How Much Responsiveness is Too Much or Too Little?

This article analyses the main principles underlying public service responsiveness, illustrating them with examples drawn largely from recent experience in the Australian Commonwealth government. The final section attempts to identify some general international trends which are placing new strains on the relationships between politicians and public servants.     

The 2019 General Election in Northern Ireland: the Rise of the Centre Ground?

The experience of the 2019 general election in Northern Ireland took a very different course to that of the rest of the UK and, indeed, to the pattern of electoral politics typical of the region. Coming after almost three years with no functioning devolved government, combined with intense disagreement and uncertainty about Brexit, voters were ready to give a message to the two largest parties. Both Sinn Féin and the DUP suffered losses in the election, with the headline outcome being that unionism no longer holds the majority of seats for Northern Ireland in Westminster. More generally, there was a swing from both sides towards centre ground voting, which brought significant gains for the Alliance Party and the SDLP. This article summarises the reasons for this broad trend, focussing on the conditions and electoral pacts which brought it about. It also considers what it might mean for the prospects for Irish unification, noting that a referendum on unification will only be passed by attracting votes from those who tend to see themselves as neither unionist or nationalist.     

Prophesying War: How Convincing is The Power Elite?

Society - No sociological study of the exercise of American power has matched the provocative influence of The Power Elite (1956), which was published when radical criticism of foreign policy was...     

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission: What Role in the Administration of Elections?

What role in the administration of elections will the new U.S.Election Assistance Commission (EAC) play, and how does thatrole differ from past federal involvement? The answers are uncertainbecause delays in appointing the commission members and insufficientfunding severely handicapped early activities. This articleexamines the factors that influence the EAC's emerging role:the commission's background, structure, tasks and tools, start-upactivities, and recent issues. Because the principal impactof the EAC is indirect, affecting election administration throughthe states, we draw on the "tools of government" literatureto frame the discussion. Although the Help America Vote Actof 2002, which created the EAC, continues a long line of federalregulatory mandates in the elections arena, the EAC has almostno regulatory authority. Its principal tools are grants andinformation—instruments of cooperative, rather than coercive,federalism. Given that the major grant programs are ending,the EAC's long-term contribution will likely be to create anddisseminate information.     

Financial Centre and Monetary Outsider: How Precarious is the UK's Position in the EU?

The UK's negotiating position in the area of ‘economic governance’ started from the assumption that there is a deep dividing line between insiders and outsiders of the ‘euro zone’. To protect the outsiders, the UK government did not ask for a veto, but for a safeguard mechanism that can postpone a decision in the euro area. This is exactly what David Cameron achieved in the negotiations with Council President Tusk. This article explains why the UK demands were so modest. Key is the peculiar situation of the UK being the major financial centre for a currency union to which it does not belong. Hence, the UK taxpayer needs protection from the City, and EU membership has helped to provide this. There is not much else a UK government could ask for.     

Sophisticated and myopic? Citizen preferences for Electoral College reform

Different institutions can produce more (or less) preferred outcomes, in terms of citizens’ preferences. Consequently, citizen preferences over institutions may “inherit”—to use William Riker’s term—the features of preferences over outcomes. But the level of information and understanding required for this effect to be observable seems quite high. In this paper, we investigate whether Riker’s intuition about citizens acting on institutional preferences is borne out by an original empirical dataset collected for this purpose. These data, a survey commissioned specifically for this project, were collected as part of a larger nationally representative sample conducted right before the 2004 election. The results show that support for a reform to split a state’s Electoral College votes proportionally is explained by (1) which candidate one supports, (2) which candidate one thinks is likely to win the election under the existing system of apportionment, (3) preferences for abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote winner, and (4) statistical interactions between these variables. In baldly political terms, Kerry voters tend to support splitting their state’s Electoral College votes if they felt George W. Bush was likely to win in that state. But Kerry voters who expect Kerry to win their state favor winner-take-all Electoral College rules for their state. In both cases, mutatis mutandis, the reverse is true for Bush voters.     

Squeezed Out? The Liberal Democrats and the 2019 General Election

The 2019 general election was a crushing disappointment for the Liberal Democrats, as Jo Swinson lost her East Dunbartonshire seat to the SNP and the party’s anti-Brexit stance failed to deliver gains from the Conservatives. Although the Liberal Democrats’ poor performance can partly be blamed on a misfiring campaign strategy, it also reflected the structural difficulties which the party faces in an increasingly polarised political environment. The polarisation of public opinion along multiple axes over the last decade—over austerity, Brexit, and attitudes to Jeremy Corbyn—has fractured the broad coalition of support which the Liberal Democrats assembled during the 1990s and 2000s. Analysis of the 2019 results suggest that the party has made some progress towards developing a new core vote, particularly among suburban Remainers in south east England, but it is not clear whether this will be large or robust enough to have a significant impact on the future of British politics.     

How Bad is Bad?: Dispositional Negativity in Political Judgment

Political Behavior - When citizens approach political decision-making tasks, they carry with them differing values and preferences, yielding heterogeneity in their assessments. This study explores...     

What Small Spatial Scales Are Relevant as Electoral Contexts for Individual Voters? The Importance of the Household on Turnout at the 2001 General Election

For many years, scholars of voting behavior have been thwarted in their attempts to identify micro spatial variations in turnout by data limitations. This has meant that most analyses have been ecological, which has implications for valid inference. Here, for the first time, a hierarchical approach is used to show the relative importance of several micro spatial scales, including the household, on voter participation. The findings highlight the importance of the household context. While those who live together often turn out together, the relative level of clustering within households as opposed to between geographical areas is found to be more important for two-person households compared to other households. Even after taking account of whether individuals are likely to self-select others from similar social backgrounds or with similar political attitudes, there is strong evidence of large and significant household effects on voter participation.     

How Serious is the Global Warming Threat?

Despite the media’s and politicians’ insistence that the science of global warming is “settled”, there are good reasons to distrust climate model projections of future global warming. While the supposed scientific consensus is that mankind is very likely to blame for recent global warmth, this is mostly a statement of faith made from a position of relative ignorance about natural variability in the climate system. Since we do not understand what causes decadal- to century-scale natural climate variability, it has simply been assumed to either not exist, or to be relatively small. But even if predictions of catastrophic warming are accurate, the worldwide demand for energy is so large that there is little mankind can do without radically new energy technologies. Since it is only the wealthy countries of the world that can afford the R&D efforts to develop those technologies, punishing the use of fossil fuels, and the resulting negative impact on economies, might well delay the development of cost effective carbon-free energy sources that so many people are now calling for.

How do Voters' Strategic Behaviors Mediate the Impact of Electoral Systems on the Effective Number of Electoral Parties? An Experimental Study

This article presents the results of an experiment that looks at the relationship between electoral systems, strategic voting and the effective number of electoral parties. The study is based on experiments conducted with groups of 21 participants. The experiments consisted of a series of elections involving four parties. Two main treatments were applied. First, four different voter distributions were created. Second, there were two kinds of electoral systems under which the subjects voted. The analysis indicates that voters do not coordinate on the same parties under different electoral rules. Importantly, we find that the classic type of strategic voting identified by Duverger (1954 Duverger, Maurice (1954) Political Parties (New York: Wiley). [Google Scholar]) is reinforced by a different type of strategic voting identified by Cox (1997 Cox, Gary W. (1997) Making Votes Count – Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), namely “strategic amplifying voting”. The results show that classic strategic voting reduces the effective number of electoral parties while strategic amplifying voting increases the latter. Overall, we show that voters' strategic behaviors mediate the impact of the electoral system on the effective number of electoral parties.     

Accountability or Representation? How Electoral Systems Promote Public Trust in African Legislatures

Elections serve as instruments of democracy, but they do so differently in various parts of the world. This article focuses on the democratizing role of elections in 16 sub‐Saharan African countries represented in Afrobarometer survey data. It traces confidence in legislative institutions to whether a citizen perceives competitive elections to produce accountability and/or representation. The analysis shows that elections function differently depending on the nature of legislative institutions. Majoritarian electoral systems promote a sense of citizen control over policymakers (i.e., accountability) whereas proportional representation (PR) systems increase the perception of inclusion across a society's factions (i.e., representation). Because sub‐Saharan African citizens typically prioritize representation rather than accountability when evaluating their legislative institutions, controlling for other influences, PR systems are much better at boosting public trust in the region. These findings have important implications for democratic development in Africa.     

Identities of Competitive States in U.S. Presidential Elections: Electoral College Bias or Candidate-Centered Politics?

When discussing the biases of the U.S. Electoral College, researchersconclude that competitive states seem to occur randomly withoutany explanation. This study examines the consistency with whichthe same states have been competitive in presidential electionsfrom 1824 to 2000. It also identifies "spectator" states. Spectatorstates are those that have not been competitive for ten presidentialelections in a row. A statistical analysis illustrates thatthe identities of competitive states have become more unpredictable.In addition, few states have been spectators for long periods.In terms of representation, the facts that competitive statesare not consistent and that there are few spectators mean differentstates are in the presidential spotlight at different times.As opposed to any biases associated with the Electoral College,the changes in consistency coincide with the rise of candidate-centeredpolitics and decreasing voter loyalty to parties. The highlychangeable nature of competitive states strengthens the federalismargument for continuation of the Electoral College.     

How Vigilant is the Vibrant Civil Society in Bangladesh? A Survey-based Analysis

Although international development organizations and donor countries regard civil society organizations (CSOs) as the best instrument for institutionalizing democracy in third world countries, few of these organizations have successfully influenced government policies or played a role in consolidating democracy. Based on survey data and empirical observations, this article will argue that civil society in Bangladesh may be noteworthy for its contributions to development and social welfare but that it can hardly contribute to democracy. CSOs participate in vibrant grassroots social services. However, they lack the necessary participatory attributes for proper interest articulation and monitoring of the state, resulting in a less vigilant civil society. The article links civil society's non-vigilant nature to co-optation and politicization by political forces.     

Intelligence in war: how important is it? How do we know?

The role of intelligence in determining outcomes of battles and wars has varied dramatically across conflicts and time, contributing to wide differences in judgments about the importance of intelligence in war. Some analysts minimize the importance of intelligence while others argue it is essential. Opposing perspectives often do not engage each other’s points and generalize from small samples of conflicts. The result is a disjointed discussion of the roles and importance of intelligence in armed conflicts. This article’s aim is to partially rectify this situation by deriving an analytic framework that links intelligence to military operations and strategic outcomes.