The gender gap in populist radical-right voting: examining the demand side in Western and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT

In most countries, men are more likely to vote for parties of the populist radical right (PRR) than women. The authors argue here that there are two mechanisms that might potentially explain this gender gap: mediation (women's attitudes and characteristics differ from men's in ways that explain the PRR vote) and moderation (women vote for different reasons than men). They apply these two mechanisms to general theories of support for PRR parties—the socio-structural model, the discontent model, and the policy vote model—and test these on a large sample of voters in seventeen Western and Eastern European countries. The study shows that the gender gap is produced by a combination of moderation and mediation. Socio-structural differences between men and women exist, but the extent to which they explain the gender gap is limited, and primarily restricted to post-Communist countries. Furthermore, women generally do not differ from men in their level of nativism, authoritarianism or discontent with democracy. Among women, however, these attitudes are less strongly related to a radical-right vote. This suggests that men consider the issues of the radical right to be more salient, but also that these parties deter women for reasons other than the content of their political programme. While the existing research has focused almost exclusively on mediation, we show that moderation and mediation contribute almost equally to the gender gap.     

How to Win the UK Referendum on the European Constitution

Opinion polls suggest the UK Government faces an uphill task in winning the forthcoming referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty. This article provides a detailed analysis of the factors that are likely to decide the referendum outcome. Using recent survey data, we analyze the factors that influence individual-level support for the Constitutional Treaty. These results show that it is not only general attitudes towards European integration which are likely to play an important role, but also partisanship and satisfaction with the government. Given the low levels of information about the Constitution and the large number of undecided voters, the campaign itself will be crucial to the outcome. We argue that while information alone will not necessarily persuade voters, a successful campaign strategy by the yes-camp could make a decisive difference by motivating and informing voters, as well as setting the agenda for the debate.     

布雷顿森林模式的改革研究

布雷顿森林模式是一种基本投票权和加权投票权相结合的加权表决制度,它存在许多问题。解决方法有:赋予发展中国家更多的与其地位和作用一致的投票权,增加基本票在总投票权中的比重,采用集团投票制,各机构改革分开进行,并应有独立的份额分配公式,选择合理的参数和权重,改进GDP的计算方法,以上这些都要纳入法制化轨道。发展中国家对待改革要讲究策略,谨慎看待已取得的改革成果,对改革的渐进性和艰巨性要有充分认识,建立发展中国家之间的协调机制,发展本国经济,增加综合国力。     

关于中小股东利益保护的三个方面

基于对每一股东个人权利的尊重和维护 ,加强对中小股东利益的保护尤显重要。本文拟从事前防范、事中救济、事后补偿三个方面展开对保护措施的探讨 ,这里涉及三个相关制度 :累积投票制、派生诉讼和股份收买请求权 (包括异议估价制     

Turning against the Union? The impact of the crisis on the Eurosceptic vote in the 2014 European Parliament elections

The 2014 European Parliament elections were held against the backdrop of the worst economic crisis in post-war Europe. The elections saw an unprecedented surge in support for Eurosceptic parties. This raises the question of whether the crisis, and the EU’s response to it, can explain the rise of Eurosceptic parties. Our analysis of the 2014 European Election Study demonstrates that the degree to which individuals were adversely affected by the crisis and their discontent with the EU’s handling of the crisis are major factors in explaining defection from mainstream pro-European to Eurosceptic parties in these elections. This suggests that far from being second-order national elections concerned only with domestic politics, European issues had a significant impact on vote choices.     

Institutional determinants of invalid voting in post-communist Europe and Latin America

Implications from three theoretical models explaining the incidence of invalid voting are tested using data from all presidential elections in post-communist and Latin American democracies. Institutions such as the rule governing the possibility of reelection, compulsory voting, the rule for electing presidents, and the concurrence of elections, all powerfully shape the incidence of invalid voting. The article utilizes an interactive framework which implies that the effect of electoral rules is strongly conditioned by features of political competition. Although there is evidence consistent both with the voter error and protest models of invalid voting, most of the variation in invalid voting rates is explicable by the stakes associated with casting a valid as opposed to an invalid ballot.     

Trading old errors for new errors? The impact of electronic voting technology on party label votes in Brazil

In the mid-1990s, Brazil introduced electronic voting technology that reduced residual ballots and consequently expanded de facto enfranchisement. We employ a regression discontinuity design similar to that of previous studies of the Brazilian electronic voting technology to show that electronic technology also caused a sharp rise in party label votes (votos de legenda) that can only be explained by voting error. We show that this error offsets a large portion of the gains in enfranchisement, highlighting the fact that even generally positive changes in voting procedures can have negative effects. Our results also suggest that party label votes should not be considered a measure of party strength in the Brazilian context.     

Winning the ‘losers’ but losing the ‘winners’? The electoral consequences of the radical right moving to the economic left

Voters with lower socio-economic status are now consistently overrepresented among the radical right electorate. According to the ‘new winning formula’, many radical right parties increasingly move to the left on socio-economic issues to cater to these voters. This study tests a crucial assumption underlying this formula: whether radical right parties with socio-economically left-leaning positions actually attract more working class voters. By mapping class characteristics of the electorate of 10 radical right parties at three time points (based on surveys) against these parties' positions on the economic dimension (according to experts), this study shows that the ‘class gap’ - the extent to which class indicators predict voters' propensity to vote for the radical right - is significantly larger for socio-economically leftwing parties.     

Stakeholder citizenship: the complexities of Polish migrants’ citizenship attachments in the context of the Scottish independence referendum

This article focuses on the experiences of Scotland’s largest foreign-born minority group, namely Poles, in the run-up to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. We draw on 20 in-depth interviews to explore our participants’ intentions and justifications for voting (or not) in the referendum. We found that our participants tended to emphasise the jus domicili principle when justifying their eligibility to vote in the referendum. However, our participants extended the jus domicili principle in their justifications to also include the intention to stay in Scotland as a central aspect of their continuing stake in (and right to vote in the referendum to determine) Scotland’s future. Through exploring our participants’ justifications for voting in the referendum, we were able to examine and better understand how migrants constitute their citizenship through articulating their substantive attachments (social, economic and relational or familial) in their adoptive country and in their country of origin.     

The Private Interests of Public Officials: Financial Regulation in the US Congress

Legislators' private financial holdings affect policy decisions. Due to financial self‐interest, we theorize that legislators whose personal investment portfolios include equities from firms affected by proposed policies vote for legislation that benefits those firms. We also theorize that legislators with greater personal exposure to equity investments support policies that benefit equities markets generally. We create a novel data set of legislators' personal stock investments and examine major congressional actions since the 1990s on financial deregulation and market intervention. US House members who own stocks in firms who benefit from financial deregulation vote for deregulation. House members with greater exposure to financial and automotive stocks support the financial and auto bailouts, respectively. General exposure to equities markets is also associated with support for key legislation boosting markets. The normative implications are significant, as legislators' private interests influence decisions in the public sphere.