You just made it: Individual incumbency advantage under Proportional Representation

Using close election outcomes, we identify a personal effect of incumbency on the probability of seeking election, and seeking and winning office in subsequent elections for elected officials in an Open List Proportional System. In many cases Danish local elections creates an as-if random distribution of candidates that are elected or not, which is an ideal setting for a Regression Discontinuity design. The incumbency advantage has been studied to a great extent, though primarily in pluralistic electoral systems, while more recent studies have extended the scope to Proportional Representation systems. This study adds to this budding literature by showing an advantage in a new context and focusing on candidate level electoral returns under conditions where candidates are arguably least likely to benefit from incumbency.     

Income inequality and election outcomes in OECD countries: New evidence following the Great Recession of 2008–2009

Using data on national parliamentary election outcomes in 32 OECD countries from 1975 to 2013, we investigate the importance of economic voting. We focus on the relevance of income inequality which has resurfaced to the forefront of public debate since the last global economic downturn. Additionally, we examine whether the degree of economic voting varies with the political orientation of the incumbent government. Finally, we check whether the Great Recession of 2008–2009 alters the degree to which voters hold the incumbent government, specifically left parties, responsible for poor economic performance and rising inequality. We find that economic growth is the most robust variable for economic voting, before and after the Great Recession. The vote share for left-leaning parties declines when income inequality rises during normal economic times. However, voters are more likely to vote for left-wing incumbents if domestic income inequality and unemployment rate rose during the Great Recession.     

Turning your back on the EU. The role of Eurosceptic parties in the 2014 European Parliament elections

This paper analyses how disaffection with the EU influenced individuals' likelihood of turning out to vote and of casting a vote for a Eurosceptic party in the 2014 EP elections, and how these relationships were moderated by the Eurosceptic partisan supply of each country. We argue that the degree to which political parties oppose European integration, as well as the ideological leaning of Eurosceptic parties, should influence both the likelihood of disaffected citizens turning out to vote, and their likelihood of voting for a Eurosceptic party. Our empirical findings show that, in the presence of a party that is strongly opposed to European integration, disaffected citizens are more likely to turn out to vote and to vote for a Eurosceptic party provided that this party also shares their ideological leaning in the left-right dimension. These results indicate that Eurosceptic parties are important actors for the politicization of the European integration conflict and for the Europeanization of EP elections, but, at the same time, they suggest that opposition to European integration is subordinate to the traditional left-right conflict.     

The September 2015 Regional Elections in Russia: A Rehearsal for Next Year's National Legislative Races

The September 2015 elections in the regions of Russia resulted in victories for the major pro-government party, United Russia, in 11 regional legislative elections and brought success to incumbent chief executives in 21 gubernatorial elections. The performance of United Russia was better than in the previous series of regional elections, which is particularly important given that in many respects, the 2015 regional elections served as a rehearsal for the 2016 national legislative races. The results of the elections generally attested to the efficiency of political and institutional manipulation tools developed by the Russian authorities in recent years.     

In the Shadow of Brexit: The 2019 European Parliament Elections as First‐Order Polity Elections?

European Parliament (EP) elections have traditionally been described as ‘second‐order national elections' in which campaigns are fought by national parties on national issues. We argue that the 2019 elections should instead be considered ‘first‐order polity' elections. It is not EU‐level party politics or policy issues that are debated, but rather the legitimacy of the EU itself. Firstly, the EP elections have transformed into an EU ‘blame game' in which national governments are punished or rewarded over their stance on European integration. Secondly, the 2019 election was about the EU's fundamental values, not only with respect to multiculturalism, but also gender equality and LGBTQ rights. Finally, these first‐order polity elections are driven in large part by traditional news and social media platforms. While this is a long way from the patterns of the early EP elections, they still fail in fulfilling the function of holding MEPs and European party groupings adequately to account.     

The Recall of MPs Act 2015: Petitions,Polls and Problems

Under the terms of the Recall of MPs Act 2015, there have been three recall petitions brought against MPs who have committed misconduct. The outcomes have been variable. The first petition failed to attract enough signatures to trigger a by‐election. The second led to the unseating of the MP, who declined the opportunity to stand in the subsequent by‐election. The third led to the removal of the MP and an unsuccessful candidature to regain his seat at the by‐election. Variation has not been confined to outcomes. There have been differences in how the legislation has been implemented—in terms of the ease of access of constituents to the recall petition. This article suggests that in the interests of fairness and transparency, there is a strong case for adjusting the legislation to ensure national standardisation of local implementation.     

The verdict in the polls: how government stability is affected by popular support

The idea that the stability of governments is affected by how they are performing in the polls is both intuitive and popular in the literature. When support is low the government might be inclined to replace parties or the prime minister in order to regain support, thus forming a replacement government. Alternatively, a government doing well in the polls might opportunistically try to schedule an early election to capitalise on its favourable prospects. But despite the popularity of the idea, it has thus far not been tested empirically whether government stability is in fact influenced by popular support. This article aims to address this lacuna. Using a relatively new dataset with more than 12,000 unique polls, and recently developed Bayesian models for pooling the polls, it is here shown that government stability is in fact impacted by popular support. Governments display clear signs of electoral opportunism when they are polling well and, conversely, dissolve the government, without calling an election, when polling is bad. The results are strongest when there are few parties in the government, since agreement on the timing for a discretionary termination is easier when fewer players need to agree.     

Has the gender gap in voter turnout really disappeared?

According to conventional wisdom, the traditional gender gap in voting has disappeared or even reversed in most established democracies. Drawing on the existing literature on differences between the sexes in political engagement and on pioneering voter turnout theories, this article questions the conventional assumption and hypothesises that women still participate at a lower rate in less important elections. It systematically tests this hypothesis by exploring the impact of gender on voter turnout in different electoral arenas. The empirical analyses of two cross-national datasets (Making Electoral Democracy Work and the European Election Study) demonstrate that although there is generally no gender gap in first-order elections, women tend to vote less than men in second-order contests. This reflects lower levels of interest in politics among women and their lower levels of knowledge about politics when it comes to second-order elections.     

Image repair in the aftermath of inaccurate polling: How the news media responded to getting it wrong in 1948 and 2016

The US presidential elections of 1948 and 2016 produced surprise outcomes when the predicted winners ended up losing the election. Using image repair theory, this article explains the strategies the media used to repair their image in light of predicting the wrong winner. Using a qualitative analysis of news coverage that immediately followed the 1948 and 2016 presidential elections, this study finds that the media utilized similar image repair strategies of offering explanations for poor information, highlighting the media’s good reporting, diminishing the harm caused by the inaccurate predictions, and justifying the inaccurate predictions of both elections. However, the media responses in 1948 and 2016 differed greatly in tone and in the utilization of a new attack strategy to deflect criticism of the media itself. These strategies suggest that media use of image restoration is limited because of the unique societal expectations placed on the press, and that the media’s inaccurate 2016 predictions and subsequent attack strategies may have been contributed to the heightened criticism of mainstream news.     

The leadership dilemma: Examining the impact of strong leaders on parties

Party leaders are often regarded as crucial to a party's success. Successful leaders tend to be big personalities who dominate their party's organisation, policy development and electoral campaigns. But does that control come with a price? We test to see if such leaders damage their parties in the medium term. This happens because strong leaders might be ceded too much control of the party organisation, policy and electoral strategy. We specifically hypothesise that political parties will go through a period of leadership instability and electoral decline after strong leaders step down. Using a dataset with elections under party leaders in nine countries over a 25-year period, and a qualitative case study, we find some evidence for the theory, which should prompt further research of the question.