The Contingency of Voter Learning: How Election Debates Influenced Voters’ Ability and Accuracy to Position Parties in the 2010 Dutch Election Campaign

Election campaigns are expected to inform voters about parties’ issue positions, thereby increasing voters’ ability to influence future policy and thus enhancing the practice of democratic government. We argue that campaign learning is not only contingent on voters’ characteristics and different sources of information, but also on how parties communicate their issue positions in election debates. We combine a two-wave panel survey with content analysis data of three televised election debates. In cross-classified multilevel auto-regression models we examine the influence of these debates in the 2010 Dutch parliamentary election campaign on voters’ knowledge of the positions of eight parties on three issues. The Dutch multiparty system allows us to separate voters’ ability to position parties from their accuracy in ordering these parties. We reach three main conclusions. First, this study shows that voters become more able and accurate during the campaign. However, these campaign learning effects erode after the elections. Second, whereas voters’ attention to campaigns consistently contributes to their ability to position parties, its effect on accuracy is somewhat less consistent. Third, televised election debates contribute to what voters learn. Parties that advocate their issue positions in the debates stimulate debate viewers’ ability to position these parties on these issues. In the face of the complexity of campaigns and debates in multiparty systems, campaigns are more likely to boost voters’ subjective ability to position parties than their accuracy.     

Modelling the dynamics of support for a right-wing populist party: the case of UKIP

Similar to a number of other right-wing populist parties in Europe, Great Britain's United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has experienced increased public support in recent years. Using aggregate data from monthly national surveys conducted between April 2004 and April 2014, time series analyses demonstrate that the dynamics of UKIP support were influenced by a combination of spatial and valence issues. A spatial issue, Euroscepticism, was fundamental, with UKIP support moving in dynamic equilibrium with changing public attitudes towards EU membership. In addition, widespread anti-immigration sentiment and dissatisfaction with the performance of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government combined with the “oxygen of publicity” to propel UKIP's surge. The political context after the 2010 general election helped as well by enabling UKIP to benefit from valence considerations. Many voters continued to doubt the competence of the major opposition party, Labour, while the Liberal Democrats were part of the government and, hence, unavailable as a protest vehicle. Since many of the forces driving UKIP support are beyond its control, the party's prospects are highly uncertain.     

Undiagnosed progressive supranuclear palsy in a patient with neuroleptic malignant syndrome due to use of neuroleptics: the utility of autopsy in deaths due to known drug reactions

Medical examiners must decide whether or not a complete autopsy is warranted in evaluation of deaths that have been referred to their office. This decision is influenced by many factors. In most cases, the choice to perform only an external examination occurs in deaths where the decedent had previously documented potentially lethal natural disease or well-documented trauma. We report a patient who apparently died of the sequelae of a well-known complication of pharmacotherapy (neuroleptic malignant syndrome following Haldol administration). The death was referred to the medical examiner's office, where, based upon the history, an external examination was performed. Subsequently, the family requested an autopsy by the treating hospital. The autopsy established the diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). The patient's presenting signs and symptoms were not typical of the disease; however, PSP most likely played a role in the neuroleptic malignant syndrome-like manifestations the patient exhibited following the Haldol administration. The results of the complete autopsy highlight its importance in identifying and enhancing our understanding of the underlying conditions in natural disease-based causes of death involving known therapeutic complications.     

How postsecondary education improves adult outcomes for Supplemental Security Income children with severe hearing impairments

The rapid growth in the number of children participating in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program before the age of 18 has led policymakers to consider new methods of assisting children with disabilities in their transition from school to work. Postsecondary education represents one path that SSI children may take to acquire the skills necessary to enter employment and reduce dependency on the SSI disability program as adults. Yet little is known about SSI children's experience with postsecondary education, let alone their ability to increase their labor market earnings and reduce their time on SSI as adults in the long term. This lack of information on long-term outcomes is due in part to a lack of longitudinal data. This article uses a unique longitudinal data set to conduct a case study of SSI children who applied for postsecondary education at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) within the Rochester Institute of Technology. The data set was created by merging NTID administrative data on the characteristics and experiences of its applicants to Social Security Administration (SSA) longitudinal data on earnings and program participation. We used this data file to estimate the likelihood that an SSI child will graduate from NTID relative to other hearing-impaired NTID applicants, and we estimated the influence of graduation from NTID on participation in the SSI adult program and later success in the labor market. The results of our analysis show that the percentage of NTID applicants who were SSI children increased over time, from a low of 10 percent in 1982 to more than 41 percent in 2000. However, the differences in the probability of graduation from NTID between deaf SSI children and deaf applicants who were not SSI children did not change accordingly. The probability of graduation for SSI children who applied to NTID was 13.5 percentage points lower than for those who were not SSI children. The estimated disparity indicates that targeting college retention programs toward SSI children may be an effective way to improve overall graduation rates. Our results also show that SSI children who graduated from NTID spent less time in the SSI adult program and had higher earnings than SSI children who did not gradu- ate. Compared with SSI children who were accepted to NTID but chose not to attend, SSI children who graduated from NTID left the SSI program 19 months earlier, were less likely to reenter the program, and at age 30 had increased their earnings by an estimated 49 percent. Our findings demonstrate that SSI children need not be relegated to a lifetime of SSI participation as adults, despite the poor overall labor market experience of this population since the creation of the SSI program in 1974.     

Justice: Plain Old and Distributive: Rejoinder to Charles Taylor

This paper argues that the views of Charles Taylor on justice in income and wealth distribution are fallacious, especially in regard to issues such as private property rights, justice, human rights, and theft. As to this last point, Taylor maintains it is possible, under certain circumstances, to “legitimately steal.” We regard this as a philosophical howler of the first order. We also demur from his contention that equity and equality can be used as synonyms.

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