Symposium on “The nationalization of electoral politics: Frontiers of research”

This editorial introduces the theme of the symposium which addresses the most recent advances in the field of the nationalization of electoral politics. After a decade of an increasing number of contribution in this field, the symposium takes stock of the diversity of applications of nationalization studies, the progress in data collection, and its innovative methods in designs including it as both a dependent and independent variable and analyzing it both for legislative and presidential elections. The editorial reviews the growth and diversification of the literature over time and illustrates in what directions it has evolved mapping out an increasingly rich and complex theory. It links the articles of the symposium to this evolution of the literature and discusses their innovative character.     

Gender,populist attitudes,and voting: explaining the gender gap in voting for populist radical right and populist radical left parties

Empirical studies have demonstrated that compared to almost all other parties, populist radical right (PRR) parties draw more votes from men than from women. However, the two dominant explanations that are generally advanced to explain this disparity – gender differences regarding socio-economic position and lower perceptions regarding the threat of immigrants – cannot fully explain the difference. The article contends that it might actually be gender differences regarding the conceptualisation of society and politics – populist attitudes – that explain the gender gap. Thus, the gap may be due, in part, to differences in socialisation. The article analyses EES 2014 data on voting for the populist radical right and the populist radical left in nine European countries. Across countries, the gender gap in voting for the PRR is indeed partly explained by populist attitudes. For populist radical left parties, the results are less clear, suggesting that populism has different meanings to voters on the left and on the right.     

Information Campaigns and (Under)Privileged Citizens: An Experiment on the Differential Effects of a Voting Advice Application

Information campaigns are key elements of elections. Past research has established the importance of campaigns in informing and educating citizens, and ultimately strengthening participatory democracy. While the Internet has increased the possibilities to disseminate information campaigns and eased access to political information, it is still debated whether online campaigns are effective in stimulating political interest and participation among the general public. The issue is not only one of access, but also of use of information. The investigation of main effects of campaigns obscures the fact that citizens may not use information in the same way and reap the same political benefits. In this study, I examine the conditional effects of a new type of Web information campaign, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs), on the political engagement and electoral participation of citizens with varying levels of education. By investigating who benefits most from using these apps, I evaluate whether VAAs reinforce patterns of participation or mobilize new people in politics. Building on political behavior research, communication theory, and social psychology, I study the differential effects of VAAs with an innovative randomized field experiment design. The results confirm that VAAs can stimulate the political engagement of the public. However, there is no significant impact on electoral participation. In addition, the evidence shows that VAAs work differently for more or less educated citizens, and that the lower educated users benefit the most from VAAs as they become more interested in the election and more motivated to vote.     

Culture Wars,Secular Realignment,and the Gender Gap in Party Identification

Changes in the U.S. partisan balance over the past decade are often attributed to the enhanced political salience of cultural issues. Yet as white men have continued to become more Republican in recent years, white women increasingly identify with the Democrats. To the extent that cultural issues are influencing this partisan change, men and women must be responding differently to this cultural agenda. Using a pooled ANES data set from 1988 through 2000, I explore the extent to which cultural values are responsible for this gender realignment. Findings suggest that salient cultural issues influence the partisan choices of both men and women, however in somewhat different ways. For women, the issues themselves—reproductive rights, female equality, and legal protection for homosexuals—have become increasingly important determinants of party identification. For men, the influence of cultural conflict on partisanship is argued to be equally pervasive, albeit less direct.     

Parental Socialization and Rational Party Identification

This article constructs a rational choice model of the intergenerational transmission of party identification. At a given time, identification with a party is the estimate of average future benefits from candidates of that party. Experienced voters constantly update this expectation using political events since the last realignment to predict the future in accordance with Bayes Rule. New voters, however, have no experience of their own. In Bayesian terms, they need prior beliefs. It turns out that under certain specified conditions, these young voters should rationally choose to employ parental experience to help orient themselves to politics. The resulting model predicts several well–known features of political socialization, including the strong correlation between parents' and children's partisanship, the greater partisan independence of young voters, and the tendency of partisan alignments to decay.     

Split-ticket voting in German Federal elections, 1953–90: an example of sophisticated balloting?

Though the German electoral system has provided the opportunity of split-ticket voting since 1953, until now there has only been mere speculation concerning the rationality of ticket-splitting. In this paper we examine the rationality thesis empirically, using data provided by the official representative electoral statistics of the Federal Republic. Modifying the Downsian notion of rational voting, rational ticket-splitting is defined in terms of coalition building and of voters' expectations of the electoral success of candidates and parties. Applying this conceptual framework, it will be shown that the combinations of first and second votes actually chosen by a majority of the German electorate can rather be conceived of as a product of accident than of tactical considerations.     

The microeconomic voter

In the United States, aggregate and individual level studies of economic voting for the Congress have produced contradictory findings. The same is true for models of economic voting for the Australian Parliament. This paper presents data taken from a series of individual level studies which show that voters' attitudes towards fiscal and microeconomic issues have been better predictors of the vote for the Australian House of Representatives over the last four elections than their attitudes towards macroeconomic issues. This finding suggests that the cause of the inconsistency between aggregate and individual level models of voting may be that aggregate models of economic voting which include only macroeconomic variables are inadequately specified, since they do not take broader aspects of the economy into account.     

完善股东大会制度与中小股东权益保障

中小股东是公司的大多数投资主体,也是组成资本市场的基本要素。实践证明,只有保护所有投资主体权益的市场,才能给予投资者安全感和信心。完善股东大会制度需要从表决权制度、强化中小股东的程序性权利二方面入手,限制大股东权利,保障中小股东的合法权益。     

论布雷顿森林机构表决权集中制度的改革

布雷顿森林机构的表决权集中制度可以弥补投票权分配制度的不足。但现行的表决权集中制度问题不少,改革时可以适当增加要求全体通过的事项;降低特定多数通过的比例要求,有效地运用和发展双重多数通过制;明确协商一致的内涵和外延,限制它的保留和解释,明确和提高它的法律地位,并作为表决权集中制度的常规和先导;引入公司治理中关于保护中小股东利益的做法,如实行累积投票制等。     

有限公司股东出资争议救济分析

有限责任公司凭股东之间的互相信任达到资产集合的目的，这就是公司是财产集合体中的人合性因素，股东的信赖利益又源于各个股东都出了资，股东的投资利益和投资风险都与公司绑在了一块，当部分股东没有出资、出资不实、出资不到位、抽回出资时，他对公司的承担责任的就相应减少、但他在公司获得的利益却保持不变甚至相应增加，其他股东感觉不公平，于是就造成了许多因出资引发的争议。没有出资股东对已经出资股东的五种不公平情形，其中最重要不是分红，而是获取公司高管的机会，对此的争议救济方法主要包括：各股东按照公司章程或者出资协议的规定行使股权，不能达成协议的，各股东仍然应按照原来股权范围行使股权，要求未出资和未完全出资的股东限期出资，未出资的股东暂停其表决权、知情权、参与公司管理权和暂停担任公司高管职务，要求减少未完全出资的股东的表决权，减少后的比例与其已出资占应出资的比例相当，要求暂停未完全出资股东担任公司高管职务，减少未完全出资股东担任公司高管职务的数量，减少的数量与其已出资比例相当，除了公司高管之外，该股东推荐（或者委派）担任公司高层管理人员的数量也应相应减少。