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.     

A dynamic analysis of partisan voting: The issue salience effect of unemployment in South Korea

This paper examines the electoral effects of the salience of unemployment issue. While increasing employment volatility has spawned exciting research, evidence of how unemployment affects vote choice is inconclusive. I refine partisan voting theory by focusing on issue salience of unemployment and the dynamics of voter choice. Voters are more likely to make a transition to support left parties when they identify unemployment as the most important and salient issue. The study also examines voter heterogeneity in the link between issue salience and the propensity for transition to the left. The effect of issue salience of unemployment is more pronounced among lower income groups than their counterparts. Analysis of a transition model using the 1997 and 2002 Korean presidential election surveys finds evidence supporting my arguments.     

TR versus PR: Effects of the French double ballot

This paper presents a natural experiment, comparing the effects of two-round (TR) and proportional representation (PR) voting rules in French cantonal and regional elections. A series of rigorous model estimations demonstrates that the two electoral types clearly produce distinct outcomes. TR systems bring about less extremist party voting, less party competition, and perhaps less vote turnout, when compared to PR systems. These findings call into question the lack of attention to TR effects, and the notion that TR is not really a distinct electoral form.     

Beyond Kriesiland: EU integration as a super issue after the Eurocrisis

Where some researchers have seen only a limited impact of Europeanisation on national party politics, others have added a separate European Union dimension to the pre‐existing economic left‐right dimension to model the national political space. This article examines the effects of the European crisis on the national political space across the EU utilising data from the 2014 European Election Survey. It analyses the effect of a country's economic development on the coherence between attitudes towards the EU and economic issues using multilevel regression. Strong evidence is found that in the Southern European debtor states economic and European issues are merging as a result of strong European interference in their economic policy. In the Northern European creditor states a second relevant dimension focuses on cultural issues. These results offer the next step in theorising Europeanisation.     

Contextual influences on the decision calculus: A cross-national examination of proximity voting

It is generally held that individuals vote for the party that most closely aligns with their preferences, yet previous research identifies numerous factors which lead individuals to stray from the proximity logic. To shed light on this phenomenon, I examine proximity voting from a comparative perspective. Results from a multilevel model indicate that several individual- and election-level factors affect the likelihood of a proximity vote. I also find proximity voting to occur less in countries where political variation is not well-captured by a single dimension. These findings shed light on the bases of proximity voting and add to the general understanding of the nature of voting behavior.     

Young people,parents and radical right voting. The Case of the Swiss People’s Party

It is commonly found that young people tend to adopt the political party choice of their parents. However, far less is known about the applicability of this theory when investigating radical right support. Using the Swiss Household panel data (1999–2007), this study empirically identifies the relationship between parents’ preference for the Swiss radical right party SVP and their attitudes toward immigrants and the EU, and their offspring’s preference for the SVP. Disaggregating fathers’ and mothers’ influence reveals that in particular, mothers’ SVP support plays a role in SVP support among young people, even after controlling for educational similarities. We also demonstrate that girls are more likely to be influenced by their mothers than are boys. Furthermore, parents’ negative attitudes toward the EU exert a positive influence on their children’s radical right voting, independent of their voting pattern.     

我国土地征收基本问题特殊性研究——以为公共利益而征收土地为中心

我国土地征收的本质是资源的再分配,其动因并不限于公共利益,这就决定了其在逻辑起点上不同于土地私有制下的土地征收。我国土地征收基本问题的特殊性表现在公共利益、土地征收补偿和土地征收程序的特殊性。这一特殊性决定了我国土地征收制度的设计只有契合本土实际方能得以有效运作。