Voting Weights and Formateur Advantages in the Formation of Coalition Governments

Over the last two decades a large and important literature has emerged that uses game theoretic models of bargaining to study legislative coalitions. To test key predictions of these models, we examine the composition of coalition governments from 1946 and 2001. These predictions are almost always expressed in terms of parties' minimal-integer voting weights. We calculate such weights for all parliamentary parties. In addition, we develop a statistical model that nests the predictions of many of these models of the distribution of posts. We find that for parties that join (but did not form) the government, there is a linear relationship between their share of the voting weight in parliament and their share of cabinet posts. The party that forms the government (the formateur) receives a substantial "bonus" relative to its voting weight. The latter finding is more consistent with proposal-based bargaining models of coalition formation and suggests that parties gain disproportionate power not because of their size but because of their proposal power.     

Planning and Animal Welfare Law: Considering Why Planning Authorities in the Republic of Ireland Should have Regard to Animal Welfare Laws as Part of the Planning Process

Liverpool Law Review - Animal welfare legislation routinely places obligations on owners of animals to take action to ensure that the welfare of the animal(s) is protected. Such legislation often...     

Bayesian and Likelihood Inference for 2 x 2 Ecological Tables: An Incomplete-Data Approach

Ying Lu Department of Sociology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309 e-mail: ying.lu{at}colorado.edu Aaron Strauss Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 e-mail: abstraus{at}princeton.edu e-mail: kimai{at}princeton.edu (corresponding author) Ecological inference is a statistical problem where aggregate-leveldata are used to make inferences about individual-level behavior.In this article, we conduct a theoretical and empirical studyof Bayesian and likelihood inference for 2 x 2 ecological tablesby applying the general statistical framework of incompletedata. We first show that the ecological inference problem canbe decomposed into three factors: distributional effects, whichaddress the possible misspecification of parametric modelingassumptions about the unknown distribution of missing data;contextual effects, which represent the possible correlationbetween missing data and observed variables; and aggregationeffects, which are directly related to the loss of informationcaused by data aggregation. We then examine how these threefactors affect inference and offer new statistical methods toaddress each of them. To deal with distributional effects, wepropose a nonparametric Bayesian model based on a Dirichletprocess prior, which relaxes common parametric assumptions.We also identify the statistical adjustments necessary to accountfor contextual effects. Finally, although little can be doneto cope with aggregation effects, we offer a method to quantifythe magnitude of such effects in order to formally assess itsseverity. We use simulated and real data sets to empiricallyinvestigate the consequences of these three factors and to evaluatethe performance of our proposed methods. C code, along withan easy-to-use R interface, is publicly available for implementingour proposed methods (Imai, Lu, and Strauss, forthcoming). Authors' note: This article is in the part based on two workingpapers by Imai and Lu, "Parametric and Nonparamateric BayesianModels for Ecological Inference in 2 x 2 Tables" and "QuantifyingMissing Information in Ecological Inference." Various versionsof these papers were presented at the 2004 Joint StatisticalMeetings, the Second Cape Cod Monte Carlo Workshop, the 2004Annual Political Methodology Summer Meeting, and the 2005 AnnualMeeting of the American Political Science Association. We thankanonymous referees, Larry Bartels, Wendy Tam Cho, Jianqing Fan,Gary King, Xiao-Li Meng, Kevin Quinn, Phil Shively, David vanDyk, Jon Wakefield, and seminar participants at New York University(the Northeast Political Methodology conference), at PrincetonUniversity (Economics Department and Office of Population Research),and at the University of Virginia (Statistics Department) forhelpful comments.     

Demultilateralisation: A cognitive psychological perspective

This contribution seeks to illuminate the looming phenomenon of demultilateralisation and the return of and to the nation state, i.e. closure. Whereas many reasons for opening and closure have been discussed by Habermas in his eminent essay, we aim at providing an additional dimension, taking a psychological point of view and analysing this proclivity from a behaviourally informed perspective. Following a short recapitulation of the evolution towards postnationalism, we briefly sketch the current phenomenon of demultilateralisation and renationalisation. We then contribute to the current debate by providing cognitive psychological insights drawing on well‐researched biases that offer the greatest potential to explain the current outbreak of closing tendencies, namely prospect theory, including the endowment effect, framing, the availability bias and so‐called hawkish biases. This may add an explanatory dimension to why nationalistic politics have become again the beguiling sanctuary of the people. We attempt to define scope conditions of closure.     

Does voter polarisation induce party extremism? The moderating role of abstention

This article contributes to the literature on representation by examining how the ideological polarisation of the electorate affects parties’ programmatic positions in multiparty systems. The main argument is that parties face incentives to adopt more extreme positions when the electorate becomes more ideologically polarised and the share of non-moderate voters is higher. The reason is that by adopting moderate positions parties will prompt their non-moderate core constituents to sit out the election. This risk is conditioned by voters’ propensity to abstain. A higher (lower) propensity to abstain means that parties alienate a larger (smaller) share of their core constituents when adopting a moderate position. Parties therefore respond to greater voter polarisation by adopting more extreme positions, but the effect declines as voters’ propensity to abstain decreases. An empirical analysis of parties’ programmatic positions in 11 Western European countries between 1977 and 2016 strongly supports this expectation.     

Uncertain candidates, valence, and the dynamics of candidate position-taking

This paper offers graphic illustration of so-called “valence” models of candidates responding to their perceptions of voter location in a two-party system. Models by Groseclose and others show how the combination of candidate uncertainty about the median voter location, nonzero candidate valence, and policy motivated candidates leads to departures from the median voter prediction. With one policy dimension, either there exists an equilibrium where the candidates do not converge to the median (or any other common position) or there exists no equilibrium. We offer illustrations based on plausible conditions. Under some conditions we show an equilibrium where candidates locate at separate policy positions. Under others, we illustrate the absence of equilibrium.     

An enterprise-development strategy for Zambia

Although Zambia's deteriorating macro-economic situation has created a difficult environment for business, it also creates opportunities for the emergence of small and micro enterprises. Recent government policy reforms affecting these firms are discussed, along with existing programmes for credit, training, technical assistance, and common-site facilities/business incubators. The current programmes are limited in scope relative to the potential demand, and qualitative improvements are needed. Time-phased options for assisting small and micro enterprises are discussed.