Retrospective ideological representation and its impact on democratic satisfaction*

Congruence between government policies and citizen preferences is a key element that increases the quality of democracy. While scholars have shown that governments generally adopt ideological positions and propose policies close to citizen preferences, they have neglected to consider whether citizens respond to promises or to actual enactments. The paper addresses this gap in two ways. First, we propose a new measure that captures how close a citizen is on average to the policies enacted by the incumbent government, namely retrospective ideological representation – the ideological distance between the position of a respondent and the incumbent government at the end of its term in office. We show that this measure captures retrospective information associated with governments’ actions and in particular whether the government increases or decreases social spending during its mandate period. Second, we show that retrospective ideological representation has a substantial impact on citizens’ democratic satisfaction and greater than prospective ideological representation – an established measure of congruence – which is the ideological distance between the positions of a respondent and the elected government after an election.     

Pathways from Childhood Adversity to Problem Behaviors in Young Adulthood: The Mediating Role of Adolescents’ Future Expectations

Adverse childhood experiences and pessimistic future expectations about college attendance or mortality are established risk factors for problem behaviors among youth. Data were from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N?=?14,800; 49?% female). Participants were 11–17-years-old at baseline and 24–32-years-old at outcome. Adolescents’ college expectations and fatalistic expectations mediated the effect of childhood adversity on violent behavior in young adulthood. Neither college nor fatalistic expectations were significant mediators in models predicting substance use and nonviolent antisocial behaviors. Although observed mediational effect sizes were small, they survived models that included multiple controls designed to rule-out alternative explanations. Intervening on adversity-exposed adolescents’ college and fatalistic expectations may reduce risk for violent behaviors.     

Americans’ Knowledge of Their Local Judges

What do Americans know about their local judges and how do they know it? One of the central arguments in the debate over judicial elections is whether voters know enough about judicial candidates to make an informed democratic choice. The vast majority of criminal and civil matters in the U.S. begin with and filter through the local state courts. But judicial scholars know little about what explains the variance in voters’ knowledge of their courts and judges. This paper draws on survey data from the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to investigate the origins of voter knowledge of local judges. A central finding of this study is that rural voters are a lot more knowledgeable about their local judges than are urban voters, ceteris paribus. This finding has significant consequences for the debate over the ways in which states structure their elections for local judges.     

Introduction to queer circuits: Critical performance and digital praxis

This introduction situates the articles making up this special issue within four thematic clouds, positing queer theorization as broadly relevant for critically engaging with computational technologies and culture. These sub-themes offer suggestions for future queer inquiry and praxis and reflect key terms in performance studies and queer theory that have undergone transformation with the ubiquity of digital technology.     

How much insecurity does security need? The discrepancy in assessing the sense of security of children,adolescents, and caregivers in institutions

When developing concepts for protecting children and youth who live in institutions, the perspective of the addressees has so far been insufficiently taken into account. This study aims to compare the assessment of children, youth, and caregivers in institutions with regard to group atmosphere, participation, and sense of safety. A combined quantitative and qualitative approach compares the assessment of children or youth and caregivers in child and youth welfare institutions, boarding schools, and clinics through the use of an online questionnaire and group discussions that address the topics safety, group atmosphere, and participation. The quantitative questionnaire included 233 youth age 14 years and up and 490 caregivers; 87 children or youth between the ages of 11 and 18 years and 73 caregivers were part of the qualitative group discussion. The questionnaire showed that youth and caregivers assessed the sense of security in principle as positive. With regard to group atmosphere and participation, youth tended to see these aspects in a positive light, but almost all youth-aged participants viewed these specific categories more critically than did the adult caregivers. The results from the group discussions make clear that children, adolescents, and caregivers often underestimate the real dangers. The existing sense of security in institutions may be the result of underestimating real dangers. Implications for the implementation of protection concepts are drawn.     

Is All Politics Indeed Local? A Comparative Study of Dual Mandate‐Holders’ Role Attitudes and Behaviours in Parliament

The practice of dual mandate‐holding, i.e. the simultaneous occupation of a political mandate at the (sub)national and the local level, is understudied in the comparative literature. Dual mandate‐holders embody the most direct link between local and central government, yet research has disregarded whether these actors actually feel and act as local ambassadors in parliament. In this article, we study whether councillors in parliament feel responsive for local grievances in terms of their respective role attitudes and behaviour, using the PARTIREP Comparative MP Survey. The estimated regression models demonstrate that dual mandate‐holders indeed perceive themselves as local brokers, even when controlling for various systemic‐, party‐ and individual‐level factors. On the other hand, they struggle to translate their localized attitudes into localized parliamentary behaviour, which could call one of the main arguments in favour of dual mandate‐holding into question.