Residential Mobility, Community Mobility, and Electoral Participation

This article investigates why Americans who move have lower voter turnout than those who stay put. Two hypotheses are drawn from the political science literature. One emphasizes the need to register at one's new address in order to vote. The other locates the cause of lower turnout in the disruption of social connections that results from moving. By distinguishing those who change residences within their communities from those who move outside of their communities, I test the hypotheses. The findings show that both types of moves affect turnout. However, changing residences appears to be more important than changing communitites. Thus it appears that the explanation for the relationship between moving and turnout derives more from the need to register after moving than the disruption of social ties.     

Electoral Trends in Denmark in the 1980's

The article examines the 1984 election in a longer time perspective. As compared to the turbulent 1970's it appears that the class polarization in voting between the 'old' classes has been reestablished but that the new social cleavages in party choice are at the same time reinforced. It furthermore turns out that the consensus on the welfare state which was lost in the 1970's is now reestablished, that radical socialist sentiments are weakening, and that the political distrust of the 1970's is declining. In shon, the elections of the 1980's signal a definitive break with the political climate of the 1970's. Opinion polls furthemore indicate that Denmark is heading towards a reestablishing of the 5-party system before 1973, but with differences in relative strength between the parties, and with a different, but still group-specific. social base.     

Social Identity and Electoral Accountability

In a laboratory experiment, we explore the effects of group identities on the principal‐agent relationship between voters and representatives. In an adverse selection framework with observable effort, voters can choose to condition their reelection choices on representatives' effort alone, beliefs about representatives' competence, or both of those jointly. We show that inducing social identities increases the weight of representatives' effort in voters' reelection decisions. Further, when voters and representatives share a social identity, representatives tend to invest less effort and their effort is independent of their competence. In contrast, “out‐group” representatives compensate for lower competence with higher effort and reduce effort when voters are likely to perceive them as competent. Voters often adopt laxer retention standards for representatives who are fellow group members and are responsive to evidence of other‐regardingness from out‐group representatives, but some voters actively resist treating representatives with shared identity more favorably and “overcorrect” as a consequence.     

Immigration and Electoral Change in Mainstream Political Space

Research on radical right politics shows that the immigration issue can reshape electoral alignments and patterns of political competition in favor of anti-immigrant parties. However, we know surprisingly little about the capacity of the immigration issue to generate electoral change in systems where radical parties are absent. On the basis of issue ownership theory, we show with longitudinal data that concerns over immigration strengthen the identification with the centre-right party owning the immigration issue, especially when primed by the media. Our results, obtained using the German Socioeconomic Panel and media content analysis, confirm strong priming effects among previous non-identifiers and among supporters of the issue owner, and weaker effects among former mainstream left-wing leaners. The findings suggest that the immigration issue is a relevant trigger of electoral change in mainstream political space, but is less likely to generate transfers of party loyalty. Our analyses refine the test of priming effects as a mechanism for issue ownership theory.     

Electoral Registration: Time for Change

Electoral registration is the key building block for the administration of elections. It is the gateway to voting: people cannot vote at elections in the UK if their name is not on the register. In recent times there has been much debate in media and Westminster circles about current arrangements for electoral registration and the related issue of the future of postal voting.
This article presents new research published by the Electoral Commission in September 2005 investigating non-registration and its causes. It reviews the case for reform, considers the current policy debate and outlines some of the challenges involved in maximising registration rates. It summarises the Commission's policy recommendations and the reasoning behind them, focusing in particular on the suggested move from the current household-based system of registration to a system of individual registration     

Electoral Reform and Party System Change: An Analysis of Nordic Elections with Two Different Electoral Systems

Electoral system reforms are frequently discussed in various parts of the world, although major electoral system changes have been quite rare in established democracies. This article aims at predicting how the party systems in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden would change if elections were conducted under a plurality system or a mixed‐member majoritarian system. To this end, results of the last parliamentary elections are recalculated. The analyses show that the Nordic party systems would be subjected to drastic change. In Denmark, plurality elections would create a two‐party system; in Finland, Norway and Sweden, one party would be much larger than the others. Keskusta and Arbeiderpartiet would be superior to the other parties in Finland and Norway, respectively, whereas Socialdemokratiska Arbetarepartiet would almost take complete control over the Swedish legislature. In practice, smaller parties would have to team up with larger ideologically similar parties. Under a mixed electoral system, several small and medium‐sized parties would survive, but in most countries, the main competition would take place between two basic political alternatives. Smaller parties are well‐advised to go against electoral system reforms that involve single‐member districts.     

Social Citizenship in China: Continuity and Change

A fundamental feature of Chinese social citizenship is the demarcation between the rural population and the urban population. Entitlement to income security and welfare provision has been exclusively a right of city dwellers. However, as economic reform progresses, the socialist welfare system has become unable to provide adequate protection. Welfare reform intends to widen the social security net, yet it has inadvertently exacerbated social inequality. In the meantime, the inferior social position of the peasantry has worsened as an effect of continued state bias, heightened tax and fee burdens, and the expropriation of farmland for development. In light of the intrusion on their rights and interests, more and more Chinese citizens have taken to protesting to voice their discontent.     

Electoral terms and terrorism

Many terror attacks occur at the beginning of electoral terms. We present a game theoretical model with incomplete information to account for this empirical pattern. Both terrorists and governments can be of weak or strong types. We find that the risk of terror attacks is highest at the beginning of electoral terms, because striking early allows the terrorists to collect valuable information about the government’s type, and also because terrorists know that even initially weak governments sometimes retaliate to show toughness closer to an upcoming election. The model’s predictions are consistent with anecdotal evidence.     

中国社会转型下的心理福利与社会支持

中国以经济体制改革为先导的社会转型,对社会生活的各方面都产生深刻影响。医疗服务私有化与价格上涨、社会快速流动与分化,可能严重影响民众心理福利。但鲜有研究考察社会转型的心理福利后果及社会支持的调节作用。本文利用2005年中国综合社会调查数据(CGSS2005),检验了医疗支出负担、社会地位及其比较、社会支持同城乡居民心理福利的关系,并在中国性别结构失衡问题日渐暴露的背景下,关注了婚姻作为重要的社会支持机制在其中的角色。结果表明,相对剥夺感对心理福利存在普遍影响,市场化转型更可能损害社会弱势群体的心理福利。在中国转型社会,社会支持对心理福利存在保护功能,且可以缓冲医疗支出负担加大和相对被剥夺地位对农村居民心理福利的负面影响;婚姻的功能角色呈现多元化,既加大了医疗支出负担的负面影响,也强化了其他社会支持的保护作用。研究发现对理解和改善社会转型的心理福利后果,提供了重要的指引和借鉴。     

The Electoral Relevance of Political Talk: Examining Disagreement and Expertise Effects in Social Networks on Political Participation

Although people with larger, more politicized social networks are more likely to participate in elections, we know very little about what drives this relationship. I argue that the electoral relevance of political talk depends heavily on the political expertise imbedded in discussion networks. Using data gathered during the 1996 presidential election, I demonstrate that the level of political sophistication in a person's social network exerts a positive influence on participation. Importantly, this effect is greater than the impact of political preferences in the network, the factor that is implicitly considered to be the main link between networks and involvement. This evidence makes two contributions to research on networks and participation. First, it provides support for a theoretical model that better accounts for research on the relationship between political talk, political disagreement, and involvement. Second, it changes the normative implications associated with political talk by suggesting that networks can encourage both higher levels of involvement and increased consideration of differing viewpoints.     

Ideological Congruence and Electoral Institutions

Although the literature examining the relationship between ideological congruence and electoral rules is quite large, relatively little attention has been paid to how congruence should be conceptualized. As we demonstrate, empirical results regarding ideological congruence can depend on exactly how scholars conceptualize and measure it. In addition to clarifying various aspects of how scholars currently conceptualize congruence, we introduce a new conceptualization and measure of congruence that captures a long tradition in democratic theory emphasizing the ideal of having a legislature that accurately reflects the preferences of the citizenry as a whole. Our new measure is the direct counterpart for congruence of the vote-seat disproportionality measures so heavily used in comparative studies of representation. Using particularly appropriate data from the  Comparative Study of Electoral Systems,  we find that governments in proportional democracies are not substantively more congruent than those in majoritarian democracies. Proportional democracies are, however, characterized by more representative legislatures.     

Government Responsibility and Electoral Accountability in Federations

Because federalism can be a threat to accountability, a modelof voting behavior in federations must accommodate voters' attributionsof responsibility to each order of government for policy outcomes.This study uses a panel survey of Canadians in both federaland provincial elections to ask whether voters are able to holdgovernments accountable in a federal context. Voters may ignoreissues where responsibility is unclear, they may reward or punishboth the federal and provincial governments to the same degree,or the confusion of jurisdiction may sour them on the governmentor even the political system. Canadians who blamed both governmentsfor problems in health care did not lake this judgment to theirvoting decision in either the 2000 federal election or the 2001elections in Alberta and British Columbia, while those who couldidentify primary responsibility did so. Federalism and intergovernmentalpolicymaking may reduce voters' ability to hold their governmentsaccountable.     

Electoral Competitiveness and Issue Voting

This article suggests that voters rely more strongly on “substantial” criteria, such as issues and ideology, when elections are competitive. In such contexts, voters should attach more importance to their own choice and rely less on “heuristics.” Three aspects of election competitiveness are considered: the fragmentation and polarization of the party system and the proportionality of the electoral system. Elections are more competitive when there are many parties in competition, when they differ strongly from one another in ideological terms, and when the threshold of representation is lower. These hypotheses are tested with data from the 2007 Swiss federal elections. The electoral districts differ markedly from one another as far as electoral competitiveness is concerned while being similar in many other respects. The results show that competitiveness strengthens issue voting and reduces the impact of party identification.