How a Presidential Primary Debate Changed Attitudes of Audience Members

This article examines the effect of primary season presidential debates on voters' attitudes toward presidential candidates. Employing a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, we examine the 1996 Arizona Republican primary debate. We find that the debate led respondents to change their viability and electability assessments of the candidates and produced significant changes in respondents' vote preferences. In addition, we demonstrate that changes in viability, changes in electability, as well as differences between expected and actual debate performance influenced the vote preferences of audience members. We conclude by speculating about the debate's effect on the Arizona Republican primary, and by noting the potentially important differences between the impact of general election and primary debates.     

Multiparty electoral competition in the Netherlands and Germany: A model based on multinomial probit

A typical assumption of electoral models of party competition is that parties adopt policy positions so as to maximize expected vote share. Here we use Euro-barometer survey data and European elite-study data from 1979 for the Netherlands and Germany to construct a stochastic model of voter response, based on multinomial probit estimation. For each of these countries, we estimate a pure spatial electoral voting model and a joint spatial model. The latter model also includes individual voter and demographic characteristics. The pure spatial models for the two countries quite accurately described the electoral response as a stochastic function of party positions. We use these models to perform a thought experiment so as to estimate the expected vote maximizing party positions. We go on to propose a model of internal party decision-making based both on pre-election electoral estimation and post-election coalition bargaining. This model suggests why the various parties in the period in question did not adopt vote maximizing positions. We argue that maximizing expected vote will not, in general, be a rational party strategy in multiparty political systems which are based on proportional representation.     

浅议民事诉讼中的专家证人制度

专家证人制度是英美法系的法律制度,其功能是弥补法官在专业知识上的缺陷,帮助法庭查明案件中遇到的专业性问题.我国民事诉讼率先引进了类似于专家证人的制度,以补充我国司法鉴定制度的不足.本文试从英美法系专家证人形态入手,分析引进专家证人制度对我国司法鉴定制度带来的影响及其完善的路径.     

On the Nature of Tolerance: Dichotomous or Continuous?*

The purpose of this article is to reconsider the claim made recently by Mondak and Sanders that political tolerance ought to be thought to be a dichotomous rather than continuous variable. Using data from both Russia and the United States, I demonstrate that those Mondak and Sanders regard as uniquely tolerant are most likely no more than people who were given insufficient opportunity to express their intolerance. Even if such a phenomenon of “absolute tolerance” exists (all ideas expressed in all ways are to be tolerated), it is sufficiently rare that few practical implications are indicated for those doing empirical work on political tolerance and intolerance. * I appreciate the valuable comments of Jeffcry Mondak on an earlier version of this paper.     

The China–asean Free Trade Agreement And Taiwan

While China's move toward a FTA with ASEAN reflects Beijing's most recent foreign economic policy adjustment and represents a new stage in the nation's open-door policy, it inevitably produces significant impact on cross-Taiwan Straits relations. This recent development in China's foreign economic relations brings not only substantial psychological and real effects and pressure on Taiwan for its possible isolation and marginalization from the ongoing process of regional integration in East Asia, but also growing pressure exerted by the island's business community that fears being pushed into a disadvantageous position in competition with ASEAN companies in the ever expanding and lucrative market of the mainland. For strategic, diplomatic, and economic considerations in the face of this new challenge, Taiwan is pursuing counter-measures by searching for its own FTAs with other countries within and beyond the region.     

Economic Threats or Societal Turmoil? Understanding Preferences for Authoritarian Political Systems

Why do some individuals prefer to be governed in an authoritarian political system? One intuitive answer is that citizens prefer authoritarian rule when the economy and society are in turmoil. These are common explanations for democratic backsliding, and the emergence and success of authoritarian leaders in the twentieth century. Which of these explanations better explains preferences for authoritarian rule? Both types of threat coincide in small samples and high-profile cases, creating inferential problems. I address this by using three waves of World Values Survey data to look at individual-level preferences for different forms of authoritarian government. Using multiple macroeconomic and societal indicators, I find that economic threats, especially increasing income inequality, better explain preferences for authoritarian government. I conclude with implications for understanding the emergence of support for authoritarianism in fledgling democracies.     

Robert Tollison and operationalizing public choice

In this tribute to Robert Tollison, I will outline his contributions to the development of public choice. I focus on Tollison’s work on rent-seeking, the political economy of reform, and the rules level of analysis in sports economics. Throughout his career, Tollison brilliantly figured out ways to take insights from price theory and public choice theory and operationalize them using multiple methods of empirical analysis, including historical interpretation and statistical testing.