Theoretically,yes, but also empirically? How the corruption-turnout link is marginally explained by civic duty to vote

Corruption is generally associated with low electoral participation. A recurrent explanation of the negative correlation between corruption and electoral turnout involves the rational calculus of the costs and benefits of voting. More specifically, in a context of high corruption, citizens do not vote because they think that doing so will hardly affect policy decisions. A number of influential studies has argued that corruption affects citizens' electoral engagement in a different and more fundamental way as well: It erodes their sense of civic duty to vote in elections. Yet, a relation between corruption and civic duty and a mediation effect of the attitude remains empirically untested. This article examines empirically whether perceived corruption and sense of civic duty are correlated, as well as whether civic duty mediates the relation between perceived corruption and turnout. It does so with the pooled Making Electoral Democracy Work data, as these data contain measures on individuals’ sense of civic duty to vote in four election levels, namely, national, regional, European, and municipal elections, as well as on their perception of corruption in each of these government levels, and on their participation in these four election levels as well. I find a weak relation between perceived corruption and civic duty, and a low mediation effect of the attitude (compared with rational factors), irrespective of the election level.     

How do coalition signals shape voting behavior? Revealing the mediating role of coalition expectations

Existing empirical research suggests that there are two mechanisms through which pre-electoral coalition signals shape voting behavior. According to these, coalition signals both shift the perceived ideological positions of parties and prime coalition considerations at the cost of party considerations. The work at hand is the first to test another possibility of how coalition signals affect voting. This coalition expectation mechanism claims that coalition signals affect voting decisions by changing voters' expectations about which coalitions are likely to form after the election. Moreover, this paper provides the first integrative overview of all three mechanisms that link coalition signals and individual voting behavior. Results from a survey experiment conducted during Sweden's 2018 general election suggest that the coalition expectation mechanism can indeed be at work. By showing how parties' pre-electoral coalition behavior enter a voter's decision calculus, the paper provides important insights for the literature on strategic voting theories in proportional systems.     

Quality challenger emergence under the top-two primary: Comparing one-party and two-party general election contests

Prior research finds that the emergence of a quality challenger is one of the most important factors predicting whether incumbents will be vulnerable. Reformers in California and Washington envisioned that the top-two primary reform would increase electoral competition by allowing for general election contests that feature two same-party candidates in safe districts. In this research note, I investigate the degree to which these expectations have been fulfilled by looking at the prevalence of quality challengers in U.S. House contests. I compare one-party and two-party general election contests, finding that incumbents are significantly more likely to face a quality challenger from the same party than from the opposite party, all else equal. In contrast, when both states used traditional primaries prior to reform, incumbents were no more likely to face a quality challenger in the primary election than in the general election. Findings reveal a key way in which the top-two primary may fulfill reformers’ expectations and complement our understanding of how electoral institutions condition challenger entry decisions.     

Racial attitudes & political cross-pressures in nationalized elections: The case of the Republican coalition in the Trump era

While scholars have found that Trump was able to capitalize on the racial attitudes of white voters, it is less clear how these racial attitudes influenced vote-choice across partisan and ideological cleavages in the electorate. It is also unclear whether racial attitudes affected voting at the congressional level or electoral outcomes at the aggregate level. Using a novel measure of racial attitudes at the subnational level and survey data, we make three clear findings: (1) Trump and Republican congressional candidates benefited from conservative racial attitudes both at the aggregate level and among white voters, (2) this electoral benefit for Republicans persisted during the 2018 midterm elections, and (3) the effect of attitudes on vote-choice did not significantly vary across partisan and ideological cleavages in the white electorate. Our findings suggest that, even during the era of highly nationalized and partisan elections, racial attitudes are still a mechanism by which Republicans can win significant electoral support among Democrats and relatively liberal voters in the white electorate. These findings have implications for the growing salience of race in the Republican electoral coalition.     

Small winners and big losers: strategic party behaviour in the 2017 Dutch general election

Abstract

This article analyses party strategies during the campaign for the Dutch general election of March 2017, making use of issue-yield theory. It investigates whether parties strategically emphasise high-yield issues, by juxtaposing the issue opportunities provided by voters with parties’ issue emphasis during the campaign. More specifically, it asks whether parties strategically emphasised issues that were expected to reward them electorally. Analysing voter preferences and party campaign data, it is found that parties and most of their constituencies show high ideological consistency, that parties emphasise mostly positional issues and thus choose a conflict-mobilising strategy, and that most parties emphasise high-yield issues rather than following the general political agenda. Four small parties that won significantly behaved strategically while the social democrats – who severely lost – hardly did. The findings imply that the issue-yield framework can help to explain the election result in the fragmented Dutch multi-party context.     

‘Get Brexit Done’: The New Political Divides of England and Wales at the 2019 Election

This article analyses the successful Conservative election campaign of 2019 and how it took advantage of a fractured political and economic landscape. It reviews the unique circumstances around the 2019 election and the ‘surprising death’ of a no-deal Brexit. We then analyse the divergent political communication strategies in the 2017 and 2019 Conservative campaigns showing how the latter was much more coherent and politically unorthodox. Drawing on socioeconomic, demographic and British Election Study data, we argue that Boris Johnson’s messaging was carefully tailored towards the demands of voters in the ‘red wall’ seats. Conservative success was built around an appeal to voters in these economically depressed ‘geographies of discontent’. But while tremendously successful, the coalition this created is potentially fragile. An unconventional, ‘leftish’ Conservative campaign built a new, diverse bloc of voters. It includes a number of left-wingers expecting change alongside traditional Conservative supporters, and will be hard to keep together given the economic turbulence ahead.     

Transcending Thatcherism? Ideology and the Conservative Party Leadership Mandate of David Cameron

This paper examines the voting motivations of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary ballot of the Conservative Party leadership election of 2005. By constructing a data set of the voting behaviour of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary party ballot, and by determining the ideological disposition of the 2005 PCP this paper examines the ideological disposition of the candidates' vis-à-vis their electorate. The paper identifies the increasing Thatcherite nature of the PCP across three dominant ideological divides of contemporary British Conservatism-economic, European, and social, sexual and moral policy. Through such an analysis the paper demonstrates how the modernising David Cameron, who came first in the final parliamentary ballot and then won the membership ballot, transcended the traditional ideological voting motivations of candidates' vis-à-vis their electorate. Most significantly, the paper demonstrates that the European ideological policy divide was not a factor in the succession contest, unlike the succession contests of 1990, 1997 and 2001.     

合同一般法定解除条件探微

违反从给付义务必须达到相对人的合同目的因此而落空的程度才允许解除合同。不可抗力致使不能实现合同目的作为合同解除的条件,尚无废除的必要。不能实现合同目的可被解释为严重影响订立合同所期望的经济利益。在金钱给付作为合同标的场合,付款迟延情况下的解除合同必须从严把握。     

Keeping the rascals in: Anti‐political‐establishment parties and their cost of governing in established democracies

Coalition governments in established democracies incur, on average, an electoral ‘cost of governing’. This cost varies across coalition partners, and is higher for anti‐political‐establishment parties. This is because, if such a party participates in a coalition, it loses the purity of its message by being seen to cooperate with the political establishment. In order to demonstrate that anti‐political‐establishment parties suffer an additional cost of governing, this article builds on the work by Van der Brug et al. and refines the standard cost of governing theory by ‘bringing the party back in’. The results of the analyses, based on 594 observations concerning 51 parties in seven Western European countries, cast doubt on the conventional concept of a cost of governing that pertains to all parties equally. The findings call for a major revision of the standard cost of governing literature, while adding a significant contribution to the debate on strategies against parties that may constitute a danger to democracy.