Voter Participation in the 1998 Bundestag Elections: A Theoretical Modification and Empirical Application of Downs' Theory of Voter Participation

This article seeks to contribute to the illumination of the so-called 'paradox of voting' using the German Bundestag elections of 1998 as an empirical case. Downs' model of voter participation will be extended to include elements of the theory of subjective expected utility (SEU). This will allow a theoretical and empirical exploration of the crucial mechanisms of individual voters' decisions to participate, or abstain from voting, in the German general election of 1998. It will be argued that the infinitely low probability of an individual citizen's vote to decide the election outcome will not necessarily reduce the probability of electoral participation. The empirical analysis is largely based on data from the ALLBUS 1998. It confirms the predictions derived from SEU theory. The voters' expected benefits and their subjective expectation to be able to influence government policy by voting are the crucial mechanisms to explain participation. By contrast, the explanatory contribution of perceived information and opportunity costs is low.     

Taking a second look at Germany's motivation to establish economic and monetary union: A critique of ‘economic interests’ claims

One of the most widespread explanations of Germany's willingness to create European monetary union is that business or economic interest groups supported and lobbied for it, believing it would be good for them. This article refutes the argument that economic interests were actively involved in the process or that they had a causal impact on the German government's acceptance of EMU. Empirical evidence shows that economic interest groups in Germany were hesitant and sceptical about monetary union, especially since the EMS was working well. Economic interests belatedly mimicked the demands of the Bundesbank that EMU be insulated from political pressure and that price stability be enshrined in the charter, but they did not urge the government to join. Moreover, the members of peak business organisations were themselves divided on the merits of EMU. Thus, this article falsifies the claim that business or economic interests were the driving force behind Kohl's willingness to give up the DM.     

Inequality,Distributive Justice and Political Participation: An Analysis of the Case of Chile

Political participation has frequently been associated with individual resources; that is, individuals with higher incomes, higher educational levels and more time tend to participate in the political process to a greater extent than other individuals do. The present study suggests that in addition to resources, an individual's beliefs about economic distribution are an important determinant of participation both in elections and in protests. Based on the analysis of the Chilean data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) 2012, the results suggest that distributive beliefs are associated primarily with participation in protests.     

Who Mobilizes? Participatory Democracy in Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution

This article assesses popular mobilization under the Chávez government's participatory initiatives in Venezuela using data from the AmericasBarometer survey of 2007. This is the first study of the so‐called Bolivarian initiatives using nationally representative, individual‐level data. The results provide a mixed assessment. Most of the government's programs invite participation from less active segments of society, such as women, the poor, and the less educated, and participation in some programs is quite high. However, much of this participation clusters within a narrow group of activists, and a disproportionate number of participants are Chávez supporters. This partisan bias probably reflects self‐screening by Venezuelans who accept Chávez's radical populist discourse and leftist ideology, rather than vote buying or other forms of open conditionality. Thus, the Venezuelan case suggests some optimism for proponents of participatory democracy, but also the need to be more attuned to its practical political limits.     

Diplomatic Objectives in Trade Politics: The Development of the China-Japan-Korea FTA

This article seeks to analyze the development of free trade agreement (FTA) policies adopted by China, Japan, and South Korea with particular interests in the trilateral FTA. It seeks to address what the determinant factors that have conditioned the development of the trilateral FTA are. While the three governments began the informal joint study of the trilateral FTA in 2003, they pursued diverse trade strategies that disturbed a shift to formal negotiations. However, China's strategy to hedge against the US influence in East Asia became a catalyst in shifting from the long-lasting study stage to the launching of negotiations. Moreover, Japan's strategy to participate in TPP negotiations as a soft balancing against China through closer political linkages with the United States weakened China's and South Korea's willingness to engage in the trilateral FTA positively. Thus, the three countries’ commitments to the trilateral FTA were primarily confined by their specific diplomatic objectives responding to the political-economic evolutions in the Asia-Pacific region.     

The politics and economics of “retraditionalization” in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan

This paper analyzes attitudes of women enrolled in secular and religious universities in the capital cities of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan toward family life and the role of Islam in the private and public sphere. Survey data indicate that women from both types of universities in both countries sympathize with retraditionalization, or “a return to traditional values, family life, and religion, which entails, in part, women being moved out of the work force.” Thus far, there is no statistical evidence of this phenomenon in the literature. Sympathy for retraditionalization is unfolding in the context of ongoing economic uncertainty that has plagued Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan since the Soviet Union's collapse, and its manifestations produce political responses. I argue that Kyrgyz and Tajik elites push a particular gender norm implying female secularization to counter expressions of retraditionalization among young women. In conclusion, I highlight counterintuitive findings of the survey regarding Islam's role in Central Asian society and discuss collective versus individual acts of resistance to female secularization policies in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.     

Conserving the Councillor: A Case for Widespread Local Officeholding

Guided by participatory and deliberative conceptions of democracy, local governments have embraced the need for increased citizen participation in decision-making. Yet, at the same time, a systematic reduction in the number of councillor seats has seen a precipitous decline in opportunities to participate in the council chamber. With specific reference to the Australian case, this paper seeks to explain this incongruity, suggesting that the answer lies in the wide adoption of democratic theorists' narrow conceptualisation of the role of the councillor. Viewed solely as representatives, whether in the corporate, mirror, or delegate mode, councillors are valued only insofar as they prove instrumental to an efficient and responsive system of governance. Their participation, itself, is not intrinsically valued. Drawing on novel and extant empirical evidence to demonstrate the participatory virtues of officeholding, this paper argues that when due regard is afforded to councillors' participatory role, a normative case for widespread — and more inclusive — officeholding emerges.     

Class‐Biased Electoral Participation: The Youth Vote in Chile

There is no other country where the division between the old and young electorate is as striking as in Chile. For older voters, turnout exceeded, on average, 90 percent in 2009; for those aged less than 30, it fell below 30 percent. Using individual survey data from 2006, 2008, and 2010, this article studies the current socioeconomic composition of the Chilean young electorate. First, it shows that the young electorate is class‐biased. Income is highly correlated with both registration and turnout even after controlling for education. Second, it presents evidence that class bias for the whole electorate has been increasing over time, due to generational replacement. The results are not promising for Chile's democracy in the years to come, since equal participation is worsening over time.     

Notes on contributors

In the Kosovo crisis, Germany for the first time since 1955 joined NATO military combat operations in a major way. While this has often been interpreted as a fundamental major departure ('normalisation') in Germany's post‐war foreign policy, this article argues that Germany's willingness to contemplate joining a NATO war even without a mandate by the UN Security Council represents an evolution, rather than a fundamental change in Germany's foreign policy orientation. This evolution can be explained best as a logical and consistent response of Germany's foreign policy identity which reconciled, through modification, its traditional post war foreign policy identity as a ‘civilian power’ to a radically different security environment.     

Salience‐Based Congruence Between Parties & their Voters: The Swiss Case

Policy congruence between parties and their voters is a prerequisite for the latter's representation. Related research typically focuses on the left‐right dimension. We contribute to this literature by conceiving the alignment between citizens and political elites as congruence on issues that individual citizens consider important (salience‐based congruence). Furthermore, we approach salience from the citizen's perspective and measure it at the individual level. Based on data from the Swiss Election Study (2007), we demonstrate that the assessment of party representation changes once we take salience into account. Policy congruence on salient issues is high and niche parties perform better than mainstream parties. Our arguments and findings about the role personal issue salience plays at the individual and party levels have important repercussions for contemporary debates on representation and policy congruence.     

Federal-level Government Participation and State-level Electoral Performance: A Party-based Analysis of Land Elections in Germany, 1949–2017

To what extent does the federal political arena contaminate the regional one in Germany? Does a party’s position as government or opposition on the federal level have a systematic impact on its performance in Land elections? Land elections are often characterised as second order elections, but existing empirical studies that use real election data suffer from important methodological problems. Unlike previous approaches using survey data or comparing vote shares in regional and federal elections, we analyse contamination in two ways. First, we test whether a party’s role at the federal level has a systematic impact on gaining or losing office at the Land level. Second, we examine the vote difference of parties relative to their result in the previous election in the Land. Drawing on a complete dataset of all Land elections from 1949 to 2017, we find confirmation for two phenomena well known in comparative electoral studies. First, the anti-incumbency effect: government parties tend to lose votes. In the German context, as in many other multilevel systems, this is exacerbated by the second effect: contamination. Gaining power or votes on the Land level is very difficult when a party is in government on the federal level.     

Cross-Cutting Networks and Political Participation: Lessons of the 2010 City Mayoral Elections in Taiwan

This research examines whether public political participation in Taiwan is influenced by people’s interactive relations and social environments. In contrast to the “sociodemographic factor” and “political mobilization” approaches used in previous studies of political participation, this paper’s theoretical structure is that of “cross-cutting networks.” It analyzes the influence exerted by social network “cross-pressures” on voters’ engagement in political activities and their likelihood of voting in the 2010 mayoral elections in Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung cities. The study uses national survey data to test the association between cross-cutting networks and political participation. The methodology adopted includes cross-tabulation analyses, ordered logit model, and logit model. The findings reveal that people in cross-cutting networks involving greater political disagreement are less likely to participate in politics while individuals engaging in homogeneous social interactions and under low-level cross-pressure are predisposed to participate more actively in politics.     

Desired or deserving leadership? A reflection on the leadership exercised in local governments of Uganda

Abstract

The article presents survey findings of the leadership styles exercised in local governments and examines whether leadership influences organisational performance in Uganda's local governments. Based on survey findings from Bushenyi District, both transactional and transformational leadership styles are evidently exercised in Uganda's local governments. The study findings further reveal that leadership behaviours in Bushenyi District are often characterised by idealised influence (behaviour), inspirational motivation, high laissez-faire leadership and high management-by-exception (passive). As a result, there is increasing job insecurity among subordinates, which undermines the internal organisational ability to perform. Four sub-counties in Bushenyi District were selected for the purpose of this research. Using Multifactor Leadership Questionnaires (MLQs), data were derived from 123 respondents (36 leaders and 87 raters).     

Ritual Demonstrations versus Reactive Protests: Participation Across Mobilizing Contexts in Mexico City

Using an innovative survey of protest participants and nonparticipants from five major street demonstrations in Mexico City in 2011 and 2012, this study tests the assumption that influences on protest participation vary across different types of events; namely, ritual demonstrations and reactive protests. The comparison is based on two assumptions: that these are two of the dominant forms of protest in contemporary Latin America, and that specifying the context for different types of social movement participation provides a better understanding of the individual mobilization process for groups seeking to defend their rights or gain new benefits. The comparative analyses reveal some crucial differences. Political interest and previous political experience are more influential in the decision to take part in reactive demonstrations. For ritual demonstrations, the decision to participate tends to be driven more by personal and organizational connections.     

Private Farming in Russia: An Emerging Success?

The emergence of privately owned peasant farms in the early 1990s was one of the most important reforms in Russia's agrarian sector. Initially failing to become a significant food producer, during its second decade private farming emerged as a success in agrarian reform. This success is analyzed using two levels of analysis. At the macro-level, economic performance, government policy, and AKKOR's relationships with a range of actors are examined. The micro- or household level is examined using survey data from rural households, looking at private farmers' earned income, land holdings, and shifts in employment.     

Eroding Germany’s Commitment to Data Protection: Policy Entrepreneurs and Coalition Politics in EU Passenger Name Records

A history of totalitarian governments and state surveillance appear to have made Germans sensitive towards the uses of personal data. Because of such concerns, Germany often acted as an obstacle to security measures requiring personal data at the EU level. However, there has been a recent sea-change in Germany over EU Passenger Name Records (EU-PNR), a measure that requires the personal data of airline passengers for security purposes. Many in Berlin have moved from lukewarm at the time of the first EU-PNR proposal in 2007 to advocating it in 2014. The article draws on Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to examine this change in position, comparing two government coalitions – the CDU/CSU–FDP (2009–13) with the CDU/CSU–SPD (2013–) – to show how actors within the CDU/CSU have acted as policy entrepreneurs to ensure agreement on EU-PNR. It is argued that the composition of governmental coalitions can act as a central condition that facilitates or hinders the success of policy entrepreneurs. While the position of the FDP blocked any progress on EU-PNR in the former coalition, policy entrepreneurs used the willingness of the SPD to show voters their support for tougher security measures, thereby ensuring Germany’s support for EU-PNR.     

Individual and Contextual Determinants of Electoral Participation

Individual‐level explanations of electoral participation typically argue that non‐voting is determined by a combination of facilitative and motivational factors. We advance the argument that, beyond individual characteristics, there are pivotal contextual features which enable or impede individual action through specific incentive structures. Thus, contextual factors influence the individual propensity to vote or to abstain. For the first time the data of Selects 2003 allows for the testing of contextual effects, at least on the cantonal level. Several multilevel analyses show that high party competition, compulsory voting, and strong Catholicism foster individual participation. The findings clearly indicate that an individual's propensity to vote is influenced by personal characteristics as well as by cantonal attributes.     

Soviet Transport Trends, 1950–1990

This paper examines links between the Soviet transport sector and other sectors of the economy. In the 1970s, the transport sector was perceived as a bottleneck. As growth slowed in the late 70s, howevar, the transport sector was able to meet the economy's demands. At present, the transportation of oil and gas is placing an increasing burden on the transport sector, but pipelines can absorb the demands, freeing up rail transport capacity for other commodities. The willingness of Soviet officials to make the appropriate administrative reforms, apply new technologies and increase investment in this sector will determine transport's ability to meet future demands. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124, 731.