Are powerful presidents always popularly elected? Implications for separating semi-presidentialism from parliamentarism

The traditional conception of semi-presidentialism stipulates that powers are shared by a popularly elected president and a prime minister, who is responsible to parliament. In recent years, an increasingly popular strategy has become to disregard the power dimension and define semi-presidentialism only with regard to whether the president is popularly elected or not. Based on a principal-agent framework the present study sets out to test the relationship between the mode of election and the powers of the president in democratic republics where the government is dependent on the legislature for survival. Findings indicate that although powerful presidents most often are popularly elected there are also instances where a non-popularly elected president shares executive powers with the prime minister. This makes it difficult to define semi-presidentialism only with regard to how the president comes to power.     

Local News Media and Voter Turnout

A reasonably high turnout is a quality of a local democracy. In this article, we investigate whether media coverage of politics leads to increased or decreased voter turnout. Based on a unique data set, our analysis shows that local news media coverage has a positive effect on voter turnout, but only if the news media provide politically relevant information to the voters and only at local elections. Both findings are in accordance with the Information Model, which states that rising levels of political relevant information increases the probability of voting.     

Mass Media and Party Divergence in Multiparty Systems

Does the mass media affect the dispersion of the policy positions of political parties? In this article it is argued that the mass media polarize parties' policy positions because vote‐seeking strategies are more viable if party policy positions are clearly communicated to the electorate and because a vote‐seeking strategy corresponds with parties taking a distinct policy position away from the median. Hence, the main hypothesis is that party policy position dispersion is larger with more mass media penetration. In order to test this argument, a novel dataset on party positions and mass media penetration in 267 Danish municipalities in 2004 is utilized and a new measure of the dispersion of policy positions in multiparty systems is constructed. The analysis corroborates the article's main hypothesis.     

Political Involvement and the Development of Political Attitudes

Political socialization research so far has focused primarily on the direction of attitudes among children and youngsters. The preconditions for the development of political attitudes among these age groups have been neglected. In theoretical discussions cognitive development has been offered as a major prerequisite. In the article it is posited that political involvement is a second major prerequisite.
The effects of political involvement are examined with respect to four aspects of political attitudes among Danish school children: the ability to express attitudes, the correlation between indicators of a particular attitude, the stability of attitudes, and the correlation between different attitudes. Except for the stability of attitudes, results are clear. Political involvement is related to the formation of attitudes. The effect of political involvement is stronger than the effect of any of the traditional socio-economic variables ordinarily considered in socialization research.     

Policy Networks And Agricultural Policy Reforms: Explaining Deregulation In Sweden And Re‐Regulation In The European Community

Policy network analysis has been criticized for being unable to explain outcomes and change in outcomes. This article develops a theoretical network model which attempts to explain reform outcomes. It suggests that the success of reformers depends mainly on the policy network type existing in the sector in which they attempt to bring about change. If the network has a high degree of cohesion, then those network members who are subject to reform have power to defend the principles of the established policy. Consequently, only moderate policy reform occurs. On the other hand, if the network's degree of cohesion is low, then those who are subject to reform do not have the power to oppose reformers successfully. Therefore, reformers have opportunities to bring about fundamental policy reform. Differences in the cohesion of agricultural policy networks help to explain why the 1990 Swedish agricultural policy reform was more radical than the European Community's in 1992.     

Try Federalism

The present article follows up a previous study (Anckar 1998) which showed a strong association between size and party system fragmentation. The aim of the article is to see whether the explanatory power of size can, in fact, be attributed to a federal form of government. 77 countries with free party systems constitute the research population. The dependent variable has three components: number of parties, electoral support for the leading party, and the 'effective number of parties' calculated according to the Laakso-Taagepera formula. Preliminary tests reveal that federal states have a more fragmented party system than unitary states. However, when controlling for size, electoral system, the 'effective threshold,' and presidentialism, the results clearly show that federalism is overshadowed by size and also, to a lesser extent, by the effective threshold.     

Quangos—What's in a Name? Defining Quangos from a Comparative Perspective

Without definitional clarity the "quango debate" is inherently flawed and meaningful progress undermined. A possible solution to this problem is proposed in this article by way of a subsectional map which aims to clarify the quango topography. This accepts the diversity inherent in the quango debate while allowing for increased clarity and focused research. This, the authors believe, is the only way forward for practitioners, academics and policymakers working within the sphere of quasi-government. There is a need to address precise forms or subsections of the quango continuum as studies or reforms which focus on one type of quango would not necessarily work if applied to all quangos, or quangos in other countries.