The 1990 German federal election and the national unification: A watershed in German electoral history?

The December 1990 German election resulted in a dramatic weakening of the Social Democratic and Green opposition parties, a moderate strengthening of the government coalition, and a unprecedented low voter turnout. This article explains the electoral outcome in terms of the interpretive frames each party employed to address the issue of unification in the election campaign in light of their past voter appeals and stances on the German question. Within the Social Democratic and the Green left‐libertarian discourse, it was particularly difficult to assign a meaningful role to the concept of the nation and national unification.     

German gays go green? Voting behaviour of lesbians,gays, and bisexuals in the 2021 German federal election

Previous analyses have shown the existence of a sexuality gap in voting behaviour between those who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB), and those who identify as heterosexual (Hertzog 1996). On the basis of these findings, it is generally assumed that LGBs vote primarily for liberal and left-wing parties because they are most likely to represent the group's interests in the political space. Using the 2021 German federal election as a case study, this article provides substantial findings, showing that, when controlled for the ideological proximity between voters and parties, sexuality affects in several ways how LGBs identify with and vote for parties in Germany. Positive effects can be demonstrated for the Greens, the Left, and – in contrast to previous assumptions – the far-right AfD. This is the first study to examine systematically the voting behaviour of LGBs and heterosexuals in Germany.     

Economic choice, political decision, and the problem of limits

Assesses the arguments for the use of market, or political, processes for making collective choices. The border between “what is mine” and “what is ours” is contested, but it is unguarded. Where should it lie? How would we know when it should be adjusted? I uncover an old paradox: A society can never use political means to guard against incursions across the border for political ends. Some other mechanism, such as constitutional or other extra-statutory rules, are required.     

More evidence of the effects of voting technology on election outcomes

Using two different data sources—municipal level data and individual data—we consider several hitherto unexplored aspects of the relationship between voting technology and election outcomes. We distinguish between introductory and permanent effects of electronic voting, and between national and municipal elections. We test for a possible asymmetry between the effect of moving from paper ballots to electronic voting, and vice versa, and we control for polling station density. We find a positive but temporary effect of electronic voting on voter turnout, a negative effect on the fraction of residual votes, and no effect on the share of left wing parties.     

Intra-industry trade and protectionism: the case of the buy national policy

This article examines the factors that lead governments to open up their public procurement markets to international competition with a particular emphasis on the effect of intra-industry trade. Contrary to the conventional notion that intra-industry trade entails less political pressure for protectionism than inter-industry trade, I argue that such notion does not prevail in the case of discriminatory public procurement. Firms in a market with a high degree of intra-industry trade are more likely to resist the removal of discrimination than would firms in a market with a high degree of inter-industry trade. Empirically, I find support for the argument both at sub-national and cross-national settings.     

Eminent domain power and afterwards: Leviathan’s post-taking opportunism

This paper investigates post-taking procedures, a research area not yet fully explored. It discusses the economic implications underlying the landowner’s ‘repurchase right (RR)’ which can be invoked upon the occurrence of a so-called ‘change in use after taking.’ RR is compared with the government’s discretion regarding such changes. The lack of post-taking accountability tends to create power ripe for abuse, and RR appears to be an effective device for constraining Leviathan’s opportunism. Finally, a parsimonious estimation supports that, under the overriding-RR regime, there exists the systematic post-taking opportunism whereby ‘original public projects are changed into inappropriate projects.’     

Economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity: Some cross-country evidence

While much attention has been devoted to analyzing how the institutional framework and entrepreneurship impact growth, how economic policy and institutional design affect entrepreneurship appears to be much less analyzed. We try to explain cross-country differences in the level of entrepreneurship by differences in economic policy and institutional design. Specifically, we use the Economic Freedom Index from the Fraser Institute to ask which elements of economic policy making and the institutional framework are conducive to the supply of entrepreneurship, measured by data on entrepreneurship from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. We find that the size of government is negatively correlated and sound money is positively correlated with entrepreneurial activity. Other measures of economic freedom are not significantly correlated with entrepreneurship.     

The calculus of piratical consent: the myth of the myth of social contract

Is a genuine social contract mythical? I argue that pirates created genuine social contracts that established a system of constitutional democracy based on the same decision-making calculus and with the same effects that Buchanan and Tullock’s contractarian theory of government describes in The Calculus of Consent. Pirates’ constitutional democracy is the “holy grail” of social contract theory. It demonstrates that the contractarian basis of constitutional democracy is more than a mere analytic device or hypothetical explanation of how such a government could emerge. In pirates’ case, Buchanan and Tullock’s social contract theory describes how constitutional democracy actually did emerge.     

Foundations of the Ostrom workshop: institutional analysis, polycentricity, and self-governance of the commons

This paper highlights important lessons gained from the research program of Elinor Ostrom, and demonstrates the close connection between public choice and the work on collective management of the commons for which Lin was honored by the Nobel Prize committee. Although our primary focus is on Lin’s research on self-governance and the “commons,” an overarching goal is to capture the intellectual journey of participants in the Ostrom Workshop, who continue to be guided by the inspiring examples set by Lin and Vincent Ostrom.     

Bargaining in the shadow of the ballot box: causes and consequences of local voter initiatives

This paper provides one of the first empirical analyses of the local voter initiative. Using a unique and comprehensive dataset from California, it analyzes determinants of local initiatives and effects of these measures on municipal finances. Results indicate that initiatives occur more frequently in large and diverse jurisdictions with more recent movers, voters unaffiliated with a major political party, and public employees. Effects of city size are partly offset by district- or ward-level elections. Contrary to previous research on statewide initiatives, this study detects a positive and weakly significant relationship between local initiative use and own-source revenues per capita and no association between initiatives and the proportion of funds raised from fees. These divergent findings may reflect distinctive features of the local context, including greater latitude for political bargaining and the centrality of land use, as well as potential constraining effects of statewide initiatives in California.     

District magnitudes and the election of women to the Irish Dáil

Previous research has suggested that electoral opportunities for women within proportional representation election systems may be directly related to district magnitudes. The fewer the seats apportioned to constituencies, it is argued, the less opportunities women will have to be nominated and elected. This article assesses whether the election of women to the Irish Dáil varies across that country's three, four, and five-seat constituencies. Data for three elections held in 1981 and 1982 reveal that the underrepresentation of women has been much greater in the three-seat constituencies while differences between the four and five-seaters have been only minimal. The severity of underrepresentation in the three-seat districts can be attributed to both nomination practices and voter reactions. Women were nominated by the major parties to contest three-seat constituencies much less often than the other constituencies, and when nominated, the voters' reactions to women candidates were more adverse in the three than in the four and five-seat contexts.     

German elections: more of the same?

As Germany's citizens prepare to vote in elections for the Bundestag, its European counterparts are paying closer attention than in previous years. But just as this election campaign has failed to spark much enthusiasm domestically, so its impact on Europe might be similarly anti-climactic.     

‘A curious relationship’: Barack Obama,the 1960s and the election of 2008

ABSTRACT

Ward explores the diverse ways in which memories, understandings and misunderstandings of the 1960s were mobilized during the 2008 election cycle. At the time, Barack Obama's campaign and triumph were hailed by many as marking a series of a decisive breaks with the past, notably with the culture wars and fiercely ideological political partisanship unleashed in the late 1960s. Others suggested that Obama represented a new kind of candidate who somehow transcended, or might even heal, the racial divisions in the United States, in a fanciful vogue for ‘post-racialism’ that Ward argues was also connected to popular conceptions of the 1960s and, in particular, to a misreading of the social philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr and his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. While some commentators stressed rupture and discontinuity with the past in interpreting Obama's victory, others—friend and foe alike—were keen to stress continuities with the past, often explicitly with a 1960s routinely, if simplistically, parsed into ‘good’ early and ‘bad’ later periods. ThusWard considers Obama's connections to the civil rights and black power movements, as well as to other 1960s organizing traditions, charismatic leaders and conceptions of federal government, arguing that the decade continues to offer an important, if ambiguous touchstone in contemporary American politics and social memory.     

Campaigns and the prediction of election outcomes: Can historical and campaign-period prediction models be combined?

There are two approaches to predicting election outcomes: (1) a historical approach, which uses past election results alongside macroeconomic and political variables to forecast election results up to a year in advance, and (2) a campaign-oriented approach, which uses current campaign trends to forecast vote shares at the end of the campaign. They are in some way at odds—one approach says the campaign doesn't matter, the other focuses entirely on the campaign. This article considers whether the two approaches might be usefully combined; it considers whether the prediction errors in historical models may be related to trends during the campaign. That possibility is tested here using 17 elections in the US, UK and Canada, combining historical predictions and automated content analyses of campaign-period media content. Results suggest that campaigns do not account for errors in the historical predictions; but there may be other ways in which campaigns matter in conjunction with historical models.     

The French presidential election of 24 April–8 May and the general election of 5–12 June 1988

The French presidential and legislative elections of 1988 and their aftermath provided a full test of the constitutional arrangements of the Fifth Republic. This article describes the tactical considerations behind President Mitterrand's own campaign for re-election and behind the manoeuvrings of the various candidates on the right. It reports on the conduct and outcome of the presidential campaign and on the decision to move on to an immediate dissolution of the National Assembly. The campaign and the paradoxical outcome of the return to scrutin à deux tours are fully examined.