ETHNICITY AND VOTING PATTERNS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract There is some controversy concerning the role of ethnicity in South African electoral behavior. Since the society is segmented on ethnic lines it is to be expected that ethnicity would play a crucial role in affecting political choices. Some writers have gone so far as to suggest that ethnicity is the only significant factor affecting voting preferences. The controversy arose at a time when Goodman's method of log-linear analysis for hierarchical models had not yet been developed. This method provides the most powerful tool available for the multi-variate analysis of categorical data. A re-analysis of previously published research using Goodman's method shows that ethnicity is not the only significant factor having a bearing on voting preferences. The first four-way table of voting preferences in South Africa is presented. The order of importance of the variables affecting party choice is: (1) ethnicity (2) socio-economic status (3) age of the voter. The recursive model suggested by the analysis explains approximately 98 per cent of the data.     

Religion,language, race and ethnic voting

Why do some ethnic groups vote along ethnic lines while others do not? This article looks at whether the objective characteristics of ethnicity – in terms of language, religion and race – affect ethnic voting. I address three sets of questions: (1) are ethnic groups that are objectively different from other groups of their country more likely to vote ethnically? (2) is ethnic voting higher among groups that are linguistically, religiously and racially homogeneous? (3) do some ethnic markers, such as language, induce more ethnic voting than others? Using a dataset covering 142 ethnic groups and 49 democracies worldwide, I find that within-group similarity increases ethnic voting. On balance, however, there is little evidence that between-group difference or the identity of the ethnic dimension affect ethnic voting. These results suggest that a group's internal characteristics and the cohesiveness of its members play a key role in explaining its voting behavior.     

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.     

Time series evidence on shirking in the U.S. House of Representatives

This paper presents time series evidence on the voting behavior of members of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1975 to 1990. The empirical results indicate that voting behavior of individual congressmen is remarkably stable over time. We find no evidence of economically significant last term effects on voting behavior, nor are there important effects of legislative tenure on voting patterns. The most significant deviations in voting behavior occur for congressmen who failed to win their reelection bid, suggesting that sizable deviations from previous policy positions may result in swift retribution by constituents in the district.     

Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout

Individuals who vote in one election are more likely to vote in the next. Yet modelling the causal relationship between past and current voting decisions is intrinsically difficult, as this positive association can exist due to habit formation or unobserved heterogeneity. This article overcomes this problem using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine voter turnout across three elections. It distinguishes between unobserved heterogeneity caused by fixed individual characteristics and the initial conditions problem, which occurs when voting behavior in a previous, but unobserved, period influences current voting behavior. It finds that, controlling for fixed effects, unobserved heterogeneity has little impact on the estimated degree of habit in voter turnout; however, failing to control for initial conditions reduces the estimate by a half. The results imply that voting in one election increases the probability of voting in a subsequent election by 13%.     

Clinching the ‘Return to Europe’: The Referendums on EU Accession in Estonia and Latvia

There are two salient features of the referendums on EU membership in Estonia and Latvia. Firstly, the results with decisive pro-EU majorities went easily beyond expectations based on previous opinion poll trends, where these two Baltic states had shown less public enthusiasm for integration than other Central and East European countries. This fact owed much to convincing arguments about abandoning international isolation and about geopolitical choice, with strong historical overtones. The anti-accession cause in both countries suffered from various weaknesses even though, in Estonia though not in Latvia, Eurosceptical attitudes were in evidence. Secondly, there was much less support for EU entry among the strong Russian minorities in both countries. This difference was partly due to the higher incidence of economic circumstances in determining voting behaviour but also to the fact that pro-EU (hence, pro-West) arguments were implicitly and sometimes explicitly unfriendly to Russia. In turn, this also showed that the Soviet legacy was particular to these Baltic countries compared with other accession states from CEE.     

Racial or Spatial Voting? The Effects of Candidate Ethnicity and Ethnic Group Endorsements in Local Elections

With the growth of Latino and Asian American populations, candidates frequently must appeal to diverse electorates. Strategies for doing so include emphasizing candidates’ racial/ethnic identity and securing endorsements from racial/ethnic groups. While many scholars focus on candidates’ racial/ethnic attributes, ethnic group endorsements are understudied. Whether such endorsements induce voters to choose ideologically similar candidates (spatial voting), or choose based on race/ethnicity (racial voting) is unclear. We address this question by examining elections in multiethnic local settings. Using original surveys and exit polls, we create comparable measures of candidate and voter ideology, and examine how race/ethnicity and ideology affect voters’ choices. We also embed experiments that manipulate ethnic group endorsements. We find that ideology influences voters’ choices, but that ethnic group endorsements weaken spatial voting. The latter effect among whites is driven by racial/ethnic stereotypes. These reactions explain why some candidates seek such endorsements and why others might prefer to avoid them.     

Party brands and voting

Some scholars argue that Western societies have seen a decreasing impact of voting behavior based on cleavages and party identifications. Equally, issue ownership voting is seemingly not increasing its relevance by filling this gap. From this departure we seek out an alternative variable by posing the question: Do party brands influence voting behavior? Currently, we do not know because the two research fields of voting behavior and party brands are currently not explicitly linked. Traditionally, the study of voting behavior has gained powerful insights from concepts such as cleavage structure, party identification and issue ownership. On the other hand, the study of political brands has illuminated how people employ brands in their identity construction and how voters use party brands to differentiate between political parties. In this light, the article first distinguishes the brand concept from related heuristics and voting models. Next, the article measures the brand value of Danish parties by utilizing a representative association analysis. Finally, this measure is used to conduct the very first empirical analysis of a party brand's effect on voting behavior. Overall, the primary finding demonstrates that political brand value (PBV) has an effect on voting behavior—also when a number of other relevant explanatory variables are held constant.     

Left Behind: Boris E. Skvirsky and the Chita Delegation at the Washington Conference, 1921–22

Although the story of the role of the Special Trade Delegation of the Russian short-lived Far Eastern Republic during the Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament of 1921–22, seems to be well-known from its many Western accounts published since 1922, a recent search in the records of the Russian Communist Party has uncovered many hitherto unknown or obscure details that shed the light on the fascinating intelligence origins of the secret documentation, which the delegation made public during the conference. Particularly, the Russian records indicate the central role of one of the delegates, Boris Skvirsky, who would be left behind in the United States to become the Soviet unofficial representative and back channel during the years of non-recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States.     

Voter turnout and the benefits of voting

A model of voting behavior is developed that predicts that individuals vote if the absolute value of voting for or against a referendum exceeds the cost of voting. The results obtained from examining voting on city-county consolidation referenda and in New York state (1) provide support for the relatively untested prediction that turnout rises as the absolute value of the mean gains resulting from an electoral outcome increase and (2) augment the evidence that turnout rises as the probability of altering an electoral outcome increases and falls as the cost of voting rises.     

Viewpoint: Space and Religion in Russia: Cosmonaut Worship to Orthodox Revival

This article follows the evolution of the relationship between the Russian space program and spirituality from an astrosociological perspective. It demonstrates that the Russian space program has its roots in Nikolai Fedorov's Cosmism, which envisaged the technological resurrection of the dead and space colonization, and in Marxism, which used space exploration as a means of proving atheism. Whereas the conquest of space has been perceived throughout the world in an ambivalent way, either as an act endorsed by Divinity or as a blasphemous feat, the Soviets took pride in reinventing the “Tower of Babel” in order to “make a name for themselves” and dethrone God (Genesis 11:4). Moreover, the technological miracles of spaceflight and the worship of Yuri Gagarin support the view that Soviet Communism was a state religion. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Orthodox Christianity brought its own contribution to the Russian space program. It will be also shown that, even during the Soviet period, appearances contrasted with the feelings of many of the cosmonauts.     

Inefficient households and the mix of government spending

A model is presented in which individuals can vote over government subsidies to a private good and over redistributive taxation. The subsidized good is purchased and shared by couples who act noncooperatively, while possibly being altruistic towards each other. The framework allows a separation of the subsidy policy from redistributive policy. In a majority voting equilibrium the subsidy is used exclusively to correct the individuals' spending pattern. The results suggest that spending on private goods should be an important item in government expenditures when there is strong positive income bias in the political process and/or when household decisions are relatively inefficient.     

The limits of autocracy promotion: The case of Russia in the ‘near abroad’

In recent years, observers have raised concerns about threats to democracy posed by external support for authoritarianism coming from regional powers such as Russia, China and Venezuela. This article assesses the efficacy of autocracy promotion through a close examination of Russian efforts to shape regime outcomes in the former Soviet Union. It finds that while Russian actions have periodically promoted instability and secessionist conflict, there is little evidence that such intervention has made post‐Soviet countries less democratic than they would have been otherwise. First, the Russian government has been inconsistent in its support for autocracy – supporting opposition and greater pluralism in countries where anti‐Russian governments are in power, and incumbent autocrats in cases where pro‐Russian politicians dominate. At the same time, the Russian government's narrow concentration on its own economic and geopolitical interests has significantly limited the country's influence, fostering a strong counter‐reaction in countries with strong anti‐Russian national identities. Finally, Russia's impact on democracy in the region has been restricted by the fact that post‐Soviet countries already have weak democratic prerequisites. This analysis suggests that, despite increasingly aggressive foreign policies by autocratic regional powers, autocracy promotion does not present a particularly serious threat to democracy in the world today.     

Do human rights offenders oppose human rights resolutions in the United Nations?

We investigate whether countries with poor human rights records oppose human rights resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly. An instrumental account of voting would suggest that these countries aim to weaken resolutions since they could be future targets of these policies. We estimate determinants of voting using 13,000 individual voting decisions from 1980 to 2002. Our results from ordered probit estimation show that a country??s human rights situation is irrelevant to voting behavior if regional dependence of voting is controlled for. The results also show that simple rules for aggregating voting choices can lead to misleading results.     

On expressive voting: Evidence from the 1988 U.S. presidential election

People turn out to cast their votes simply because they want to ``cheer'' or ``boo'' their favored or unfavored candidates. This expressive voting behavior is in marked contrast to the instrumental voting behavior, i.e., people vote because they perceive voting as a means of achieving a particular election outcome. In this paper we report an econometric study on voting behavior that uses data from the 1988 American National Election Study. The results reveal that the ``cheering'' and ``booing'' effects are statistically significant, and that they exert substantial influence on bothturnout and voter choice. We also obtain evidence against theproposition that people turn out to vote because they considerthemselves to be potentially decisive with regard to the electionoutcome.     

An economic analysis of the voting on Michigan's tax and expenditure limitation amendment

This paper investigates electorate behavior on Proposal C, a proposed amendment to the Michigan constitution, whose passage would have limited taxes and expenditures in the State of Michigan. Voting behavior was analyzed within the framework of the basic hypotheses: that the electorate tended to vote on Proposal C in its economic interests, narrowly conceived. The results were contradictory, with some groups voting against their economic interests and others voting as the hypothesis would predict. Further, a relatively low percentage of the total voting variance was explained, indicating that perhaps other variables than economic ones influenced voting behavior.     

Endogenous choice of amendment agendas: types of voters and experimental evidence

A stylized model of three parties choosing an amendment agenda and voting over three policy alternatives is analyzed. The analysis yields a classification of five types of voters: random, sincere, strategic, risk-averse, and EUS (expected utility sophisticated) proposed by Enelow (J. Polit. 43:1062–1089, 1981). Laboratory experiments suggest that the choice of agendas can be partially explained by the sincere voting model (26% of voters) and strategic voting model (47% of voters), even when players’ preferences are common knowledge. Risk-aversion may explain choices of up to 56% of the voters. Finally, the EUS voting model explains up to 73% of the observed voting behavior.     

The rational behavior theory of voting participation: Evidence from the 1970 and 1982 elections

In recent years a substantial literature on the determinants of voting participation has been developed. In many of these studies voting is assumed to be an expression of rational behavior. That is, people vote when they expect that the benefits will exceed the related costs. Voting is largely an act of consumption based upon the widely held belief that one should vote to fulfill a civic duty or upon some combination of personal characteristics which is sufficiently vague to make precise measurement impossible. The rational behavior theory, however, holds that voting is influenced at the margin by personal and environmental factors which incrementally affect expected benefits and costs, making the act of voting more or less rational. Those factors which increase expected benefits will, ceteris paribus, enhance the probability that one will vote. Those factors which increase expected costs will, of course, have the opposite effect. This study is presented as a primarily empirical contribution to the literature which assumes that, since voting is an expression of rational behavior, it can be modeled and tested using standard economic analysis and methodology. The study is designed to fulfill several purposes. First, we update previous empirical work using data from the 1980 census and from the 1982 congressional elections. The results of our regressions strongly support the rational behavior theory. In addition, we test to determine whether it is less rational for southern blacks to vote as compared to their white counterparts. Our results suggest that the answer is affirmative. Tests of parameter equivalency between the 1970 and 1982 congressional elections are performed with some interesting results. Finally, tests for specification error provide evidence that the rational behavior model and congressional district data generate statistically valid estimates of the determinants of voting participation.     

How husbands and wives vote

This article uses economic theories of voting behavior and household decision making to analyze the role of own and spouse earnings in determining political voting behavior. The main predictions from these models is that earnings is one of the factors that has an impact on political preferences and in households who share resources, voting behavior will be influenced more by the most representative labor income in the family. I investigate empirically the importance of individual vs household income, and find that the importance of individual income on voting behavior is contingent on employment. On average women earn less than their husband and vote according to their husbands income. If the wife is the maximum earner of the household or works fulltime, she votes more according to her own earnings.     

Reapportionment and Redistribution: Consequences of Electoral Reform in Japan

Does reapportionment in a legislature affect policy outcomes? We examine this question from a comparative perspective by focusing on reapportionment associated with the electoral reform in Japan. First, we show that the reform of 1994 resulted in an unprecedented degree of equalization in legislative representation. Second, using municipal‐level data, we present evidence that municipalities in overrepresented districts received significantly more subsidies per capita, as compared to those in underrepresented districts, in both prereform and postreform years. Third, by examining the relationship between the change in the number of seats per capita and the change in the amount of subsidies per capita at the municipal level, we show that the equalization in voting strength resulted in an equalization of total transfers per person.