Politicians,Scandals, and Trust in Government

In this paper we examine the role that political scandals play in eroding regard for government and political institutions in general. We know that scandals can lower regard for individual politicians and government leaders. Yet, less is known about how scandal influences attitudes toward institutions and the political process. It has been widely assumed that such attitudes are influenced by factors that lie largely beyond the control of individual politicians. Using data from the U.S. and the U.K. we show that scandals involving legislators can have a negative influence on their constituent's attitudes toward institutions and the political process. One consequence of this finding is that, instead of looking for scapegoats in Hollywood or among the failings of voters themselves, politicians should first get their own House in order.     

National Election Cycles and the Intermittent Political Safeguards of Federalism

Scholars have challenged the notion of "political safeguardsof federalism" in a large and well-developed body of work onthe use of coercive policy tools by the federal government.This study suggests, however, that there may be some utilityin re-examining the political factors that help to constrainthe growth of national power. Specifically, it argues that theneed to win votes from subnational constituencies makes nationallawmakers less supportive of mandates, preemptions, and taxsanctions during election cycles and, thus, provides an intermittentsafeguard of state authority. It tests and finds evidence forhypotheses related to that general argument in analyses of thepassage of coercive federalist policies over the last thirtyyears.     

The Political Economy of Facebook Advertising: Election Spending,Regulation and Targeting Online

Political advertising on Facebook is the latest in a long line of developments in campaign practice, and is a tool that has been mobilised extensively in elections around the world. In this article, we explore what we know about Facebook advertising at elections and ask what existing data from the UK Electoral Commission can reveal about current usage. Highlighting the principles behind Facebook advertising, we argue that existing metrics offer little insight into current campaign trends—posing analytical, methodological and normative challenges for academics and electoral regulators alike. Moreover, we argue that these challenges strike at the heart of debates about democratic responsibility and the degree to which governments should cede responsibility to commercial actors who may have differing understandings of fundamental democratic norms.     

Political Marketing Research in the 2000 U.S. Election

Abstract

It is not news that polls and other forms of marketing research are regularly employed to craft political strategy. What is new is that the 2000 U.S. election represented a turning point where political marketing research seems to take center stage. The print and broadcast media employed polls and other forms of research at levels far beyond anything ever seen before. At times, it appeared as if almost as much attention was being given to polls as was being given to the political candidates and the issues. This was clearly a new and important posturing of the role of political marketing research. With this as a backdrop, the current article compares polls and other forms of political research-focusing on what went wrong and what was right in terms of the use of polls, focus groups and Internet research during the 2000 U.S. election. The article ends with the presentation of some exploratory research that examines insights about respondents' opinions regarding the impact of political polls.     

Beyond Political Binaries: The 2019 General Election and the Dagenham and Rainham Constituency

This article considers the results of the 2019 general election with reference to the Dagenham and Rainham constituency in outer East London. It was a key target for the Conservatives with a 70 per cent leave voting electorate. It did not change hands and might therefore provide insights into the wider debate regarding future coalitions and strategy within the modern left. This article considers these results with reference to arguments about a ‘Brexit realignment’ on the left and whether Labour should rethink the nature of its political ‘base’. It argues for a more nuanced debate than that which currently exists, built around simple binaries organised around Brexit, class, age, education and geography.     

Election Laws,Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform

State governments have experimented with a variety of election laws to make voting more convenient and increase turnout. The impacts of these reforms vary in surprising ways, providing insight into the mechanisms by which states can encourage or reduce turnout. Our theory focuses on mobilization and distinguishes between the direct and indirect effects of election laws. We conduct both aggregate and individual‐level statistical analyses of voter turnout in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. The results show that Election Day registration has a consistently positive effect on turnout, whereas the most popular reform—early voting—is actually associated with lower turnout when it is implemented by itself. We propose that early voting has created negative unanticipated consequences by reducing the civic significance of elections for individuals and altering the incentives for political campaigns to invest in mobilization.     

Does the Fed Contribute to a Political Business Cycle?

In contrast to findings of other studies, evidence is presented to support the existence of a Federal Reserve-induced political monetary cycle that corresponds to the U.S. presidential election cycle. Using various Taylor rules, we find support for the view that Fed policy turns significantly more expansionary in the seven quarters prior to the election, but only when the Fed chair and incumbent presidential party have partisan affiliations.     

Philosophers,Activists, and Radicals: A Story of Human Rights and Other Scandals

Paradoxically, the political success of human rights is often taken to be its philosophical failing. From US interventions to International NGOs to indigenous movements, human rights have found a place in diverse political spaces, while being applied to disparate goals and expressed in a range of practices. This heteronomy is vital to the global appeal of human rights, but for traditional moral and political philosophy it is something of a scandal. This paper is an attempt to understand and theorize human rights on the terrain of the social actors who put them to use, particularly radical activists that have a more critical relationship to human rights. Attempting to avoid the philosophical pathology of demanding that the world reflect our conception of it, we base our reflection on the ambiguous, and potentially un-patterned, texture of human rights practice—taking seriously the idea that human rights express a relationship of power, importantly concerned with its legitimate arrangement and limitation. In both the philosophical literature and human rights activism, there seems to be a consensus on basic rights as undeniable moral principles of political legitimacy. This use of human rights is contrasted with radical social movements that reject this conception of rights as ideological and illegitimate, making specific reference to the Zapatista movement (Chiapas, Mexico) and the Landless Peasant Movement of Brazil (MST, from the Portuguese Movimento dos trabalhadores rurais Sem Terra), which are critical of the human rights discourse, but also make strategic use of the idea and offer alternative articulations of political legitimacy.     

2003年深圳市区级人大代表竞选现象的政治解读

在2003年深圳市区级人民代表大会代表换届选举中，出现了一些“民荐候选人”或“自荐候选”，体现了我国民主政治发展的民间动力和社会基础日益增强，激活了现行体制和本制度中内在的民主基因，催生着有中国特色社会主义的民主竞选制度。通过这次选举，可以看出，民主政治是需要在实践中不断学习的利益协调机制，民主政治的健康发展，必须防止金钱的腐蚀和干扰，公正地保护弱势群体的应有权利。     

Canadian Federalism, The Charter of Rights, and the 1984 Election

The federal election of 1984 may prove to be a critical eventin the evolution of Canadian federalism. The election createda political climate favorable to a restructuring of the Canadianpolitical agenda away from the "territorial politics" that hasdominated it for several decades, toward a politics of national,non territorial issues. Such a transformation of the politicalagenda had been sought by the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau,which saw the new Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms as amechanism for promoting a more national politics. The climateof intergovernmental confrontation that characterized the Trudeauera, however, may very well have undermined the Charter's nationalunity potential. Ironically, that potential is more likely tobe realized under the Mulroney Conservatives than it would havebeen under a continuation of the Trudeau regime.     

Election campaigns, agenda setting and electoral outcomes

Framing effects and bounded rationality imply that election campaigns may be an important determinant of election outcomes. This paper uses a two-party setting and simple game theoretic models to analyse the strategic interaction between the parties' campaign decisions. Alternations of power emerge naturally, even if both electoral preferences and party positions remain constant.     

Economic Performance and Political Outcomes: An Analysis of the Turkish Parliamentary and Local Election Results Between 1950 and 2004

The results of twenty-five Turkish elections for parliament and local administrations between 1950 and 2004 are studied. Turkish voters are found to take government's economic performance into account but not look back beyond one year. Furthermore, they are found to hold the major incumbent party responsible for both growth and inflation but minor incumbent parties, only for inflation. Also, they appear to vote strategically, especially in local and parliamentary by elections, to diffuse power. Finally, all parties exhibit a steady depreciation in their political capital while in office. These conclusions are essentially in conformity with the literature on other countries.     

Policy attitudes, ideology and voting behavior in the 2008 Election

This article examines the impact of policy attitudes and ideology on voting behavior in the 2010 U.S. presidential election. The analysis uses data from the 2008 American National Election Study. The empirical results indicate that the 2008 election should not be regarded as a simple referendum on the George W. Bush presidency. At the same time, voting behavior was not particularly aligned along stark policy divisions; the direct effects of issue attitudes were confined largely to the most sophisticated stratum of the electorate. Finally, liberal-conservative orientations did affect citizens' political attitudes and candidate choices in ways that are fairly unique, compared to other recent elections.     

政治科学预测方法研究——以选举预测为例

预测是人类的基本认知活动。作为社会科学预测性研究的重要领域,选举预测是促进政治学理论和方法创新的动力。选举预测不仅限于民调,科学的选举预测可以划分为四类范式:意见聚合范式;模型范式;混合范式;大数据范式。每类范式包含若干种预测方法,不同预测方法在准确性、超前性、解释力、可重复性、中立性和预测成本等评判标准上各具优势,预测方法的选择是基于预测目标和应用场景的综合权衡。目前,选举预测领域呈现多元化、交叉互补、跨学科的发展趋势;其未来发展方向是“理论驱动”与“数据驱动”相结合、微观预测变量与宏观预测变量相结合、预测与解释相结合,以政治科学为基础,通过跨学科合作和前沿技术手段推进预测范式的创新,并在预测实践中不断更新升级。预测性研究与解释性研究可以构成“双螺旋”的共生互补关系,共同致力于增进人类对复杂政治活动的理解和研判,提升政治学研究的科学水平和政策应用价值。     

Brexit,the 2019 General Election and the Realignment of British Politics

The outcome of the 2019 general election—a resounding Conservative majority and an unprecedented defeat for Labour—delivered a decisive electoral verdict for the first time in recent years following a period where British politics has been characterised by instability and indecision. In this article, we draw on aggregate-level data to conduct an initial exploration of the vote. What was the impact of Brexit on the 2019 general election result? How far has Brexit reshaped electoral politics? Was 2019 a ‘realignment election’? And, if so, what are the implications? With a focus on England and Wales we show that, although the Conservatives made gains deep into Labour’s working class heartlands, these gains have been a long time coming, reflected in Labour’s weakening relationship with working class Britain. As such, 2019 is not a critical election but a continuation of longer-term trends of dealignment and realignment in British politics.     

Election Campaigns,Social Communication,and the Accessibility of Perceived Discussant Preference

This paper examines the communication of political preferences between citizens during the course of an election campaign. We are particularly concerned with the ability of individuals to make judgments regarding the likely votes of others within their networks of relationships. To this end, we employ the concept of accessibility and its measurement device—response latency or response time—in the context of a computer-assisted telephone interview. We argue that the accessibility of respondent perceptions regarding the voting preferences of their associates depends on a range of individual and contextual factors, and the analysis focuses on variation across individuals, across relationships, and across the temporal contexts of election campaigns.