Ballot-Box Vigilantism? Ethnic Population Shifts and Xenophobic Voting in Post-Soviet Russia

To what extent does voting for anti-immigrant parties relate to long-term changes in ethnic composition within states? Four theoretical models are developed, based on studies of interethnic attitudes, housing segregation, racial violence, and hate crime in the United States. Each model is tested with the data on ethnic composition of the Russian Federation from 1989 to 2002 and voting for the extreme nationalist Zhirinovsky Bloc in the 2003 parliamentary election, using multiple regression and ecological inference methods. Most consistently supported is the “defended nationhood” model derived from the sociology of neighborhood vigilantism and the psychology of the security dilemma. Non-trivial, counterintuitive findings are: (1) xenophobic voting was responsive to changes in the proportion of some ethnic groups more so than others and not necessarily those that were more numerous or more widely disliked at the time of the vote (Chechens), but those that raised more uncertainty about the future ethnic composition and identity of the state (Asians); (2) levels of change, but not the rapidity of change in the ethnic composition of the population related significantly to xenophobic voting; and (3) greater percentage of the nation’s dominant ethnic group in a region reduced xenophobic voting by members of that dominant group (the highest share of Slavs voted for Zhirinovsky in the ethnically mixed Volga-Urals area).     

Endogenous economic voting: evidence from the 1997 British election

Using panel surveys conducted in Great Britain before and after the 1997 general election, we examine the relationship between voting behavior and post-election economic perceptions. Drawing on psychological theories of attitude formation, we argue that those who voted for Labour and the Liberal Democrats perceived the past state of the British economy under the Tory government more negatively than they had prior to casting their ballot in the 1997 election. Similarly, we posit that Labour supporters would view the future state of the national economy under Labour more positively than they had before the election. This indicates that, contrary to many assumptions in the economic voting literature, voting behavior influences evaluations of the economy as voters seek to reduce inconsistencies between their vote choice and evaluations of the economy by bringing their attitudes in line with the vote they cast in the election. It also means that voters’ post-election economic perceptions are, at least in part, influenced by and thus endogenous to their vote choice. This finding has two major implications: first, cross-sectional models of economic voting are likely to overestimate the effect of economic perceptions on the vote. Second, the endogeneity of economic perceptions may compromise the quality of economic voting as a mechanism for democratic accountability.     

Electoral outcomes and satisfaction with democracy: A comparison of regional and national elections

Subnational governments have become more numerous and more powerful around the world, increasing the importance of subnational elections. However, we still know little about the impact of regional electoral outcomes on citizens' political support, and there is no systematic comparison of the impact of election outcomes on citizens' satisfaction with democracy. In this research note, we provide such a comparison by investigating how the winner-loser gap in citizens’ satisfaction with democracy differs across regional and national elections. Using data from Canada, Germany and Spain, we first show that there is a winner-loser gap in satisfaction with democracy following regional elections. The winner-loser gap at the regional level is, however, substantially smaller than the one generated by national election outcomes. Next, we find heterogeneous effects for voters who believe that the regional government strongly influences their quality of life. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings.     

Presidential power and democratization by elections in Africa

Do elections in and of themselves provide mechanisms for democratization? The “democratization by elections” thesis has been challenged, yet scholars still differ over its substantive effect. Some of the disagreement is over the specific outcome of interest, with proponents advocating for a narrower definition of “democratization”. Others want to know more about the factors that condition how elections impact on democracy. This article addresses both points by demonstrating that in Africa the extent of formal presidential power significantly shapes the ability of repeated elections to socialize more broadly democratic behaviour in the form of greater civil and private liberties, more civil society participation, and wider egalitarianism. Using recently available data on African presidents and the democratic qualities of regimes, the article demonstrates the ongoing influence of presidential power in Africa and provides some previously unstudied constraints on the democratization by elections thesis.     

When and where do elections matter? A global test of the democratization by elections hypothesis, 1900–2010

Successive multiparty elections in sub-Saharan Africa are associated with incremental democratization. Yet tests in other regions are less than encouraging. Non-significant findings on Latin America and post-communist Eurasia, as well as conceptual criticism regarding the theory’s application in the contemporary Middle East, suggest that this may be a case of African exceptionalism. This article moves these debates forward by posing a comprehensive, global set of tests on the democratizing effect of elections. We seek to establish the scope conditions of the argument geographically, temporally, and substantively. Although we find a correlation between reiterated multiparty elections and improvements in the liberal-democratic components of electoral regimes globally since 1900, the relationship is only substantial in the period since the onset of the third wave of democracy. Experiences with iterated multiparty elections have substantive importance for democratization in sub-Saharan Africa, the post-communist region, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia. For the Middle East and North Africa, the relationship is weaker and less robust. Finally, the results suggest that reiterated sequences of multiparty elections are associated with improvements to liberal and deliberative components of democracy more so than egalitarian components.     

Defeat of the People's Army? The 2015 British general election and the UK Independence Party (UKIP)

The 2015 general election in Britain saw a major attempt by a relatively new party - the UK Independence Party (UKIP)- to secure elected representation. While UKIP received nearly four million votes, the party left the 2015 general election with just one Member of Parliament. Our evidence, drawn from analysis of British Election survey data and in-depth qualitative interviews with activists, suggests that UKIP's campaign was a major factor in its inability to translate widespread support into elected representation. While the party pursued a targeted campaign, this had only a modest impact on its own vote. UKIP's lack of resources, inexperience and inability to operationalize highly effective, targeted local campaigns severely hamstrung the party and prevented it from converting support into MPs at Westminster.     

Was there a ‘Youthquake’ in the 2017 general election?

Studies using data from the British Election Study and the British Social Attitudes survey have concluded that the case for a significant rise in turnout amongst young people at the 2017 general election remains unproven. A limitation of these data sets for assessing the so-called Youthquake thesis is the small number of younger voters they contain. In this research note we use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey to produce more robust estimates of turnout amongst people aged under thirty between the 2010, 2015, and 2017 general elections. Our findings support the claim that turnout increased markedly among voters in this age group in 2017. They also demonstrate that the increase in youth turnout was not specific to 2017 but, rather, represented a continuation of a change between 2010 and 2015. Our analysis confirms the heightened importance of age as a predictor of vote choice in 2017, with younger voters significantly more likely to vote Labour compared to 2010 and 2015.     

Election turnout in authoritarian regimes

What explains election turnout in authoritarian regimes? Despite the significant energy, resources, and time ruling parties devote to improving the participation rates of citizens, there exists extraordinary variation both within and across authoritarian regimes. This paper hypothesizes that election turnout is explained by contestation, coercion and clientelism. To test this theory, the paper uses an original dataset capturing turnout rates for 548 legislative elections in 108 countries between 1960 and 2011. The resulting empirical analysis confirms these Hypothesis – with one notable exception. Instead of encouraging turnout amongst citizens, clientelism discourages it. This counterintuitive finding occurs because citizens lack the optimum incentives for participation and ruling parties lack effective monitoring strategies of that behavior. The conclusion of the paper addresses its implications for existing theories of authoritarian politics and proposes several avenues for further research on election turnout under authoritarianism.     

Local Elections and the Turkish Voter: Looking for the Determinants of Party Choice

On 30 March 2014 Turkish voters elected their local (city) councillors. Their party preferences seem to indicate considerable correspondence with the national vote choices. So, do voters' choices in local elections differ from voters' party preferences at the national legislative elections? Based on previous research findings on Turkish voting behaviour, a list of hypotheses was compiled and tested, using binary logistic regression analyses and survey data collected immediately prior to the 2009 and 2014 local elections. The main findings are that the party lists are supported at the ballot boxes on the basis of the voters' party identification, ideological positions, and economic (dis)satisfaction, whether in national or local elections.     

Why Berlusconi’s landslide return? A comment on the 2008 Italian general election

At the Italian parliamentary election of April 2008 the centre-right coalition, led by media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, prevailed with 3.3 million votes over the centre-left coalition, led by Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome. This commentary analyzes the electoral results by looking at three factors which affected the vote: the institutional context, the electoral campaigns of both coalitions, and the voters’ behaviour. The article claims that the electoral outcome originated from an asymmetrical abstention of centre-left voters who did not turn out, and from a high-level of swing-voting which favoured the centre-right. It is argued that this election hardly signals a political realignment. Rather than value changes, valence politics and government performance are at the basis of the centre-right victory.