Learning and re-learning regime support: The dynamics of post-communist regimes

Abstract. The political support of citizens of new democracies reflects two sets of experiences. Initially, people are socialized into an undemocratic regime; then, they must re-learn political support in relation to a new regime. In an established democracy, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of early socialization and current performance because both refer to the same regime. However, this is both possible and necessary in countries where there has been a change in regime. Critical questions then arise: When, whether and how do citizens determine their support for their new regime? At the start of a new regime past socialization should be more important but, after a few years, current performance should become more important. We draw on 47 Barometer surveys between 1991 and 1998 in ten more or less democratic post-communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to test the relative importance of early socialization influences, the legacy of the communist past, and the political and economic performance of new regimes. We find that economic and political performance explains the most variance in support and, secondarily, the communist legacy. Early socialization is insignificant. However, contrary to economic theories of voting, the impact of political performance is greater than the impact of economic performance in post-communist countries – and its impact is increasing.     

An integrated perspective on the three potential sources of partisan bias: Malapportionment, turnout differences, and the geographic distribution of party vote shares

Partisan bias refers to an asymmetry in the way party vote share is translated into seats, i.e., a situation where some parties are able to win a given share of seats with a lesser (share of the) vote than is true for other parties. Any districted system is potentially subject to partisan biases. We show that there are three potential sources of partisan bias: (1) differences in the nature of the vote shares of the winning candidates of different parties that give rise to differences in the proportion of each party's votes that come to be ‘wasted’—differences which arise because of the nature of the geographic distribution of partisan support; (2) turnout rate differences across districts that are linked to the partisan vote shares in those districts, such that certain parties are more likely to have ‘cheap seats’ vis-à-vis turnout; and (3) malapportionment. In the context of two-party competition over single-member districts we provide a simple formulation to calculate the independent effect of each of these three factors. We illustrate our analysis with a calculation of the magnitude and direction of effects of the three determinants of partisan bias in elections to the US House and the US Senate in 1984, 1986 and 1988; then we consider how to extend the approach to a system with a mix of single- and multi-member districts or to a weighted voting system such as the US electoral college. We then apply the method to calculate the nature and sources of partisan bias in the 1984 and 1988 US presidential elections.     

The ideological component of Senate voting: Different principles or different principals?

Evidence exists on both sides of the question of whether or not legislator-specific, ideologically-driven shirking of constituent interest occurs. In this paper, we use a well-known model of such shirking by senators as our point of departure and add measures of inter-state constituent interests, the role of campaign contributions and, hence, the importance of whether or not senators are up for reelection. We find some evidence that the model provides a stronger explanation for senators up for reelection than for those who are not and that campaign contributions help determine voting decisions by these legislators. Finally, accounting for inter-state constituent interests, shirking is not a significant variable in the voting decisions of senators facing reelection. Thus, it appears that the reelection interests of some senators have been mistaken for ideologically-driven shirking.     

Compensating Plaintiffs and Punishing Defendants: Is Bifurcation Necessary?

Critics of the civil jury have proposed several procedural reforms to address the concern that damage awards are capricious and unpredictable. One such reform is the bifurcation or separation of various phases of a trial that involves multiple claims for damages. The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of bifurcating the compensatory and punitive damages phases of a civil tort trial. We manipulated the wealth of the defendant and the reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct (both sets of evidence theoretically related to punitive but not to compensatory damages) across three cases in a jury analog study. We wondered whether jurors would misuse the punitive damages evidence in fixing compensatory damages and whether bifurcation would effectively undo this practice. Our findings indicated that mock jurors did not improperly consider punitive damages evidence in their decisions about compensation. Moreover, bifurcation had the unexpected effect of augmenting punitive damage awards. These findings raise questions about the merits of bifurcation in cases that involve multiple claims for damages.     

Interpersonal trust and disaffected high school youth

The study consisted of two parts. First, a new scale of interpersonal trust for adolescents was constructed using a representative sample of 70 students from a community high school. Second, the hypothesis was tested that disaffected youth compared to the more conventional would show less interpersonal trust. Two matched groups of 57 students each were employed for the second part of the study. Results indicate that the new scale is a reliable and valid measure. Correlates of the scale disclose that trust is associated with interpersonal distance, certain developmental factors, and the quality of parent-adolescent relations. Results from the second part of the study tend to confirm the hypothesis in that greater trust scores were found among students with more conventional beliefs.This study was partly supported by NIMH Grant No. MH9210, Ford Foundation Grant No. 69-0264B, and the Jessie and C. Clement Stone Foundation.Received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Currently working on personality and clinical problems of adolescents and adults.Recieved his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Plans to continue his work of program development in the area of affect education in secondary schools.Received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Current work is in the area of community mental health.