How to vote,whether to vote: Strategies for voting and abstaining on congressional roll calls

This paper develops and tests a theory of voting and abstaining on Congressional roll calls. The theoretical model assumes that the voting behavior of legislators is oriented toward reelection, and that constituents vote retrospectively. Among the predictions of the theory are that supporters of a program are more likely to abstain than opponents, that conflicted legislators are more likely to vote on the losing side (but will abstain when the vote is very close), and that indifferent legislators will abstain when votes are not close but trade their votes when the outcome is uncertain. The empirical test is based on a series of votes on appropriations for the Clinch River Breeder Reactor from 1975 to 1982. We estimate a nested logit model of, first, the probability of voting for Clinch River, and second, the probability of abstaining from the vote, conditional on preferences regarding the program. All of the empirical results are consistent with the theoretical predictions, and most are statistically significant by conventional standards. The implication is that the abstention decision, as well as yes or no votes, can be purposive, and that the pattern of abstentions is not random among supporters and opponents.The authors gratefully acknowledge research support from the Brookings Institution and the University of Michigan School of Law, and useful comments on an earlier draft by Randall Calvert, Morris Fiorina, Rodney Fort, Amihai Glazer, Keith Krehbiel, Thomas Romer, Kenneth Shepsle, Rodney Smith, Barry Weingast, the UCI Public Choice Study Group, and the Hoover Workshop on Collective Choice.     

The effect of electoral rules on voting behavior: the electoral college and shift voting

The Electoral College has a measurable effect on the propensity of the rational voter to vote for the candidate he most prefers. The ‘slippage’ between the individual's articulated preference ordering and his actual vote is analyzed (using 1968 data) with respect to the strategic position of the voter in his state. The direction of the findings support the theoretically-derived propositions. Nevertheless, the low overall incidence of shifts and the reluctance of voters to shift from nationally-viable candidates demonstrates the overwhelming influence of the national electoral environment.     

Taxpayer Reporting Responses and the Tax Reform Act of 1986

This paper examines the effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on the reporting decisions of taxpayers, using microlevel information from the 1984 and 1989 Statistics of Income. We find that tax reform clearly mattered in the reporting decisions of individuals, with reporting elasticities that cluster between 0.3 and 0.7. However, our results also indicate that individuals' estimated responses vary in different ways for individuals with different income levels, in ways that differ by the types of incomes received by taxpayers, in ways that are sensitive to the estimation approach, and in ways that depend upon data adjustment methods.     

Two types of economic voting: How economic conditions jointly affect vote choice and turnout

The economic voting literature mostly looks at vote choice, ignoring potential effects on turnout. Studies that do focus on the latter often ignore the former, and come to contradictory conclusions. I develop a model of economic voting that jointly incorporates vote choice and abstention due to alienation or indifference. Analyzing ten elections with validated turnout data and conducting empirically informed simulations, I make two contributions. First, I show that “turnout switching” accounts for up to one third of total economic voting. This second type of economic voting is more common when the number of parties is low and responsibility is dispersed. Second, I show that a bad economy moves some people to abstain while having the opposite effect on others. The aggregate effect is ambiguous and related to macro-conditions in a non-linear way. This explains contradictory findings in the literature.     

How to estimate the policy preferences of party supporters: Disaggregating data from voting advice applications versus modeling survey responses

Valid and reliable estimates of the policy preferences of political parties' supporters are essential for the study of political representation. However, such estimates are not directly available from standard surveys of public opinion, which are typically representative by design only at the national level and rarely ask questions about public support for specific policies. In this article, we explore the possibility to use data from voting advice applications (VAA) to estimate the policy preferences of party supporters. To do that, first, we identify 10 questions on preferences towards issues of public policy that were asked around the same time and with similar wording in traditional surveys of public opinion and in VAAs fielded in Germany and in the Netherlands. Then we compare the VAA data disaggregated by political affiliation of the respondents to the survey data adjusted via multilevel regression modeling with poststratification (MRP). We find strong positive correlations between the estimates derived from both methods, especially after weighting the VAA data. Yet, point estimates are not always very close, and the match is sensitive to the treatment of neutral and ‘don't know’ answers. Overall, our results bode well for the validity of using VAA data in empirical research on political representation.     

The continued salience of religious voting in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain

Conventional wisdom on party systems in advanced industrial democracies holds that modern electorates are dealigned and that social cleavages no longer structure party politics. Recent work on class cleavages has challenged this stylized fact. The analysis performed here extends this criticism to the religious-secular cleavage. Using path analysis and comparing the current electorates of the United States, Germany, and Great Britain with the early 1960s, this paper demonstrates that the religious-secular cleavage remains or has become a significant predictor of conservative vote choice. While the effects of the religious-secular cleavage on vote choice have become largely indirect, the total of the direct and indirect effects is substantial and equivalent to the effects of class and status.     

"三个代表":我党恢弘马克思主义学风的伟大创造

"三个代表"思想是我党学习和运用马克思列宁主义、毛泽东思想、邓小平理论的重大成果,是我党坚持马克思主义与中国社会主义现代化建设实际相结合的产物,是我党坚持马克思主义创新精神的理论结晶."三个代表"思想处处都闪耀着马克思主义学风的思想光芒.我们要认真贯彻"三个代表"的重要思想,就必须坚持不懈地弘扬马克思主义优良学风.只有这样,我们才能把十六大提出的全面建设小康社会的事业不断推向前进,我们才能无往而不胜.     

做人、做事、做官三题——同乡镇领导干部谈心

人生有两大课题,就是改造客观世界和改造主观世界,也即人们常说的做人与做事,作为走仕途的人来讲,还有一个做官的问题。这里,我想送大家三句话:堂堂正正做人,踏踏实实做事,清清白白做官。     

大部制改革后的完善路径探析——兼以重庆市大部制改革为研究个案

大部制改革虽然取得了较大的成功,但"强强联合"的改革模式弱化了政府部门间的天然权力制约,必须继续推进决策与执行的适度分离,形成高效的决策、执行和监督并存的行政管理体制.单一制的国家结构形式和利益集团等因素所造成的"下动上不动,越动越被动"现象必须给予高度关注.政府职能仍然没有从根本上得到转变,需要经过长期的艰苦工作才能实现.法律滞后将抵消大部制改革的部分成果,对相关法律的清理和修订应该及时跟进,消除制约大部制改革的法律障碍,保障大部制的改革成果能够有法可依.     

State and federal tax equity: Estimates before and after the Tax Reform Act of 1986

The progressivity and equity of both state and federal individual income taxes, as well as the combined system of both taxes, are examined before and after the federal Tax Reform Act of 1986 using a variety of measures applied to federal Statistics of Income individual income tax data; state taxes are calculated using TAXSIM. Our findings are as follows: First, in both 1985 and 1987, state personal income taxes were generally less progressive and more horizontally equitable than the federal system. Second, in moving from 1985 to 1987, state personal income tax systems generally displayed decreased progressivity and horizontal inequity. The combination of the two systems displayed generally lower progressivity and horizontal equity scores when we compare 1987 to 1985. Last, the after-tax income distribution became more unequal when we compared 1987 to 1985.     

改革开放:当代中国的强国之路

改革开放是我们党在新的时代条件下带领人民进行的新的伟大革命。30年实践雄辩地证明:改革开放是决定当代中国命运的关键抉择,是当代中国发展进步的强国之路。只有社会主义才能救中国,只有改革开放才能发展中国、发展社会主义。因此,在新的历史条件下,我们必须坚定不移地推进改革开放这一伟大事业。     

Senate voting patterns on the 1991 extension of the fast-track trade procedures: Prelude to NAFTA

In 1991 then-President George Bush requested an extension of fast-track procedures from Congress for the primary purpose of negotiating a North American Free Trade Agreement. This paper uses an econometric model to test the importance of three themes related to NAFTA that surfaced during Senate debates over whether to approve the request, that of employment effects, environmental effects and the impact on immigration from Mexico. The empirical results show that expected job gains and losses were significant in explaining Senate voting patterns on fast-track extension. Immigration was found to be somewhat important, but environmental issues were not found to statistically significant. In addition, the impact of organized labor and political ideology as proxied by political party were found to be important factors that shaped Senate voting patterns on fast-track.     

改革开放是实现中华民族伟大复兴的必由之路

1978年12月召开的党的十一届三中全会，是新中国成立以来党的历史上具有深远意义的伟大转折，由此开启了改革开放历史新时期。十一届三中全会以后改革开放的30年，是中华大地发生巨变、社会主义欣欣向荣的30年，是中华民族在复兴道路上迈出坚实步伐的30年。     

Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984: legislative history and summary of provisions

This article describes the legislative history of the Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-460), and contains a summary of the provisions in the new law. Major provisions include: standards for continuing disability reviews (CDR's) of disability insurance (DI) beneficiaries and supplemental security income (SSI) recipients who get payments based on disability or blindness; the right of a DI beneficiary or an SSI recipient to have payments continued during appeal of a CDR decision to an administrative law judge that disability or blindness has ceased; and suspension of CDR's of mentally impaired persons until the evaluation criteria for mental impairments are revised. The new law was enacted in response to problems that arose as a result of the implementation by the Social Security Administration (SSA) of a provision in the 1980 disability amendments that required periodic CDR's. In enacting the new law, Congress intended to assure more accurate, consistent, and uniform disability decisions at all levels and equitable and humane treatment not only to beneficiaries who must undergo CDR's but also to new applicants for DI benefits or SSI payments based on disability or blindness.     

Altered Europeanisation of Pension Reform in the Context of the Great Recession: Denmark and Italy Compared

This article analyses the Europeanisation of national pension systems in Denmark and Italy. Through the analytical framework of a ‘two-level’ game, it analyses pension reforms in the two countries, which, in the wake of the crisis, breached EU budgetary requirements, and shortly after reformed their pension systems. The EU affects pension reform in both cases, but in distinct ways. When Denmark’s economy was financially vulnerable, the EU’s excessive deficit procedure affected the decision to reform pensions indirectly, by triggering a rapid political decision to speed up a pension reform. By contrast, the Italian economy’s critical vulnerability and the consequent risk for the whole Eurozone led to a situation whereby the European actors entered the domestic political scene and thereafter more forcefully induced reforms. The findings from the two cases show that the EU’s role in pension reform has been significant during crises, but through interaction with domestic actors. Furthermore, from a theoretical perspective, the intervening variables – domestic and EMU vulnerability as well as EU and domestic politics – are crucial to understanding the reform decisions through two-level games.     

The Family Support Act of 1988: Federalism, Developmental Policy, and Welfare Reform

Revising the usual distinction between developmental and redistributivepolicies, I suggest that state and federal governments eachseek programs they believe will help them gain their developmentalgoals. But there is little consensus on the types of welfareprograms that actually do create economic development. Stateand federal participants in welfare reform consequently promotethe kind of federal arrangements that are likely to producethe policies they favor. The developmental politics of the FamilySupport Act of 1988 are shown through five main reform issues:child support; national minimum benefits; transitional benefits;welfare for families having both parents present; and education,training, and employment programs.