Economic Voting and Multilevel Governance: A Comparative Individual-Level Analysis

An important component of incumbent support is the reward/punishment calculus of economic voting. Previous work has shown that "clarity of responsibility" within the central state government conditions national economic effects on incumbent vote choice: where clarity is high (low), economic effects are greater (less). This article advances the "clarity of responsibility" argument by considering the effect of multilevel governance on economic voting. In institutional contexts of multilevel governance, the process of correctly assigning responsibility for economic outcomes can be difficult. This article tests the proposition that multilevel governance mutes effects of national economic conditions by undermining responsibility linkages to the national government. Individual-level data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Module 1 are used to test this proposition. Results demonstrate that economic voting is weakest in countries where multilevel governance is most prominent. Findings are discussed in light of the contribution to the economic voting literature and the potential implications of multilevel governance.     

Injuries of the Head from Backface Deformation of Ballistic Protective Helmets Under Ballistic Impact

Modern ballistic helmets defeat penetrating bullets by energy transfer from the projectile to the helmet, producing helmet deformation. This deformation may cause severe injuries without completely perforating the helmet, termed “behind armor blunt trauma” (BABT). As helmets become lighter, the likelihood of larger helmet backface deformation under ballistic impact increases. To characterize the potential for BABT, seven postmortem human head/neck specimens wearing a ballistic protective helmet were exposed to nonperforating impact, using a 9 mm, full metal jacket, 124 grain bullet with velocities of 400–460 m/s. An increasing trend of injury severity was observed, ranging from simple linear fractures to combinations of linear and depressed fractures. Overall, the ability to identify skull fractures resulting from BABT can be used in forensic investigations. Our results demonstrate a high risk of skull fracture due to BABT and necessitate the prevention of BABT as a design factor in future generations of protective gear.     

Ground zero – the semiotics of the boundary line

This paper explores the ambiguous nature of the graphic boundary line as a key element in the carto-realist conception of spatiality. Using examples (specifically the Line of Tordesillas and the UK border at Stansted Airport), the paper explores the complex and ambiguous nature of boundary lines as cartographic representations and concrete spatial practices. Drawing on Rotman's analysis of the significance of “zero” to modern semiotics and Wilden's theorization of digital and analogue communications systems, I argue that the graphic line is the spatial equivalent of a numeric zero – a meta-symbolic entity that is empty (the cartographic line, by definition, has no magnitude).     

Taiwan's Quest for Independence: Progress on the Margins for Recognition of Statehood

This article describes many substantive transformations in politics, national self-identification, and economy Taiwan has undergone over the last decade and offers an alternative approach to expediting de jure state status. The transformations speak to significant progress ‘on the margins’ for attaining international recognition. The disjuncture between liberal democracies clinging to an antiquated ‘One-China’ foreign policy approach and the realties of the situation is widening. An alternative avenue to state recognition acknowledges advancements on the margins that justify Taiwan's recognition by others. At the same time, however, Taiwan must hold self-proclamation in abeyance until the breadth of recognition it receives becomes an irresistible force with which the PRC must reckon. The recent transformations coupled with mainland China's growing force projection capability indicate the time is ripe and appropriate to recognize Taiwan's statehood. The United States would be remiss in its avowed commitment and leadership responsibilities for democratic enlargement by not recognizing Taiwan.     

A death in the family: Household structure and mortality in rural liaoning: Life-event and time-series analysis, 1792–1867

In China before the twentieth century, the household was a locus of social and economic organization in which resources and responsibilities were allocated. This study shows that the structure of the relationships between coresident kin conditioned the allocation process. Through a discrete-time life-event analysis of triennial household register data from a northeast Chinese village, Daoyi, between 1774 and 1873, we find that an individual's probability of dying, which we treat as an indicator of access to resources and the nature of household roles, was affected by the composition of their coresident kin. As is the case in contemporary societies, widows and widowers had higher mortality than the currently married. Orphans had higher mortality than children with at least one parent present. Reflecting the dependence of a wife's status on whether she had produced an heir for her husband, married women in young adulthood and middle age who had at least one son had substantially lower mortality than those without. Reflecting the strength of the claim that elderly males could make on household resources, children with coresident grandfathers had higher mortality than those without. Even though sons were supposed to be a form of old-age security, however, the death rate of the elderly was not reduced by the presence of sons and grandsons.     

Legislative budget cycles

Recent literature suggests that electoral budget cycles are a phenomenon of new rather than established democracies. What part of the democratization process explains the amelioration of the political budget cycle? We argue the answer lies (in part) in the development of a strong party system. We extend the classic Rogoff-Siebert model to show that political budget cycles are possible in a legislative context with rational voters. We then demonstrate that the development of a strong party system can restrain political budget cycles in a majoritarian electoral system. Finally, we follow prior work in using vote share volatility as a measure of the institutionalization of the party system. Using newly collected vote-share data for 433 elections for 90 democracies from 1980–2007, we calculate a measure of party institutionalization. We then use this data to demonstrate that institutionalized party systems are associated with mitigated political budget cycles, especially in majoritarian electoral systems.