Party knowledge and candidate knowledge: constituency campaigning and voting and the 1997 British General Election

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the electoral impact of constituency campaigns in British General Elections. Much is now known about the electoral consequences of local campaigns on parties’ constituency vote shares. Yet more remains to be discovered about the impacts of these local campaigns on voters’ knowledge of parties and candidates. Analysis of data from the 1997 British General Election demonstrates that the local campaign is associated with improved voter knowledge of who is standing for each party in a constituency, which is, in its turn, associated with an increased chance of voting for the party in the election, other things being equal. Campaign efforts at different scales, from the national to the local, have different impacts on voters’ knowledge.     

The relative weight of character traits in political candidate evaluations: Warmth is more important than competence,leadership and integrity

Decades of research has found that voters’ electoral decisions to a significant degree are affected by character evaluations of candidates. Yet it remains unresolved which specific candidate traits voters find most important. In political science it is often argued that competence-related traits are most influential, whereas work in social psychology suggests that warmth-related traits are more influential. Here we test which character trait is the more influential in global candidate evaluations and vote choice using observational data from the ANES 1984–2008 and an original experiment conducted on a representative sample of English partisan respondents. Across the two studies we find that warmth is more influential than competence, leadership and integrity. Importantly, results hold across a wide range of alternative specifications and robustness analyses. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of the results.     

Lessons from International Multi-Option Referendum Experiences

Referendums are regularly criticised for reducing complex policy decisions to two maximally opposed options. This reduces opportunities for voter expression and can polarise debates. Alternative referendum designs which present more than two ballot options can offer innovative opportunities, but also raise new challenges. We can benefit by learning from previous experiences with multi-option referendum voting. Discussions of such experiences are rare and have often focussed on a limited number of cases. This article provides an overview of over 100 multi-option referendum experiences around the world. It discusses the topics on which they were held and the ballot options that were offered. It then analyses the variety in ballot design in terms of questions posed and voting methods applied. Drawing on the experiences of multi-option referendums, the article concludes with lessons that can be learned in relation to initiating and designing these referendums.     

关于我国劳务派遣行业存在的问题及建议探讨

劳务派遣是伴随着经济社会发展产生的一种新的就业组织方式,它不仅为企业提供了灵活用工的新途径和有效服务,也对缓解我国严峻的就业压力作出了有益贡献。但是,由于目前劳务派遣中大量存在的不规范行为,特别是适用范围的无序扩大,导致了劳务派遣人员的合法权益受损,企业培训员工的积极性缺失,职工队伍建设受到严重影响,制约了我国产业升级和产业转型,成为加快转变经济增长方式的重要影响因素。     

L'impact du mode de scrutin sur l'élection des femmes à l'Assemblée fédérale Suisse (1995‐2003)

Cet article analyse l'impact du système électoral sur l'élection des femmes à l'Assemblée fédérale (1995‐2003). La littérature a souvent mis l'accent sur l'importance du système proportionnel en vue de l'amélioration de la représentation des femmes au Parlement en se concentrant souvent uniquement sur le taux de femmes élues. Dans cet article, nous argumentons qu'il est nécessaire d'étudier les trajectoires des candidats et de prendre en compte à la fois les candidats hommes et femmes. Nous montrons que l'effet women‐friendly du système proportionnel au Conseil national semble davantage jouer au niveau de la stratégie de désignation des candidats et des candidates que lors de leur élection, et ce particulièrement pour les partis politiques du centre et de droite.     

空间认知的几点反思

空间理论探究近年来成为学术界关注的热点，但从不同流派的空间认知中，可以发现他们对空间的认知或者基于空间理论展开的其他研究，都不同程度地存在着脱离对空间本体及基本属性认知的局限，因而从空间本体论、空间属性、空间方位、空间与时间关系角度全面深入地对其展开探究，是科学准确地把握空间基础理论的关键，也是进一步展开空间理论其他研究的前提。     

Pretty faces,marginal races: Predicting election outcomes using trait assessments of British parliamentary candidates

The conventional wisdom on Western European politics leads us to believe that all the “action” lies with parties, because the unified parliamentary delegations in Western Europe draw voters' attention to parties' policies and images. Though British elections take place under a single member district plurality system, British parties, like their continental counterparts, are highly centralised and feature disciplined parliamentary delegations. Despite the strong ties between British candidates and their parties, we demonstrate that perceptions of candidates' personal attributes can be used to predict general election outcomes. Using a computer-based survey where subjects are asked to evaluate real British candidates using only rapidly determined first impressions of facial images, we successfully predict outcomes from the 2010 general election. Moreover, we find that perceptions of candidates' relative attractiveness are particularly useful for predicting outcomes in marginal constituencies.     

Assessing Risk of Placement Instability to Aid Foster Care Placement Decision Making

Placement stability is of critical importance to the well-being of children in foster care and has an impact on other key outcomes. Placement decision-making that matches children with placement resources is often cited as a practice that impacts placement stability, but little research exists to inform this practice. The focus of this research is on a child assessment tool that was developed to determine the appropriate level of care, which serves as one component of a web-based matching system that pulls together child and placement information used to inform the placement decision. The research examines the relationship between the child assessment subscale domains and placement stability for first and subsequent placement decisions and evaluates the stability of placements made in and outside of the indicated level of care.     

The dynamics of candidate evaluations and vote choice in 2008: looking to the past or future?

In this paper, we leverage a 10-wave election panel to examine the relative and dynamic effects of voter evaluations of Bush, Palin, Biden, McCain, and Obama in the 2008 presidential election. We show that the effects of these political figures on vote choice evolves through the campaign, with the predictive effects of President Bush declining after the nominees are known, and the effects of the candidates (and Palin), increasing towards Election Day. In evaluating the relative effects of these political figures on individual-level changes in vote choice during the fall campaign, we also find that evaluations of the candidates and Sarah Palin dwarf that of President Bush. Our results suggest a Bayesian model of voter decision making in which retrospective evaluations of the previous administration might provide a starting point for assessing the candidates, but prospective evaluations based on information learned during the campaign helps voters to update their candidate preference. Finally, we estimate the “Palin effect,” based on individual-level changes in favorability towards the vice-presidential nominee, and conclude that her campaign performance cost McCain just under 2% of the final vote share.     

Electoral colorism: Candidate skin color and list placement in Ecuador

To what extent does candidate skin color influence party list placement in proportional representation systems? While candidate skin color is increasingly understood to play an important role in politics, the extent to which it shapes electoral opportunities and outcomes remains unclear. In this paper, we investigate whether party elites in list proportional representation systems place darker-skinned candidates in lower, less advantageous list positions than their lighter-skinned copartisans. Drawing on party lists from Ecuador’s 2021 National Assembly elections and an original measure of candidate skin color, we find evidence that candidate skin color is a significant determinant of list placement. This finding indicates that party lists reinforce color-based inequalities in political representation and reveals that a candidate’s skin color shapes their chances of winning elected office.