Economic crises and the nationalisation of politics

The literature on party system nationalisation has yet to provide a better understanding of the impact of short‐term factors upon the nationalisation of politics. This article helps to fill this literature gap by analysing the effect of economic conditions on party system nationalisation. The argument is that economic crises will decrease levels of nationalisation by amplifying territorial variation in preferences for redistribution, limiting political parties’ capacity to coordinate divergent interests across districts and triggering the emergence of new political forces. Data on 47 countries for the 1960–2011 period confirm this hypothesis and show that lower economic growth during the years prior to the election is associated with a decrease in levels of party system nationalisation in the next election. The result is robust to variation in the specification of the econometric model and to the use of different measures of nationalisation. Results also show that federal institutions increase the impact of economic conditions on the nationalisation of politics, whereas any moderating effect of electoral system proportionality on the economy is not found.     

Why George W. Bush Is a Unilateralist and How It Will Affect the 2004 Presidential Election

ABSTRACT

U.S. President George W. Bush has had a stormy relationship with Europe. Bush campaigned on a theme of putting America's interests first and eschewing multilateralism when necessary. Since taking office, Bush has been true to his campaign pledges. Bush's style and substance have caused many in Europe to regard him as a “buffoon” at best and a dangerous cowboy at worst. What the Europeans do not seem to understand is that, for better or worse, George W. Bush's view of the world is held by a substantial portion of the American people, and even when the U.S. had a more Euro-friendly leader in President Bill Clinton, America's policies were often at odds with those preferred by its allies in Europe. This is due to a fundamental difference that has developed between Europe and the United States over the last century. Today, no matter who occupies the White House, American foreign policy is likely to be in conflict with Europe's. Far from being a liability, this difference is likely to be a political asset to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.     

Getting things straight: The effects of ballot design and electoral structure on voter participation

This paper considers the implications of the straight-party voting option (STVO) on participation in judicial elections. Voters using straight-party options (by definition) do not vote for candidates in nonpartisan elections. Consequently, ballot roll-off in these elections is more likely to occur when people are given the chance to vote the party ticket and complete the voting process quickly. This is the case because nonpartisan judicial elections are considerably less salient than statewide and federal partisan elections. This article separates out the effects of the institutional structure of the election on political participation with the effects of ballot design. We find that in nonpartisan elections, the straight-party option decreases voter participation since voters who utilize the straight-ticket option may erroneously believe that they have voted for these nonpartisan offices, or simply ignore them. However, in nonpartisan elections without straight-ticket voting, participation is increased compared to nonpartisan elections with straight-ticket voting. Additionally, both forms of nonpartisan elections have less participation than partisan elections, all of which have the straight-ticket option. Thus, voter participation is affected not only by the type of election, but the type of voting rules in the election.     

The conditional effect of personal vote-seeking behaviors on MPs electoral performance: Evidence from an open-list PR system

Considerable research argues that voters reward personal vote-seeking behaviors. The expected electoral gain would be the primary driver of MPs' action. Nevertheless, empirical evidence is scarce, and the findings do not always match the theoretical expectations. This article examines the electoral impact of personal vote-seeking behaviors, arguing in favor of integrating party electoral performance into the models. I also propose a new measure of electoral performance based on the evolution of MPs electoral results. Drawing on data from Finland, the findings globally support the theoretical arguments. MPs benefit from personal vote-seeking behaviors, primarily when their party improves its results. The findings have important implications for our knowledge of the personal vote and, more generally, the personalization of politics.     

The politics of social assistance in South Africa: How protests and electoral politics shape the Child Support Grant

Since the 1990s, South Africa, like many other countries from the Global South, has provided extensive social assistance for the poor. The literature on these policies, however, is largely dominated by structuralist accounts, and it largely overlooks political factors. We conducted quantitative analyses regarding the South African flagship Child Support Grant (CSG) program and investigated how contentious and electoral political dynamics jointly shape the provision of this program. Based on a logistic regression analysis, we measured the effect of protest participation, voting preference, and their interaction on the likelihood of CSG receipt. Our analysis showed that CSG receipt is much higher among “uncontentious supporters” of ANC and “contentious nonsupporters,” as well as those who join violent protests. This lends support for our argument that CSG is being used as a tool for electoral politics and containment of unrest, providing fresh evidence for political mediation theories of social policy.     

Dynamics of protest and electoral politics in the Great Recession

This article links the consequences of the Great Recession on protest and electoral politics. It innovates by combining the literature on economic voting with social movement research and by presenting the first integrated, large-scale empirical analysis of protest mobilisation and electoral outcomes in Europe. The economic voting literature offers important insights on how and under what conditions economic crises play out in the short-run. However, it tends to ignore the closely connected dynamics of opposition in the two arenas and the role of protests in politicising economic grievances. More specifically, it is argued that economic protests act as a ‘signalling mechanism’ by attributing blame to decision makers and by highlighting the political dimension of deteriorating economic conditions. Ultimately, massive protest mobilisation should, thus, amplify the impact of economic hardship on the electoral losses of incumbents and mainstream parties more generally. The empirical analysis to study this relationship relies on an original semi-automated protest event dataset combined with an updated dataset of electoral outcomes in 30 European countries from 2000 to 2015. The results indicate that the dynamics of economic protests and electoral punishment are closely related and point to a destabilisation of European party systems during the Great Recession.     

Some talk: Money in politics. A (partial) review of the literature

The financing of political campaigns is an area of active scholarly study. I review some of the recent literature and discuss important methodological issues that arise in empirical research on campaign expenditures and campaign contributions. The effects of campaign expenditures and advertising on candidate and ballot-measure elections are summarized, as are the impacts of contributions on contributors’ welfare. Many states have changed their campaign finance laws in the past few years, and I describe work that exploits variations in these laws. A discussion of the strategies used by interest groups to allocate their campaign contributions provides insights into contributors’ motives.     

An economic explanation of the nationalization of electoral politics

The literature on the nationalization of electoral politics focuses on the institutional characteristics of political regimes and the structure and organization of social cleavages. We argue that the nationalization of electoral politics is also driven by economic performance. Economic perturbations increase vote transfers from large (and highly nationalized) parties to small (and weakly nationalized) parties. Permissive electoral systems exacerbate the influence of economic performance on nationalization. Pooled cross-sectional time-series regression analysis is conducted on data from 43 countries and 475 elections between 1950 and 2012. The party-level mechanisms are shown through a closer look at Austria, Portugal and Ireland.     

Econometric analyses of electoral behavior: A critical review

This paper reviews the major econometric analyses of electoral behavior in the United States. After a discussion of the early works in this area, analysis focuses on the recent debate precipitated by Kramer's 1971 work. The most important econometric works are summarized so that political scientists not working in this area but still interested in understanding the economic influences on voting can become acquainted with the substantive conclusions of each work and learn something of the different variables and methodologies employed in the analysis. For scholars engaged in research in this field, the paper will serve as a useful summary of previous works. The conclusion discusses major points of controversy and suggests specific research questions toward which future work should be directed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1978 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 20–22, 1978.     

Comparisons among electoral systems: Distinguishing between localism and candidate-centered politics

Carey and Shugart (1995) offer a four component composite index of “incentives to cultivate a personal vote.” We argue that this index, while tapping important aspects of electoral system choice, is best regarded as encompassing two distinct dimensions: degree of party-centeredness of the electoral system, on the one hand, and incentives for “parochial” behavior on the part of legislators, on the other. Also, while we have no problem with the three indicators used by Carey and Shugart to measure party-centeredness; to measure parochial incentives we prefer to use a new measure, E (Grofman, 1999a) of the size of a legislator's electoral constituency, rather than using district magnitude, m, as a proxy for a the size of a legislator's geographic constituency, as Carey and Shugart do. In the conclusion to the paper we argue that the degree of similarity between any two electoral systems will depend upon the research question at issue, and that the expected degree of proportionality of election results is only one of the many political consequences of electoral laws to which we ought to be paying attention.     

Malaysia 13th General Election: A short note on Malaysia's continuing battle with ethnic politics

Malaysia's Barisan Nasional (a coalition of mainly ethnic-based parties) secured a narrow win in the country's recent election. Reacting to the dismal result, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak blamed his party's losses on the “Chinese Tsunami”, which he described as the overwhelming support of Chinese voters for the opposition party – the Pakatan Rakyat (PR). This note believes that the debates on “Chinese Tsunami” highlight a larger imperative; Malaysians' constant struggle with race relations and what constitutes the character of Malaysia's political economy. Improving Malaysia's ethnic relations in the next five years remains daunting. The BN's weaker mandate and the PR's eagerness to assume leadership threatens to recycle more populist policies that can do more damage to Malaysia's ethnic relations.     

European Community politics and electoral representation: Evidence from the 1989 European Elections Study

Abstract: In spite of the fact that the European elections were, in most countries, not fought over the issue of Community building and European integration, this article shows that only a few parties take positions towards the Community which are clearly out of line with the average position of their voters. The parties involved are the orthodox-Protestant combination in the Netherlands, the Workers Party in Ireland, the Italian MSI, and the greens in Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Luxembourg. The discrepancies between these parties'positions and the attitudes of their electorates - in combination with their generally successful electoral performance - underscores what is known from other analyses: Parties do not acquire votes on the basis of European issue concerns, but on the basis of national political concerns. The result of the European elections may still, however, be considered as an ex post facto , endorsement and legitimation of parties'policies towards European integration.     

The discursive reconstruction of poor electoral performance: the British Trotskyist left and the 2010 General Election

This paper is situated within the rhetorical turn in political science and investigates the discourses constructed by Trotskyist parties in order to justify the policy of electoral participation despite poor electoral performance. A wide range of texts are examined from eight organizations that contested seats in the 2010 UK General Election. The thrust of Trotskyist discourse downplayed dismal vote totals, contextualizing them by reference to pro-Labour tactical voting and elaborating a variety of benefits that emerged from electoral participation. It is argued that such analysis could usefully be incorporated into the study of party responses to electoral problems and setbacks.     

Economic globalisation,the perceived room to manoeuvre of national governments,and electoral participation: Evidence from the 2001 British General Election

Recent macro-level research argues that economic globalisation negatively affects electoral turnout by constraining the leeway of national governments and thereby rendering elections less meaningful to voters. This article analyses the link between perceptions of the national government's room to manoeuvre and turnout on the individual level. Drawing on the 2001 British General Election, it is shown that citizens who believe that economic globalisation leaves the national government with less influence on the economy are less likely to report to have voted. Further findings also support the proposed theoretical model according to which room to manoeuvre perceptions affect turnout via views on the importance of elections and matter specifically for citizens that tend towards the left side of the left-right scale.     

Valence politics and electoral choice in a new democracy: The case of Taiwan

After two peaceful alternations of political power in a single decade, Taiwan is a democratic success story, demonstrating levels of party competition, turnout rates and patterns of civic engagement similar to those in mature Western democracies. What factors drive electoral choice in Taiwan's new democracy? This paper addresses this question by testing rival models of voting behavior using the Taiwan Elections and Democratization Study (TEDS) 2008 presidential election survey data and the 2010 mayoral election survey data. Analyses show that, similar to their counterparts in mature democracies, Taiwanese voters place more emphasis on the performance of political parties and their leaders in delivering policies designed to address valence issues concerning broadly shared policy goals than on position issues or more general ideological stances that divide the electorate. Findings demonstrating the strength of the valence politics model of electoral choice in Taiwan closely resemble the results of analyses of competing models of voting behavior in Western countries such as Great Britain and the United States.     

The effect of electoral rules on voting behavior: the electoral college and shift voting

The Electoral College has a measurable effect on the propensity of the rational voter to vote for the candidate he most prefers. The ‘slippage’ between the individual's articulated preference ordering and his actual vote is analyzed (using 1968 data) with respect to the strategic position of the voter in his state. The direction of the findings support the theoretically-derived propositions. Nevertheless, the low overall incidence of shifts and the reluctance of voters to shift from nationally-viable candidates demonstrates the overwhelming influence of the national electoral environment.     

The effects of technical parties and partisan election management bodies on voting outcomes

Research on election integrity has noted the important role of election administration in facilitating free and fair practices. However, limited research has assessed how the staffing of polling station level election commissions may influence voting. Using extensive personnel and election data from Ukraine, this article investigates how partisanship and liberal registration rules permit major parties to “stack” election commissions with sympathetic officials. The empirical analysis demonstrates that the placement of representatives from major parties, or affiliated parties, in leadership positions on polling station commissions is associated with improved election outcomes.