Limited information and coordinated voting in multi-party elections under plurality rule: The role of campaigns

This essay bridges the logic of electoral coordination with the observation that many voters cannot recognize ex post viable candidates. When strategic voting is limited, behavioral factors of sincere voting play a large part in coordinating uninformed voters and inform the expectations of potentially strategic voters about the patterns of voting. Using the 2011 Canadian Election Survey, I found strong effects of the density of campaign contacts and the asymmetries in the campaigns spending and party identification on the predictability of the patterns of intra-district competition. A comparison of the effects of behavioral factors on the uninformed and informed voters confirms that the effect of centrifugal spending and party identification is conditional on the ability of voters to recognize the leaders of district competition.     

论《税收征收管理法》第88条之修改

2001年《税收征管法》修订以来，又暴露出很多问题，其中第88条关于纳税争议的程序设置成为学界讨论的热点问题。尤其是关于复议前置程序的存废成为学界的关注点。本文采用了法律经济学分析方法，首先论证了现行制度为什么要设置复议前置程序，即出于提高征收效率．阻止纳税人诉讼；然后从纳税人权利制约税收征管权力角度提出要废除复议前置；除此之外，从更宽阔的视野中对权利制约权力理论进行了法律经济学分析，最终得出结论废除复议前置程序后的社会福利效率更高。因而从公平和效率两个角度都主张改复议前置为选择复议制度。     

What drives rental votes? How coalitions signals facilitate strategic coalition voting

Rental voting is a coalition voting strategy, by which supporters of a senior coalition partner cast their vote for the prospective junior coalition partner to secure its representation in parliament and, hence, the formation of this coalition. We make transparent that previous research has only studied rental-voting in contexts, in which coalition signals were consistent with the rental-vote logic. Employing a qualitative identification strategy, we find evidence for rental voting only in the context with consistent coalition signals. Moreover, respondents exposed to consistent coalition signals behave similarly to voters who most likely did not receive the inconsistent coalition signals they had been exposed to.     

经济法程序的“二元结构”及其非均衡性

在经济法的产生与发展过程中,程序性规范的地位不断提升,现代经济法具有强烈的程序依赖性。经济法程序规范主要由调制程序与对策程序、诉讼程序与非诉程序、正式程序与非正式程序等一系列"二元结构"组成。各种"二元结构"内部的非均衡性异常明显,各类程序在经济法上的地位、功能有别。通过对经济法程序的结构分析,可以对各类程序作出适当定位,实现程序之间的有机组合,发挥程序的整体效能。     

民事证据随时提出、同时提出抑或适时提出——兼评《中华人民共和国民事诉讼法修正案(草案)》第65条

在法定顺序主义下,主张已经固定,有完善系统的审前程序,实行证据同时提出主义和逾期失权制度则有其合理基础。在自由顺序主义中,无审前程序固定主张和争点,则只能实行证据随时提出主义,但证据随时提出主义无法集中审理和诉讼拖延的弊端决定着其让位于增设审前程序后的证据适时提出主义。不像美国的证据开示制度,我国民事诉讼法不能随意证据失权,只能实行相对温和的证据适时提出主义,但也需相应完善审前程序。     

Ethno-Political Effects of Suburbanization in the Vilnius Urban Region: An Analysis of Voting Behavior

We use electoral data to analyze the ethno-political consequences that may arise from the fact that the region surrounding the city of Vilnius is dominated by residents with a Polish identity, while those who move to the suburbs are mainly ethnic Lithuanians. In the suburban ring we found increasing voting turnout, a decreasing share of votes for the Polish party, and an increase of the absolute number of votes for this party. The changing electoral behavior might be an indicator of growing ethno-political tensions and the zones of the most intense changes identify areas of potential social tensions between ethnic groups.     

Apartisans and the changing German electorate

The concept of party identification is central to our understanding of electoral behavior. This paper builds upon the functional logic of party identification and asks what occurs when more Germans manage the complexities of politics without needing to rely on habitual party cues—what we label as Apartisans. We track the distribution of party mobilization and cognitive mobilization within the German electorate from 1976 until 2009. Then, we demonstrate the importance of these mobilization patterns by documenting strong differences in electoral commitment, the content of political thinking, and electoral change. The results suggest a secular transformation in the characteristics of the public has led to a more differentiated and dealigned German electorate.     

Economic voting in Portugal, 2002–2009

This article tests the economic voting hypothesis in Portugal during the three most recent first-order elections (2002, 2005, 2009), trying to make sense of the multiplicity of choices in the Portuguese party system. We observed that positive sociotropic perceptions increase the probability to vote for the incumbent, even when we control for long-term factors of vote choice; egotropic effects are weaker. Negative economic perceptions not only lead to a higher probability to vote for the major opposition party, but, in some cases, increase the probabilities to vote for small parties or to refrain from voting. Sociotropic effects are actually quite constant in this timeframe, but their strength to explain the vote is lower than that of ideology and (before 2009) religiosity.     

Economic crisis and elections: The European periphery

This paper introduces the articles in the symposium which address the issue of democratic accountability and economic voting in polities on the European periphery. The economic crisis that hit the world economy in 2008 has severely challenged the capacity of governments to steer the national economy and has had a strong impact on their electoral support. The papers discuss whether economic voting and democratic accountability are increasing or, on the other hand, they could be depressed by globalisation and by shifts of ruling competence from the national to the supranational European arena.     

Looking to the future: Prospective economic voting in 2008 Presidential Elections

Despite the economic turmoil of the time, a typical study of vote choice in the 2008 US Presidential Election would (falsely) find little evidence that voters’ opinions about the future state of the economy affected their vote choice. We argue that this misleading conclusion results from serious measurement error in the standard prospective economic evaluations survey question. Relying instead on a revised question, included for the first time in the 2008 American National Election Study, we find that most respondents condition their prospective economic evaluations on potential election outcomes, and that these evaluations are an important determinant of vote choice. A replication in a very different political context – the 2008 Ghanaian election – yields similar results.