Testing the power of arguments in referendums: A Bradley–Terry approach

How can we determine which arguments in a referendum are most persuasive? We show that the Bradley–Terry model has several features that make it well-suited to this task, and thus preferable to other, more conventional approaches. Using a survey experiment conducted during an electoral reform referendum in Ontario, Canada in October 2007, we demonstrate how unstructured and structured Bradley–Terry models can be straightforwardly fitted and interpreted. In doing so, we gain insight into the factors which determine support for electoral reform. We identify a status quo bias and find that power varies with mention of fairness, local control over candidate selection, and the role of political parties. We conclude by discussing the limits, extensions and further applications of such models in electoral studies and political science more broadly.     

社会治安防控体系的基本内涵与运行模式

良好的社会治安是维护社会秩序稳定的保障。为了严密防控违法犯罪活动,有效应对并解决各种社会治安问题,必须充分整合各种社会防控力量,构建一套以违法犯罪为对象的防控体系。为确保这一体系的有效运行,其运行模式必须由多元主体来开展社会治安防控,做到长远目标与现实目标的有机结合,并采用各种行之有效的防控措施。     

Australia and the Baltic States, 1919–1945

Praised by international organizations, Estonia and Slovenia have long been considered among the most successful post-communist states. Estonia quickly transformed itself into one of the most liberal economies in the world, whereas Slovenia opted for a social justice-oriented market economy. Still, the roots of their success coincide in that consensus played a crucial role. We argue that the public sphere was never as repressed in Estonia and Slovenia during the communist period as it was elsewhere. Distinct national identities continued to be formed and re-formed by intellectuals during the decades of communist rule, who assumed roles as political leaders when the transition started. Consensus based on these national identities legitimized reform policies for the entire decade of the 1990s.     

LONG‐TERM CRIME DESISTANCE AND RECIDIVISM PATTERNS—EVIDENCE FROM THE ESSEX COUNTY CONVICTED FELON STUDY*

Two conflicting definitions of desistance exist in the criminology literature. The first definition is instantaneous desistance in which an offender simply chooses to end a criminal career instantaneously moving to a zero rate of offending ( Blumstein et al., 1986 ). The second definition views desistance as a process by which the offending rate declines steadily over time to zero or to a point close to zero ( Bushway et al., 2001 ; Laub and Sampson, 2001 ; Leblanc and Loeber, 1998 ). In this article, we capitalize on the underlying assumptions of several parametric survival distributions to gain a better understanding of which of these models best describes actual patterns of desistance. All models are examined using 18 years of follow‐up data on a cohort of felony convicts in Essex County, NJ. Our analysis leads us to three conclusions. First, some people have already desisted at the beginning of the follow‐up period, which is consistent with the notion of “instantaneous desistance.” Second, a three‐parameter model that allows for a turning point in the risk of recidivism followed by a long period of decline fits the data best. This conclusion suggests that for those offenders active at the start of the study period, the risk of recidivism is declining over time. However, we also find that a simpler two‐group model fits the data almost as well and gains superiority in the later years of follow‐up. This last point is particularly relevant as it suggests that the observed gradual decline in the hazard over time is a result of a compositional effect rather than of a pattern of individually declining hazards.     

Reassessing the alcohol-violence linkage: Results from a multiethnic city

This article examines the relationship between alcohol availability and nonlethal violence at the census-tract level in Miami, a multiethnic city with high levels of disadvantage and immigration. The effects of alcohol (total outlet rate) are considered from the perspectives of social disorganization and routine activities theories. Nonlethal violence is the average annual rates of robbery, aggravated assault, and total violence (combined aggravated assault and robbery). The analyses include corrections for spatial autocorrelation. The results show that alcohol availability has strong positive effects on rates of nonlethal violence and that the percentage of recent immigrants is also a significant positive predictor.     

The Impact of Pro-Government Militias on Human Rights Violations

New data show that between 1982 and 2007, in over 60 countries governments were linked to and cooperated with informal armed groups within their own borders. Given the prevalence of these linkages, we ask how such links between governments and informal armed groups influence the risk of repression. We draw on principal-agent arguments to explore how issues of monitoring and control help understanding of the impact of militias on human rights violations. We argue that such informal agents increase accountability problems for the governments, which is likely to worsen human rights conditions for two reasons. First, it is more difficult for governments to control and to train these militias, and they may have private interests in the use of violence. Second, informal armed groups allow governments to shift responsibility and use repression for strategic benefits while evading accountability. Using a global dataset from 1982 to 2007, we show that pro-government militias increase the risk of repression and that the presence of militias also affects the type of violations that we observe.     

The British general election: Synthetic forecasts

Election forecasting work, in Britain and elsewhere, has been confined mainly to traditional approaches – statistical modeling or poll-watching. We import a new approach, which we call synthetic modeling. These models, developed out of forecasting efforts from the American 2012 presidential election, we are currently testing in a comparative European context. In this exercise, we apply the strategy to forecasting British general elections, in particular the upcoming 2015 contest. These synthetic forecasts come from hybrid models blending structural knowledge with contemporary public opinion. We generate ongoing nowcasts, from six months prior, to one month before, Election Day itself.     

Forecasting the 2015 British election through party popularity functions

To forecast the May 7, 2015 British General Election, we develop party popularity models based on Continuous Monitoring Survey (CMS) data from April 2004 to February 2015. Our models predict party vote shares three months prior to the election, using previous support levels, national economic evaluations, macro-partisanship and political measures. Our Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) methodology allows us to predict support for the Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrats and “other” parties, separately, yet simultaneously, by constraining total support for all parties to 100%. Our model, estimated with data from February 2015, predicts that Labour will win the highest vote share in Great Britain, but that no party will win a majority of seats in parliament.     

Forecasting the 2015 British general election: The 1992 debacle all over again?

This article introduces and reviews a set of twelve academic forecasts of the 2015 British general election. Along with the vast majority of others including journalists and betting markets, they failed by a big margin to predict that the Conservatives would emerge with an overall majority of seats. Several suffered from the 1992 scale inaccuracies of the vote-intention opinion polls. Forecasts based on other data sources typically did a bit better, but also fell short. Nonetheless, this was not 1992 all over again. The dramatic collapse of the Liberal Democrats and rise of the SNP, UKIP and Greens were successfully anticipated. Also this collection includes numerous methodological advancements, with several new methods and developments to established approaches.     

Does the economy really matter for satisfaction with democracy? Longitudinal and cross-country evidence from the European Union

Research focusing on the relationship between the economy and satisfaction with democracy often presents mixed results. This article argues that this uncertainty is mainly due to model specification, number of surveys and measurement. After discussing why the role of the economy should not be overlooked, by using an empirical strategy that applies Bayesian cross-classified mixed models to 572 national surveys in 28 European countries from 1973 to 2013 drawn from the Eurobarometer, it is shown that objective macro-economic indicators and a subjective indicator seem to substantially affect citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in Europe. The findings are robust when controlling for various institutional and political variables and using alternative model specifications.