Will I like it the first time?

Abstract. The initial speeches of MPs entering the British House of Commons from 1966 to 1970 were analyzed to ascertain the extent to which they complied with the prevailing myth of behaviour appropriate for maiden speeches. Rituals of style - hesitancy, brevity, and humility -were challenged more sharply than were those of substance - references to one's predecessor and one's constituency and being non-contentious. Despite widespread violation of the various norms, few new MPs defied the folkways across the board. Although a new breed of MP - young, well-educated, and professionally oriented - was entering the Commons at this time, such MPs did not prove to be the principal source of challenges to the folkways. Iconoclastic MPs tended to have less durable careers than did those MPs more acceptant of tradition. But neither Labour nor Conservatives penalized deviants by denying them positions in the Government. In the absence of sanctions, new Members complied with the myth only when the code of acceptable behaviour appeared to help the Commons function effectively and when new Members were not being singled out for discriminatory treatment.     

Human Rights Discourse in Domestic Settings: How Does it Emerge?

Building on the literature that analyzes the impact of norms and ideas on international and domestic politics, it is our assumption that the widespread introduction and dissemination of a human rights discourse enables oppressed groups to translate events into rights language and to appeal to courts, politicians and media in order to seek remedies for their grievances. In so far as human rights discourse actually helps introduce more ethical policies and legislation, it is crucial to understand how this discourse, which in the past 55 years evolved and proliferated on the global level, emerges and develops in domestic settings. Using Israel as a case study, and more specifically analyzing the Israeli press, we further develop some of the existing theoretical claims about how the global and local interact. We argue that in order to understand how the rights discourse is imported into the domestic arena and how it expands once it enters the local scene, it is crucial to employ a broader conception of the global and a more differentiated view of the local. We emphasize the significance of local events and practices in determining the impact of the global on national settings, suggesting that one cannot understand transnational flows without unveiling the black box of the domestic arena.     

If I'll win it,I want it: The role of instrumental considerations in explaining public support for referendums

Across established democracies, citizens express high levels of support for decision making via referendums. What drives these preferences remains yet unclear. In this article it is argued that, first, process preferences are less stable than previously assumed but vary substantially across policy proposals. Second, it is suggested that instrumental considerations play an important role in shaping citizens’ preferences for referendums. Specifically, citizens who favour the policy proposal or believe that they hold a majority opinion are expected to express more support for the use of referendums. An original survey was designed and conducted in the Netherlands (N = 1,289) that contains both between and within respondent variation across a range of policy proposals. The findings support these arguments: Both the desire for a specific policy change and the perception of being in the majority with one's policy preference relate to support for the use of referendums across policy proposals, levels of governance, and between and within respondents. This study contributes to a better understanding of process preferences by showing that these preferences have a non-stable component and that instrumental considerations play an important role in citizens’ support for referendums.     

Tony Crosland as I Knew Him

Anthony Crosland is the outstanding revisionist in the history of the British Labour party and is often said to have been its most influential thinker since the Second World War. His unusual personality is evaluated in relation not only to his political ideas but also to his personal career.     

The 1984 election as Anthony downs and Stanley Kelley might interpret it

This paper is an analysis of two rational choice theories of elections. Anthony Downs and Stanley Kelley's theories yield complementary interpretations of the 1984 U. S. election. Reagan's victory was based on both prospective and retrospective judgments as well as on candidate and policy considerations. Reagan won that element of an incumbent's reelection that is a referendum on his performance as president. However, people also voted on the basis of domestic and foreign policy preferences for the second term. On these issues voters preferred Mondale as much as Reagan. Reagan's victory owed remarkably little to his conservative agenda and to a warm regard for his personal qualities as a leader. His landslide was deceptive. The two Reagan victories were among the weakest of the six landslides of the postwar period by Kelley's test of decisiveness. The Reagan elections have not set the United States on the course of a long-term conservative agenda in either domestic or foreign affairs.     

Is it a Pearl or a Kidney Stone? Intelligence Reform and Embassy Reporting,from Moscow to Baghdad

A July 1990 cable from the US Embassy in Moscow that anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union is a case study for an analysis in this article that seeks to make three points: 1) major failures in intelligence analysis are more likely to result when all elements of the intelligence community speak with one voice than when they disagree; 2) embassy reporting can play an essential role independent of that of the intelligence community in shaping Washington thinking about international events, but a variety of developments have made this increasingly difficult; 3) probability analysis plays too great a role in intelligence products and risk management too little.     

Civilization as a political disposition

Abstract

This paper outlines a number of changes in social and political thought following the momentous events of 1989: the rise of postmodernism, identitarian politics and the transformation of notions of race into culture. It indicates origins for this drift in ideas to be found in the heritage of anti-Enlightenment polemics associated with political romanticism, in Europe as well as globally, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It then concentrates on the theme of civilization, and of the use of this term in international relations.     

If I recall correctly. An event history analysis of forgetting and recollecting past voting behavior

The mechanisms behind vote recall inaccuracy are not well understood. The literature has been unable to separate inaccuracy due to the nature of the voter (such as non-attitudes) from inaccuracy due to interfering events after casting the vote (such as a change in vote intention). This paper employs event history analysis to disentangle time-invariant and time-variant explanations of recall inaccuracy. Using Dutch panel data on 20,936 respondents in 42 waves between 2010 and 2012 (and additional data collected between 2006 and 2010), we explain the likelihood of misreporting the 2010 vote during the subsequent electoral cycle. The analyses show that although both explanations play a role, voters’ general level of volatility before casting the recalled vote matters less than changes in vote intention after the vote. We conclude that accurate recall is affected mainly by events rather than the nature of voters. Our findings imply that survey measures of voting behavior could be improved by offering cues on the elections of interest.     

Not a Curse at All: Why Middle Eastern Oil States Fail and How it can be Prevented

Western scholarship has often noted that oil states in the Middle East are affected by the ‘resource curse’. Thus, such states are to eventually fail due to their plundering of resources and their neglect of the social contract with their citizens. However, this is not the case, as oil states are neither failed states, nor fully democratic. They hover in a middle ground in which they assure security through coercion, but lack representation and legitimacy. Due to the events of the Arab Spring, a pragmatic, insightful and comprehensive review of oil states in the region is necessary. Although oil states in the region thus far have remained stable, change can be expected in the future. How will oil states deal with the pressures of a more demanding society and an ever-challenging economic atmosphere? Furthermore, what can history teach us so that state failure can be averted?     

I Knew it All Along! Evaluating Time-of-Decision Measures in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign

This paper evaluates the two most common methods of measuring voter time-of-decision??the recall method and the panel method??and asks whether the two methods are consistent with each other. Using data from the National Annenberg Election Survey collected during the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the findings suggest that these two methods measure different concepts, and thus cannot be used interchangeably. Furthermore, discrepancies between the two methods suggest that the accepted model of early, campaign, and late decision-making should be adjusted to account for a fourth group of voters that never changes their vote intention, but does not truly commit to that intention until later in the campaign. The concept of uncommitted early deciders is offered to describe this group, created by combining the two methods.     

Terrorism as theater: Analysis and policy implications

In some regards the production of terrorism resembles the production of culture, especially television and theater. Terrorism is a spectacle produced for viewers, many of whom live apart from the violent staged events. Spectacular theater and the telling of memorable stories are inputs for fundraising and motivating subsequent terrorists. This understanding of terrorist motivation has concrete policy implications.     

I don't Agree with Nick: Retrodicting the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition

Insider and journalistic accounts of the formation in May 2010 of the Conservative‐Liberal Democrat coalition actually, although not explicitly, rely on types of explanation familiar to those who study politics. They tell us that structure (or at least the economy) was important. So too, they suggest, were institutions (timing and the rules of the game). They also stress the importance of contingency (‘events, dear boy, events’) and agency (who did and said what to whom). While none of these things were unimportant, they only served to make certain an outcome that anyone with a passing acquaintance with the theory and the practice of coalition formation would have predicted—namely a ‘minimum winning coalition’. The only thing that could have made that outcome uncertain was a fundamental ideological difference between the two parties involved; however, it quickly became apparent—to the surprise of those of us who failed to appreciate how much the Liberal Democrats had changed—that no such difference existed. Indeed, it is possible to argue that the coalition formed was not merely minimum winning but ‘minimum connected winning’. As such, its formation was not so much breathtakingly bold and exciting as pretty much inevitable. In the end, the maths and the physics mattered more than the chemistry. Fortunately for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats seriously underplayed their hand in the negotiations, with possibly disastrous consequences for them in the long term.     

Social science mandarins: Policymaking as a political formula

This article strongly suggests that the customary sequence of events starting with science and terminating with policy-making lacks empirical confirmation; that in fact, the actual sequence of events is primarily determined by policy stances and terminates with some form of scientific investigation, geared however to legitimation rather than explanation. Four empirical case studies are examined: Brown v. Board of Education; Project Clear; Project Camelot; and the Moynihan Report. In each case it is evident that the causal model most appropriate is one that recognizes the legitimation role of social science as dominant. The article concludes with an examination of key factors in the present structure of government and science that makes the teleological model central; it also points out that such a model is neither better nor worse than the customary ways of viewing the relationships; only different in implication and explication.     

Ethnic mythology: If scholars define a myth as real,it can have real consequences

Black ethnicity is not unique. Like other forms, it is deeply rooted in an elaborate mythology that gives blacks a ready-made legend of their origin, a set of praiseworthy heroes, and a source of cultural invigoration. What is most intriguing about it is its widespread acceptance by social scientists and lay persons alike, both within and beyond the black community. Stephen Steinberg maintains that ethnicity is a useful myth for explaining differences between groups without having to take serious account of structural factors. His hypothesis is anathema to writers who use ethnicity as a measure of cultural adroitness and who see personality, family, and community development as outgrowths of it. Over the years this myth has led to invidious comparisons between blacks and whites, and between native and foreign-born blacks. Although it is an important issue my purpose is not to discuss the data inadequacies that surround this issue but rather the role of the so-called “Matthew Effect” (or the partial citation phenomenon) in explaining the origin of this myth and the reason scholars continue to embrace it.     

My Career as a Teacher and a Political Scientist: If I Knew Then What I Know Now

This article addresses my professional development as a teacher and political scientist throughout the span of a 15-year career in political science. Also included are reflections on graduate education and the compatibility and necessary dual focus on both political science and teaching in the academy today as it relates to my present-day professional position.     

Party policy diffusion in the European multilevel space: what it is,how it works,and why it matters

ABSTRACT

Almost since the end of World War II, transnational cooperation among political parties has been a common feature of European politics. This paper makes the case for studying transnational partisan cooperation in the European multilevel space, focusing in particular on the phenomenon of “party policy diffusion.” At the heart of the paper is a conceptual discussion of party policy diffusion in the EU. Specifically, we look at the (1) aims that lead parties to learn from or emulate parties in other countries; (2) the mechanisms through which this may work; and (3) the wider implications of this practice both for domestic and European politics. Drawing on this conceptual discussion, the paper then goes on to offer leads as to how the phenomenon of party policy diffusion can be studied in the European multilevel space. To this end, we briefly point to possible ways of testing hypotheses about party policy diffusion using spatially explicit modeling strategies such as spatial regression models and exponential random graph models for transnational party networks.