Party convergence and vote switching: Explaining mainstream party decline across Europe

How can one explain the significant vote losses of mainstream parties across Europe in recent years? In this article, it is argued that mainstream party convergence is an important determinant of the recent political and electoral volatility in European party systems. More specifically, it is hypothesised that as mainstream parties converge on the left-right scale, voters will switch from supporting a mainstream party to a non-mainstream party in the next election as they look for an alternative that better represents their ideological views. To test these theoretical expectations, data is combined from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the Manifestos Project for nearly 15,000 vote choices of individual voters in 30 elections in 16 West and East European countries from 2001 until 2013. The findings have important implications for understanding the recent rise of non-mainstream parties, the changing nature of party systems and the increasing complexity of cabinet formation across Europe.     

Tripartism: Regulatory Capture and Empowerment

The features of regulatory encounters that foster the evolution of cooperation often also encourage the evolution of capture and corruption. Solutions to the problems of capture and corruption—limiting discretion, multiple-industry rather than single-industry agency jurisdiction, and rotating personnel—inhibit the evolution of cooperation. Tripartism—empowering public interest groups—is advanced as a way to solve this policy dilemma. A game-theoretic analysis of capture and tripartism is juxtaposed against an empowerment theory of republican tripartism. Surprisingly, both formulations lead to the conclusion that some forms of capture are desirable. The strengths from converging the weaknesses of these two formulations show how certain forms of tripartism might prevent harmful capture, identify and encourage efficient capture, enhance the attainment of regulatory goals, and strengthen democracy. While the case we make for tripartism is purely theoretical and general in its application to all domains of business regulation, our conclusion is a call for praxis to fish out the contexts in which the theory is true or false.     

Community participation in local governance in Cambodia: learning from the village networks approach

Cambodia has embarked on a process of decentralisation and democratisation, including the establishment of elected Commune Councils in early 2002. Given the lack of a tradition of encouraging civic participation in public affairs, however, there was initially little general awareness of how to engage with these Councils. The authors describe a project supported by the Ministry of Rural Development and the German bilateral agency, GTZ, and undertaken with local non-government organisations, to identify and support active community groups and improve their capacity to interact with the Commune Councils, while at the same time seeking ways for the Commune Councils to support the different groups.     

Implications for DNA identification arising from an analysis of Australian forensic databases

Previous analyses of Australian samples have suggested that populations of the same broad racial group (Caucasian, Asian, Aboriginal) tend to be genetically similar across states. This suggests that a single national Australian database for each such group may be feasible, which would greatly facilitate casework. We have investigated samples drawn from each of these groups in different Australian states, and have quantified the genetic homogeneity across states within each racial group in terms of the "coancestry coefficient" F(ST). In accord with earlier results, we find that F(ST) values, as estimated from these data, are very small for Caucasians and Asians, usually <0.5%. We find that "declared" Aborigines (which includes many with partly Aboriginal genetic heritage) are also genetically similar across states, although they display some differentiation from a "pure" Aboriginal population (almost entirely of Aboriginal genetic heritage).     

Organised interests in the media and policy congruence: The contingent impact of the status quo

While a multitude of studies have investigated the link between opinion and policy, we have little knowledge of how and when organised interests affect this linkage. We argue that the alignment of organised interests affects opinion–policy congruence by influencing the weight decision-makers attach to citizen preferences. Moreover, we propose that alignment between majorities of groups and the public matters the most when status quo bias must be overcome for the public to obtain its preferred policy. We test our theoretical claims drawing on a comprehensive media content analysis of 160 policy issues in Germany and Denmark. Our results present a more sceptical picture of the ability of groups to suppress the opinion–policy linkage than the one frequently presented in the academic literature and public debate. We find that the capacity of groups to affect whether policy is congruent with the majority of the public is restricted to situations where the public supports a change in the status quo. In these cases, policy is less likely to end up reflecting public opinion if the majority of interest groups do not support the public position. In cases where the public is supportive of the policy status quo, the position of interest groups does not affect the likelihood that policy will eventually reflect the preferred position of the public. Our findings expand existing knowledge of organised interests in the study of policy representation and have important implications for understanding democratic governance.     

Assessing Correlates of Onset, Escalation, Deescalation, and Desistance of Delinquent Behavior

This article evaluates the utility of social development model constructs toassess the correlates of onset, escalation, deescalation, and desistance ofdelinquent behavior, from age 12 to age 15, using a dynamic classificationapproach. Dynamic classification places individuals into categories basedon changes in levels of delinquent behavior over time. These analyses assessthe extent to which specific constructs are associated with changes in thedelinquency status of individuals. Constructs of the social developmentmodel (SDM), including opportunities for conventional involvement, skillsfor conventional involvement, rewards for conventional involvement,proactive family management, bonding to conventional society, opportunitiesfor antisocial involvement, antisocial interactions, perceived rewards forantisocial involvement, and norms against drug use, were significantlyassociated with change in delinquent behavior over time. Many of theconstructs were particularly salient in distinguishing between youths whoremained involved in delinquency and youths who deescalated or desisted fromdelinquent behavior during this period. Implications for preventiveinterventions and criminological theory are discussed.