Punishing without rewards? A comprehensive examination of the asymmetry in economic voting

It has been controversial whether incumbents are punished more for a bad economy than they are rewarded for a good economy due to mixed results from previous studies on one or handful number of countries. This paper makes an empirical contribution to this lingering question by conducting extensive tests on whether this asymmetry hypothesis is a cross-nationally generalizable phenomenon using all currently available modules of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey from 122 elections in 42 representative democracies between 1996 and 2016, as well as macro-economic indicators and individual-level economic perception. In general, this paper finds little support for the asymmetry hypothesis; although the evidence of such asymmetric economic voting is found in some subpopulations using certain economic indicators, these conditional effects are largely inconsistent, suggesting that it is still safe to assume a linear relationship between economic conditions and support for the incumbent.     

Tea Party support and perceptions of local economic conditions

Researchers have long studied the underpinnings of voter perceptions of national economic conditions. Of growing interest though, is the effect of local economic evaluations on approval and voting behavior. Even though individuals engage more directly with the local economy than with that of the nation, perceptions of local conditions are colored as much by individual attitudes and demographics as by objective measures. Metropolitan area unemployment rates strongly predict local evaluations, but so do education, age, sex, and political attitudes. Of particular interest, even controlling for objective conditions, support for the Tea Party strongly predicts more negative evaluations and overpowers most other sources of bias.     

Patience as the rational foundation of sociotropic voting

Economic voting is one of the most important mechanisms on explaining voting behavior and on establishing the democratic accountability. However, people tend to use perceived national economic condition on evaluating the incumbent, which is known as sociotropic voting, instead of their pocketbook. Previous studies suggest both altruism and self-interested future expectation may help explain this seemingly irrational behavior, but empirical works have not yet found convincing evidence to prove or disprove the self-interested motivation. This article suggests that patience makes people discount less on the potential future influence of the current national economic change; if self-interest drives sociotropic voting, patient voters would be more sociotropic. Consistent with the hypothesis, individual-level data from 2014 Comparative Congressional Election Survey shows that patient voters rely more on the perceived national economic change to evaluate the incumbent and make vote choice. Limited evidence of the linkage between impatience and pocketbook voting among non-partisans, and on the country-level is also provided.     

审查逮捕程序改革的进路——以提高逮捕案件质量为核心

我国审查逮捕程序存在的最突出的问题是错捕和不当逮捕比例过高,这主要是由于侦查机关没有对逮捕的全部条件承担证明责任和犯罪嫌疑人诉讼地位客体化造成的。调整批捕权的职权配置,将其交给法院行使,并不能达成以审查逮捕的正当程序控制逮捕的目标。我们应当以树立检察官在审查逮捕程序中的裁判者角色为核心,维系审查逮捕程序的诉讼构造,强化对逮捕全部条件的审查,改进检察机关审查逮捕的工作机制,创造犯罪嫌疑人及其律师在审查逮捕程序中发挥作用的条件,推行不捕理由双重说明机制,进而强化侦查机关对逮捕条件的证明责任,以实现审查逮捕程序的正当化,达到防止错捕、减少不当逮捕,并为公诉程序、审判程序纵深改革创造条件的目的。     

Expatriates as voters? The new dynamics of external voting in Sub-Saharan Africa

Expatriate voting has gained in importance over the last decade in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article gives an empirical overview of existing regulations in all independent states of the continent and examines some explanatory approaches in the African context. One approach claims that expatriate enfranchisement is a functional response to the increasing importance of migrants and their remittances. A second explanation refers to the role of domestic political structures and regime types. A third cluster of explanatory factors links external voting to the interests of political parties. Both in the broader comparative analysis and by looking more specifically at the cases of Ghana, South Africa, Cape Verde and Nigeria, all three approaches specifically contribute to understanding variation of external voting rights in Sub-Saharan Africa.     

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.