Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Iceland: Recent Althingi Elections
The Elections in Sweden in September 1970. Politics in a Multi-Level Election
Results of the Parliamentary Election and the Formation of the Cabinets of Teuvo Aura and Ahti Karjalainen in 1970
The Local Council Elections in Denmark 1970     

Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Political Research in Scandinavia: Welfare Studies in Scandinavia
Recent Political Developments: Denmark's Protest Election of December 1973
Recent Political Developments: Norway: The Election to the Storting in September 1973
Recent Political Developments: The 1973 General Election in Sweden     

Another UK General Election: More Books!

Kavanagh, D. and Butler, D. (2005 ) The British General Election of 2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bartle, J. and King, A. (eds) (2005 ) Britain at the Polls 2005. Washington DC: CQ Press.
Geddes, A. and Tonge, J. (eds) (2005 ) Britain Decides: The UK General Election 2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Worcester, R., Mortimer, R. and Baines, P. (2005 ) Explaining Labour's Landslip: The 2005 General Election. London: Methuen.     

The National Interest and the Politics of Threat Exaggeration: The Blair Government's Case for War against Iraq

During the 2005 General Election the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, suggested that the invasion of Iraq was in 'the national interest'. Whether he knew it or not, this phrase has often referred to controversial decisions taken by governments, away from scrutiny and subject to criticism when made public, but which they believe are in the best interests of the British state.
The article summarises the consequences of the invasion in terms of the subsequent criticism and official inquiries before addressing the question of what is the national interest. The article then considers what exactly was the threat, and whether or not it was exaggerated, and what evidence is now emerging to indicate that the decision to invade was taken 'in the national interest'. It concludes that there was a decision to support the USA and that the threat was exaggerated to justify this decision.     

Does Election Day weather affect voter turnout? Evidence from Swedish elections

Does rainfall during the Election Day reduce voter turnout? Previous research shows that in the US one inch of rain reduces turnout with about one percentage point. We turn to the Swedish context in order to test whether rainfall on Election Day have the same impact in a high turnout context. We move beyond previous research by testing the impact of GIS-interpolated rainfall on three different datasets that allows us to view the issue both from a wide time frame as well as with high precision as for turnout measures: (a) aggregate turnout data for Sweden's 290 municipalities, (b) individual level data from the Swedish National Election Study and (c) data from a register-based survey on voter turnout. In none of the three datasets do we find robust negative effects of rain.     

Pragmatists, Ideologues and the General Law of Curvilinear Disparity: The Case of the Irish Labour Party

In this article we examine the opinion structure of Irish Labour party members and supporters. Our purpose is to test May's law of curvilinear disparity by dividing party members into two groups as outlined by Kitschelt. By focusing on ideological differences within political parties Kitschelt identifies two types of members: ideologues and pragmatists. We use two individual-level data sets: the Labour Leadership Election Study (LLES) and the Irish National Election Study (INES), to test May's law. We find some limited support for May's law and Kitschelt's extensions to this model.     

Book Review

Book reviewed in this article: The British General Election of 1997 by David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh. New Labour Triumphs: Britain at the Polls by Anthony King et al. Chatham     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article Political Communications : The General Election Campaign of 1983. Ed. by Ivor Crewe and Martin Harrop . Money and Votes : Constituency Campaign Spending and Election Results . By R. J . Johnson The Funding of Political Parties in Britain . By Keith Ewing Teledemocracy . By F. Christopher Arterton . Thatcherism at Work . By John Mac Innes . Thatcherism and British Politics , The End of Consensus ? By Dennis Kavanagh . Reshaping Local Government . Ed. by Michael Parkinson . Reshaping Central Government . Ed. by Anthony Harrison and John Gretton Mrs Thatcher's Case-book . By Terry Garrison . The Business of Medicine : Private Health Care in Britain . By Joan Higgins . Making Trouble : Autobiographical Explorations and Socialism .BY James D. Young . Revolutionary Rehearsals . Ed. by Colin Barker . The Fire Last Time : 1968 and After . By Chris Harman .     

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.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: America's Choice 2000: Entering a New Millenium edited by William Crotty. The Perfect Tie: The True Story of the 2000 Presidential Election by James W. Ceaser and Andrew E. Busch.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Brown, Alice, McCrone, David and Paterson, Lindsay, Politics and Society in Scotland
Brown, Alice, McCrone, David, Paterson, Lindsay and Surridge, Paul, The Scottish Electorate: The 1997 General Election and Beyond
Clark, Ian and Berridge, John, Scotland Votes: The General Election 1997 in Scotland
Elcock, Howard and Keating, Michael (ed.), Remaking the Union: Devolution and British Politics in the 1990s
Harvie, Christopher, Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics 1707 to the Present
Paterson, Lindsay (ed.), A Diverse Assembly: The Debate on a Scottish Parliament
MacDonald, Catriona M. M. (ed.), Unionist Scotland 1800–1997
Cesarani, David, Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind
O'Brien, Conor Cruise, Memoir: My Life and Themes
Heffer, Simon, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell
Bentley, Tom, Learning Beyond the Classroom
Hahn, Carole, Becoming Political: Comparative Perspectives on Citizenship Education
Barnett, Anthony and Scruton, Roger (eds), Town and Country
Tindall, Frank, Memoirs and Confessions of a County Planning Officer
Campbell, Alan, Fishman, Nina and Howell, David (eds), Miners, Unions and Politics, 1910–47     

Measuring Party Identification: Britain, Canada, and the United States

The article proposes an empirically based reflection on how to measure party identification cross nationally, using data from the 1997 Canadian Election Study, the 1997 British Election Study, and the 1996 American National Election Study. These studies included both traditional national questions and a new common one, which allows for an assessment of the effects of question wording on the distribution and correlates of party identification. We show that the distribution of party identification is strongly affected by question wording and that the relationship between party identification and variables such as party and leader ratings, and voting behavior does not quite conform to theoretical expectations. We point out problems in the wording of party identification questions and propose an alternative formulation.     

Cross-national election surveys: A French pre-test

In common with scholars in other leading democracies, election researchers of France and the United States rely heavily on a survey research methodology; but their respective national election surveys do not pose many of the same questions, and the dominant research paradigms in each country offer opposing explanatory models of vote choice. Herein are reported preliminary results from a joint effort of US and French researchers, which seeks to include numerous cross-national items in the French National Election Study (for 1995). The following American National Election Study (ANES)-type items receive attention: candidate feeling thermometers, job approval ratings, economic evaluations, seven-point proximity measures on social issues and party identification. Inclusion of these measures in French surveys may allow an important cross-nation extension of voting models thought to be peculiar to one political culture, such as the US.     

The British Election Study and Electoral Research

The British Election Study is the major data resource for investigating electoral behaviour among the British electorate. It has seldom been subject to open critical review from within the political science community, yet, together with extensions such as the British Election Panel Study, it absorbs a considerable proportion of the resources available for British political research. This article sets out a critical appraisal of the study, examining its institutional organization, theoretical scope, and methodological conventions. The thrust of the critique is the need for serious rethinking about all three aspects. For the British Election Study to advance our understanding of electoral behaviour requires a more inclusive approach to its organization; moving beyond a preoccupation with sociological and socio-psychological models of electoral behaviour; and systematic attention to measurement issues.     

Book Reviews

Barry G. Rabe Beyond NIMBY: Haxardous Waste Siting in Canada and the United States
John D. Graham and Jonathan Baert Wiener, eds. Risk vs. Risk: Tradeoffs in Protecting Health and the Environment
Dennis Kavanaugh Election Campaigning: The New Marketing of Politics
Kevin Mulcahy and Margaret Jane Wyszomirski, eds. America's Commitment to Culture: Government and the Arts
Peter Dombrowski Policy Responses to the Globalization of American Banking
Marino Regini Uncertain Boundaries: The Social and Political Construction of European Economics
Lamont C. Hempel Environmental Governance: The Global Challenge     

From quiescent bureaucracy to “undocumented wonder”: Explaining the Indian Election Commission's expanding mandate

Public institutions in the developing world are often characterized by institutional capture or decay. Yet, India's Election Commission (EC) has become one of its most powerful regulatory bodies. We use a process‐tracing approach to explain the EC's surprising expansion of mandate, arguing that in a federal democracy: (a) when institutional constraints are weakened, (b) when state‐based actors demand a competent and neutral arbiter, and (c) when entrepreneurial bureaucratic actors take advantage of moments of political opportunity, those aspects of the bureaucracy that can credibly meet these demands are able to successfully expand their powers. Changes in Model Code Implementation and Election Duration attest to the EC's broader role. The EC's experience suggests that a weak executive can facilitate the strengthening of state institutions and that, under federalism, state‐based electoral forces can produce strong national institutions.     

Reprecincting and Voting Behavior

Despite the expansion of convenience voting across the American states, millions of voters continue to cast ballots at their local precincts on Election Day. We argue that those registered voters who are reassigned to a different Election Day polling place prior to an election are less likely to turn out to vote than those assigned to vote at the same precinct location, as a new precinct location incurs both search and transportation costs on reassigned voters. Utilizing voter file data and precinct shape files from Manatee County, Florida, from before and after the 2014 General Election, we demonstrate that the redrawing of precinct boundaries and the designation of Election Day polling places is not a purely technical matter for local election administrators, but may affect voter turnout of some registered voters more than others. Controlling for a host of demographic, partisan, vote history, and geospatial factors, we find significantly lower turnout among registered voters who were reassigned to a new Election Day precinct compared to those who were not, an effect not equally offset by those voters turning to other available modes of voting (either early in-person or absentee). All else equal, we find that registered Hispanic voters were significantly more likely to abstain from voting as a result of being reassigned than any other racial group.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article:
The Limits of Disenchantment. Essays On Contemporary European Philosophy. By Peter Dews.
Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference In Contemporary Feminist Theory. By Rosi Braidotti.
Perversion and Utopia. A Study In Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory. By Joel Whitebook.
The Ethos of Pluralization. By William E. Connolly.     

From privileged to thwarted stakeholders – Polish migrants’ perceptions of the Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 and the UK General Election in 2015

Scotland in 2014 and 2015 provides an ideal context for examining EU citizenship political rights as established in the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 from the perspective of Polish migrants resident in Scotland. We argue that the contrast between Polish migrants’ full enfranchisement in the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 to then being disenfranchised from the UK General Election in 2015 is a significant site for observing how EU laws interact with state-centric and also ‘post-national’ notions of citizenship. Our participants’ experiences of voting in the Referendum and subsequently not being able to vote in the General Election were articulated in the following terms: (a) the justification of their political rights in terms of their stake and contribution in the UK; (b) their frustrations with regards to anti-migration rhetoric and the limitations of European citizenship; and for some, (c) their plans of apply for British citizenship in the context of EU membership uncertainty.     

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Book Reviewed in this article:
The Limits of Disenchantment. Essays On Contemporary European Philosophy. By Peter Dews.
Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference In Contemporary Feminist Theory. By Rosi Braidotti.
Perversion and Utopia. A Study In Psychoanalysis and Critical Theory. By Joel Whitebook.
The Ethos of Pluralization. By William E. Connolly.