Electoral behaviour in a two-vote system: Incentives for ticket splitting in German Bundestag elections

Abstract. The ballot structure of German Bundestag elections allows two votes: one for a constituency candidate and the second for a party list. About one-fifth of the voters usually split their ticket. Several hypotheses are derived about incentives for ticket splitting and tested with survey data from a 1998 pre-election poll. We argue that an explanation of split tickets in the German system has to take into account both party rankings and coalition preferences. One of the most important incentives is a preference or top ranking of a minor party like the FDP or Greens, if it is combined with a preference for a coalition with either the CDU/CSU or SPD. Contrary to this finding, the hypothesis of threshold insurance voting of CDU/CSU or SPD supporters choosing the party list of their prospective minor coalition partner is rejected for the 1998 election.     

Fatal trauma to the neck: immunohistochemical study of local injuries

As fatal trauma to the neck is often associated with short survival times, proof of vitality may often be difficult using standard histochemical techniques. Soft tissue neck injuries resulting from strangulation by ligature or manual strangulation were examined immunohistochemically using antibodies to myoglobin, fibronectin, C5b-9 and MRP14, and compared to controls consisting of accidental soft tissue neck injuries as well as undamaged neck soft tissue. Although survival times in the study and control groups were unknown and certainly some individual variation may be expected in the time course of normal wound development, both the study and control groups demonstrated similar time courses in the immunohistochemical detection of antigen. Myoglobin was always found in those samples in which only one antigen was shown to be involved in an injury-specific pattern; myoglobin and fibronectin were found in samples with dual antigen involvement. Samples involving three antigens always included C5b-9 in addition to myoglobin and fibronectin. The single positive MRP14 sample in the study and control groups was simultaneously positive for the other markers used. Myoglobin, fibronectin, C5b-9 and MRP14 are therefore suitable for immunohistochemical detection of vital reactions and estimation of temporal relationships in the early posttraumatic period after neck trauma.     

Regierungsabwahl ohne Regierungsneuwahl

Ohne Zusammenfassung Dieser Kommentar zur Bundestagswahl wurde am 4. Oktober 2005 der Redaktion der PVS eingereicht. Die Autoren bedanken sich bei der Redaktion der PVS und bei Thomas Gschwend für Verbesserungsvorschl?ge, die am 12. Oktober 2005 in die Endversion eingearbeitet wurden.     

Regierungsbildung in Mehrebenensystemen: Zur Erklärung der Koalitionsbildung in den deutschen Bundesländern

The German federal governmental system is conceptualized as a full-fledged two-level system, in which the Länder governments participate in federal policy decisions via the second chamber Bundesrat and in which the stakes of state coalition building are high for the federal parties. Our research question is whether we can find systematic empirical evidence for an influence of federal on state parties to build state governments whose party composition is concordant with federal politics, containing either exclusively federal governmental or non-governmental parties. We answer this question by indirect evidence. We show that such concordant majority coalitions occur above average even if important coalition predictors are controlled as minimal winning coalitions or participation of dominant and/or central players. We predict the 182 actual Land governments which were formed in the period from 1949 to 2003 compared to the possible governments in each situation.     

Loose Cannons or Loyal Foot Soldiers? Toward a More Complex Theory of Interest Group Advertising Strategies

Recent court decisions have encouraged new types of interest groups to become involved in election campaigns. Yet questions remain about whether interest group sponsorship of advertising affects the content of the issues being discussed. The ability of interest groups to influence the campaign agenda has implications for the extent to which politicians can be held accountable by citizens. In this research, we present a new conceptual framework for explaining variation in interest group advertising strategies and examine the factors leading different types of interest groups to be loose cannons (diverging from the issue debates among candidates) or loyal foot soldiers (matching the candidates’ issue debates). We find more evidence of loyal foot soldier behavior among new multi‐issue interest groups and among Republican groups and candidates. Fears of interest groups “hijacking” campaign agendas appear unfounded.     

Lander Governance in a Global Era: The Case of Hesse

Subnational governments in federal systems are among the institutionsbeing buffeted by economic trends and institutional developmentsassociated with globalization. While the national governments'ability to maintain policy autonomy in a global age is frequentlyexamined, less attention has been devoted to the subnationalleaders' capacity for responding to global circumstances whilestill preserving the traditions and priorities of their jurisdictions.This article explores the responses of a single German Land,Hesse, to international events between 1982 and 1999. The analysisconcentrates first on changes in governmental structure andprocedure that reflect developments in Hesse's global environment,and then on changes in economic and environmental policy, apolicy domain central to Hessian politics throughout the period.Hesse's political leadership has not been able to insulate theLand from global pressures, but by acknowledging their distinctcircumstances, they have shaped institutions and policies inways that have enhanced their ability to derive significantadvantage from trends originating outside their borders.     

Koalitionsbildungen zwischen Ämter- und Politikmotivation. Konstruktion einer interdependenten Nutzenfunktion

While newer coalition theories take into account that parties are both office and policy motivated, one problem remains unsolved: the fact that offices (ministries) and policies are inseparably connected with each other. In this essay, we solve this problem by constructing a utility function which considers the interdependency of office distributions and policy outputs. This utility function — which can be used as a basis for further coalition theories — is able to capture the interdependencies also in empirical applications, as we illustrate for the example of the coalition building process after the Bundestag elections of 2002.     

Regierungsbildung im deutschen Fünf-Parteiensystem

Since 2005 all five parliamentary parties in the German Bundestag have coalition potential in the sense that they are able to enter at least one minimal winning coalition, that is a coalition without parties which are not necessary for a majority. Given the number of each party’s members of parliament, the strategic coalition situation is fixed as the set of possible minimal winning coalitions. With certain assumptions (no party will gain an absolute majority, the party system consists of two larger and three smaller parties etc.) two strategic coalition situations are possible as a consequence of the Bundestag election in September 2009: the same as the existing one where only CDU/CSU and SPD can form a two party majority government, and an alternative, predicted currently (February/March 2009) by pollsters, where the largest party, probably the CDU/CSU, can form a two party majority coalition also with the third largest party, probably the FDP. In addition, several three party coalitions are also possible. Which of these coalitions will actually be formed will be determined by the policy distances between the parties which are identified in a two dimensional policy space (economic and social issue positions of parties). The possible minimal winning coalitions are further constrained by the majority coalitions in the so-called cycle set as defined by Schofield.