Shifts of meaning within explanations of voting and party competition

Rational choice models are increasingly used in explanations of voting and elections. Their adoption is often urged, rather uncritically, on the grounds that they provide a unified and exact explanation across political science. Far from doing so, however, their definitions of ‘rationality’ may differ radically even within a limited area, such as party and voting behaviour. Shifts of meaning from one model to another may be obscured by mathematical formalism, which concentrates attention on the derivation of conclusions from basic assumptions, rather than on the practical relevance of their relationship to the assumptions behind other models. A mathematical formulation may not, however, be the most relevant for purposes of electoral explanation. Rigorous verbal formulations can represent electors' and politicians' decision procedures more realistically, while remaining generally accessible and supporting detailed inter-comparisons of their working assumptions. Through these, rational choice explanations can be brought closer together and decisions between them made with a clear knowledge of what is involved, thus providing a better basis for cumulative research. The process of theoretical evaluation and assimilation is illustrated here with two original theories of voting and party competition.     

Vicarious liability and criminal prosecutions for regulatory offences

The parameters of vicarious liability of corporations for the conduct of their employees, especially in the context of provisions that criminalise breaches of regulatory provisions, are complex. The decision of Bell J in ABC Developmental Learning Centres Pty Ltd v Wallace [2006] VSC 171 raises starkly the potential unfairness of an approach which converts criminal liability of corporations too readily into absolute liability, irrespective of the absence of any form of proven culpability. The author queries whether fault should not be brought back in some form to constitute a determinant of criminal liability for corporations.     

Specification Issues in Proximity Models of Candidate Evaluation (with Issue Importance)

Bryce E. Corrigan Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, 5700 Haven Hall, 505 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1045 e-mail: becorrig{at}umich.edu e-mail: grynaviski{at}uchicago.edu (corresponding author) The use of the proximity model to represent the relationshipbetween citizens' policy attitudes and the positions of candidateson the issues of the day has considerable appeal because itoffers a bridge between theoretical models of political behaviorand empirical work. However, there is little consensus amongapplied researchers about the appropriate representation ofvoter behavior with respect to the measurement of issue distance,candidate location, or whether to allow heterogeneity in theweight that each individual places on particular issues. Eachof these choices suggests a different, and reasonably complicated,nonlinear relationship between voter utility and candidate andvoter issue positions which may have a meaningful influenceon the substantive conclusions drawn by the researcher. Yet,little attention has been given to the best way to representthe proximity model in applied work. The purpose of this paperis to identify which forms of the proximity model work best,with particular consideration given to the identification offunctional forms that are invariant to the choice of scale forthe independent variables.