Left-right perceptions,partisan preferences,electoral participation,and partisan choice in France

An analysis based on survey data shows that electoral participation at the second ballot in France can be accounted for by partisan preferences but not by left-right perceptions of party locations. This finding runs counter to the work of Rosenthal and Sen (1973), who validated a spatial model of participation at the second ballot employing left-right perceptions and partisan preferences interchangeably. Because they use aggregate data, Rosenthal and Sen (1973) are restricted in two ways that, operating interactively, lead them to an unwarranted conclusion concerning the power of left-right perceptions. Later work by Rosenthal and Sen (1977) indicating that left-right perceptions can account for shifts in partisan choice between the two ballots by voters who have decided to participate is confirmed, but partisan preferences account even better for second-ballot choices. Left-right perceptions and partisan sympathies are related, but discrete partisan attitudes are a more powerful factor than left-right perceptions in French second-ballot electoral behavior.     

Compulsory voting and the dynamics of partisan identification

Compulsory rules are known to have far‐reaching effects beyond boosting electoral participation rates. This article examines the relationship between compulsory voting and partisan attachments. A theory of attachment formation and strength is engaged that argues that compulsory voting boosts the likelihood that one will identify with a party and, in turn, the strength of party attachments among identifiers. The statistical model accounts for both the hierarchical structure of the data (individuals in elections) and the dual nature of the dependent variable (individuals report a strength of attachment only for the party with which they identify). Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it is demonstrated that compulsory voting does indeed increase both the incidence and the strength of partisanship.     

Popularity functions based on the partisan theory

This paper presents popularity function estimates for U.S. presidents which are based on a model in which voters' evaluations reflect an understanding of partisan reputations for differing policies.I am indebted to J.C. Siebrand, F.A.A.M. van Winden and an anonymous referee for many useful suggestions.     

The ideological nationalization of partisan subconstituencies in the American States

Since the mid-twentieth century, elite political behavior in the United States has become much more nationalized. In Congress, for example, within-party geographic cleavages have declined, roll-call voting has become more one-dimensional, and Democrats and Republicans have diverged along this main dimension of national partisan conflict. The existing literature finds that citizens have only weakly and belatedly mimicked elite trends. We show, however, that a different picture emerges if we focus not on individual citizens, but on the aggregate characteristics of geographic constituencies. Using biennial estimates of the economic, racial, and social policy liberalism of the average Democrat and Republican in each state over the past six decades, we demonstrate a surprisingly close correspondence between mass and elite trends. Specifically, we find that: (1) ideological divergence between Democrats and Republicans has widened dramatically within each domain, just as it has in Congress; (2) ideological variation across senators’ partisan subconstituencies is now explained almost completely by party rather than state, closely tracking trends in the Senate; and (3) economic, racial, and social liberalism have become highly correlated across partisan subconstituencies, just as they have across members of Congress. Overall, our findings contradict the reigning consensus that polarization in Congress has proceeded much more rapidly and extensively than polarization in the mass public.     

A partisan model of government expenditure

Partisan models of budget politics largely concentrate on the size of government, budget deficits and debt, but most theories have little to say as to what the effect of party politics on both the size and the composition of budgets is. This paper seeks to extend previous literature in two directions. First, a model of spending preferences is developed that relates actors' preferred level and allocation of expenditure to electoral gains from fiscal policies. Second, changes in both total expenditure and the expenditure mix of two budget categories are analyzed for the effect of parties' spending preferences as stated in their election manifestos. Using data on 19 OECD countries from 1971 to 1999, the paper finds support for general partisan hypothesis. The results suggest that the actual spending preferences of parties matter whereas they do not indicate that parties of the left consistently differ from parties of the right in their spending behavior.     

Some correlates of partisan preference in Greece, 1980: a discriminant analysis

Abstract. The factors underlying patterns of partisan preference in Greece have been the subject of fairly little systematic analysis. This article uses data from a 1980 Euro-Barometer survey, the first to include a Greek sample, to outline the structure of the Greek partisan universe. A number of demographic variables – age, family income, education, occupation, sex, size of community, and household status – together with attitudinal variables regarding both foreign and domestic policy issues are tested as predictors of party identification. The multivariate statistical technique of discriminant analysis is used to measure the relative importance of these predictor variables in influencing the direction of party preferences. The findings show that attitudinal factors for the most part are more important than demographic traits. A stepwise analysis provides a rankordering of the strongest explanatory variables. The impact of recent political and historical developments on the party system in Greece is discussed.     

Toward a positive theory of coalition formation and endogenous instrumental choice in global pollution control

The paper analyzes the coalition formation process in a global emission game with asymmetric countries where the number of signatories, the abatement target and the policy instrument are chosen simultaneously. Exemplarily, a uniform emission reduction quota and an effluent charge are considered. Stability is analyzed in a supergame framework by applying the concept of coalition-proofness. The analysis also considers the impact of impatient agents, restricted and simple punishment profiles. Two main results may be mentioned: First, paradoxically, IEAs achieve only little (if signed at all) if the externality problem is distinct. Second, our model helps to explain the frequent appearance of emission quotas in international pollution control despite the recommendations by economists to use market-based instruments like effluent charges.     

Structural constraints on partisan bias under the efficient gerrymander

Partisan bias occurs when the translation of the popular vote into legislative seats differs between competing parties. This paper contains a theoretical and empirical analysis of the consequences of an efficient gerrymander for the partisan bias of an electoral system. Under partisan apportionment, bias is shown to depend on some structural features of the electoral environment; namely, the size of the voting population and the number of single-member districts within a political jurisdiction. A statistical analysis reveals the predicted relationships in data on Congressional elections across states in the 1950–1984 period. This paper highlights the importance of some measurable features of the electoral environment for determining bias and provides an indirect test of partisan gerrymandering in congressional apportionment processes.     

Another look at the evidence for rational partisan cycles

In presenting evidence in favor of rational partisan cycles, where electoral victories by leftist parties are expected to create temporary expansions and electoral victories by rightist parties are expected to create temporary recessions, Alesina, Cohen, and Roubini (1999) rely upon autoregressive time series intervention regressions. These regressions, however, are not consistent with their model. In this paper, a model is derived which is consistent with the intervention approach in its reduced-form. The differences between the models are highlighted and new empirical estimates are presented on a panel of seven OECD nations, which generally does not support the rational partisan cycle implications.     

Reliable and unreliable partisan appointees to the Board of Governors

Every new appointment to the Board of Governors in recent years has triggered speculation as to how the new Governor will vote in FOMC meetings. While several studies have hinted at partisan voting behavior by Governors, no study has yet attempted to identify reliable and unreliable partisan voting behavior and to pinpoint the background characteristics of Governors that distinguish between the two. This paper indicates that Board members with a background in economics consistently voted in line with the economic ideology of the appointing President. Noneconomists on the Board, however, displayed no such partisan voting behavior and were seen to be influenced by pressures emanating from the Administration and by the monetary environment prior to their appointment. Over the 1951 to 1987 period, most Presidents have appointed reliable Governors earlier in their Presidential terms (when the returns from being able to influence subsequent monetary policy are great) and have chosen unreliable Governors later in their terms (when election support from the interest groups that these unreliables represent is important).The results of the present paper suggest skepticism toward the recent spate of rational expectations — game-theoretic models which feature a dictatorial policy maker gaming atomistic market participants whose only political activity, voting, generates monetary surprises followed by convergence to an equilibrium. Because of their obsession with the ceremonial formalism of their genre, these models ignore a vast complementary literature and, as a consequence, display conspicuously flimsy institutional and historical premises. Instead, the present paper argues for the greater relevance of models of uncoordinated interaction between multiple political and private principals and Federal Reserve agents.     

The dimensionality of partisan strength and political independence

This study explores the dimensionality of partisan strength and independence by analyzing the relationships between the traditional four-point partisan strength scale, a strength of independence scale, and other relevant variables in the 1980 and 1984 NES/CPS election studies. In particular, the investigation centers on the possible different explanations for independence. The findings tend to support explanations for independence that concern party attachment and civic responsibility. The data show that partisan strength and independence are separate components of party identification. Previous findings based on the use of the traditional partisan strength scale may therefore need to be reconsidered.     

Memory and partisan identity: the case of the French Communist Party

Abstract. The French Communist Party pays particular attention to the writing and the recounting of its own history. Its militants consent often to an important training effort. The understanding of historical memory by the dimension which connects French Communism to 'true socialism', would prohibit reasoning which would have an objective of re-instating the memory of French Communists as an element of a partisan identity, rather than the falsification of which the nature of history might have been the object. Maurice Halbwach's notion of 'collective memory' fits this project. Consequently, some elements of the party's historical memory, especially autobiographies of communist party leaders, are compared to the opinions or life experiences collected from militants. In this comparison between published memories and oral life stories, models and constant themes appear. But one must also insist on the discrepancies between interviews, and on the differences between life stories and published autobiographies. If autobiographies provided life patterns founded on invariable elements and methods of historical interpretation, other factors were of influence, such as how long the subject has belonged to the party, the family continuity in the partisan group, school background.     

The Democrat-Republican presidential growth gap and the partisan balance of the state governments

Public Choice - It is known that the US economy has grown faster during Democrat presidencies, but the Democrat-Republican presidential GDP growth gap cannot be attributed fully to policy...     

Voting strength in the European Parliament: The influence of national and of partisan actors

Abstract. Most decisions by the European Parliament are taken by an absolute majority of its members. Some decisions however – such as the approval of the budget of the European Union – require a two-thirds majority. The paper analyzes the a priori voting strength of the member states when their representatives vote coherently. It is shown that the increase in votes for Germany in the 1994 reallocation enhanced its position. A less favourable effect, however, can be seen for the other large members (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain). However, since votes in the EP tend to be cast according to partisan rather than national affiliation, the relative voting power of the political groups with respect to the two quotas is also analyzed. The tool to measure this is the (normalized) Banzhaf power index, partially extended to account for connected coalitions. The paper demonstrates that the distribution of votes between the present EU member states as allocated in proportion to their population size indeed roughly corresponds to their a priori voting power. However, the relative influence of the largest political groups, the European Socialists and the European People's Party, tends to be overestimated by their share of seats in the framework of the simple majority rule, but it is considerable if the quota is two-thirds. Finally, under the two-thirds majority rule, the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party as well as the small groups appear to be almost powerless. The more the EP gains political leverage – a further increase in its institutional powers is to be expected in the framework of the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference – the more the distribution of voting power between the member states and between the political groups will be a crucial factor in the shaping of EU policies.     

Electoral institutions, partisan status, and political support in Lesotho

Does the introduction of proportionality in electoral systems help to boost popular evaluations of democracy? This article takes advantage of an electoral reform in Lesotho to conduct a natural experiment. We trace shifts over time in popular political support, using Afrobarometer data collected before and after reform to measure mass satisfaction with democracy and public trust in political institutions. We find both direct and indirect effects. In the aggregate, Lesotho's transition from a majoritarian to a mixed electoral system is directly associated with increased levels of citizen support for the country's state and regime. Importantly, however, formal institutions have only indirect effects at the individual level, where a person's informal partisan status – as a member of a winning majority or losing minority – mediates the impacts of institutional change.     

Short-term forces and partisan change in Canada: 1974–1980

The theoretical attractiveness of party identification derives in large measure from its presumed stability at the level of the individual voter. Recent studies conducted in Great Britain and the United States suggest, however, that partisan attachments are less stable than originally believed, and respond to the impact of shortterm forces. This paper uses newly available, national panel surveys to consider the Canadian case. Between 1974 and 1980 party identification in this country is characterized by aggregate stability and individual change. The latter is not confined to particular groups of voters and is not strongly associated with time-related reinforcement effects, but rather reflects variations in party leader and party/issue preferences. Further, interaction effects suggest that extent of political interest and patterns of partisanship across levels of the federal system condition processes of partisan change.     

The information content of elections and varieties of the partisan political business cycle

This event study uses economic forecasts and opinion polls to measure the response of expectations to election surprise. Use of forecast data complements older work on partisan cycles by allowing a tighter link between election and response thereby mitigating concerns of endogeneity and omitted variables. I find that forecasters respond swiftly and significantly to election surprise. I further argue that the response ought to vary across countries with different institutional foundations. In support, I find that there exist three distinct patterns in forecasters’ responses to partisan surprise corresponding to Hall and Soskice’s three varieties of capitalism.