Questioning generational replacement. An age,period and cohort analysis of electoral volatility in the Netherlands, 1971–2010

Political behavior has been changing all over Western Europe and electoral volatility is one of the facets of politics in which this change is apparent. Theories on stabilization of political attitudes and behavior in lifetime and the slow rate at which change in the electoral arena is found to proceed, have led to the assumption of generational replacement as the mechanism driving change. The Netherlands, however, provide a remarkably different case of this trend in electoral volatility. The country has shifted from an example of how cleavages stabilize politics to one of the most electorally volatile countries in Europe. The Dutch surge in electoral volatility thus contrasts with expectations of a slow process driven by generational replacement. Starting from this apparent contradiction between the evolution of volatility in the Netherlands and theories on generational replacement, this article investigates time effects of electoral volatility. The study is based on an age, period and cohort analysis on the repeated cross-sectional data of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies, 1971–2010. Based on characteristics of such repeated cross-sectional data, individuals are cross-classified in birth cohorts and election years respectively, which overcomes the identification problem inherent in cohort analyses. Results of a Cross-Classified Random Effects Model (CCREM) indicate that, contrary to the hypothesis of new generations causing the increase in volatility, the Dutch change can be attributed primarily to period effects. As such, the analyses indicate that a general shift in the Dutch electorate has caused the growth in volatility and that supply-side factors should probably be analyzed when trying to explain electoral volatility.     

Who are the targets of familial electoral coercion? Evidence from Turkey

The unfettered expression of electoral choice is an important democratic right; however, in many contexts voters are pressured by others to cast their votes in certain ways. Electoral coercion is a topic that has received increased attention from researchers in recent years as part of the wave of research on electoral violence, yet there is little consensus in the literature as to who the targets of coercion are most likely to be. This article uses a list experiment embedded in a survey fielded following the Turkish general election of 2018 to identify the targets of coercive electoral practices within families and among close friends. The analysis reveals familial electoral coercion to be strongly conditioned by partisanship and disadvantaged demographic characteristics, but finds no evidence that women are more likely than men to be coerced.     

From devil’s advocate to crime fighter: confirmation bias and debiasing techniques in prosecutorial decision-making

ABSTRACT

This research examines the role of confirmation bias in prosecutorial decisions before, during and after the prosecution. It also evaluates whether confirmation bias is reduced by changing the decision maker between arrest and prosecution. In Experiment 1, Swedish prosecutors (N?=?40) assessed 8 scenarios where they either decided themselves or were informed about a colleague’s decision to arrest or not arrest a suspect. Participants then rated how trustworthy the suspect’s statement was as well as the strength of new ambiguous evidence and the total evidence. They also decided whether to prosecute and what additional investigative measures to undertake. In Experiment 2 the same method was used with Law and Psychology students (N?=?60). Overall, prosecutors’ assessments before the prosecution indicated that they were able to act as their own devil’s advocate. Also, their assessments while deciding about whether to prosecute were reasonably balanced. However, after pressing charges, they displayed a more guilt-confirming mindset, suggesting they then took on the role as crime fighters. This differed from the student sample in which higher levels of guilt confirmation was displayed in relation to arrested suspects consistently before, during and after a prosecution decision. The role of prosecutors’ working experience is discussed.     

Instituciones electorales,derecho a la información y medios de comunicación durante las campañas presidenciales de 2012

This paper assesses the performance of Mexican electoral authorities during the 2012 presidential campaigns concerning citizens’ right of information. By means of a theoretical review of the concepts of freedom of speech and right of information a case is made for the necessary complementarity and interdependence of both concepts. The paper explores the approach that electoral authorities adopted on three different spheres, namely, the “suggested guidelines” that were submitted to radio and television agencies for the coverage of electoral campaigns; the monitoring of campaigns coverage by radio and TV news broadcasts; and the organization and promotion of electoral debates among Mexico’s presidential candidates. This review reveals a considerable clash between theory and the ife’s and tepjf’s practices. The paper closes with some general remarks on freedom of speech and the role of electoral bodies in Mexican politics, as well as with a proposal of various reforms that could reinforce freedom of speech and the right of information in the coming electoral campaigns.     

Constructing courts after communism: Reevaluating the effect of electoral uncertainty

A prominent view in political science is that electoral uncertainty leads institutional designers to prefer independent and powerful courts. Yet few scholars have examined the design of constitutional courts systematically across Eastern Europe and those who have employed the results of elections held after constitutions were adopted to estimate the actors' perceptions of the balance of power prior to the court's design. This work reevaluates the effects of electoral uncertainty in post-communist Europe using more appropriate data and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to outline the different causal configurations linking electoral uncertainty to the initial judicial empowerment.     

Electoral breakthroughs in Croatia and Serbia: Women's organizing and international assistance

This article investigates the role of women's organizations and activists in the electoral breakthroughs in Serbia and Croatia in 2000. When, how, and to what effect, it asks, did women organize during transformational moments to promote their goals of political liberalization and gender equality? I argue that political opportunities—shaped by the domestic constellation of forces and international assistance programs—are essential to explaining political success. I identify what I call the insider/inclusionary strategy that characterizes women's organizing in Croatia and the outsider/oppositional strategy that characterizes women's organizing in Serbia. These strategies resulted in different immediate outcomes for women's political equality in the electoral breakthroughs in Croatia and Serbia.     

Do National Economic and Political Conditions Affect Ideological Media Slant?

Political scientists are interested in the influence of the news media on politics. However, relatively few studies investigate whether or not ideological slant in news coverage changes systematically over time. If it changes systematically, what factors explain the changes? This study argues that external conditions, such as national political and economic situations, influence ideological media slant at the aggregate level. To examine this argument, “macro media bias” is measured quarterly by gauging the relative size of liberal and conservative news stories regarding domestic issues from 1958 through 2004. Utilizing ARIMA models, this study reveals that the news media tend to negatively react to government spending. Also, economic conditions, such as unemployment and inflation, significantly explain changes in the relative number of liberal and conservative news stories.

[Supplementary material is available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Political Communication for the following free supplemental resource(s): the coding keywords, detailed coding rules, and alternative regression results.]     

In the Spotlight: Analyzing Sequential Attention Effects in Protest Reporting

During waves of contention, international media attention can be of crucial importance for activists and protest participants. However, media attention is a scarce resource and the competition over news coverage is high. While some emphasize the agenda-setting power of news outlets and argue that receiving coverage is determined by factors outside the protest movement, others suggest a dynamic relationship between media attention and activism where social movement organizations are assumed to have some agency to make it to the news. In this article, we contribute to the latter and analyze how protest can endogenously trigger more coverage. Building on insights from communication science, we argue that widely covered protests attract media attention and temporarily lower the selection threshold for subsequent incidents. Using fine-grained data on anti-regime protest in all authoritarian countries between 2003 and 2012, we find robust empirical evidence for this hypothesis. We also show that this effect becomes weaker and eventually disappears with increasing spatial and temporal distance from a highly salient event. These findings are important for research in contentious politics, since they allow us to gauge the extent to which protest activity on the ground may under certain circumstances be overreported in the media.     

The place of parties in contemporary democracies

The electoral system has often been considered an important determinant of the political stability that the Federal Republic of Germany has enjoyed in the half-century of its existence, so that it has been often indicated as a 'model' for electoral reforms in other democracies. The analysis of the political impact of the German electoral system after 1949 shows that such impact was different in the different phases of evolution of the party system. In the 1950s, the German party system was characterised by a higher level of fractionalisation, which the electoral system contributed progressively to reduce. That phase was followed by 30 years of concentration and defractionalisation of the vote. In the last decade, the post-reunification party system presents again higher electoral fractionalisation, which the electoral system has partially reduced in the vote-seats translation. In the current political contingency it is doubtful, however, that the electoral system by itself can contain fragmentation on a durable basis.     

社会保障税的性别敏感分析——基于税收政策中社会性别因素的考察

税收政策对于不同性别群体具有影响差异,甚而会产生隐性或显性的税收性别歧视。从男女退休年龄、再分配效应、劳动供给影响等方面考察社会保障税政策的性别影响差异,对于促进我国社会保障税制设计的进一步优化,具有重要的启示性价值。