Two dimensions of the Europeanization of election programs: The case of the Czech Republic

This article represents a contribution to the debate over the Europeanization of political parties, one of the hot topics in contemporary political science. It explores the extent of Europeanization in political parties represented in the lower chamber of the Parliament of the Czech Republic by means of an analysis of party election manifestoes. The extent of Europeanization in these documents is analyzed using a bi-dimensional conceptualization. The first we call the quantitative dimension, assesses the space taken by the topic of European integration in each manifesto. The second one we call the qualitative dimension. This, using the analysis of content, measures the degree to which the European integration issue is elaborated in the programs. Using this conceptualization, we analyze the election manifestoes of five Czech political parties in the period 1996–2006.     

The 2014 Local Elections in Greece: Looking for Patterns in a Changing Political System

In May 2014, municipal and regional elections were held in Greece, concurrently with European elections. This was the first electoral test after the 2012 twin earthquake elections, which marked the beginning of a radical restructuring of the Greek political system. The fragmentation and inconsistency of voting behaviour across different polls in 2014 indicate that Greek politics remains in a transitional phase whose final outcome is still contested. Other characteristics of the elections, including the high proportion of independent candidates, the radical renewal of political personnel and the emergence of Berlusconism in two major municipalities, underline the continuing lack of legitimacy of the political system.     

Detecting manipulation in authoritarian elections: Survey-based methods in Zimbabwe

This paper explores the feasibility of using social surveys to detect electoral manipulation in authoritarian regimes. It compares official results from the July 2013 elections in Zimbabwe with findings from a nationally representative pre-election survey. The comparison confirms that the dominant incumbent party won the elections but by far smaller margins than officially reported. This discrepancy provides analytic leverage to identify the possible presence of coercive mobilization and vote suppression and to pinpoint their geographic location. The election results are re-estimated using a set of voting simulations based on novel proxy indicators and an original list experiment designed to reveal the political preferences of fearful voters. The paper concludes by discussing why autocrats manipulate elections and whether or not they succeed in their objectives.     

Popular evaluations of election quality in Africa: Evidence from Nigeria

Despite the important consequences of citizens' election quality perceptions on political behavior and political attitudes, very little is known about how citizens formulate their perceptions of election quality. In this paper, I assess the correlates of citizens' perceptions of election quality. I suggest that the performance of election-related institutions is an important correlate of citizens' election quality perceptions. However, citizens' experience with electoral irregularities, and partisan affiliation also matter. I test these hypotheses in the context of the 2007 Nigerian general elections using survey data from Afrobarometer and International Foundation for Electoral Systems. The findings provide robust support for the hypotheses. Most importantly, the results indicate that the performance of electoral management bodies is associated with citizens' assessment of election quality in Africa and that citizens demand electoral management bodies with impartiality and professionalism.     

Does the world agree about standards of electoral integrity? Evidence for the diffusion of global norms

Drawing upon theories of the diffusion of global norms, this study addresses two issues: is there a shared consensus among experts about standards of electoral integrity? And do evaluations by elites reflect ‘Western/American’ values, or do they coincide with the judgments of ordinary people living in diverse cultures, suggesting the existence of internalized global norms?     

Economic voting in Portugal, 2002–2009

This article tests the economic voting hypothesis in Portugal during the three most recent first-order elections (2002, 2005, 2009), trying to make sense of the multiplicity of choices in the Portuguese party system. We observed that positive sociotropic perceptions increase the probability to vote for the incumbent, even when we control for long-term factors of vote choice; egotropic effects are weaker. Negative economic perceptions not only lead to a higher probability to vote for the major opposition party, but, in some cases, increase the probabilities to vote for small parties or to refrain from voting. Sociotropic effects are actually quite constant in this timeframe, but their strength to explain the vote is lower than that of ideology and (before 2009) religiosity.     

Economic crisis and elections: The European periphery

This paper introduces the articles in the symposium which address the issue of democratic accountability and economic voting in polities on the European periphery. The economic crisis that hit the world economy in 2008 has severely challenged the capacity of governments to steer the national economy and has had a strong impact on their electoral support. The papers discuss whether economic voting and democratic accountability are increasing or, on the other hand, they could be depressed by globalisation and by shifts of ruling competence from the national to the supranational European arena.     

Looking to the future: Prospective economic voting in 2008 Presidential Elections

Despite the economic turmoil of the time, a typical study of vote choice in the 2008 US Presidential Election would (falsely) find little evidence that voters’ opinions about the future state of the economy affected their vote choice. We argue that this misleading conclusion results from serious measurement error in the standard prospective economic evaluations survey question. Relying instead on a revised question, included for the first time in the 2008 American National Election Study, we find that most respondents condition their prospective economic evaluations on potential election outcomes, and that these evaluations are an important determinant of vote choice. A replication in a very different political context – the 2008 Ghanaian election – yields similar results.     

The German grand coalition of 2005–09 and party system change: Catalyst or continuity?

Two times in the last fifty years grand coalitions have altered traditionally bi-polar patterns of German electoral competition, changing the electoral context by making it difficult for voters to endorse anti-incumbent alternatives. How have voters reacted under these circumstances, and were their responses different because of the weakening of partisan attachments in the forty years between the two grand coalitions? This study explores these questions by examining voter behavior in German state elections under the federal grand coalitions of 1966–69 and 2005–09, comparing voters’ responses with long-term trends in German party system development. The second grand coalition saw a continuation of trends in declining turnout and increasing electoral volatility, but in contrast to the first grand coalition there was no surge in support for far-right parties. Such a change may be the result of differences between the party systems in the two period, with voters in unified Germany having many more options for expressing discontent.