the Left with 55 per cent to the Right's 44 per cent on the decisive ballot. With 38 per cent of the vote on the first ballot, the Socialists emerged with 268 seats after the second. That landslide (for France) was won on a low poll, thanks to the abstention and indiscipline of conservative and Communist supporters. It gives the Socialists a majority in the Assembly, only the second time in the Fifth Republic that a single party has had a majority by itself.     

Mass voting behaviour: the factors that influenced the conservative vote during the 1981 Greek general election

Abstract. This paper examines voting preferences of Greeks during the 1981 general election, based on a public opinion survey. The sample (N = 598) includes three heterogeneous target groups (professionals, labourers and rurals) which represent a broad spectrum of the Greek society. It is hypothesized that Greece is undergoing social and political changes. These changes are measured with an empirical model constructed to employ three sets of indicators. The first set measured the degree and direction of influence on the 1981 conservative vote by objective conditions. The second set measured the degree and direction of the influence of subjective conditions on the same vote. The third set measured the degree and direction of influence of values and issues also on the same vote. The results indicate that both objective and subjective conditions were less important than values and issues. Thus, the influence of some objective factors (such as income or sex) on the conservative vote was either low or inverse. Similarly, the conservative influence of subjective factors (such as family and school) was weak. Instead, modern values and issues are becoming influential.