Retrospective voting and party support at elections: credit and blame for government and opposition

Retrospective voting is arguably one of the most important mechanisms of representative democracy, and whether or not the public holds the government accountable for its policy performance has been extensively studied. In this paper, we test whether retrospective voting extends to parties in the opposition, that is whether and how parties’ past performance evaluations affect their vote, regardless of whether they were in government or in opposition. Taking advantage of a rich set of questions embedded in a representative German national elections panel, we update our knowledge on the retrospective voting mechanism by modeling retrospective voting at the party level. The findings indicate that the incumbent status is not the only criterion for retrospective voting, ultimately suggesting that both government and opposition parties can expect credit and blame for their conduct and this should provide some impetus for responsive performance of all parties.     

Parties’ issue strategies on the drawing board: the 2017 Austrian case

Abstract

Parties may rely on different issue agendas when tailoring their electoral campaigns in an attempt to win elections. This paper compares two key party issue strategies to examine which one the victorious Austrian Peoples’ Party (ÖVP) relied on the most during the 2017 Austrian election campaign vis-à-vis its main competitors. These two key party strategies are the ‘riding-the-wave’ model, which posits that parties focus on issues that currently concern voters the most and the recent ‘issue-yield model’, which instead suggests that parties adopt strategic behaviour targeting all those issues with genuine opportunities for electoral expansion. It is found that, compared to the other main parties in the 2017 Austrian election campaign, the ÖVP was the one most clearly relying on the issue-yield approach. These results have important implications for our understanding of electoral campaigns, party’s exploitation of issue strategies, and voter representation beyond the Austrian case.     

Manifestos and elections in Ghana's Fourth Republic

Debate continues over the factors that influence electoral outcomes or voter behaviour and alignment in elections all over the world. Several factors have been noted, including the manifestos of political parties. In spite of the potential influence of the party manifesto, several comparative and empirical studies on elections in Ghana have paid little or no attention to manifestos in determining the electoral outcomes of political parties in the Fourth Republic.This paper makes a contribution to the debate by examining how manifestos have influenced the electoral chances of the two main political parties which have been in and out of government in Ghana since the inception of the Fourth Republic, namely, the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party. Analysis covers the five elections held in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. Specifically, it discusses not only the ability of the manifestos to shape policy debate but also to some extent, influence electoral outcomes. The paper concludes with some lessons learned.     

Education Policy and Philanthropy—The Changing Landscape of English Educational Governance

This article explores some hitherto neglected but nonetheless important aspects of the changing landscape of education policy and governance in England. It sketches some particular features of the increasingly complex and “congested” terrain of the education state and traces some of the primary discourses that currently inform and drive education policy (and, indeed, social policy more generally) both in relation to governance and substance. The article draws on an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC–-funded study (RES–000–22–2682), “Philanthropy and Education Policy.” This research involved three sets of activities; extensive and exhaustive Internet searches around particular (corporate) philanthropies, philanthropists, and philanthropically funded programs; interviews with some key “new” philanthropists and foundations interested and involved in education; and the use of these searches and interviews to construct “policy networks.” Together these constitute a “method” of “network ethnography.”     

Necropsy Findings in Dogs that Died During Grooming or other Pet Service Procedures

Procedures involved in grooming, bathing, and other pet services can often lead animals to death. Of the necropsies of 1391 animals carried out at a private diagnostic laboratory in Sao Paulo, Brazil from 2004 to 2009, 94 were dogs that died during the above‐mentioned procedures. Young male dogs and small breeds like Poodle Miniature, Yorkshire Terrier, and Lhasa Apso were most frequently observed. Blunt‐force trauma was responsible for the deaths of 31% of the animals, with a higher incidence of trauma to the head, characterized chiefly by fractures and nervous tissue lesions. In the other 69% of cases, the animals showed signs of stress, and died due to pulmonary edema and hemorrhage. As we cannot rule out the intentional character in some situations, this article provides veterinary forensic support for veterinarians and pet owners, especially in lawsuits, helping in finding the cause of animal's death in such pet services.     

Agricultural research organisations’ role in the emergence of agricultural innovation systems

Poor farmers seldom benefit from new agricultural technologies. In response, research and extension approaches based on agricultural innovation systems are popular. Often agricultural research organisations are the network brokers, facilitating the emergence of the innovation system. Based on an analysis of the Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture (MasAgro) initiative in Mexico, this viewpoint suggests that such organisations are more often suitable network brokers when the objective is the development and scaling out of a technology by itself. When the objectives are multi-faceted and include extension and education, other actors are better placed to be the network broker.     

Central Bank Independence in the World: A New Data Set

This article introduces the most comprehensive dataset on de jure central bank independence (CBI), including yearly data from 182 countries between 1970 and 2012. The dataset identifies statutory reforms affecting CBI, their direction, and the attributes necessary to build the Cukierman, Webb and Neyapty index. Previous datasets focused on developed countries, and included non-representative samples of developing countries. This dataset’s substantially broader coverage has important implications. First, it challenges the conventional wisdom about central bank reforms in the world, revealing CBI increases and restrictions in decades and regions previously considered barely affected by reforms. Second, the inclusion of almost 100 countries usually overlooked in previous studies suggests that the sample selection may have substantially affected results. Simple analyses show that the associations between CBI and inflation, unemployment or growth are very sensitive to sample selection. Finally, the dataset identifies numerous CBI decreases (restrictions), whereas previous datasets mostly look at CBI increases. These data’s coverage not only allows researchers to test competing explanations of the determinants and effects of CBI in a global sample, but it also provides a useful instrument for cross-national studies in diverse fields, such as liberalization, diffusion, political institutions, democratization, or responses to financial crises.     

Regulatory lags,liberalization, and vulnerability to banking crises

This article explores the effect of delays in updating prudential regulation on the likelihood of a country experiencing banking crises, and it disentangles the impact of different aspects of regulation on crisis onset. I argue that delays in revision to banks' prudential regulation allow banks to adopt risky behavior, which increases a country's vulnerability to systemic banking crises. This effect, however, is conditional on the level of liberalization of the financial market. At lower levels of liberalization, banks have stronger incentives to escape the constraints of regulation and to take advantage of regulatory lags. At high levels of liberalization, the effect of regulatory lags is curbed, possibly by market discipline. Statistical analyses on a sample of developed and developing countries from 1974–2005 support this argument and help rule out the competing learning hypothesis. These results suggest that the effects of institutions can vary with the passage of time.     

Complete Cardiac Rupture Associated with Closed Chest Cardiac Massage: Case Report and Review of the Literature

Chest skeletal injuries are the most frequent complications of external chest massage (ECM) during cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but heart and great vessels lacerations that are indeed very rare. We report the case of a 35‐year‐old workman who collapsed and underwent ECM by his co‐workers for almost 30 min. At autopsy, no external injuries, fractures or bruises of the ribs or sternum, were observed. A hemopericardium with a rupture of the heart was found, with no signs of pre‐existent cardiac disease. Bruises of thoracic aortic wall, lung petechiae, a contusion of the liver, and bruises of lumbar muscles were found. The cause of death was due to sudden cardiac death with an extensive cardiac rupture. This is an unusual report of massive heart damage without any skeletal or muscle chest injuries, secondary to cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This kind of cardiac lesions may be considered when thoracic–abdominal trauma, or medical history, is unclear.