Election observer effects: A field experiment in the Russian Duma election of 2011

The literature on elections and election monitoring is divided between those who take a skeptical view, suggesting that monitors are often political rather than objective in their judgments, and those who see monitors as a real force for cleaner, more honest elections. Studies that use field experiments to look for the effect of monitors generally support the optimists, indicating that the mere presence of election observers can have powerful effects. This is surprising given the extent of the resources available to incumbents who wish to conduct electoral fraud. We present the results of an experiment in which 768 observers were randomly assigned to polling stations in 21 cities in Russia in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Unlike most previous studies of election observers, our results suggest that observer effects on turnout and vote for the ruling party are small. The results suggest the need to study more carefully the circumstances that shape the impact of observation missions.     

How do prospects of EU membership influence support for secession? A survey experiment in Catalonia and Scotland

The past years have been eventful for secessionist movements in Europe and in particular in Scotland and Catalonia. Supporters and opponents of secession of both stateless nations considered their prospects for future EU membership as an important part of the campaigns leading to the referendums. The article’s aim is to explore whether international factors influence domestic support for secession. In order to answer this puzzle, an on-line survey experiment (n = 2408) was carried out in Catalonia and Scotland in which respondents were confronted with different scenarios concerning the EU membership of their hypothetical new state (inclusion or exclusion). Contrary to the general perception, the prospects of EU membership had only a limited effect on support for the creation of a sovereign state. Moreover, it was found that the impact was strongly mediated by the participants’ previous degree of nationalism and their attitudes with respect to the EU.     

Short-Term Forces and Partisanship

One of the most intriguing aspects of the debate regarding the persistence of party identification is that proponents of different schools of thought have each managed to use the same quasi-experimental data and similar state of the art techniques to defend their point of view. In this article we argue that this debate cannot be resolved with quasi-experimental data alone and propose another method that we believe can help us triangulate in on the correct answer: experimentation. Two experiments are performed and analyzed. The first tests the hypothesis that party identification is updated in response to the vote choice; the second tests the hypothesis that candidate evaluations influence party choices. The results of our experiments provide some additional support for the traditional conception of partisanship as the unmoved mover of American politics.     

What is bad about clientelism? Citizen perceptions in poor communities in South Africa and Tunisia

The literature regards clientelism as a negative practice because of its particularism, informality, inequality, and inefficiency. At present, we know little about whether citizens in communities where clientelism is prevalent share this assessment. However, their evaluations are the ones that are critical for the persistence of clientelism. We explore the attitudes of citizens towards clientelism with conjoint experiments administered with respondents from two poor communities in South Africa and Tunisia, and a sample of academics that we use as benchmark. On average, Tunisian and South African respondents evaluate clientelism more favorably than academics. All groups see particularism and inequality as negative features but only academics care about informality. Clients are evaluated much more positively than patrons in the exchange. Our findings suggest that clientelism persists not only because communities fail to coordinate around a programmatic candidate but because clientelism is considered as a legitimate strategy to access resources.     

Collaboration or competition? Experimental evidence for coalition heuristics

Does coalition formation have a causal effect on the perceived ideological distance between the coalition members? Observational research shows that voters typically think of parties that form a coalition government as more ideologically similar than those that do not, holding everything else constant. Their many qualities aside, the existing studies are not able to establish a causal relationship between coalition formation and changing perceptions. It is quite possible that voters are reacting to concurrent changes in parties' stated policy and not the coalition information itself. In this paper, I present two survey experiments that isolate the difference between telling voters that two parties can cooperate and telling them that they cannot. In both experiments, I find evidence supporting the theory of coalition heuristics.     

在经验与规范之间:试验立法及其类型化——一种立法进路的提倡

立法理想与法律运行实践间背离的中国境遇,以文本法律不完全是能用之法,且立法承诺在执法中不能全部兑现之困局为现实表征。以进化论理性主义的哲学立场和无知论的知识假设为理论支撑,采取反复试错、吸纳建议、对话商谈等自发性工具,将实践证明可行的执法经验提炼与抽象,进而升华为普遍性规则的试验立法进路,是修正建构论唯理主义立法进路并撬动当前格局的一个支点。试验立法进路以采纳—辐射这个简式架构为运作逻辑。目前的试验立法主要有尝试探索型试验立法、落实测试型试验立法与示范效仿型试验立法三种模式。试验立法的实践性意味着多数立法活动将建立在证据或实证研究的基础上,也将具有方法论的意义,有望成为我国立法方法法定化的发展方向。     

行政裁量法律控制研究

对行政裁量法律控制机制进行研究,论证了权力机关对行政裁量的法律控制,在分析我国权力机关进行监督现状的基础上,提出应当借鉴一些国家实行的议会监察专员制度并结合我国国情加以改造使之符合我国的法治实践,对完善我国权力机关对行政裁量的监督提供了参考思路。在论证行政机关对行政裁量的法律控制时重点放在行政程序对行政裁量的法律控制上,对行政程序控制行政裁量的回避制度、听证制度、信息公开制度、参与制度、说明理由制度、职能分离制度进行了初步探讨。具体分析了司法机关对裁量的法律控制,提出了行政裁量权属于行政机关,司法机关不能审查,行政裁量属于行政权的运用活动、司法机关可以审查的观点,说明了审查的范围只限于行政裁量的合法性,在认定滥用职权的主观方面时主张采用“过错推定”的原则。结束语说明现代社会对行政机关提出的是积极进行行政裁量更好地为社会服务的要求,现代行政法上的行政裁量制度是以有效发挥行政裁量权的积极作用为目标。提出建立一支高素质的公务员队伍、提高公务员的依法行政意识和依法行政水平应当是解决行政裁量问题的最终途径,完善岗位责任制、发展责任控制模式是对行政裁量进行法律控制的最佳方案。     

Constituent Communication Through Telephone Town Halls: A Field Experiment Involving Members of Congress

Telephone town halls are an increasingly prevalent method for members of Congress (MCs) to communicate with constituents, even while garnering popular criticism for failing to facilitate engagement and accountability. Yet scholars have paid little attention to the events and their effects, and even less to how they might be improved. To remedy this problem, we report on a field experiment in which four MCs joined their constituents in telephone town halls. Overall, participation in an event improved constituents’ evaluations of the format in general, and of the MC in particular. Furthermore, we studied how these events might be improved by evaluating a reform—a single‐topic focus with predistributed briefing materials—designed to enhance deliberative interaction. This reform enhanced effects on opinions of the format without significantly altering effects on attitudes toward the MC. Our results suggest that telephone town halls hold promise for constituents, officeholders, and democratic practice.     

The collateral consequences of GPS-LED supervision in hot spots policing

Hot spots policing is popular, yet little is known about officer receptivity to the tactic and its impact on internal procedural justice, organizational commitment, and self-legitimacy. The nature of the tactic means that officers must relinquish their discretionary powers so that they can be directed to crime and disorder locations at specific times and for regimented durations. This loss of ‘spatiotemporal autonomy’ is exacerbated by technological tracking devices. We examined the receptivity of British officers to hot spots patrols, where the deployment was tracked with individual GPS trackers, compared to parallel patrols without hot spots policing or tracking. In contrast to the comparison group, officers in hot spots disliked the routinization of their shifts; regimented patrols were detrimental for internal procedural justice and organizational commitment. The ramifications of the introduction of GPS-enabled systems include certain tracking of officers and their compliance, such as a Taylorist time and motion study. While hot spots policing remains an effective tactic, questions about sustainability may be raised if officers’ expectations, attitudes and receptivity are not managed.