Taking cues from the government: heuristic versus systematic processing in a constitutional referendum

Abstract

One of the main criticisms of direct democracy is that it places excessive demands on voters. Are citizens competent enough to vote directly on policy issues? When stakes are high, do citizens mainly follow elites’ signals or do they decide in line with their issue preferences? This article addresses these questions in a multi-method setting by combining observational and experimental data from an original three-wave panel survey conducted during the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum. In particular, Finite Mixture Models are employed to model voters’ heterogeneous strategies of information processing. Findings show that heuristic voting based on government evaluation prevails over policy-related voting. More specifically, less politically sophisticated and partisan voters relied on government assessment as a heuristic, while sophisticated and independent voters based their decisions mostly on their assessment of the reform. Implications for the question of citizens’ competence in direct democracy are discussed.     

Political polarization,voting and democratic representativeness: Too much or too little?

This contribution evaluates the mediating role of different political contexts and levels of democratic consolidation on the effect of party system polarization on ideological vote and discusses how this relationship enhances democratic representativeness. The influence of party system polarization on ideological voting is analyzed in two areas: the voters' competence in identifying parties' ideological positions; and the voters’ tendency to vote for the most ideologically proximate party, which is one of the key features of the spatial theories of voting. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) from 1996 to 2019 and multilevel modelling techniques, the paper compares how those features vary across different types of countries, particularly older and newer democracies, and different regions of the world.     

Echoes of a fading past: Authoritarian legacies and far-right voting

In recent years, electoral support for the far-right has increased dramatically across the world. This phenomenon is especially acute in some new democracies; however, little attention has been devoted to the effects of the legacies of past authoritarian ideologies. We argue that the ideology of the past regime affects far-right support because voters that were politically socialized under authoritarianism will be biased against its ideological brand. To test this argument, we conduct an individual-level analysis across 20 countries between 1996 and 2018 using a difference-in-difference estimation and a country-level analysis using data from 39 democracies between 1980 and 2018. We demonstrate that voters socialized under right-wing dictatorships are less likely to support far-right parties compared to citizens that were socialized under different circumstances. Moreover, support for far-right parties is significantly lower in countries that transitioned from right-wing autocracies. Findings are discussed in light of the contribution to the far-right movement literature.     

Prepaid postage using pre-stamped envelopes to affect turnout costs

Voter participation in elections is important for representational reasons but also because it helps to support the legitimacy of the election outcome. In a recent paper, Schelker and Schneiter (2017) show with data from only one Swiss canton that a small policy intervention (return envelopes with prepaid postage) can lead to substantially increased voter turnout rates. We revisit this finding and extend the analysis to all cantons that allow municipalities to offer free return postage. We find that a credible estimate of the effect is somewhat smaller but still positive and significant. We also document that this effect is not constant but stronger for larger municipalities than for smaller municipalities. Our interviews point to a likely mechanism. These results show that return envelopes with prepaid postage are an effective policy to increase participation, but mostly for large municipalities.     

Postcards from the Edge? Setting the Suburban Scene

This introduction highlights four themes about the politics of suburbia which are developed in the collection. First, what constitutes suburbia is multiple and constantly changing. This is reflected in diverse and evolving architectures and economic conditions. Second, the idea of the suburb as synonymous with the pinnacle of betterment is taking a battering as suburbs are now looking the worse for wear. ‘Just about managing’ families and the ‘squeezed middle’ are to be found in the suburbs. Third, in post‐2016 Britain, Brexit is the new political fault‐line where regional variations manifest themselves, and this is reflected in distinctive suburban politics, producing strange bedfellows spanning Surrey and Sunderland. Fourth, voting patterns reflect the dynamism of the modern suburb. The social and physical environment of the suburb may shape attitudes to some extent, but incomers have brought their politics with them.     

Ecological inference under unfavorable conditions: Straight and split-ticket voting in diverse settings and small samples

Problems of ecological inference have long troubled political scientists. Thomsen's (1987) estimator for ecological inference has been shown to produce estimates close to the individual level estimates for transitions across elections, but it is unknown how well it performs under unfavorable conditions. We fill this void by testing the estimator as the across-unit variance increases and introduce a new procedure to examine the bias of the estimates as the number of aggregate units decreases. Looking at partisan voting patterns across races within the 2000 general election in Florida counties and taking advantage of ballot image data to study straight-ticket voting we demonstrate that the estimator performs well in both heterogeneous societies and when the number of aggregate units is limited.     

优先股之无表决权质疑

认为优先股无表决权的观点在理论上和实践中均无法成立。优先股与表决权并不存在必然关系,既存在无表决权的优先股,也存在有表决权的优先股。优先股的表决权有两种立法模式,一是授权公司决定模式,二是法定无表决权模式,优先股有无表决权既取决于其所处的法域,叉受到当事人约定的影响。授权公司决定模式较法定无表决权模式为优,应是我国优先股立法的理想选择。     

Economic voting in multi-tiered polities

This paper assesses whether economic voting plays any role in a parliamentary, decentralized polity. Decentralization is argued to blur lines of responsibility and confuse voters about whom to blame for poor economic performance at the national and regional levels. National and Regional Economic Voting (NEV and REV, respectively) are tested in Catalonia (Spain). The initial empirical test suggests that only NEV takes place in this region. Four hypotheses are considered to explain REV’s absence: blame-shifting, blinding nationalism, coalition government, and misinformation regarding Policy Responsibility Distribution across tiers of government. Using reasonable counterfactuals and Bayesian techniques, the first three hypotheses are dismissed, whereas the last is confirmed. The results emphasize the informational requirements behind the economic voting theory.     

Strategic Eurosceptics and polite xenophobes: Support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2009 European Parliament elections

While Euroscepticism is the most important driver of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) support, other attitudinal drivers – namely dissatisfaction towards mainstream parties and xenophobia – are also important. Examining vote‐switching between first‐ and second‐order elections evidence is found of a distinction between two types of supporter: more affluent and middle‐class ‘strategic defectors’ from the mainstream Conservative Party who support UKIP to register their Euroscepticism, and more economically marginal and politically disaffected ‘core loyalists’ who are attracted to UKIP by its anti‐immigration rhetoric and populist anti‐establishment strategy. UKIP also succeeds in attracting core support from groups such as women who have traditionally rejected extreme right parties such as the British National Party (BNP). This suggests that UKIP is well positioned to recruit a broader and more enduring base of support than the BNP.