Issue cross-pressures and time of voting decision

Undecided voters are often regarded by political parties and candidates as the group that determines the outcome of an election. This paper discusses the concept and measurement of issue cross-pressures and explores to what extent they influence the time of voting decision in different political systems. Using survey data from national election studies in the Netherlands (1994–2012), Germany (1994–2013) and the United Kingdom (1992–2010), this study finds that issue cross-pressures do influence the time of voting decision regardless of voters' personal consideration set size, demographic background and political attribute. The effect of issue cross-pressures in the Netherlands is most pronounced. In the United Kingdom it is more moderate, while it is least prevalent in Germany. This partially demonstrates that party systems may constrain the role of issue cross-pressures.     

First-time boost beats experience: The effect of past eligibility on turnout

Recent findings from the US indicate a clear positive causal effect of past eligibility on voting in subsequent elections. Based on individual-level register data from four elections held in Denmark and Finland, we find that past eligibility either decreases voting propensity or has a zero effect among young voters. The hype associated with the first elections thus appears to cancel out the habit among young adults in countries where the institutional barriers against voting are weak. Moreover, differences across the types of elections can be noted. The negative effect of past eligibility is strongest in elections characterized by low saliency, implying that high-salient elections mobilize all voters equally and therefore narrow the gap between first and second-time eligible voters.     

Electoral effects of candidate valence

Ideological proximity is not the sole determinant of electoral choices. Voters frequently select candidates whose policy profiles do not exhibit the closest match with their own policy preferences. Instead, non-spatial factors can govern the vote. The empirical literature has struggled to assess the effect of candidate valence on electoral outcomes due to the challenge of estimating a comprehensive indicator of candidate valence. This paper investigates the effect of non-spatial factors on candidates’ electoral results by estimating candidate valences from a vote advice application. A conservative estimate based on an analysis of the two-tiered German federal election system suggests a surplus of several percentage points for high-valence candidates over low-valence competitors – even for competitors from minor parties.     

完善中小股东权益保护立法之我见

完善公司法人治理结构 ,保护股东合法权益是现代公司制度中的重要内容。我国公司立法对股东会的法律地位及其职能等作出了规定 ,但在实践中仍然暴露了法律适用中的若干不足。面对大股东操纵股东大会通过有利于自己而损害中小股东权益的决议 ,中小股东常因现行公司立法相关规定之空白而无能为力。因此有必要尽快完善相关立法 ,为现代公司制度的发展提供强有力的法律保障。     

Sophisticated Behavior under Majoritarian and Non-Majoritarian Voting Procedures

This study addresses the issue of sincere and sophisticated voting under majoritarian and non-majoritarian voting procedures. By conducting experimental voting games, we compared a common majoritarian procedure, Plurality Voting (PV) with a non-majoritarian procedure, Sequential Voting by Veto (SVV). We focused on two different aspects of the subject: the likelihood of sophisticated voting under each one of the voting procedures and the conditions that foster sincere and sophisticated voting under these procedures. The results highlighted the significant differences between majoritarian and non-majoritarian voting procedures as a key factor in determining the tendency of voters to use sincere or sophisticated voting. Clearly, the sincere model was dominant in SVV games while sophisticated voting dominated the PV games. The extent of sophisticated voting ran counter to the group size, a tendency that was stronger under SVV than under PV. By demonstrating the advantages of the minority principle, when voters are small in number, we hope to encourage the development of a solution that will enable the use of SVV in general elections.     

A Tale of Three Cities: Electoral Accountability in Indonesian Local Politics

In Indonesia, local government is endowed with important policy prerogatives and local politics is key to advance social welfare. The literature on Indonesian local politics has convincingly exposed serious limitations in local democratic practices, and it has questioned the ability of local democracy to promote genuine political change. This work, however, predominantly focuses on elite politics and specific forms of accountability based on patronage and clientelism. In this paper, we study democratic accountability in Indonesia from a different perspective. Drawing from the comparative literature on voting behavior, we hypothesize that Indonesian voters evaluate local politicians for their performance, and that they vote to reward or punish them for what they do in office. The analysis of three original surveys conducted in the cities of Medan, Samarinda and Surabaya offers partial support for this argument. While there is a positive relationship between evaluations of local government performance and support for incumbents, the strength of this link varies substantially across individuals and cities. The results shed new light on voter-politician linkages in Indonesia, suggesting that forms of accountability different from clientelism may emerge in this large and diverse country.     

Two elections and a political regime in crisis: Turkish politics at the crossroads

Turkey had its fourth National Assembly elections on 7 June 2015 in the twenty-first century and this time they resulted in a hung parliament. The efforts at establishing a coalition government failed and the country moved to a snap, ‘repeat’ election on 1 November 2015. This paper focuses on how the voters registered their party preferences almost 5 months apart in the same legislative general elections and why. Using the same sample and interviewing those who lived at the same addresses as those in the ISSP Citizenship survey conducted February to April 2015 and again in October 2015, a panel data-set was constructed. A theoretical framework for voting behaviour that uses party identification, political ideology, ethnic, religious, social class identities and perceptions of the performance of the economy of the respondents to understand what factors help to influence the party preferences of the same respondents 5 months apart. A multivariate (binary logistic regression) analysis of the pre-June and October 2015 data sets revealed that economic voting had been the predominant factor in the June elections, but security concerns also interacted with popular economic evaluations in the November 2015 elections to reinstall the AKP to power.     

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.     

A communotropic theory of economic voting

Within the social sciences, there is a long and storied history of the effect of economic conditions on vote choice. The traditional arguments are that voters have personal (egotropic) and/or other-regarding (sociotropic) preferences and that they reward and punish politicians electorally based on economic conditions at these levels. However, there is a third option. As industries, employment, and economic conditions are not uniformly distributed across the country, preferences may be locally based. This project combines unique survey data with Metropolitan Statistical Area unemployment numbers and finds evidence of distinct preferences at a third “communotropic” level.