Grey Power: Towards a Political Economy of Older Voters in the UK

The impact of age on voting behaviour and political outcomes has become an issue of increasing interest, particularly in the UK. Age divides in voter turnout and political preferences have led to claims that age is the ‘new class’. In this article, we contrast existing ‘cultural backlash’ and political economy explanations of the age divide in politics, and challenge the view that older people are predominantly ‘left behind’, culturally or economically. We show that older people have distinct material interests, related to housing wealth and pensions’ income, that are visible in their political preferences. We argue for the development of a new political economy of age.     

The distorting effects of racial animus on proximity voting in the 2016 elections

While the use of racial appeals by the 2016 Trump campaign is indisputable, researchers are actively debating their precise role in influencing voter behavior in the election. We seek to expand upon existing research which finds that racial animus electorally benefited the Trump campaign. We examine to what extent those benefits also materialized for GOP candidates down-ballot and whether racial animus distorted ideological proximity voting in the 2016 election. We find that racial animus among voters helped Republicans at multiple ballot levels and that higher levels of racial animus distorted spatial voting among voters ideologically closest to the Democratic candidate.     

社会公众股类别表决的法理基础——用比较的方法分析

本文首先指出我国目前所谓的“分类表决”不太规范,应称之为“社会公众股类别表决”,以有利于公司法在此基础上构建我国统一的类别表决制度。然后分析了国外及港台的类别表决制度的法理基础,最后用比较的方法分析了我国社会公众股类别表决制度的法理依据及其利弊。     

Parliamentary Voting Procedures in Comparison

Increasingly, scholars of legislative politics propose comparative analyses of parliamentary voting behaviour across different countries and parliaments. Yet parliamentary voting procedures differ dramatically across parliamentary chambers and ignoring these differences may, in the extreme, lead to meaningless comparisons. This paper presents a first glimpse at a comprehensive data collection effort covering more than 250 parliamentary chambers in 176 countries. Focusing on European legislatures it assesses what explains the differences in the rules among chambers. It is found that incentives linked to MPs’ visibility contribute to explain the transparency of the adopted voting procedures.     

Explaining Explanations: How Legislators Explain their Policy Positions and How Citizens React

Legislators claim that how they explain their votes matters as much as or more than the roll calls themselves. However, few studies have systematically examined legislators’ explanations and citizen attitudes in response to these explanations. We theorize that legislators strategically tailor explanations to constituents in order to compensate for policy choices that are incongruent with constituent preferences, and to reinforce policy choices that are congruent. We conduct a within‐subjects field experiment using U.S. senators as subjects to test this hypothesis. We then conduct a between‐subjects survey experiment of ordinary people to see how they react to the explanatory strategies used by senators in the field experiment. We find that most senators tailor their explanations to their audiences, and that these tailored explanations are effective at currying support—especially among people who disagree with the legislators’ roll‐call positions.     

The enfranchisement of citizens abroad: variations and explanations

Today, a large majority of states allow at least some of their emigrants to take part in home country elections from abroad. This article first looks at the diffusion of external voting laws and shows that over the past 25 years they have become widely-adopted and are no longer limited to specific professional categories of citizens. Second, the article explains the international diffusion of external voting by discussing the “norm-internationalization hypothesis” and the “electoral-competition hypothesis.” Third, the article attempts to demonstrate that these hypotheses cannot explain why, in a democratic context, states continue to implement a series of hurdles that deter emigrants from using their newly gained rights. Looking at recent developments in Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa, it concludes that the diffusion and variations of external voting laws result from transnational negotiation processes in a context of democratic transformation among various actors whose interests are strongly affected by the inclusion or exclusion of these new voters.     

Government accountability and voting choice in Italy, 1990–2008

Between 1996 and 2008 Italy has experienced four government alternations in as many consecutive elections. It could be argued that after the dramatic party change that occurred in the early 90s the Italian system is in a state of constant flux and voters appear rather bewildered. This paper presents an opposite argument, showing that voters' choice reflects the greater importance of valence politics – performance, the economy – acting as a cue to voting behaviour, interacting with a long-term political predisposition. In turn, this promotes parties' responsiveness and accountability since the overall performance of a government – even of a coalition government – appears as a goal to be shared by all partners, under the threat of defeat for all. The analysis is carried out employing the Italian National Elections Studies series.     

Strategic voting and effective representation thresholds: Evidence from three Spanish general elections

The extent of strategic voting in the Spanish general elections of 2000, 2004 and 2008 is estimated using a new measure of strategic incentives suitable for proportional representation systems that avoids some of the problems associated with lagged variables. Strategic behaviour increased from 12 to 33 per cent of the electoral base of the United Left Party, the major victim of strategic defection. This estimate is a conservative one as elite mobilisation is controlled for in the constituencies, which is unusual in the literature on strategic voting that uses regression‐based methods.     

Strategic adaptation to new electoral systems

How quickly, to what extent and under what conditions do voters and elites adapt to new electoral institutions in order to not waste their votes and effort on hopeless competitors? A latent‐curve model of strategic adaptation is developed and fitted to district‐level election data from Spain. The extent of strategic adaptation is generally found to vary with the strength of the electoral system. However, grave ethnic tensions are demonstrated to seriously retard adaptation even under favourable institutional conditions.