Was the 2016 United States’ presidential contest a deviating election? Continuity and change in the electoral map – or “Plus ça change,plus ç’est la mème géographie”

Several commentators before and after the 2016 US presidential election claimed that it involved a “redrawing of the country’s electoral map”, which in the context of the Key/Pomper classification of elections suggested that it was a deviating election, and potentially a critical election heralding a realignment. Analysis of the geography of the result of the 2016 contest, however, indicates considerable continuity at the county scale: the main trend was an increase in the spatial polarization of the US electorate. Trump not only performed best in 2016 in those counties where Republican party candidates had done well at the previous nine elections, he also increased the Republican share of the votes cast in many of them relative to his performance in counties where the Democratic party candidates were strong then. The main deviations from this trend were in counties with large Black and/or Hispanic populations and those with relatively large numbers of well-qualified, well-paid adults. It was not a potential critical election, therefore, but a continuation of a sequence now nearly four decades old.     

Sticking to the Union? Nationalism,inequality and political disaffection and the geography of Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum

Scotland’s 2014 Independence Referendum affords a rare opportunity to examine public support for the break-up of a long-established, stable democracy. Analyses of support for Scottish independence reveal that while issues of national identity loomed large in the vote, they were not the only factors involved. Questions around the economic and political direction of the state, and around uneven development, ideology and trust in established politicians also influenced voters’ decisions. Partisanship also mattered, as voters were more likely than not to follow the lead of their party in what had become a highly partisan contest. But some parties – especially Labour – saw large minorities of their supporters vote against the party’s line to support independence.     

SERVICES FOR CHILDREN OF INCARCERATED PARENTS

“Services for Children of Incarcerated Parents” provides an overview of the history, design and outcomes of human service programs provided for children of prisoners in the United States. The article examines services based in correctional settings and services sited in the community, using examples from the core programs and projects conducted by the Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents from 1990 through 2010. An analysis of the utility of specific services to children and families, and the effectiveness of those services in improving child outcomes is provided.     

Party identification and campaign dynamics

This paper considers the role of party identification in the 1988 Canadian General Election campaign, using data drawn mainly from a rolling cross section survey. Canadians exhibited party commitments remarkably like those we have come to expect for U.S. respondents. These commitments shaped respondents' reaction to the events of the campaign: Issue positions lined up with party identification, as did perceptions of the one leader rehabilitated by the campaign. But the campaign also cut through party groups. Such a mixture of reinforcement and displacement might well typify campaigns in Canada and elsewhere. The paper concludes by arguing that academic observers in the United States should take campaigns more seriously than they have to date and that they should consider adopting some of the measurement and analysis strategies of the 1988 Canadian study.Data in this paper are drawn from the 1988 Canadian Election Study, for which the author is the principal investigator. Coinvestigators are André Blais, Henry E. Brady, and Jean Crête. Support for the study was supplied by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Fieldwork was carried out by the Institute for Social Research, York University, under the direction of David Northrup. Henry Brady was, as usual, an invaluable sounding board and source of advice. None of these individuals or institutions can be held responsible for analyses or interpretations in this paper.