The Contingency of Voter Learning: How Election Debates Influenced Voters’ Ability and Accuracy to Position Parties in the 2010 Dutch Election Campaign

Election campaigns are expected to inform voters about parties’ issue positions, thereby increasing voters’ ability to influence future policy and thus enhancing the practice of democratic government. We argue that campaign learning is not only contingent on voters’ characteristics and different sources of information, but also on how parties communicate their issue positions in election debates. We combine a two-wave panel survey with content analysis data of three televised election debates. In cross-classified multilevel auto-regression models we examine the influence of these debates in the 2010 Dutch parliamentary election campaign on voters’ knowledge of the positions of eight parties on three issues. The Dutch multiparty system allows us to separate voters’ ability to position parties from their accuracy in ordering these parties. We reach three main conclusions. First, this study shows that voters become more able and accurate during the campaign. However, these campaign learning effects erode after the elections. Second, whereas voters’ attention to campaigns consistently contributes to their ability to position parties, its effect on accuracy is somewhat less consistent. Third, televised election debates contribute to what voters learn. Parties that advocate their issue positions in the debates stimulate debate viewers’ ability to position these parties on these issues. In the face of the complexity of campaigns and debates in multiparty systems, campaigns are more likely to boost voters’ subjective ability to position parties than their accuracy.     

Issue Ownership,Issue Positions,and Candidate Assessment

I argue that citizens alter their views of candidates’ ideological and issue positions in response to two kinds of information cues: issue ownership and issue position cues. Issue ownership cues associate a candidate with the party that owns the issue discussed by a candidate. Issue position cues associate a candidate with the party that is linked to the position that the candidate discusses. These cues can either lead citizens to view the candidate as more or less extreme—both in terms of ideological and issue position assessments—than that candidate’s party. When both types of cues are present, citizens should ignore the issue ownership cues in favor of the easier-to-process issue position cues. Evidence from a survey experiment embedded in the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study provides strong support for this theory and suggests that issue ownership can convey positional information.     

数据安全刑法保护扩张的合理边界

《数据安全法(草案)》的发布是数据安全作为独立法益的立法宣示,基于数据安全对个体利益、公共安全和国家安全的重要价值,刑法有必要将其纳入保护范围。现行刑法对数据安全的保护是通过制裁信息犯罪间接实现的,由于刑法视阈下的信息和数据存在着本质性差异,未来刑法必然要建立新的数据犯罪罪名体系,实现数据安全领域刑法保护的大规模扩张。为了避免刑法扩张演化成违背谦抑性的公权力滥用,必须进行"合边界性审视",确保其不会突破刑法自身的边界。由于数据安全法益自身无法通过"法益原则"实现刑法边界划定功能,有必要引入"广义危害性原则",在数据安全领域的刑法保护扩张之前,划定扩张的合理边界。     

审视联合国对“金三角”毒品问题的国际治理及其缺陷

金三角地区的毒品问题长期以来受国际社会的关注。联合国从20世纪90年代末开始主动介入对此问题的国际治理进程中,并发起了一系列相关的治理活动,一度取得了良好的效果,但从2007年开始这些治理出现了失灵的迹象。     

解决朝鲜半岛问题的方法、视角及路径选择

解决朝鲜半岛问题需要思路的调整,即要从仍然在相当范围内起作用的冷战思维的误区中解脱出来。从我国的角度,需建立分析朝鲜半岛问题与我国的利害关系的理论坐标,这就是我国的东北亚区域战略目标。只有把朝鲜半岛问题置入到我国东北亚区域战略的框架之中,我们才有可能正确理解它对我国的影响程度,进而为解决朝鲜半岛问题提供路径选择的依据。     

《民事诉讼法》的修改给鉴定管理提出的新问题

《民事诉讼法》修改后,关于鉴定方面的内容有着一系列的更新和完善。由于司法鉴定配套管理的三部法规都是在民诉法修改之前完成,无法包容民诉法的所有改革设想,在处理与鉴定相关事务方面难免存在疏漏。要有效履行司法鉴定管理职责,就必须认真思考并解决民诉法修改给鉴定管理带来的新问题,并在相关法规中及时地予以完善。     

强制拆迁、财产权保护与地方宪政构建

近年来,在全国不少地方出现了以侵占农民宅基地和强拆民房为主要标志的拆村并居、强制农民上楼的运动,掀起了对农民权益的新一轮掠夺,引发了不少自焚抗争现象。农民被迫自焚,充分体现了地方权力的滥用与失控。在中央以行政手段制止地方滥用权力的同时,自焚抗争现象也对学界提出了如何加强地方宪政建设的理论课题。加强地方宪政建设,将地方权力纳入宪政框架和法治轨道,是坚持以人为本的科学发展观、保障农民基本权利和自由、实现国家长治久安的重大任务。     

国内外有关晚清越南问题研究述评

越南问题是19世纪晚期引起清朝边疆危机的重要历史事件之一，也是酿成中法战争的直接诱因，因而成为晚清外交的一个重要课题。该问题不仅涉及中越关系，而且还关联法越关系、中法关系，中法战争也是其解决过程中的重要事件。鉴于此种认知，笔者就国内外学界关乎该主题的相关问题的研究状况简单爬疏，进而总结研究中存在的问题与不足，以期对该问题的深入研究提供重要的学术依据与思考的空间。     

The German Federal Election of 2017: How the Wedge Issue of Refugees and Migration Took the Shine off Chancellor Merkel and Transformed the Party System

The 2017 German federal election delivered dramatic electoral decline of the two traditional main parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who had governed Germany in a ‘grand coalition’ government since 2013. The main reason for this outcome was the decision by Chancellor Angela Merkel to open Germany's borders for refugees and migrants, an unprecedented policy that abandoned border controls and remained in place between September 2015 and March 2016. This article focuses on how the refugee and migration problem subsequently turned into a wedge issue, splitting most German political parties and handing a major election victory to the main critics of Merkel's decision, namely the rightist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the right‐wing liberals of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Rather than explaining these developments in isolation, the article highlights how past welfare state retrenchment and fear over future economic prosperity make significant groups of the electorate, including former supporters of left‐of‐centre parties, lose confidence in the ability of the political system to deliver stability and social integration.     

In the eye of the beholder: voters’ perceptions of party policy shifts

It is normatively desirable that parties’ policy positions match the views of their supporters, as citizens in Western democracies are primarily represented by and through parties. Existing research suggests that parties shift their policy positions, but as of today, there is only weak and inconsistent empirical evidence that voters actually perceive these shifts. Using individual-level panel data from Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands, this article tests the proposition that voters perceive parties’ policy shifts only on salient issues while remaining oblivious to parties’ changing positions on issues that they do not consider important. The results demonstrate that issue saliency plays a fundamental role in explaining voters’ perceptions of parties’ policy shifts: according to this logic, democratic discourse between the elites and the electorate appears to take place at the level of policy issues that voters care about.