An exploration of testamentary behaviour in twentieth-century Ireland

This article highlights trends in testamentary behaviour in modern Ireland derived from registers of probate cases. Primary findings show a consistently high level of intestacy in modern Ireland. It argues that such rates were more closely related to popular perceptions rather than an understanding of succession law. It also highlights that while real property was not normally divided pre-mortem transfer of non-fixed assets complicated efforts to understand how estates devolved. Testamentary behaviour also shifted significantly in favour of pious bequests in the period under review.     

Comparisons among electoral systems: Distinguishing between localism and candidate-centered politics

Carey and Shugart (1995) offer a four component composite index of “incentives to cultivate a personal vote.” We argue that this index, while tapping important aspects of electoral system choice, is best regarded as encompassing two distinct dimensions: degree of party-centeredness of the electoral system, on the one hand, and incentives for “parochial” behavior on the part of legislators, on the other. Also, while we have no problem with the three indicators used by Carey and Shugart to measure party-centeredness; to measure parochial incentives we prefer to use a new measure, E (Grofman, 1999a) of the size of a legislator's electoral constituency, rather than using district magnitude, m, as a proxy for a the size of a legislator's geographic constituency, as Carey and Shugart do. In the conclusion to the paper we argue that the degree of similarity between any two electoral systems will depend upon the research question at issue, and that the expected degree of proportionality of election results is only one of the many political consequences of electoral laws to which we ought to be paying attention.     

Bottom-up renewal of the Swiss party system

ABSTRACT

The Swiss party system and the institutional rules guiding elections are an anchor of stability in Swiss politics. This article investigates recent change in cantonal elections, and analyses how electoral swings in cantonal elections diffuse to other cantons, and whether they predict future electoral swings in the national electoral arena. Empirically, the article combines a statistical analysis of electoral results from the period 1990–2017 in cantonal and national elections with a qualitative discussion of the period from 2014 to 2017.     

Resource spending over time in competitions for electoral support

So far we have little by way of a theoretical understanding of the dynamics of electoral competition. This paper attempts to fill some of this gap by studying resource expenditure over the electoral cycle. Among the main results is that, when contributions from donors are independent of support, parties accelerate expenditure during the entire period between elections, even when voters do not forget. If contributions depend on support, and are significant, parties front load expenditure and decelerate.     

中共历次党章修改对党员选举权的完善与落实

党章,是党的根本大法,是党内活动的根本准则。建党以来,从党的一大到党的十八大,随着党所面临的形势和任务的变化对其工作提出的新要求,使得党章不断的得以修正和完善,党员选举权利的理论也实现了与时俱进的发展。这一发展不仅体现了我党在不同历史时期的实践探索,而且体现了中国共产党对党员选举权利认识的深化。因此,分析历次党章对党员选举权内容的修订,以及中共历次党章修改对落实党员选举权利的推动作用,对于探索新时期保障和落实党员权利的主要途径也就显得尤为重要。     

Plurality support for democratic decay: the 2019 Polish parliamentary election

Abstract

The 2019 parliamentary election in Poland resulted in continuity of the incumbent PiS party-coalition. The election saw, for Poland, an unprecedented turnout of 62%. The 44% support for PiS translated into a 51% majority in the Lower House. The ability of the three opposition blocs (KO, SLD and PSL) to coordinate their political campaign for the upper chamber resulted in their victory – PiS lost the majority in the Senate. This post-2019 period thus starts as parliamentary cohabitation. The preceding four years had witnessed repeated violations of the constitution by the government (including attempts to dismantle the separation of powers and to turn public media into a partisan propaganda machine) accompanied by a general anti-liberal and anti-European stance. The electorates of the two major party-blocks have polarized in terms of their socio-demographic features. The new government does not differ much from the pre-election one, with the same PM and most ministers. The first weeks of its governing indicate that the government’s general as well as sectoral policies will be continued, including the controversial, illiberal ones. Finally, the election though free, was unfair, if for no other reason than the simple one of the partisan nature of the public media.     

Economic or cultural backlash? Rethinking outsiders’ voting behavior

Political economists show that outsiders (unemployed and temporary workers) support redistributive policies more than insiders (standard dependent workers) and infer outsiders' voting behavior from their desired degree of State intervention in the economy. However, it has been suggested that international interdependence is reshaping the political space along two dimensions: the traditional economic left-right scale, and an emerging cultural integration-demarcation dimension. How do outsiders behave in this two-dimensional political landscape? This research note answers this question by combining individual data from the latest five waves of the European Social Survey (2008–2016) with party positions provided by the Comparative Manifesto Project on 27 European countries. Integrating research based on party families with parties’ policy positions, results show that the economic State-market dimension is still more linked to outsiders’ voting behavior than the cultural integration-demarcation dimension.     

Voting at 16: Intended and unintended consequences of Austria's electoral reform

Several democracies are currently debating whether to lower their legal voting age to 16, but relatively little is known about the long-term consequences of such reforms. We contribute to this debate by studying electoral habit formation among 16-year-old voters in Austria, where the national-level voting age was decreased in 2007. We employ eligibility-based regression discontinuities to evaluate two consequences of the reform. First, we show that eligible 16-year-olds are more likely to vote in future elections. Second, we demonstrate that the political consequences of this reform were not neutral. Newly eligible young voters are more likely to place themselves towards the extremes of the ideological spectrum. We also simulate the cumulative long-term impact on electoral outcomes and argue that the reform was costly for the centrist government parties that initially adopted it.     

The servant of two masters: Electoral incentives in the Scottish Parliament

Scholars have pointed out the potential impact of different electoral systems on the incentives for representatives to cultivate personal versus party reputations. The mixed-member proportional system (MMP) allows us to examine the effects of electoral systems on legislators’ incentives. Scholars have argued that MMP may be the ‘best of both worlds’; however, MMP may lead to competing demands on list representatives if they are also allowed to run as constituency candidates, as happens in the Scottish Parliament. I show that this leads to different levels of committee activity—which I use as a surrogate for party activity—from constituency Members of Scottish Parliament (MSPs), pure-list MSPs (who are elected via the party list and do not run in constituencies), and dual-candidate list MSPs (list MSPs who also run in constituencies), and that the proximity of elections also affects committee activity for those who run in constituencies.     

More than wishful thinking: Causes and consequences of voters’ electoral expectations about parties and coalitions

Accurate expectations about the outcome of elections play a central role in psychological and economic theories of voting. In the paper, three questions about voters’ expectations are investigated. First, we identify and test several factors that influence the overall accuracy or quality of voters’ expectations. Second, the phenomenon of “wishful thinking” is tested and confirmed for expectations about the electoral performance of individual parties and coalitions. Finally, two mechanisms how expectations might influence voting behavior are identified and tested. Based on surveys from Austria and Germany, the results suggest that voters not only rely on expectations to avoid casting “wasted” votes for parties without electoral chances, but that they are able to engage in fairly sophisticated strategic coalition voting.