Ballot Layout Effects in the 1995 Elections of the Brussels' Government

Analysing data for the 1995 Regional Elections in Brussels weshow how the layout of the ballot affects voting behaviour asreflected by the candidates' preferential votes. We discusshow this special case of Ballot Position Effects can bereconciled with existing models of (expressive) voting.     

Everyone likes a winner: An empirical test of the effect of electoral closeness on turnout in a context of expressive voting

Under instrumental voting closer elections are expected to have higher turnout. Under expressive voting, however, turnout may increase with decreasing closeness when voters have a preference for winners. An empirical test using data on Belgian municipal elections supports this. We find that turnout reaches a local maximum when the largest party in the election obtains just over 52% of the seats and then falls (supporting the “instrumental” closeness-argument). There is, however, another turning point: the presence of a highly dominating party (receiving at least two-thirds of the votes) stimulates turnout despite the fact that dominance implies lower closeness.     

Legitimacy crises and the temporal dynamics of bureaucratic representation

The representation of specific groups and social interests within (or by) the civil service has long been a concern of public administration scholarship. Yet, much of this literature focuses on representation at a single point in time. In this article, we propose a more dynamic perspective. In terms of theory, we postulate specific temporal relationships between triggering cues (e.g., a crisis event) and the representation decisions of civil servants. We specify two complementary mechanisms underlying these relationships: that is, a sensemaking process whereby the perceived meaning and relative salience of distinct groups and interests changes over time; and a shift in bureaucrats' discretion to represent specific groups or interests changes over time. We illustrate these time-dependent processes using interview and survey data from the European Commission.     

On Trojan Horses and revolving doors: Assessing the autonomy of national officials in the European Commission

National officials working in international bureaucracies regularly invoke the fear that member states strategically use such officials for influencing decision making and agenda‐setting to their advantage. This article theoretically analyses conditions under which the autonomy of national civil servants in international bureaucracies might become compromised. The ensuing predictions are then tested using a unique survey among seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission (N ≈ 400). Finally, evaluating the characteristics linked to reduced autonomy among SNEs in the Commission, the article illustrates that these officials are, in practice, likely to be relatively independent from member state influence.     

The Limits of Electoral Control: Evidence from Last‐Term Politicians

In modern democracies, politicians' accountability is often linked to the disciplining mechanism of electoral control. For politicians in their final term, this mechanism is impaired. Using a novel data set covering 910 members of the UK House of Commons active within the period 1997–2010, we investigate how reduced electoral control affects last‐term MPs' trade‐off between work effort inside parliament, leisure, and outside interests. Our main contributions lie in providing the first explicit consideration of (1) MPs' final‐term intra‐/extraparliamentary work balance and (2) MPs' reasons for leaving parliament (i.e., retirement, career change, electoral defeat). These extensions provide important fresh insights concerning the boundaries of elections' disciplining power.     

Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms

Despite the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations, there is still little empirical evidence on whether—and if so, how—politicians respond to performance information. This article addresses this research gap by linking registry statistics on school performance in Norway's 428 municipalities with data from an information experiment embedded in a survey of local politicians. Findings show that school performance bears only a weak relationship to politicians' preferences for resource‐related reforms, but it strongly affects preferences for governance‐related reforms, indicating the importance of accounting for heterogeneity across alternative types of (school) reforms. Moreover, local politicians are, on average, well informed about school performance. This reflects the force of local inhabitants' high information level on politicians' accountability.     

Representative bureaucracy and seconded national government officials in the European Commission

The bureaucratic arms of modern international organizations increasingly consist of staff with ambiguous organizational affiliations. This article analyses the implications of this trend from the perspective of representative bureaucracy – using seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission (Commission) as the empirical laboratory. Using a variety of datasets, we unveil Commission SNEs' profiles (to assess their passive representativeness) and link these profiles to their role perceptions (to evaluate their potential for active representation). This illustrates that Commission SNEs' background characteristics do not match those of their constituent population (i.e. the EU27 population) – suggesting a lack of passive representativeness. However, we also find that SNEs from countries favoring stronger national rather than European regulatory and policymaking powers are more likely to see themselves as a representative of their home country government. This suggests a potential for active representation in terms of SNEs' home country's policy preferences.     

Delegation,Accountability and Legislator Moonlighting: Agency Problems in Germany

Members of parliament in many countries are legally permitted to execute (un)paid jobs in addition to their political mandate. It is often argued that such ‘moonlighting’ activities are unproblematic for the chain of democratic delegation and accountability as long as outside interests/earnings are disclosed to citizen-principals; the latter may then sanction (perceived) misconduct through the ballot box. Using principal–agent theory as an analytical framework and the German national parliament as a case study, this paper discusses why the accountability mechanisms of moonlighting disclosure and electoral control are often impaired in practice. We also illustrate that these concerns generalise beyond the German setting.     

How pre‐ and postrecruitment factors shape role perceptions of European Commission officials

Individuals' role perceptions are central guides to their behavior and choices as members of an organization. Understanding organizational dynamics thus requires knowledge about the determinants of such role perceptions, as well as whether—and when—organizations can influence them. This article brings forward a theoretical framework allowing for both prerecruitment (extraorganizational) and post‐recruitment (intraorganizational) determinants of individuals' role perceptions, and examines its empirical implications using a large‐N data set of temporary officials in the European Commission. We find that intergovernmental and epistemic role perceptions are strongly linked to pre‐recruitment factors (such as educational and professional background), whereas postrecruitment factors (such as length of affiliation and embeddedness within the Commission) are the main driving force behind supranational and departmental role perceptions. This heterogeneity in the importance of pre‐ and postrecruitment factors for distinct role perceptions has important consequences for conceptualizing organizational change.