Protesting with the ballot: Diffusion of methods of electoral protest in Spain

This paper shows the pattern of diffusion of a tool of protest – blank and null voting (BNV)– in the context of Spanish national elections. It shows how the 2004 protest mobilization by Batasuna (a Basque nationalist party) predicts null voting by identifying the relationship of this form of protest with both the level of grievance of the population and the political resources of the mobilizers. The paper then demonstrates that this large and visible use of a protest tactic is followed by a heterogeneous diffusion process after the main mobilized protest event and beyond the supporters of the original mobilizer. In the 2008 national election, across Spain, citizens with grievances toward the political system and, most importantly, with political affinity with the initiators were the ones to update their individual protest repertoire with this electoral protest tool.     

Is there such a thing as a Muslim vote?

This contribution explores to what extent there is such a thing as a distinct Muslim vote in flexible proportional list systems. We test in a new and reliable way whether the religious belonging and behavioural dimension of Muslim voters play a role in their decision-making process when casting preferential votes in a secular democracy. To achieve this, voter and candidate characteristics are modelled simultaneously in cross-classified multilevel analyses where the decision-making process of voters (the demand side) is studied while taking into account the list composition in terms of individual candidates (the supply side). We use data of an exit poll related to the local elections of 2018 in Belgium, especially at oversampled locations. The analyses show that voters who belong to Muslim faith are more likely to vote for Muslim candidates. Contrary, the behaviour dimension of Muslim voters – measured in mosque attendance - has no effect on voting primarily for Muslim candidates.     

Ticket splitting,strategic voting and personal vote in the 2012 Mongolian elections

This article examines ticket splitting under Mongolia's new mixed-member majoritarian system used for the elections in 2012, reaching several conclusions. First, we confirm that strategic ticket splitting depends on party size, as especially candidates of larger parties receive, on average, more district votes. Second, we show that strategic voting is not a universal phenomenon under the Mongolian mixed-member majoritarian system. Finally, as personal vote rather than strategic voting generally influences electoral behaviour of Mongolian voters at the district level, we hypothesize that institutional factors alone are not sufficient to explain both ticket splitting and strategic voting.     

Getting Out the Vote With Voting Advice Applications

This article investigates the mobilization potential of online voter information tools known as “Voting Advice Applications” (VAAs). We argue that an observational approach utilizing survey data constitutes the best available method for causal inference where VAAs are popular—and we are thus most interested in VAA turnout effects—because randomized experiments are likely to run into double cross-over problems. We suggest that matching offers key improvements over existing methods to tackle self-selection into VAA use in observational studies. To improve confidence in selection on observables, we complement matching estimates with an extensive sensitivity analysis, including a placebo test. Empirically, we study the effect of smartvote, a popular VAA from Switzerland, on turnout in the 2007 Swiss federal election. We find that smartvote usage significantly increased the individual-level probability to vote. Our results suggest that smartvote was, on the aggregate, responsible for about 1.2 % points of the total tally with an estimated cost of nine Swiss Francs (7.5 U.S. dollars or 1.4 “Big Macs”) per additional vote. Promising as well, we find that the mobilization effect was more pronounced among younger voters. Our findings point to the value of VAAs compared to traditional get out the vote tactics.     

Prime ministers and the electoral cost of using the confidence vote in legislative bargaining: evidence from France

Do prime ministers pay an electoral penalty for using procedural force to pass laws? Influential theories of parliamentary governance and legislative bargaining assume that the use of the confidence vote procedure – parliamentary governments’ most powerful legislative weapon – entails an electoral cost, but evidence on this important claim has been scarce. This article provides the first estimates of how prime ministers’ public approval responds to their use of the confidence vote. Analysing time series data from France 1979–2008, it is found that prime ministers experience a considerable drop in approval after their use of the confidence vote that is not accounted for by standard economic and political covariates. The effect size is similar to a 1 per cent decline in economic growth. The findings help explain French prime ministers’ selective use of the confidence vote procedure. They also suggest that political costs constrain the bargaining power conferred by the confidence vote.     

Local candidates and voter mobilization: Evidence from historical two-round elections in Norway

What effect do candidates with local ties have on voter turnout and party support? A considerable challenge within the existing literature on the personal vote, including that part which derives from local ties, is disentangling it from the party vote using observational data. We exploit the unique institutional context of Norway’s historical two-round system, and data measured at the municipality level, to evaluate the mobilizational impact of voter attachment to parties versus (local) candidates. Under this system, entry into the second round was unrestricted, with the number and identity of candidates determined by elite coordination decisions. In municipalities where coordination at the district level between rounds resulted in the withdrawal of a candidate with local ties, we document a strong negative effect on both turnout and party support, which highlights the value of the personal vote for mobilization, and the potential trade-offs that confront parties and coalitions in nomination decisions.     

Policy attitudes, ideology and voting behavior in the 2008 Election

This article examines the impact of policy attitudes and ideology on voting behavior in the 2010 U.S. presidential election. The analysis uses data from the 2008 American National Election Study. The empirical results indicate that the 2008 election should not be regarded as a simple referendum on the George W. Bush presidency. At the same time, voting behavior was not particularly aligned along stark policy divisions; the direct effects of issue attitudes were confined largely to the most sophisticated stratum of the electorate. Finally, liberal-conservative orientations did affect citizens' political attitudes and candidate choices in ways that are fairly unique, compared to other recent elections.     

当前云南省境外罂粟替代种植的现状及对策

发展境外替代种植、替代产业已成为我国我省禁毒系统工程的重要内容。对策:1.加大政府扶持,建立健全保障体系;2.要为替代种植提供便利化服务;3.加强国际合作;4.设立替代发展专项基金、高层对话和磋商机制;5.发展“兴边富民”。     

Intra-country regulation of share markets: does one size fit all?

A large body of evidence suggests that financial development is greater in countries that impose stricter regulatory requirements on their major stock exchanges, but this leaves open the question of whether or not such regulation should be uniformly applied to all equity trading platforms within a country. On the one hand, regulatory variation permits a wider choice of investment opportunities for investors, lowers the cost of capital for some firms, and enhances price discovery and efficiency. On the other hand, the presence of lightly regulated exchanges can potentially have adverse spillover implications for a country’s other financial markets.

Voting for locals: Voters’ information processing strategies in open-list PR systems

While most of the literature on information shortcuts in open-list PR systems focuses on the importance of ballot position effects, the influence of a candidate’s localness has widely been ignored by existing studies. In this paper, I address this research gap and argue that voting patterns in open-list PR systems are more versatile than existing research would suggest. By analyzing a special characteristic of the open-list PR system employed in the parliamentary elections of Hamburg, it is shown that a large portion of voters chooses to vote for local candidates irrespective of the ballot position of the candidate. The paper further controls for factors conditioning the effect and finds that it remains strong even after taking them into consideration. The results have important implications for the representativeness of open-list PR systems, ballot paper design, as well as for our understanding of voters’ decision making process.