Perceptions and reality: Economic voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections

Abstract.  One of the most influential explanations of voting behaviour is based on economic factors: when the economy is doing well, voters reward the incumbent government and when the economy is doing badly, voters punish the incumbent. This reward-punishment model is thought to be particularly appropriate at second order contests such as European Parliament elections. Yet operationalising this economic voting model using citizens' perceptions of economic performance may suffer from endogeneity problems if citizens' perceptions are in fact a function of their party preferences rather than being a cause of their party preferences. Thus, this article models a 'strict' version of economic voting in which they purge citizens' economic perceptions of partisan effects and only use as a predictor of voting that portion of citizens' economic perceptions that is caused by the real world economy. Using data on voting at the 2004 European Parliament elections for 23 European Union electorates, the article finds some, but limited, evidence for economic voting that is dependent on both voter sophistication and clarity of responsibility for the economy within any country. First, only politically sophisticated voters' subjective economic assessments are in fact grounded in economic reality. Second, the portion of subjective economic assessments that is a function of the real world economy is a significant predictor of voting only in single party government contexts where there can be a clear attribution of responsibility. For coalition government contexts, the article finds essentially no impact of the real economy via economic perceptions on vote choice, at least at European Parliament elections.     

ASSESSING LENGTH OF INSTlTUTIONALIZATION IN RELATION TO PAROLE OUTCOME

This study assesses the relative impact of different lengths of imprisonment upon parole outcome, for narcotic law violotors, while holding other factors constant. Three alternative procedures for measuring association (r, ø and r_t) were each used in parallel base expectancy analyses on the same data base. The study group consists of 929 narcotic law violators who were paroled in 50 jurisdictions. Parole performance ws derived after a twe-year follow-up period The 1968 parolees were used to develop offender risk ratings. These ratings were applied to 1969 parolees to determine whether they would be associated with parole outcome in a new sample. The three methods worked about the same for developing offender risk ratings. Once personal characteristics of offenders were taken into considemtion, the number of months served had no consistent relationship to parole outcome. This remained true for all three parallel techniques used.     

Communist Successor Parties And Coalition Formation In Eastern Europe

One of the most distinctive features of new democracies is the presence of political parties associated with the old, repressive regime. This article investigates whether or not the Eastern European variant of these parties, which we call communist successor parties (CSPs), has affected coalition politics. It finds that CSPs do have significant effects on the dynamics of coalition formation. CSPs are less likely than other parties to be included in governing coalitions; coalitions that include CSPs are more likely to be oversized (that is, to include superfluous parties); and CSPs that make it into government are penalized, insofar as they receive less than their fair share of governing portfolios. We attribute these results to the salience of the regime divide—the affective dislike of many citizens for the legacies of communism. Our results extend research on coalition behavior to Eastern European contexts and show how affective dislike combined with vote‐seeking motivations can affect governing behavior.     

Legal Needs of The Poor: Problems,Priorities and Attitudes*

The Legal Services Corporation is faced with the problem of allocating limited resources in order to meet the legal needs of the poor. It is forced into the dilemma of setting priorities, creating workable regulations to meet an ambiguously defined and elusive concept of legal need. Recently enacted regulations require annual reports by legal services programs that are based, in part, on the assessment of eligible clients' needs as expressed by their attitudes. These regulations are premised on unarticulated implicit assumptions relating attitudes, problems experienced, and legal need. This study examines these assumptions in an analysis of perceived problems, help seeking behavior, attitudes toward the allocation of legal services resources, and how these have changed over time for the eligible client population of one legal service program in California.