Partisan Bias in Message Selection: Media Gatekeeping of Party Press Releases

Parties try to shape media coverage in ways that are favorable to them, but what determines whether media outlets pick up and report on party messages? Based on content analyses of 1,496 party press releases and 6,512 media reports from the 2013 Austrian parliamentary election campaign, we show that media coverage of individual party messages is influenced not just by news factors, but also by partisan bias. The media are therefore more likely to report on messages from parties their readers favor. Importantly, this effect is greater rather than weaker when these messages have high news value. These findings have important implications for understanding the media’s role in elections and representative democracies in general.     

Costly Signals: Voter Responses to Parliamentary Dissent in Austria,Britain, and Germany

When Members of Parliament (MPs) disagree publicly with their party, this provides a signal to voters regarding both their political views and their character valence. We argue that the strength of this signal to voters depends on the personal career costs an MP incurs by dissenting. The greater the perceived costs of dissent to the MP, the more positively voters should react to dissent. In line with this theory, we use a series of conjoint analysis experiments in Britain, Germany, and Austria to show that: (1) dissent has a more positive effect on voter evaluations in systems where the costs of dissent are higher, and (2) more costly types of dissent have a greater impact on voter evaluations. These findings have important implications for understanding how voter evaluations of MPs depend on beliefs about parliamentary systems and how parliamentary institutions condition the link between voters and MPs.     

Constitutional order in a federal republic

A review article on Vincent Ostrom, The political theory of a compound republic: Designing the American experiment (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987). xxx + 240 pages. 22.50 cloth;22.50 cloth; 8.95 paper.     

Richard Musgrave,public finance,and public choice

Review Article

Richard Musgrave, public finance, and public choice     

Expressive Voting and Government Redistribution: Testing Tullock's `Charity of the Uncharitable'

Models of expressive voting postulate that voters will`consume' ideological stances on issues by voting for them,even when they are against the voter's own narrow selfinterest, if the probability of being a decisive voter is low.When a voter is unlikely to sway the outcome, the odds that avoter will incur any real personal cost (a higher tax burden,for example) from her own expressive vote is small. We testand find support for Tullock's straightforward empiricalimplication of this model, that government welfare (transfer)payments are inversely related to the probability of being thedecisive voter.     

Children's disability law: the more things change, the more they stay the same

The social security system insures both children and adults who are disabled. Over the years, the Social Security Administration and the courts have developed a number of tests to determine whether a child is eligible to receive social security benefits. In 1997, as part of its attempt to reform welfare, Congress laid out a new, arguably more restrictive standard that must be met before a child can be deemed "disabled." For all of the apparent changes, however, it is unclear how much the standards have changed in practice.     

Strategy first in international joint ventures

International technology- based joint ventures are proliferating despite their inherent complexity and high risk of failure. US firms continue to employ international joint ventures as a vehicle for collaborative research and development (R & D); foreign investors prefer the joint venture for investing in the emerging market economies of Eastern Europe. Tipping the balance in favor of successful joint ventures requires a strategic approach from the very advent of entering into an international R&D arrangement: an approach in which clear objectives are set and alternative ways to reach these objectives are systematically evaluated. Several frameworks are presented that clarify and facilitate the decisionmaking process during the initial phases of considering a joint venture in which project objectives are developed, alternative R&D arrangements are evaluated, and potential partners are identified and eventually selected.     

French Urban Space Management: A Visual Semiotic Approach Behind Power and Control

The paper will discuss the role of the visual in French urban space. It will reveal the close connections between visual and semiotics where the visual dimension is central rather than marginal. We will evaluate altogether the psychological, legal and social impacts of the new shapes of our own environment. Rethinking our public space shapes our identities, unveils the ‘hidden’ powerful discourse behind these new urban models.     

Remembering Bill Niskanen: pursuing economics as a public science in the service of liberty

This short essay is a memorial piece about William A. Niskanen (13 March 1933–26 October 2011). The essay starts with his time at the University of Chicago in the mid-1950s, and gives most attention to his contributions to public choice. Especial attention is paid to his Bureaucracy and Representative Government, which opened vast territory for subsequent analytical exploration. A good deal of attention is also paid to his Autocratic, Democratic, and Optimal Government because this work both conveys his interest in comparative constitutional analysis and is useful for illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of his approach to this material.