Reputations,Perceptions, and International Economic Agreements

How do countries’ actions on the international stage affect their reputations? We propose that, particularly when evaluating countries about whom individuals may have few prior beliefs, international agreements may hold particular sway in establishing countries’ reputations. Specifically, if a relatively unknown country joins an organization with a country that has a good reputation, individuals will judge that original state to be less risky; if the better-known countries are generally perceived to have a bad reputation, the less-known state will also look more risky. This article presents evidence from a survey experiment in which individuals are asked about the weight of various factors in their perceptions of countries’ reputations. Subjects would randomly receive a prompt about a country’s domestic policy reform or its ties to other countries via economic or cultural agreements. The results show that states’ international ties play a role in assessments about country reputations. We also examine possible mechanisms underlying this finding. Lower risk associated with agreements with good countries is largely a function of anticipated economic benefits. However, the higher risk associated with agreements with bad countries seems to be more a function of anticipated political closeness between countries.     

Local economies and national economic evaluations

Underlying the phenomena of economic voting are voters’ perceptions of economic conditions. But from where do these evaluations originate? This work examines the effects of three types of factors influential to the formation of national economic evaluations: predispositions (such as age, gender, income, partisanship), information and attentiveness, and objective local economic conditions (local unemployment rates). Our findings fit with earlier work, broadly confirming the influential role each set of factors plays in shaping national economic perceptions. We then extend the literature - demonstrating that the impact of the local economic environment is conditional on attention to media, political information and education. Using a combined dataset of the 2006 Canadian Election Studies with neighbourhood level economic indicators drawn from Canadian Census data (2006), our findings show that, in developing perceptions of the national economy, more attentive, more informed and more educated individuals are less influenced by local economic conditions than their less attentive, less informed and less educated counterparts. These findings contribute to our understanding of how local economic conditions influence the formation of national economic evaluations.     

Trends in Australian and Canadian Public Service Perceptions from an Employee Survey Perspective

A comparative analysis of results from the 2011 Institute of Public Administration Australia and Institute of Public Administration of Canada surveys of public service leaders is mapped against related public sector employee survey tools results. Alignment of past results with current leader perceptions shows remarkable consistency across the jurisdictions over time. This overarching coherence points to two broad hypotheses: either senior public service leaders possess a common set of preoccupations in the modern global context, or a more critical perspective would question the shortcomings of the instruments given that remarkable change has occurred that one would expect should have driven result variance. Regardless of the conclusion brought to this preliminary analysis, ongoing identification and mapping of senior leader perceptions through such tools is celebrated as an important contribution to ongoing public service organizational health.     

A balance between candidate- and party-centric representation under mixed-member systems: The evidence from voter behavior in Taiwan

Mixed-member systems are usually defined as electoral systems that combine SMDP and CLPR, both of which are more likely to induce party reputation-seeking. Building on the literature of electoral institutions, this article provides an explanation of how mixed-member systems structure voter behavior and achieve a balance between candidate- and party-centric representation. Using Taiwan as a case of MMS, this article tests hypotheses against survey data and investigates the determinants of voting decisions for the two ballots. By employing a Bayesian bivariate probit model, this article shows that, first, partisan factors affect voter behavior in both nominal and list ballots. However, it is affective rather than rational considerations for political parties that play the major role. Second, personal reputation influences voters' choices of the nominal and list vote, but only negative elements matter for the list vote. Finally, there is a moderately positive correlation between the two ballots, which potentially results from affective, partisan considerations.     

Did you see it coming? Explaining the accuracy of voter expectations for district and (sub)national election outcomes in multi-party systems

The expectations of voters regarding election outcomes appear to be mostly influenced by their own political preferences. This raises two important questions. First, once partisan predispositions have been accounted for, how much do other variables like interest in the campaign, election news attentiveness, political knowledge, education or competitiveness help to explain one’s ability at predicting election outcomes? Second, does one’s level of sophistication moderate the link between political preferences and forecasting abilities? To answer these questions, I mobilize data from seven elections taken at the district and (sub)national levels. I also introduce a new measure of forecasting ability—the cumulative Brier score index. In most cases, variables other than preferences and knowledge have little or no influence on the accuracy of voters’ expectations both at the (sub)national and district levels. Political knowledge is positively associated with citizens’ forecasting abilities; however, it does not appear to moderate the preference–expectation link. This result contradicts findings from existing work and holds important implications for the study of citizen forecasting.     

Boxholm tea party: Taxation and voter turnout in a mature democracy

The link between taxation and representation is generally considered foundational to the emergence of democratic governance. Nevertheless, the empirical relationship between taxation and the extent to which citizens actually exert representation by turning out to vote remains virtually unexplored. Using a panel of all Swedish municipalities from 1979 to 2018, I find that hikes in local tax rates are linked to increased municipal voter turnout. Accounting for a wide range of confounders, including turnout in concurrent parliamentary- and county elections, these results indicate an important untapped explanation for changes in turnout, while offering a rare explicit test of the taxation-representation argument drawn from a mature democracy.     

Not all campaign panels are created equal: Exploring how the number and timing of panel waves affect findings concerning the time of voting decision

This paper addresses the impact of the number and timing of panel waves in campaign panel surveys on findings concerning the prevalence of early, campaign, and late deciding as well as on the determinants of the time of voting decision. Using data from a seven-wave online campaign panel survey conducted during the 2009 German federal election, we demonstrate that the number and timing of panel waves affect results concerning the time of voting decision considerably. Whereas the number and timing of panel waves strongly affect the marginal distribution of decider types they do not impinge heavily upon the determinants of the time of voting decision.     

NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL CONTROL AND PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME AND DISORDER IN CONTEMPORARY URBAN CHINA*

By drawing on the two streams of Western literature on “neighborhood effects” and perceptions of neighborhood disorder adapted to the distinctive organizational infrastructure of neighborhoods in contemporary urban China, we examine the contextual effects of different forms of neighborhood social control (i.e., collective efficacy, semipublic control, public control, and market‐based control) on different types of perceived disorder (i.e., criminal activity, social disorder, physical disorder, and total disorder) across neighborhoods. The analyses are based on data collected in the year 2013 from a survey of approximately 2,500 households in 50 neighborhoods across the city of Tianjin. Collective efficacy as a form of informal control has a significant effect only for perceived social disorder. Public control as measured by the activities of neighborhood police stations has a significant contextual effect on all forms of perceived disorder, whereas the role of market‐based control as represented by contracted community services is limited to perceived physical disorder. Finally, semipublic control as measured by the activities of neighborhood committees significantly affects all forms of perceived disorder, but the direction of the effect is positive. We interpret this positive effect with reference to the complex processes surrounding the “translation” of neighborhood disorderly conditions into perceptions of disorder.     

The Why and What of Intimate Conflict: Effect of the Partners’ Divergent Perceptions on Verbal Aggression

The aim of this study is to explore the effect on expressions of verbal aggression of intimate partners’ divergent perceptions of what the conflict is about (its subject) and why fight over it (its motive), together with the effect of the period of cohabitation. The study focused on the couple as the unit of analysis. A structured self-report questionnaire was administered to a stratified probability sample drawn from the general population in Israel, including 452 couples (904 men and women). Findings show that there is an association between the couples’ divergent perceptions of the conflict motive and of its subject, and that these disagreements amplify the partners’ aggression toward each other. However, the perception of conflict motive has a stronger effect on the expressions of aggression than that of conflict subject, while duration of cohabitation has a moderating effect on the divergent perceptions of conflict subject and on aggression between the partners. The discussion embraces both the theoretical and practical implications of the findings, as well as the limitations of the study.     

Dispersal Powers and the Symbolic Role of Anti-Social Behaviour Legislation

This article considers the development and use of dispersal powers, introduced by the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, and situates these within the context of wider legislation and policy initiatives. It explores the ways in which the powers have been interpreted by the courts and implemented by police and local authorities. The article critically analyses the manner in which the powers: introduce 'public perceptions' as a justification for police encroachments on civil liberties; conform to a hybrid-type prohibition; constitute a form of preventive exclusion that seeks to govern future behaviour; are part of a wider trend towards discretionary and summary justice; and potentially criminalise young people on the basis of the anxieties that groups congregating in public places may generate amongst others. It is argued that the significance of dispersal orders derives as much from the symbolic messages and communicative properties they express, as from their instrumental capacity to regulate behaviour.