Party registration and party self-identification: Exploring the role of electoral institutions in attitudes and behaviors

How do electoral institutions affect self-identified partisanship? I hypothesize that party registration acts to anchor a person's party identification, tying a person to a political party even when their underlying preferences may align them with the other party. Estimating a random effects multinomial logit model, I find individuals registered with a party are more likely to self-identify with that party and away from the other party. Party registration also affects voting in presidential elections but not in House elections, leading to greater defection in the former where voters have more information about the candidates. These insights illuminate varying rates of electoral realignment, particularly among southern states, and the makeup of primary electorates in states with and without party registration.     

The 2012 United States election and the implications for East Asia

Abstract

The 2012 election resulted in a major victory for President Obama and while his Democratic Party improved its Congressional strength, the House of Representatives remains under Republican control. The election revealed the depth of America's political and voter divisions with each party showing dramatically different areas of strength and weakness. Yet the election did not hinge on foreign policy leaving the Obama administration likely to continue most of its earlier policies toward East Asia as marked by the multilayered ‘pivot’ toward Asia. Relations with China and North Korea are likely to remain difficult to manage while US–ROK links should be far smoother. Of particular concern is the economic sluggishness and rising nationalism in Japan which could well cause bilateral problems with the US and regional problems with Japan's neighbors, including US ally, South Korea. And at home the bipolar divisions over how best to deal with America's economic revitalization could well impede US abilities to exert a convincing multi-dimensional role in the region.     

The social logic of political choice: Picking a political party in the context of immediate social circles

The Social Logic of Politics places social learning at the center of political choice. People develop their political preferences, knowledge, values, perceptions of ability, and decisions about political behavior in interactions with others, usually members of their social circles. Political attitudes and goals are not derivatives of exogenous economic preferences. They are not the results of careful calculations, in which optimization of personal needs guides the mode of reasoning. This theoretical stance draws sustenance from recent work across the social science, even as it harkens back to established, if neglected principles of political analysis. My thanks to Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck for his encouragement and for the critical comments of several anonymous referees and to Josip Dasović and Jennifer Fitzgerald, my co-authors of Partisan Families: the Social Logic of Bounded Partisanship in Germany and Britain (Zuckerman et al. 2007). Material from that book appears in this essay.     

The dynamic political economy of support for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign

In recent years, students of voting behavior have become increasingly interested in valence politics models of electoral choice. These models share the core assumption that key issues in electoral politicds typically are ones upon which there is a widespread public consensus on the goals of public policy. The present paper uses latent curve modeling procedures and data from a six-wave national panel survey of the American electorate to investigate the dynamic effects of voters’ concerns with the worsening economy—a valence issue par excellence—in the skein of causal forces at work in the 2008 presidential election campaign. As the campaign developed, the economy became the dominant issue. Although the massively negative public reaction to increasingly perilous economic conditions was not the only factor at work in 2008, dynamic multivariate analyses show that mounting worries about the economy played an important role in fueling Barack Obama’s successful run for the presidency.     

A party system in flux: the Swedish parliamentary election of September 2018

In the Swedish parliamentary election of 7 September 2018, the biggest parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderates, both lost votes compared to their scores in the previous election, but not as many as they had feared. Commensurately, the radical-right challenger party, the Sweden Democrats (SD), which had seemed certain to profit from Sweden's dramatic experience of the European migration crisis, did well, but not as well as it had hoped. The result left the array of parliamentary forces fragmented and finely balanced. Only after months of negotiations could a government be formed. Eventually, the incumbent coalition received a renewed parliamentary mandate. At the same time, the party system was transformed.     

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Deployment in the United States: The Impact of Polycentric Governance and Contextual Changes

Advanced metering infrastructure provides the first building block in smart grids by empowering customers and utilities with real‐time information regarding energy use. It is a key element in the U.S. government's push for electric grid modernization. Using a panel dataset for 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia over the years 2007–2012, we evaluate the impacts of a polycentric governance system and socioeconomic contexts on states' performance in smart metering deployment. We find that the advanced metering technological change in the United States has been exclusively created by the interdependencies and interactions between different layers of government. High‐tech industry is the only socioeconomic factor that has a negative impact on smart meter deployment, whereas other factors, such as pressures from energy consumers and environmental groups, and electric grid conditions, have negligible impacts.     

Riots,disasters and racism: impending racial cataclysm and the extreme right in the United States

ABSTRACT

Three events in late 2005—Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans, the Muslim riots in the suburbs of Paris, and the Cronulla ‘uprising’ in Australia—were interpreted by the American extreme right as confirmation of a long-feared impending racial cataclysm. Michael and Mulloy examine analyses of these events from various representatives of the American extreme right. While the mainstream media were often diffident about reporting frankly on the more sensitive implications of these events, this phenomenological approach may provide insight on how various controversial issues—such as immigration, race and multiculturalism—impinge on contemporary American society, culture and politics.     

The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of U.S. elections in the 21st century

One of the most important developments affecting electoral competition in the United States has been the increasingly partisan behavior of the American electorate. Yet more voters than ever claim to be independents. We argue that the explanation for these seemingly contradictory trends is the rise of negative partisanship. Using data from the American National Election Studies, we show that as partisan identities have become more closely aligned with social, cultural and ideological divisions in American society, party supporters including leaning independents have developed increasingly negative feelings about the opposing party and its candidates. This has led to dramatic increases in party loyalty and straight-ticket voting, a steep decline in the advantage of incumbency and growing consistency between the results of presidential elections and the results of House, Senate and even state legislative elections. The rise of negative partisanship has had profound consequences for electoral competition, democratic representation and governance.     

The Politics of Contemporary Black Conservatism in the United States

At first sight, the themes associated with contemporary black conservatism appear to replicate the concerns of the American right more generally. However, although there are black conservative intellectuals and activists who draw on US constitutional tradition and neo-classical economics, others derive their politics from notions of racial solidarity. This form of black conservatism rests on particular constructions of black masculinity, and invokes images of a past age when black communities were both intact and stable. It regards integrationism with suspicion and hostility. However, it also offers a relatively optimistic vision of future developments that can be contrasted with the more constrained ambitions which characterise 'mainstream' American conservatism today.     

Growth trajectories in the strength of party identification: The legacy of autocratic regimes

While some scholars interpret the frequently documented association between age and the strength of party identification as evidence of accumulated political learning, others stress the importance of critical life stages. Germany's turbulent last century, with its suspensions of democratic processes, provides the unique opportunity to empirically disentangle both effects and to also study the consequences of early experiences of autocratic regimes on later growth rates in partisan strength. Random growth curve models based on multi-cohort panel data emanating from the German Socio-Economic Panel show that the growth trajectory in the strength of party identification largely depends on the number of electoral experiences. Moreover, the analysis documents few differences in growth rates between individuals socialized in democratic versus autocratic regimes.     

The moderating role of identification and campaign exposure in party cueing effects

In a democracy, citizens are expected to have political opinions. Previous research has shown that citizens, in part, form their opinions by following cues from political parties. Building on this literature, this article argues that these cueing effects are the result of individuals identifying with political parties, leading to parties as credible sources and alignment of attitudes to maintain in-group coherence (motivated reasoning). However, party cues can only be successful when individuals are actually exposed to these cues, which previous research has not explicitly studied. Using survey data (N = 20,893) collected from 21 EU member states, this study shows that cueing effects indeed depend on the strength of party identification and the degree of exposure. These results demonstrate the contingent nature of party cueing effects which are also changing as party loyalties decrease.     

The Policy Basis of Measured Partisan Animosity in the United States

Understanding and addressing the consequences of partisan animosity requires knowledge of its foundations. To what extent is animosity between partisan groups motivated by dislike for partisan outgroups per se, policy disagreement, or other social group conflicts? In many circumstances, including extant experimental research, these patterns are observationally equivalent. In a series of vignette evaluation experiments, we estimate effects of shared partisanship when additional information is or is not present, and we benchmark these effects against shared policy preference effects. Partisanship effects are about 71% as large as shared policy preference effects when each is presented in isolation. When an independently randomized party and policy position are presented together, partisanship effects decrease substantially, by about 52%, whereas policy effects remain large, decreasing by about 10%. These results suggest that common measures of partisan animosity may capture programmatic conflict more so than social identity–based partisan hostility.     

The religious and spiritual underpinnings of party choice in christian Europe

Many studies have shown that individual religiosity is related to a Christian Democratic vote. Recently, studies from sociology of religion have reported the rise of holistic spirituality. This paper is the first to examine the effects of holistic spirituality on party choice. In addition, it critically assesses the assertion that conventional religiosity prevents individuals from affiliating with Green parties.Our results show that spirituality is related to a higher probability of choosing Green parties. Moreover, conventional religiosity increases the probability that moderate left voters will prefer a Green party to a Social Democratic party. This result shows that there is common ground between the electorates of Green and Christian Democratic parties, thus creating possibilities for new political coalitions.     

The majority vote rule and runoff primaries in the United States

The major parties in the United States use primary elections to select party candidates for general elections. While most employ a simple plurality vote rule for this purpose, some states, primarily southern, employ a majority rule that requires a runoff between the top two vote recipients if no candidate receives a majority in the initial primary. Data on primaries for state Governor and U.S. Senator from 1980 to 2002 are used to examine contemporary concerns about runoffs. Included in the findings are (1) the problem that majority runoffs address – candidates being selected based on low levels of voter support is not a frequent outcome under the plurality rule; (2) the vast majority of selections is based on a majority of votes in a primary, regardless of whether a simple plurality or majority is required; and (3) runoff primaries are necessary in roughly one-third of the contested primaries held in the majority vote context, and in about one-third of them the primary leader loses the runoff.     

美国多元文化教育的理论困境与转向

20世纪90年代以来,在全球化与全球化教育、新保守主义和新自由主义等思潮的冲击下,美国的多元文化教育理论进入反思和深化阶段,并且开始从"民族国家多元文化教育"向"全球社会多元文化教育"转向,在新的发展路径中,多元文化教育仍然面临着如何调适国家、民族利益与全世界共同利益,以及文化诉求、经济诉求与政治诉求的复杂关系。