The December 1998 elections in Taiwan

The 5 December 1998 elections in Taiwan mark the first time that the national city mayoral elections and Legislative Yuan elections were held simultaneously. There was an increase in the number of candidates and seats for the Legislative Yuan election compared to the 1995 election; the Legislative Yuan sits for a three-year term. The mayoral elections in Taipei and Kaoshiung were the second direct popular elections featuring two well-known incumbents and two tough challengers vying for the four-year post. All Taiwanese elections in the 1990s were seen as referendums on the fate of the long-ruling Kuomintang, but many political commentators saw the 1999 elections as a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the presidential election in 2000.     

Elections as a democratic linkage mechanism: How elections boost political trust in a proportional system

Elections offer a privileged moment in representative democracy, when citizens have the opportunity to express their views, both on the track record of the incumbent government, as on the way the country should be governed in the future. Procedural fairness theory assumes that taking part in a decision making procedure that is perceived to be fair, strengthens the legitimacy of the entire process. Most of the empirical research assumes that the attitudinal effects of elections are mainly due to the fact that one's preferred party wins the elections. In multi-party systems, however, such a clear distinction is not always possible and therefore it is hypothesized that the winner-loser-logic is weaker in this kind of party system. In this study we rely on a unique Belgian panel study to ascertain how electoral participation has an effect on political trust. The results show that in a proportional system all voters rise in political trust following their participation in elections. The winner-loser effect is not significant. Furthermore, the analyses suggest that especially the respondents with the initially lowest trust levels gain most by participating in elections. The theoretical implication of this finding is that apparently elections are still considered to be an important and legitimate linkage mechanism between citizens and the political system.     

The limits of the attractiveness premium in elections

The literature on looks and politics suggests that, at least in personalistic electoral systems, physical attractiveness helps candidates that are more attractive. We test this assumption using the unlikely case of Quebec, where provincial elections are highly salient, characterized by a strong cleavage, a sophisticated electorate and strong party- and leader-centeredness. Evaluating the effect of physical attractiveness on vote shares for nearly 5500 candidates in a multivariate analysis for four elections (i.e. 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2018), we find that physical attractiveness plays no role in determining candidates' vote shares. This applies for candidates' attractiveness score, as well as their attractiveness ranking relative to other candidates. For theory, this finding suggests that the effect of attractiveness on candidates’ electoral fortunes in winner takes all systems is contingent on other factors such as the existence of cleavages and the candidate- or party centeredness of the party system.     

The 1999 Knesset and prime ministerial elections in Israel

This election note delineates the outcome of the 1999 elections in Israel, in which the Prime Minister was directly elected — for only the second time — concurrently with the parliamentary election. It then analyzes the election results produced by Israel's unique electoral system, and assesses their immediate ramifications.     

Split ticket voting in the 1995 Russian Duma elections

High levels of split ticket voting in elections usually indicate either an instrumental electorate, or widespread disaffection from the major parties. Elections to the Russian lower house, the Duma, permit voters both party list options and single-member ballots; as a result, the 1993 and 1995 Duma elections recorded some of the highest levels of split ticket voting ever recorded. Using national survey data collected just after the 1995 Duma election, we test two major explanations for split ticket voting, one based on the activities of voters, the other on the strategic behaviour of parties. The results show that split ticket voting is caused by voters, and more specifically, by their weak attachments to parties. But party strategy also plays a modest role in promoting the phenomenon. In the absence of major reform of the Russian electoral system, split ticket voting is likely to remain at high levels.     

Economic crisis and elections: The European periphery

This paper introduces the articles in the symposium which address the issue of democratic accountability and economic voting in polities on the European periphery. The economic crisis that hit the world economy in 2008 has severely challenged the capacity of governments to steer the national economy and has had a strong impact on their electoral support. The papers discuss whether economic voting and democratic accountability are increasing or, on the other hand, they could be depressed by globalisation and by shifts of ruling competence from the national to the supranational European arena.     

Parliamentary elections in Cambodia 1998

On 26 July 1998, Cambodia had a general election for the second time since the 1991 Paris Peace Accords ending the Civil War. The first elections took place in 1993 within the framework of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). The 1998 elections were organised by Cambodian institutions with the international community supplying financial and material help, and electoral advice.     

The June 1999 European Parliament elections

In countries with a majoritarian electoral system, the expenses of challengers are generally found to have a stronger effect on the electoral outcome than the expenses of incumbents. Research on campaign expenditure effects in Brazil suggests that this is not the case in countries with an open list PR system and large districts. This hypothesis is confirmed by an analysis of the effect of individual campaign expenses on the number of preferential votes in the 2003 legislative elections in Flanders/Belgium. An analysis of high quality candidates shows that the expenses have a substantial effect on the vote which does not vary according to incumbency status. However, the effect of media exposure on the vote is stronger than and largely independent of the effect of campaign expenses.     

Explaining voter turnout: A meta-analysis of national and subnational elections

Research about voter turnout has expanded rapidly in recent years. This article takes stock of this development by extending the meta-analysis of Geys (2006) in two main ways. First, we add 102 studies published between 2002 and 2015 to the initial sample of 83 studies. Overall, we document only minor changes to the original inferences. Second, since different processes might conceivably play at different levels of government, we exploit the larger sample to separately analyse the determinants of voter turnout in national versus subnational elections. We find that campaign expenditures, election closeness and registration requirements have more explanatory power in national elections, whereas population size and composition, concurrent elections, and the electoral system play a more important role for explaining turnout in subnational elections.     

It's not only the economy,stupid! Good governance matters in elections

This paper examines the impact of good governance in elections compared to the role of the economy. The latter is considered the key factor in electoral survival, while governance issues are rarely included in politicians' discourse or campaigning strategies. Using the ParlGov data and the ICRG indicators for 160 elections, the analysis shows that good governance matters, but mainly for developing countries. Economic growth is an important electoral topic in most of the elections, but its effect varies systematically across contexts. The impact of each good governance and the economy get weaker as the other worsens, and these conditional effects are moderated by the level of economic development.     

The incumbency disadvantage in South Korean National Assembly elections: Evidence from a regression discontinuity approach

In marked contrast to the findings from advanced democracies that incumbent office holders enjoy electoral advantages, this study finds that a substantial incumbency disadvantage exists in South Korean National Assembly (KNA) elections. I employ a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity design to distinguish the true effects of incumbency from the selection effects associated with candidate qualities, such as charisma and ability levels. My results show that serving a term in office reduces the probability of winning by around 20–30 percentage points and reduces the vote share by about 3–7 percentage points. Possible reasons for the incumbency disadvantage are briefly discussed, with an emphasis on the particularly high level of public discontent with governing elites in the KNA due to what voters perceive to be their widespread corruption.     

Detecting manipulation in authoritarian elections: Survey-based methods in Zimbabwe

This paper explores the feasibility of using social surveys to detect electoral manipulation in authoritarian regimes. It compares official results from the July 2013 elections in Zimbabwe with findings from a nationally representative pre-election survey. The comparison confirms that the dominant incumbent party won the elections but by far smaller margins than officially reported. This discrepancy provides analytic leverage to identify the possible presence of coercive mobilization and vote suppression and to pinpoint their geographic location. The election results are re-estimated using a set of voting simulations based on novel proxy indicators and an original list experiment designed to reveal the political preferences of fearful voters. The paper concludes by discussing why autocrats manipulate elections and whether or not they succeed in their objectives.     

Selective abstention in simultaneous elections: Understanding the turnout gap

If two elections are held at the same day, why do some people choose to vote in one but to abstain in another? We argue that selective abstention is driven by the same factors that determine voter turnout. Our empirical analysis focuses on Sweden where the (aggregate) turnout gap between local and national elections has been about 2–3%. Rich administrative register data reveal that people from higher socio-economic backgrounds, immigrants, women, older individuals, and people who have been less geographically mobile are less likely to selectively abstain.     

Affective polarization and the salience of elections

In this article we analyze the effects of election salience on affective polarization. Campaigns and elections epitomize the moment of maximum political conflict, information spread, mobilization, and activation of political identities and predispositions. We therefore expect that affective polarization will be higher just after an election has taken place. By the same token, as elections lose salience, affective polarization will diminish. We analyze this question using CSES data from 99 post-electoral surveys conducted in 42 countries between 1996 and 2016. Our identification strategy exploits variation in the timing of survey interviews with respect to the election day as an exogenous measure of election salience. The empirical findings indicate that as elections lose salience affective polarization declines. The article further contributes to the debate on the origins of affective polarization by exploring two mechanisms that may account for this relationship: changes in ideological polarization and in the intensity of party identification. Both are relevant mediators, with ideological polarization seemingly playing a more important role.