Disenfranchisement Through Divorce? Estimating the Effect of Parental Absence on Voter Turnout

Does growing up without both parents decrease voter turnout? I extend and improve upon earlier answers to this question. First, I estimate the long-term effects on voter turnout via analysis of a nationally representative sample of adults. Second, I exploit the quasi-natural experiment of parental death to correct for non-random selection into parental absence. Contrary to previous research, I find no evidence that growing up in an absent-parent household effects white voter turnout. I also present evidence suggesting the negative effects are limited to black voters.     

Women on the Battleground: Does Gender Condition the Use of Negative Campaigning?

This article presents the findings of an explorative study examining to what extent and under which conditions gender influences the use of negative campaigning in Western Europe. It advances existing research in two ways. First, it is one of the few empirical examinations to date exploring gender differences in negative campaigning outside the US context. Second, it brings to bear novel data on this topic from British, Dutch and German parliamentary election campaigns between 1980 and 2006. In essence, this study explores whether we can find gender effects on the use of negative campaigning in Western Europe. These effects are less likely to be found in these three Western European countries than in the United States, because we expect smaller candidate effects in parliamentary systems than in presidential systems. The analysis suggests that female party leaders are significantly more likely to “go negative”. However, this difference between male and female party leaders is entirely due to the inclusion of Margaret Thatcher in the analysis. Without her, the difference disappears.     

Is the Effect of Education on Voter Turnout Absolute or Relative? A Multi-level Analysis of 37 Countries

While it is well established that education is positively correlated with voter turnout at the individual level, the increased educational levels in most western countries have not caused increased voter turnout at the aggregate level. The relative education model suggests one explanation: education is only a proxy for social status and has no direct causal effect. The individual-level effect of education is conditional on the level of education in the environment. Whereas previous research on the relationship between relative education and voter turnout has largely focused on the U.S. case, this article uses comparative survey data on voter turnout to test the relative education model. It combines data from the CSES and ESS covering about 275,000 individuals in 173 country-years in 37 countries. The analysis applies a definition of relative education operationalized as each individual's education rank position in relation to the level of education of those born in the same five-year cohort in the same country. The results show that relative education has a much larger effect on voter turnout than absolute education. Moreover, relative education has a stronger effect when aggregate turnout is low.     

Candidates or Districts? Reevaluating the Role of Race in Voter Turnout

Leading theories of race and participation posit that minority voters are mobilized by co‐ethnic candidates. However, past studies are unable to disentangle candidate effects from factors associated with the places from which candidates emerge. I reevaluate the links between candidate race, district composition, and turnout by leveraging a nationwide database of over 185 million individual registration records, including estimates for the race of every voter. Combining these records with detailed information about 3,000 recent congressional primary and general election candidates, I find that minority turnout is not higher in districts with minority candidates, after accounting for the relative size of the ethnic group within a district. Instead, Black and Latino citizens are more likely to vote in both primary and general elections as their share of the population increases, regardless of candidate race.     

Campaigning on behalf of the party? Party constraints on candidate campaign personalisation

This article analyses what makes political candidates run a party‐focused or personalised election campaign. Prior work shows that candidates face incentives from voters and the media to personalise their campaign rhetoric and promises at the expense of party policy. This has raised concerns about the capacity of parties to govern effectively and voters’ ability to hold individual politicians accountable. This article builds on the literature on party organisation and considers the possible constraints candidates face from their party in personalising their election campaigns. Specifically, it is argued that party control over the candidate nomination process and campaign financing constrains most political candidates in following electoral incentives for campaign personalisation. Using candidate survey data from the 2009 EP election campaign in 27 countries, the article shows how candidates from parties in which party officials exerted greater control over the nomination process and campaign finances were less likely to engage in personalised campaigning at the expense of the party programme. The findings imply that most parties, as central gatekeepers and resource suppliers, hold important control mechanisms for countering the electoral pressure for personalisation and advance our understanding of the incentives and constraints candidates face when communicating with voters. The article discusses how recent democratic reforms, paradoxically, might induce candidate personalisation with potential negative democratic consequences.     

When Does Diversity Erode Trust? Neighborhood Diversity, Interpersonal Trust and the Mediating Effect of Social Interactions

This article contributes to the debate about the effects of ethnic diversity on social cohesion, particularly generalized trust. The analysis relies on data from both the 'Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy' (CID) survey in the US and the 'Equality, Security and Community Survey' (ESCS) in Canada. Our analysis, one of the first controlled cross-national comparisons of small-unit contextual variation, confirms recent findings on the negative effect of neighborhood diversity on white majorities across the two countries. Our most important finding, however, is that not everyone is equally sensitive to context. Individuals who regularly talk with their neighbors are less influenced by the racial and ethnic character of their surroundings than people who lack such social interaction. This finding challenges claims about the negative effects of diversity on trust – at least, it suggests that the negative effects so prevalent in existing research can be mediated by social ties.     

Why Bother Lying When You Know So Few Care? Party Contact,Education and Over‐reporting Voter Turnout in Different Types of Elections

Studies on individual‐level voter turnout in the European Parliament elections rely solely on self‐reported turnout data. At the same time, a long tradition in public opinion research examines the impact of individual and contextual variables on over‐reporting of voter turnout. The ultimate goal of these efforts is an assessment of the bias introduced when turnout models are estimated from self‐reported turnout data. In this article, it is proposed that certain characteristics related to turnout (and turnout over‐reporting), like university education or party contact, should also be positively associated with political awareness and knowledge. If so, they might contribute to respondents' greater ability to distinguish between different salience levels, significantly increasing non‐voters' propensity to over‐report turnout in high‐salience elections, but not in low‐salience ones. This hypothesis is tested using data on electoral participation in Sweden, comparing patterns of turnout over‐reporting in the (high‐salience) national parliament elections and the (low‐salience) European Parliament elections. The results of this test, the first one to give an account of patterns of over‐reporting of turnout in the European Parliament elections, largely support the above hypothesis. Finally, the consequences of this phenomenon for the validity of inferences made from self‐reported turnout data are analyzed.     

When Do the Rich Vote Less Than the Poor and Why? Explaining Turnout Inequality across the World

The conventional wisdom that the poor are less likely to vote than the rich is based upon research on voting behavior in advanced industrialized countries. However, in some places, the relationship between turnout and socioeconomic status is reversed. We argue that the potential tax exposure of the rich explains the positive relationship between income and voting in some places and not others. Where the rich anticipate taxation, they have a greater incentive to participate in politics, and politicians are more likely to use fiscal policy to gain support. We explore two factors affecting the tax exposure of the rich—the political salience of redistribution in party politics and the state's extractive capacity. Using survey data from developed and developing countries, we demonstrate that the rich turn out to vote at higher rates when the political preferences of the rich and poor diverge and where bureaucratic capacity is high.     

Does Perceived Societal Impact Moderate the Effect of Transformational Leadership on Value Congruence? Evidence from a Field Experiment

Transformational leadership, it is argued, aligns employees' values with those of their organization. Empirical research has found a positive relationship between transformational leadership and value congruence. Yet studies rely predominantly on cross‐sectional research designs that limit causal conclusions and have not uncovered the potential contextual conditions of this argument. This article argues that transformational leadership positively affects value congruence in public service organizations, but only when employees see that their jobs impact the well‐being of other people and society. To test the relationship between transformational leadership and value congruence and the moderating effect of perceived societal impact, the article combines a field experiment on 79 managers of public service organizations and a balanced survey panel of their 583 employees. Consistent with the expectation, results indicate heterogeneous treatment effects, implying that employees' perceived societal impact is important to consider when transformational leaders strive to align the values of individual employees and the organization.     

Does Tolerance of Religion in the Public Space Depend on the Salience of the Manifestation of Religious Group Membership?

The question of the role of Islam in the public space has become a new pivotal point in political disputes about civil liberties in Western Europe. This debate challenges the scholarly literature on tolerance by highlighting that our understanding of the situational factors shaping tolerance judgments remains limited. This study therefore investigates how the salience of the signaling of religious group membership influences religious tolerance. Based on a unique question-wording experiment embedded in an approximately nationally representative survey, I demonstrate that conspicuous manifestations of religious outgroup membership spark stronger intolerance than subtle manifestations and that anxiety mediates the effect of conspicuous manifestations of religious outgroup membership. Finally, I demonstrate that the effect of the salience of religious outgroup membership is strongest among those who are highly opposed to secularism. I conclude by discussing how these findings constitute an important extension of the extant work on tolerance and feed back into the discussion regarding the role of religion in the public space.     

Does Sex Encourage Commitment? The Impact of Candidate Choices on the Time-to-Decision

The sex of a congressional candidate can influence voting choices, but does candidate sex also influence the timing of those choices? This paper examines that question in light of other information that voters weigh in making their decisions. Using a national survey from the 2006 election, and a unique dataset of political informants, we find that the sex of the candidate conveys ideological information that permits voters to make swifter judgments. Additionally, it reduces the probability of a delayed decision by supplying information helpful to the choice between candidates—even in the absence of ideology. In fact, the impact of candidate sex rivals other variables that are traditionally used to explain the time-to-decision. Consistent with the literature on sex stereotypes, we find a stronger influence for Democratic than Republican female candidates.     

What Happened to Educational Equality? Tracing the Demise of Presidential Rhetoric on Racial Inequality in Higher Education

This article asks why discussion of racial inequality in higher education is absent from presidential speeches, which helps us understand why it is absent from the public agenda. I find a decrease in presidential speech about race and education after the 1980 and 1984 elections. By analyzing Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan's rhetoric during those elections, we can see that Carter struggled to promote affirmative action and, instead, supported historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Reagan adopted Carter's arguments about HBCUs and used them to support his strategy to appeal to whites' and white ethnics' racial resentments. This dynamic led to a political stalemate: Democrats could not address educational inequality, distance themselves from Republicans, and appeal to majority whites. Therefore, presidents had no incentive to address inequality in higher education. While educational inequality still exists, it remains absent from presidential speeches.     

When Do Municipal Consolidations Reduce Government Expenditures? Evidence on the Role of Local Involvement

Higher levels of government motivate municipal consolidations as a tool to increase efficiency in the local government sector, yet research shows that consolidations typically fail to deliver the promised spending reductions. Since mergers often require significant changes to institutional structures, one explanation is that local decision makers can substantially influence the outcomes of the consolidation process. To explore this possibility, this article contrasts “encouraged but voluntary” mergers with those that were “forced” on local governments in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Results show that voluntary mergers resulted in a 10 percent decline in total per capita expenditures, but forced consolidations failed to reduce spending across the board. The policy conclusion is that decision makers considering structural reform should invest in obtaining the support and participation of local government decision makers.     

When Does Service Delivery Improve the Legitimacy of a Fragile or Conflict‐Affected State?

Received wisdom holds that the provision of vital public services necessarily improves the legitimacy of a fragile or conflict‐affected state. In practice, however, the relationship between a state's performance in delivering services and its degree of legitimacy is nonlinear. Specifically, this relationship is conditioned by expectations of what the state should provide, subjective assessments of impartiality and distributive justice, the relational aspects of provision, how easy it is to attribute (credit or blame) performance to the state, and the characteristics of the service. This questions the dominant institutional model, which reduces the role of services in (re)building state legitimacy to an instrumental one. A more rounded account of the significance of service delivery for state legitimacy would look beyond the material to the ideational and relational significance of services, and engage with the normative criteria by which citizens judge them.     

When Does Transparency Generate Legitimacy? Experimenting on a Context‐Bound Relationship

We analyze the main rationale for public administrations and political institutions for supplying transparency, namely, that it generates legitimacy for these institutions. First, we discuss different theories of decision making from which plausible causal mechanisms that may drive a link between transparency and legitimacy may be derived. We find that the common notion of a straightforward positive correlation is naïve and that transparency reforms are rather unpredictable phenomena. Second, we test the effect of transparency on procedure acceptance using vignette experiments of representative decision making in schools. We find that transparency can indeed generate legitimacy. Interestingly, however, the form need not be “fishbowl transparency,” with full openness of the decision‐making process. Decision makers may improve their legitimacy simply by justifying carefully afterward the decisions taken behind closed doors. Only when behavior close to a deliberative democratic ideal was displayed did openness of the process generate more legitimacy than closed‐door decision making with postdecisional justifications.     

Comment on “Does the Likely Demographics of Affordable Housing Justify NIMBYism?”

Abstract

Automated underwriting (AU) systems have become the tool of choice in mortgage lending decisions. While these systems provide significant benefits to mortgage originators and investors, questions have been raised about their impact on underserved populations. The questions focus on the relative accuracy of AU compared with manual underwriting and whether AU has increased the flow of mortgage credit to underserved consumers.

Using information from Freddie Mac's Loan Prospector AU service, we provide statistics useful in examining these issues. The data strongly support our view that AU provides substantial benefits to consumers, particularly those at the margin of the underwriting decision. We find evidence that AU systems more accurately predict default than manual underwriters do. We also find evidence that this increased accuracy results in higher borrower approval rates, especially for underserved applicants.     

Campaigning on an upper level? Individual campaigning in the 2009 European Parliament elections in its determinants

Election campaigns are not only party campaigns, but depend to a significant degree on the efforts and activities of individual candidates. While some country-specific analyses of candidate campaigning have been done, large-N comparative studies are missing. The 2009 European Election Candidate Study, conducted in all 27 EU countries, does allow for such a comparative analysis. On the basis of this data, the article takes a closer look at three core components of individual campaigns and their respective determinants: duration, intensity, and the use of different campaign tools. Our findings show that only a combination of factors on the individual, party, and country level is able to explain significant amounts of the observed variance in each of the core components.     

Worth the Wait? The Effect of Early Term Birth on Maternal and Infant Health

Early term birth is defined as birth at 37 or 38 weeks gestation. While infants born early term are not considered premature, the medical literature suggests that they have an increased risk of serious adverse health outcomes compared to infants born at term (39 or 40 weeks). Despite these known harms, we document a rise in early term births in the United States from 1989 to the mid‐2000s, followed by a decline in recent years. We posit that the recent decline in early term births has been driven by changes in medical practice advocated by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, programs such as the March of Dimes’ “Worth the Wait” campaign, and by Medicaid policy. We first show that this pattern cannot be attributed to changes in the demographic composition of mothers, and provide some evidence that efforts to reduce early term elective deliveries (EEDs) through Medicaid policy were effective. We next exploit county‐level variation in the timing of these changes in medical practice to examine the effect of early term inductions (our proxy for EEDs) on infant and maternal health. We find that early term inductions lower birth weights and increase the risks of precipitous labor, birth injury, and required ventilation. Our results suggest that reductions in early term inductions can explain about one‐third of the overall increase in birth weights between 2010 and 2013 for births at 37 weeks gestation and above.