Voters and coalition governments

Coalition governments are the norm in parliamentary democracies. Yet, despite the predominance of this type of government, political scientists have only recently started to investigate how voters approach elections when a coalition government is the likely outcome. Such elections present additional uncertainty and complexity for voters compared with elections in plurality systems, where party choice translates more directly into a choice of government. These factors have lead to the assumption that strategic voting is unlikely to occur in systems that produce coalition governments. In this introductory article to the special issue on Voters and Coalition Governments, we consider whether voters have the capacity to anticipate specific coalition outcomes and propose a framework for understanding the conditions that lead to strategic voting in both plurality and proportional systems.     

Repositioning urban bias: Non-state providers' use of spatialised networks in Bangladesh

Urban bias theory predicts urban areas of developing countries receive disproportionately more resources than rural areas due to their concentration of numerically large, politically important “vote banks.” This has not been the case in Bangladesh. This study finds that this variation occurs due to non-state providers (NSPs) changing the landscape of resource allocation. Operating on the premise that state control leads to more services in urban areas, urban bias fails to account for NSPs as critical service providers. Employing a grounded theory strategy to explore urban-rural dynamics in service provision and to build on urban bias theory, this research highlights interactions between state and non-state actors. It argues that spatialized political networks, networks of formal and informal leadership more difficult to access in urban areas, influence the locality of service provision. Though NSPs recognize increased need in urban areas of Bangladesh, their interventions in those areas remain peripheral due to differing structures of government accountability and differing levels of community acceptance facilitating these networks. The need for NSPs to adapt their activities to restrictive governance mechanisms reflects the changing space for NSPs in the context of semi-democratic regimes.     

The strategic determinants of legislative malapportionment in new democracies

When the number of seats to be elected in the districts of an electoral system is not proportional to their population, the cost of seats in raw votes tends to vary across districts. Malapportionment generates partisan bias when some parties do better (worse) in the districts where seats are cheaper (costlier) than in other districts. While existing research has focused on the exogenous determinants of malapportionment, in this article we argue that malapportionment also derives from the strategic decisions of ruling elites to maximize their legislative representation. The degree of malapportionment in newly democratized countries increases when ruling policymakers have reliable ex ante information about the geographical distribution of partisan support, and the authoritarian incumbent, at the moment of democratic transition, is strong. Our arguments are tested with original data from 60 third and fourth-wave democracies at national and district levels.     

Feigning Hand Preference? A Case Report Preliminary Data

Hand preference may be crucial in the forensic domain, notably in cases where the assailant is known to be left‐handed and the defendant claims to be right‐handed (or vice versa). In such cases, forensic psychologists or physicians may be asked to test the hand preference of the defendant. However, hand preference may be faked. The case described here illustrates this problem and addresses potential solutions. We also present preliminary data showing that a standard instrument for measuring handedness is sensitive to feigning. We conclude that when hand preference is determined, multiple sources of information should be assessed in order to identify possible feigning.     

Perceived infallibility of detection dog evidence: implications for juror decision-making

This study focuses on the trust that potential jurors have in unsubstantiated evidence and the implications of such trust for legal decision-making. We examined whether participants’ motivation to think deeply (‘need for cognition,’ NC) and belief in science moderated their trust in potentially fallible detection dog evidence when selecting a verdict in a trial scenario. A detection dog twice indicated the presence of drugs in the scenario, yet no drugs were actually found. Those who chose a guilty verdict without drugs present featured stronger beliefs in detection dog evidence. They were also more confident that a dog alert indicated the presence of drugs, even though the scientific literature actually shows that detection dog evidence is subject to biases and other challenges to reliability. Our findings indicate that an unsubstantiated belief and trust in detection dog evidence may negatively influence juror decision-making, which may, in turn, pose consequences for fairness and justice. Participants believed that detection dogs provide powerful and reliable evidence, and these beliefs were clearly associated with stronger beliefs in science. These findings, therefore, raise serious concerns about jurors’ indiscriminate trust in forensic evidence, be it detection dog evidence or other lines of evidence presented in court.     

Diagnosing Crime and Diagnosing Disease: Bias Reduction Strategies in the Forensic and Clinical Sciences

Cognitive effort is an essential part of both forensic and clinical decision‐making. Errors occur in both fields because the cognitive process is complex and prone to bias. We performed a selective review of full‐text English language literature on cognitive bias leading to diagnostic and forensic errors. Earlier work (1970–2000) concentrated on classifying and raising bias awareness. Recently (2000–2016), the emphasis has shifted toward strategies for “debiasing.” While the forensic sciences have focused on the control of misleading contextual cues, clinical debiasing efforts have relied on checklists and hypothetical scenarios. No single generally applicable and effective bias reduction strategy has emerged so far. Generalized attempts at bias elimination have not been particularly successful. It is time to shift focus to the study of errors within specific domains, and how to best communicate uncertainty in order to improve decision making on the part of both the expert and the trier‐of‐fact.     

Ancestral Variation in Orbital Rim Shape: A Three‐Dimensional Pilot Study

Traditional nonmetric methods of ancestry assessment posit orbital rim shape varies among ancestral groups. This pilot study uses morphometric analysis of 3D orbital variation to test discrimination among individuals of primarily European, African, and Asian ancestry. Although the size and nature of the sample analyzed limit inferences for other samples, principal components analysis suggests ancestry has a significant effect on rim shape (p = 2.93e‐04). European orbits display more marked folding of the orbit in the sagittal plane than either African or Asian orbits, while the lateral margin of African orbits lies further posterior relative to the medial margin when compared to Asian orbits. The findings suggest curviplanar relationships are the most ancestrally informative aspect of orbital rim shape; these relationships may be distorted by perspective based on orientation of the skull relative to the viewer in traditional nonmetric analyses. Additional studies on geometric morphometric approaches to ancestry assessment are therefore warranted.     

Hegemonic political parties in post-Soviet Eurasia: Towards party-based authoritarianism?

Hegemonic parties in authoritarian regimes can fulfill important purposes for those regimes and thereby contribute to their survival. Along with the consolidation of authoritarian regimes, hegemonic political parties have emerged in some post-Soviet states, raising questions about the role that these parties play in the survival of the regimes. This article asks which of the purposes that are frequently ascribed to ruling authoritarian parties are fulfilled by United Russia, the Yeni Azerbaijan Party, and Nur Otan of Kazakhstan, the hegemonic parties of the three strongest consolidated authoritarian regimes with a hegemonic party in the former Soviet Union. It is argued that despite the increasing prominence of the hegemonic parties, full-fledged party-based authoritarianism has not yet been established in Russia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.     

A simulation for exploring the effects of the "trait list" method's subjectivity on consistency and accuracy of ancestry estimations

The nonmetric "trait list" methodology is widely used for estimating ancestry of skeletal remains. However, the effects of the method's embedded subjectivity on subsequent accuracy and consistency are largely unknown. We develop a mathematical simulation to test whether variation in the application of the "trait list" method alters the ancestry estimation for a given case. Our simulation explores how variations in (i) trait selection, (ii) number of traits employed, and (iii) ancestry choice thresholds affect the ancestry estimation of an unidentified skeleton. Using two temporally and geographically diverse samples, the simulation demonstrates that trait selection, trait quantity, threshold choices, and the exclusion of high-frequency traits had minimal effect on estimation of general ancestry. For all data sets and Runs, Accuracy(AS) was maintained above 90%. The authors close with a discussion on the logistical issues present when choosing traits, and how to avoid ancestry bias.     

Leaders, voters and activists in the elections in Great Britain 2005 and 2010

Discussion of the relationship between parties and the electorate is often based on the notion of partisan constituencies, that parties adopt policy positions that correspond to the average position of the party supporters. In contrast, the Downsian “spatial model” assumes that parties are purely opportunistic and maneuver to gain as many votes as possible. A third, more empirical model, based on the early work of Stokes, assumes that voter choice is based on the evaluation of each of the party leader’s competence or ability to deliver policy success. Such an evaluation can be provided by individual voter overall assessment in terms of the leaders’ character traits.This paper attempts to relate these three classes of models by examining the elections in Great Britain in 2005 and 2010. Using the British Election Study, we construct spatial models of these elections in Great Britain as well as in the three regions of England, Scotland and Wales. The models incorporate the electoral perceptions of character traits. We compare the equilibrium vote maximizing positions with the partisan positions, estimated by taking the mean of each of the parties voters’ preferred positions. We define an equilibrium to be a stable attractor if the vote share at the equilibrium exceeds the share at the partisan position by a significant proportion (determined by the implicit error of the stochastic model). We infer that none of the equilibria are stable attractors, and suggest that the partisan positions are also preferred by the party activists, the key supporters of each party.