Partisan self-interest and electoral reform: The new Italian electoral law of 2005

In December 2005, Italy's mixed-member electoral system was replaced with a system of bonus-adjusted proportional representation. The reform conformed with rational-choice models in that it was imposed by the ruling coalition, which sought to bolster its own power interests. But the case illustrates the impossibility of reducing such power-based motivation to a single goal, such as seat maximization. Power is shaped by many factors, and electoral systems influence many of these. This article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the various power-oriented considerations that may operate in electoral reform. It then analyses the role these played in Italy. It argues, in particular, for the need to take account of coalition dynamics when studying such processes.     

Stability and Change in Party Preference

This article analyses stability and volatility of party preferences using data from the Swiss Household‐Panel (SHP), which, for the first time, allow studying transitions and stability of voters over several years in Switzerland. Analyses cover the years 1999–2007 and systematically distinguish changes between party blocks and changes within party blocks. The first part looks at different patterns of change, which show relatively high volatility. The second part tests several theories on causes of such changes applying a multinomial random‐effects model. Results show that party preferences stabilise with their duration and with age and that the electoral cycle, political sophistication, socio‐structural predispositions, the household‐context as well as party size and the number of parties each explain part of electoral volatility. Different results for within‐ and between party‐block changes underlie the importance of that differentiation.     

The European Commission and fiscal governance reform: a strategic actor?

The intensification of the financial and economic crisis in Europe has added a new impetus to the debate over the possibilities for securing supranational fiscal integration within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Since the literature on the European Union’s response to the crisis is dominated by the study of intergovernmental politics, this article considers the previously neglected role of the Commission. A framing analysis of the Commission’s crisis discourse is operationalised here, which is supplemented by interviews with senior officials located in the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) during key phases of the crisis. It is found that a supranational reform agenda was never internalised by the Commission. Instead, the Commission acted strategically by framing the crisis around intergovernmental fiscal discipline. These findings suggest that, in line with the ‘new intergovernmentalist’ thesis, supranational institutions themselves may not be as ‘hard-wired’ towards supranationalism as is often assumed.     

The more the better? Cumulative issue ownership and intra-campaign party switching

We contribute to the literature on short term changes in voters' party preferences (or intra-campaign party switching), by advancing a factor that has been neglected so far: Voters' perceptions about parties' issue competence. We develop a model of party switching that includes both classic predictors and issue ownership considerations. Moreover, in contrast to the usual single issue ownership conception focusing on the party deemed most competent to solve the most important problem, we argue that voters base their party choice on their perceptions of parties' competence on a variety of issues, i.e. on cumulative issue ownership. We test our model on panel data from the 2015 Swiss election study. The change in competence perceptions appears as a strong predictor of party switching: The higher the increase in the number of issues on which voters see a party as most competent during the campaign, the higher their likelihood to switch to that party.     

How post-imperial democracies die: A comparison of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia

While socioeconomic crisis – like in Germany after World War I and in Russia after the Cold War – is a necessary precondition for democratic erosion resulting in a breakdown of democracy, it is not a sufficient condition. We identify, in the cases of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia, a post-imperial syndrome that includes nationalist irredentism and an ambition to return to the status quo ante of a “great power” as a main reason why democratization faces specific and enormous challenges for former “great powers.” A slide back to authoritarianism in post-imperial democracies takes a high toll. It is facilitated by international political conflicts, including annexation and wars, with new neighbouring states that harbor territories perceived as external national homelands like the Sudetenland or Crimea.     

Electoral theocracy and hybrid sovereignty in Iran

Post-revolution Iran is uniquely based upon the contradictory principles of divine and popular sovereignty but with ultimate authority delegated to jurists. At the same time, the theocratic basis of clerical dominance is rooted within a pluralistic and decentralised theological tradition peculiar to the Shiite establishment. Despite the tutelary institutional arrangements engineered by the ruling clergy, elections have generated unexpected outcomes and unleashed power and policy shifts. Emphasising the political dynamic generated by elections, this paper examines the uncertainties stemming from electoral processes that have been constructed by conflicting electoral and theocratic principles. In developing the concept of electoral theocracy, the paper highlights the paradoxes underpinning the hybridity of Iran’s clerical and electoral authoritarian system of governance. These hybrid features have remained largely neglected in the literature on electoral authoritarian regimes.     

Contextual influences on the decision calculus: A cross-national examination of proximity voting

It is generally held that individuals vote for the party that most closely aligns with their preferences, yet previous research identifies numerous factors which lead individuals to stray from the proximity logic. To shed light on this phenomenon, I examine proximity voting from a comparative perspective. Results from a multilevel model indicate that several individual- and election-level factors affect the likelihood of a proximity vote. I also find proximity voting to occur less in countries where political variation is not well-captured by a single dimension. These findings shed light on the bases of proximity voting and add to the general understanding of the nature of voting behavior.     

Electoral and structural losers and support for a national referendum in the U.S.

The U.S. is one of only a few democracies in the world never to hold a national referendum. Recent national surveys reveal that a majority of respondents approve of a national referendum both cross-nationally and in America is relatively stable. Building on previous work (Bowler and Donovan, 2007), we find public opinion on a reform proposal is fluid and responsive to electoral politics, rather than stable as reported in earlier work. In this paper, we argue that contemporary support for a national referendum in the U.S. is contingent on whether a citizen is a short- or long-term “winner” or a “loser” when it comes to electoral politics. We expect that public support for a national referendum in the U.S., where legislation referred by Congress would be subject to a popular vote, may vary at the individual level because of short-term electoral fortunes as well as long-term structural conditions. Strategic voting as well as losing in candidate races and policy issues may be important, but so might be partisanship, with non-partisans the most likely to benefit from citizen law-making at the national level. Support for a national referendum might also be contingent upon state context, that is, upon use of direct democracy in the state where a person lives, as well as the population of a state. The results based on a natural experiment and 2008 panel survey data provide an important window into understanding public opinion on institutional change more broadly.     

Electoral reform and the mirror image of inter-party and intra-party competition: The adoption of party lists in Colombia

The Colombian case offers a rare opportunity to observe effects of electoral reform where districting remains constant. Only the formula changed, from extremely ‘personalized’ (seats allocated solely on candidate votes) to ‘listized’: seats are allocated to party lists, which may be either open or closed. Electoral reform has effects on both the inter-party dimension (the number of parties competing) and the intra-party dimension (the extent of competition within parties). Consistent with theoretical expectations, the inter-party dimension features an increased number of parties in the low-magnitude districts and a decrease in the high-magnitude districts. On the intra-party dimension, the impact “mirrors” the inter-party: less competition in smaller districts, yet more in larger districts.     

Social media and political communication in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

Social media play an increasingly important part in the communication strategies of political campaigns by reflecting information about the policy preferences and opinions of political actors and their public followers. In addition, the content of the messages provides rich information about the political issues and the framing of those issues during elections, such as whether contested issues concern Europe or rather extend pre-existing national debates. In this study, we survey the European landscape of social media using tweets originating from and referring to political actors during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign. We describe the language and national distribution of the messages, the relative volume of different types of communications, and the factors that determine the adoption and use of social media by the candidates. We also analyze the dynamics of the volume and content of the communications over the duration of the campaign with reference to both the EU integration dimension of the debate and the prominence of the most visible list-leading candidates. Our findings indicate that the lead candidates and their televised debate had a prominent influence on the volume and content of communications, and that the content and emotional tone of communications more reflects preferences along the EU dimension of political contestation rather than classic national issues relating to left-right differences.