Majority representation and legitimacy: Survey-experimental evidence from the European Union

What can policy makers do in day-to-day decision making to strengthen citizens' belief that the political system is legitimate? Much literature has highlighted that the realization of citizens' personal preferences in policy making is an important driver of legitimacy beliefs. We argue that citizens, in addition, also care about whether a policy represents the preferences of the majority of citizens, even if their personal preference diverges from the majority's. Using the case of the European Union (EU) as a system that has recurringly experienced crises of public legitimacy, we conduct a vignette survey experiment in which respondents assess the legitimacy of fictitious EU decisions that vary in how they were taken and whose preferences they represent. Results from original surveys conducted in the five largest EU countries show that the congruence of EU decisions not only with personal opinion but also with different forms of majority opinion significantly strengthens legitimacy beliefs. We also show that the most likely mechanism behind this finding is the application of a ‘consensus heuristic’, by which respondents use majority opinion as a cue to identify legitimate decisions. In contrast, procedural features such as the consultation of interest groups or the inclusiveness of decision making in the institutions have little effect on legitimacy beliefs. These findings suggest that policy makers can address legitimacy deficits by strengthening majority representation, which will have both egotropic and sociotropic effects.     

“Forward to David the Builder!” Georgia's (re)turn to language-centered nationalism

After the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili tried to move away from the exclusionary nationalism of the past, which had poisoned relations between Georgians and their Armenian and Azerbaijani compatriots. His government instead sought to foster an inclusionary nationalism, wherein belonging was contingent upon speaking the state language and all Georgian speakers, irrespective of origin, were to be equals. This article examines this nation-building project from a top-down and bottom-up lens. I first argue that state officials took rigorous steps to signal that Georgian-speaking minorities were part of the national fabric, but failed to abolish religious and historical barriers to their inclusion. I next utilize a large-scale, matched-guise experiment (n?=?792) to explore if adolescent Georgians ostracize Georgian-speaking minorities or embrace them as their peers. I find that the upcoming generation of Georgians harbor attitudes in line with Saakashvili's language-centered nationalism, and that current Georgian nationalism therefore is more inclusionary than previous research, or Georgia's tumultuous past, would lead us to believe.     

Shaping Political Preferences: Information Effects in Political-Administrative Systems

Information is at the heart of politics. However, since information is always sent by someone who is more or less powerful, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of information from the power of the sender. Drawing on a standard model of attitude formation, we argue that presenting information can affect preferences of politicians regardless of the power of the sender. We test this proposition in a survey experiment with 1205 Danish local politicians in which the experimental groups were presented with varying levels of cost information but where sender remained constant. The experiment shows that even in a setting where the information is not disclosed by a powerful sender, information may have a stronger impact on political preferences than other well-known determinants such as committee and party affiliation. Our findings speak to learning theories, knowledge perspectives and the literature on the determinants of politicians’ preferences.     

穴位埋线疗法治疗支气管哮喘的系统评价

目的 评价穴位埋线疗法治疗哮喘的临床疗效。方法 根据Cochrane系统评价方法,全面收集穴位埋线治疗哮喘的随机对照试验,运用RevMan 5.20版进行Meta分析。结果 共纳入15篇研究,纳入病例1 579例。Meta分析显示：穴位埋线与西药、针刺比较在总有效率、第一秒用力呼气量、喘息等方面可能具有优势。结论 现有证据显示穴位埋线治疗哮喘与其他疗法比较在疗效、改善预后方面有一定优势,但还需要高质量的随机对照试验进一步证实。     

不同集卵方法收集的抗苯并咪唑捻转血矛线虫卵的发育试验

用饱和盐水、饱和糖水漂浮法获得抗苯并咪唑(benzimidazole)的捻转血矛线虫(Hae monchus contortus)虫卵,在实验室进行了在不同浓度的苯并咪唑药液中保存不同时间的虫卵发育试验。结果显示,用2种集卵方法获取的虫卵在虫卵发育试验中仅有不足以影响虫卵发育的微小差异,对整体试验也没有实质性的影响,表明2种集卵方法都可以作为该试验获取虫卵的方法;不同保存时间的苯并咪唑药液的试验结果也差别不大,对试验也没有实质性的影响。     

The impact of program developers as evaluators on criminal recidivism: Results from meta-analyses of experimental and quasi-experimental research

Using meta-analysis, we report on an investigation of the evaluator's influence in the treatment setting on criminal recidivism outcomes. Many evaluators and users of evaluation of social interventions worry that mixing of the roles of program developer and program evaluator may bias results reported in intervention studies in a positive direction. We first review the results of prior investigations of this issue across 50 prior meta-analyses, finding 12 that tested the impact of investigator influence in the treatment setting. Eleven of these reported that effect size increased positively, sometimes substantially so, when evaluators were influential or involved in the treatment setting. We followed this with a meta-analysis of 300 randomized field trials in individually focused crime reduction, also finding intervention studies in which evaluators who were greatly influential in the treatment setting report consistently and substantially larger effect sizes than other types of evaluators. We discuss two major views — the ‘cynical’ and ‘high fidelity’ theories — on why this is consistently the case, and conclude with a further agenda for research.     

Mobilizing Millennial Voters with Targeted Internet Advertisements: A Field Experiment

Internet advertisements have come under tremendous scrutiny recently for their potential to impact electoral outcomes. However, academic research has yet to determine if they have an effect on turnout. This article presents the results of a preregistered field experiment conducted in Dallas, Texas, in partnership with The Dallas Morning News in which individually targeted banner ads were able to generate a statistically significant increase in turnout among Millennial voters in a municipal election. The results show that a combination of information and voting reminder ads was effective, but only for voters in competitive districts. Estimated treatment effects were on par with a telephone mobilization campaign using live callers. These findings contribute to theoretical knowledge about the role of political knowledge and electoral competitiveness in voter mobilization, and offer a new method for testing online advertisements used by political campaigns.     

Who's favored by evaluative voting? An experiment conducted during the 2012 French presidential election

Under evaluative voting, the voter freely grades each candidate on a numerical scale, with the winning candidate being determined by the sum of the grades they receive. This paper compares evaluative voting with the two-round system, reporting on an experiment, conducted during the 2012 French presidential election, which attracted 2340 participants. Here we show that the two-round system favors “exclusive” candidates, that is candidates who elicit strong feelings, while evaluative rules favor “inclusive” candidates, that is candidates who attract the support of a large span of the electorate. These differences are explained by two complementary reasons: the opportunity for the voter to support several candidates under evaluative voting rules, and the specific pattern of strategic voting under the two-round voting rule.     

When is a bologna sandwich better than sex? A defense of small-n case study evaluations

This paper discusses the value of quasi-experiments with small numbers of cases - small-n case studies. It argues that these evaluations of crime prevention have value. The first part of the paper shows that small-n evaluations are practical methods for producing information and that discarding this information reduces our ability to learn what works in crime prevention. The solution is to examine small-n evaluations in systematic reviews. In the second part this paper shows that more rigorous evaluations can sacrifice generalizability to gain internal validity and that this, too, reduces our ability to learn. The solution is to create a mixed portfolio of intrusive, less-intrusive, and non-intrusive evaluations. In the third part this paper shows why inference processes that make use of theory should replace naïve inductionism. One implication of this is that ignoring theory also discards evidence. Another implication is that taking theory into account when we review program effectiveness allows us to better use small-n evaluations when we generalize. In the final part, this paper gives three recommendations for making use of small-n evaluations: adopt case study procedures developed in political science, improve the value of process evaluations, and improve crime theories.     

To vote or to abstain? An experimental test of rational calculus in first past the post and PR elections

We test the rational choice model of turnout in the lab. We performed laboratory experiments in which participants had to decide whether to vote or not in a number of first past the post and proportional representation elections. We test the predictions of rational choice theory from three different angles:(i) First, we compare aggregate turnout with the Nash equilibrium predictions.(ii) Second, we compare individual decisions with those derived from a rational calculus and count the number of decisions which are consistent with the rational recommendation, and.(iii) Third, we determine, still at the individual level, whether, at the margin, people are more likely to vote as the expected payoff increases.The overwhelming thrust of the evidence is inconsistent with the rational calculus paradigm.