Abstract
64.4553 ACKERMAN, Kathrin; TRAUNMÜLLER, Richard, et al. —
This article investigates the moderating effect of social context on the relationship between religion and vote-choice. Whereas theories of electoral research and the sociology of religion assume a linear contextual effect, we develop a new theoretical argument that predicts a non-linear effect. The results of logistic multilevel analyses confirm this theory for the Catholic milieu: the effect of Catholic denomination on voting for the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) first increases with the share of Catholics in the context and decreases when they are in the clear majority. This finding — which contradicts former studies — holds for all federal elections under consideration (1994–2009), withstands several robustness tests and provides important evidence for the perpetuation of the traditional Catholic voting norm through group processes. [R]
64.4554 AKBOGA, Sema —
The headscarf ban at universities and public offices in Turkey caused many debates over women's rights and freedoms. Drawing on the literature on the relationship between civil society, democracy, and Islam, this article investigates how Islamic, Kemalist secular, and non-Kemalist secular organizations support their stance towards the headscarf ban and react to critical developments regarding the ban. The discourse of the organizations is analyzed using their press releases and in-depth interviews with the presidents of the organizations. By declaring the headscarf as anti-secular, anti-modern, and oppressive, Kemalist secular organizations reproduce official state ideology. The various ways in which Islamic organizations frame their stance on the headscarf issue on the other hand suggest that Islamic organizations could be just as democratic as many other secular movements. [R, abr.]
64.4555 ALHIMENKOV, Mihail A. —
The author considers the [current] evolution of the ideological platform of the US Republican Party. It appeals to religious conservatism more and more and strives for consolidation of the religious electorate. This tendency is based on their belief in superiority of America and its historical mission. Thereby the role of religion and influence of the Christian Right becomes determinative within the Republican Party and its voters. [R]
64.4556 ALLARD, Nicholas W. —
The perception of lobbyists as a corrupt, anti-democratic force for dishonest governance is rooted more in myth than fact. Lobbyists are adaptive, forward-thinking expert advocates who are vital to a healthy, self-correcting representative democracy. Good lobbyists achieve results by building consensus. They give voice to and empower those who seek to petition the government. While existing laws are more than adequate to address, punish and discourage corruption, more can be done to assure transparency and to address the problem of unfair influence by expanding the access of the less advantaged to professional lobbying. Any attempt to improve lobbying should also focus on the rapidly changing nature of the profession in an increasingly complex, global policy arena, in which increasingly people engage with the government electronically. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4504]
64.4557 ALVAREZ, R. Michael, et al. —
The use of voting advice applications (VAAs) has increased steadily in recent years. VAAs have been developed for elections taking place in individual countries as well as for region-wide European Union elections. We study the determinants of the perceived usefulness of VAAs for their users, with data from the EU Profiler — a voting advice application developed by the EU Democracy Observatory (EUDO) that was first applied to the 2009 EP elections. We use a multilevel latent-variable approach that allows us to study underlying evaluations based on ratings of multiple features of the EU Profiler, taking into account country-level heterogeneity in evaluations of the system. [R, abr.]
64.4558 ARNDT, Christoph —
Recent elections yielded sweeping majorities for the center-right in Scandinavia with a decade of pure center-right majorities in Denmark and the longest sitting center-right coalition in Sweden for decades. The issue-voting literature would not expect center-right parties to flourish in contexts where welfare issues have a natural salience as in the case of universal welfare states. In contrast, Scandinavian universal welfare states ought to benefit social democracy when it comes to issue-voting on welfare issues. I argue that center-right parties can beat social democrats by credibly converging to its social democratic opponent on issues of universal welfare. Using Danish National Election Studies, 1998–2007, the article shows that the Danish Liberal Party outperformed the Social Democrats on traditional welfare issues among those voters perceiving the Liberals to be ideologically close to the social democrats. [R, abr.]
64.4559 ARTABE, Alaitz; GARDEAZABAL, Javier —
The random utility model (RUM) of voting behavior can account for strategic voting by making use of proxy indicators that measure voter incentives to vote strategically. This article proposes a new method to estimate the RUM in the presence of strategic voters, without having to construct proxy measures of strategic voting incentives. Our method can be used to infer the counterfactual sincere vote of those who vote strategically and provides an estimate of the size of strategic voting. We illustrate the procedure using post-electoral survey data from Spain. Our calculations indicate that strategic voting in Spain is about 2.19%. [R]
64.4560 ARTÉS, Joaquín —
This paper uses detailed data on election day rainfall from more than 3000 weather stations as an instrument to estimate the causal effect of turnout on electoral results in Spanish General Elections. The first stage results show that rainfall on election day decreases turnout. Second stage results show that conservatives are greatly hurt by higher turnout. Surprisingly, I find that the main left-wing party is not the beneficiary of higher turnout, but rather other smaller parties. In both stages, I control for local economic conditions and find that higher unemployment increases turnout, and that increases in unemployment benefit the conservative party at the expense of left-wing parties. [R, abr.]
64.4561 BAKER, Kerryn —
This article explores the factors that contribute to the success or failure of gender quota campaigns through an analysis of two case-studies from the Pacific Islands region: Samoa and Papua New Guinea. While Samoa became the first Pacific independent state to implement a parliamentary gender quota in 2013, a campaign for 22 reserved seats in the Papua New Guinea Parliament before the 2012 general election was unsuccessful. Drawing on media analysis and interviews with key players in the gender-quota debates in both countries, this article examines why the push for a quota succeeded in Samoa and not in Papua New Guinea. The local, external and structural factors commonly found in gender quota literature can help to explain the divergent outcomes of the gender-quota campaigns in these two countries. [R, abr.]
64.4562 BARBULESCU, Roxana; BEAUDONNET, Laurie —
This article investigates the effect of immigration on attitudes towards Europe in Italy. This question resonates particularly in Italy — one of EU's most exposed external borders. Over the last two decades, Italy received more than four million migrants and refugees. Using data from the European Values Study (EVS), we find that concerns about immigration, especially in the context of the economic crisis of 2007, is a factor of declining support for European integration and that these effects vary across regions. In particular, we demonstrate the mediating effect of context by showing that the effect of being concerned about immigration is more corrosive for support in regions with higher immigration rates than in regions with lower rates. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.5058]
64.4563 BARDI, Luciano; BARTOLINI, Stefano; TRECHSEL, Alexander H. —
This article focuses on the tension between responsiveness and responsibility affecting political parties in modern, liberal democracies. It engages with P. Mair's intellectual passion for this topic, which he developed over the years and intensively worked on until his premature death in 2011. He argued that this tension became ever more apparent, putting the very functioning and legitimacy of democratic government under great pressure. This contribution goes back to the very beginning of the modern state, and argues that already the nascent parties and party systems were affected by the tension between responsiveness and responsibility. It then offers a synopsis, organized in a series of “pictures” or “frames” of the historical parcours along which this tension has impacted on the development of political parties. [R, abr.] [Introduction to a thematic issue of the same title, edited by the authors. See Abstr. 64.4223, 4367, 4447, 4624, 4626, 4635, 4662, 4667, 4734, 4762]
64.4564 BAUMGARTNER, Frank R., et al. —
Based on a large-scale interview-based study of 98 randomly selected cases of lobbying in Washington from 1999 to 2003 [reported in Baumgartner, et al., Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Chicago, 2009], we found virtually no impact of money on outcomes. We believe that this counterintuitive finding derives from the huge business and corporate bias that permeates Washington and is already built into the policies of the status quo. Lobbying is generally about changing the status quo. The accumulated power of wealth, corporate organizational strength, and other factors giving [some] multiple and louder voices is already reflected in the fabric of the status quo. For reforms to have a significant impact, they should focus on who is at the table, not only on what they do once they are there. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4504]
64.4565 BEAUDONNET, Laurie —
Since 1992, the establishment of the EMU has raised citizens’ awareness of the economic and social implications of European integration. The current economic crisis increased the financial pressures on redistribution policies, strengthening the public's concerns about the potential consequences for the level of social protection and labor market (de)regulation. However, we know little about preferences for redistribution and social policies at the supranational level, despite the importance of such preferences for political support in multi-level systems. This article assesses (1) the attitudinal and economic determinants of preferences for a European social policy over time, and (2) the impact of the recent economic turmoil on these preferences. It relies on a time-series crosssection analysis of public opinion in the EU, from 1996 to 2011, using Eurobarometer and Eurostat data. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4834]
64.4566 BEAUDONNET, Laurie, et al. —
Previous research has found a positive relationship between having voted for a party that is part of the government and satisfaction with democracy. However, no research has examined this relationship in the specific case of a two-round system. Relying on original panel data survey conducted before and after the 2012 legislative election in France, this article addresses the question of how vote choices in the first and second rounds affect satisfaction with democracy. We find that both rounds have a similar impact and that voters who rallied a winning party in the second round are as happy with the democratic process as early supporters. [R]
64.4567 BÉLANGER, Éric, et al. —
Studies of French voting behavior have pioneered the inclusion of patrimony in explanations of vote-choice in presidential elections. Patrimony, as measured by the number of assets that an individual owns, has been found to matter to vote-choice in recent French presidential elections. [Has] its influence has continued with the 2012 presidential election, in the context of economic crisis? We explore this question using TNS Sofres survey data. We find that patrimony continued to matter in 2012, that it clearly distinguished supporters of N. Sarkozy from those of F. Hollande, and that its effect on second-round vote-choice was distinct from that of other socio-economic determinants. [R, abr.]
64.4568 BELCHIOR, Ana Maria —
The article addresses the crucial but still relatively understudied issue of political perceptions, specifically the perceptions of MPs regarding the positioning of voters on the left-right spectrum, and the accuracy thereof. It focuses on the Portuguese case, which differs from others studied to date in terms of the links between MPs and voters (in contrast to prior research, Portuguese voters do not vote for an MP candidate but for a party list; the representation process is mediated by political parties). The article characterizes Portuguese MP perceptions of voters’ left-right positions, and then explores the reasons for MPs’ perceptual accuracy. The findings show that MP perceptions are shaped by wishful thinking, reiterating previous research, and that party integration is an important new factor explaining perceptual accuracy. [R]
64.4569 BELLAMY, Richard; KRÖGER, Sandra —
The Lisbon Treaty grounds the EU in the principles of political equality and representative democracy. It also acknowledges the role national parliaments play in realizing these norms within the EU's system of governance and introduced the Early Warning Mechanism (EWM) as a means for national parliaments (NPs) to be involved in EU policy-making. This article analyzes the normative and empirical connections between political equality and representative democracy at the domestic level, and the ways they are embodied in parliamentary elections between competing parties. It then assesses how far these links continue to operate in the domestic debate of EU affairs before undertaking a first evaluation of the use NPs have made of the EWM. [R, abr.]
64.4570 BENTIVEGNA, Sara —
The unexpected growth in support for Grillo at the May 2012 municipal elections was immediately dubbed by the media as an “explosion”. Between the first round of voting — when the unforeseen growth took place — and the run-off ballot, which confirmed it, a great deal of attention was given to the MoVimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5S) and to its self-styled “spokesman”. Journalists’ attention was joined by that of ordinary citizens, especially on the Web. In the space of four weeks, 150,000 tweets were posted about the topic. The statistical analysis of a significant sample of tweets [allows] identifying and retracing the communication flows between users. Social media functioned as a “third place” while showing how conversations develop inside networks created by actors who share similar features. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4615]
64.4571 BIORCIO, Roberto —
This article explains the reasons for the 5 Star Movement's success at the general election of February 2013, as well as the issues it has to face in order to adapt its organization and goals to a political system dominated for the last 20 years by bipolar competition between center-right and center-left. The M5S's original strategy [was] developed over many years thanks to mobilization through the internet, and in public squares, without apparent plans to enter the electoral arena. Many researchers perceive the movement as one of the several populist parties that thrive on the protest of European citizens. M5S tries to give voice to protest and indignation towards the political class, but it has [much] in common with the new social movements that have contested elections. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4615]
64.4572 BLACKSTONE, Bethany; MATSUBAYASHI, Tetsuya; OLDMIXON, Elizabeth A. —
This article investigates the attitudes of Israeli Jews on the proper relationship between religion and the state, using data from the 2009 Israeli National Election Study. Specifically, we test whether association with the secular or religious communities structures mass attitudes on this important dimension of Israeli politics. Mass-level disagreement in this area dates back to the pre-state period and represents a longstanding cleavage in Zionist thought and Israeli politics. We find that mass attitudes toward religion and public life are associated with religious observance and identification with religious parties and social groups. [R]
64.4573 BONICA, Adam —
I develop a method to measure the ideology of candidates and contributors using campaign finance data. Combined with a data-set of over 100 million contribution records from [US] state and federal elections, the method estimates ideal points for an expansive range of political actors. The common pool of contributors who give across institutions and levels of politics makes it possible to recover a unified set of ideological measures for members of Congress, the president and executive branch, state legislators, governors, and other state officials, as well as the interest groups and individuals who make political donations. Since candidates fundraise regardless of incumbency status, the method estimates ideal points for both incumbents and non-incumbents. I present results for a variety of political actors and discuss several promising avenues of research made possible by the new measures. [R, abr.]
64.4574 BONO, Irène —
This paper explores different practices and narratives associated with “youth participation” in Morocco. It [examines] the attention on young people as protagonists and promoters of new forms of participation, renewed since the February 20 Movement raised public attention in 2011. It relies on several empirical studies, conducted by an approach of historical sociology of politics and economics, to reconstruct the different forms of participation intended as an avant-garde, as a protest, and as a hobby, which are respectively associated with the myth of youth, the frustration assigned to it, and the illusion that it is an eternal stage. The analysis of the contiguity between these different forms of participation should allow exploring the nature of the social tensions characteristic of the current political situation. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4147]
64.4575 BORDIGNON, Fabio —
M. Renzi's rise to the leadership of the Democratic Party brings to the heart of the center-left the leadership model imposed upon the Italian scene by S. Berlusconi in the early 1990s. A post-ideological, anti-political and innovative type of leadership, which has proved to be highly effective in attracting electoral support and media attention. Yet a type of leadership that clashes with the cultural and organizational roots of the center-left. The article frames the experience of the new party Secretary, focusing on his political history, public narrative and style of communication. [R]
64.4576 BORDIGNON, Fabio; CECCARINI, Luigi —
This article analyzes public perceptions of the Five Star Movement (M5S). Voters’ points of view are examined by studying opinion-poll results from a longitudinal perspective. The authors focus on three issues important for the M5S: (1) the need to choose between pursuit of a substantive political project or anti-political protest; (2) perceptions of the party's ability to govern at local or national level; (3) the relationship between the M5S's electoral base and its leader. The M5S is a heterogeneous entity, ambivalent in many respects. Public opinion, as a whole, sees it primarily as a movement of political protest, better able to govern at a local than at a national level. With the expansion of its support in 2012 and 2013, its electorate came to include citizens of very diverse political outlooks. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4615]
64.4577 BOULDING, Carew E.; NELSON-NÚÑEZ, Jami —
How does civil society affect support for the political system during times of political crises? Some argue that civil society strengthens support for political systems by increasing trust and participation. Yet recent scholarship demonstrates that civil society can also facilitate mobilization and dissent, which may undermine support for the political system, especially in times of crisis. We test these competing claims using individual-level data from a country in the midst of a major political crisis: Bolivia in 2004. We find that membership in civil society organizations leads to higher levels of diffuse support for the political system even during a crisis — and even among those who have recently participated in protest. Civil society, however, is not associated with higher support for government during the crisis. [R, abr.]
64.4578 BOYSA, Julian —
This article explains the revival of the Mozambican cashew processing industry after it was virtually wiped out by liberalization policies at the turn of the millennium. Over the last decade, state, private and external actors have cooperated to rehabilitate cashew processing with a concerted industrial policy and rents generated by protection. It is argued that such rent-creation is a political process and that theories of “good governance” and “developmental neopatrimonialism” are unable to explain political support to the cashew sector in Mozambique. The “developmental state” literature is a more useful guide not only to how the industry was rehabilitated, but also to where the political “will to develop” originated in other contexts. [R, abr.]
64.4579 BRAMAN, Sandra —
The notion of citizenship is one that appears relative to both social and technical systems, and thus at their conjuncture, because it is the concept through which the rights and responsibilities of individuals relative to governance are refracted. In fact, citizenship was a concern for those responsible for technical design of the internet as that history both unfolded through and is recorded in the technical document series known as the Internet Requests for Comments, or RFCs. This paper analyzes the two types of citizenship of concern from the perspective of internet design — geopolitical (oriented around the state) and network political (oriented around the network) — and interactions between the two as they were discussed within and affected the internet design process. [R, abr.]
64.4580 BRANDT, Mark J.; REYNA, Christine —
Fundamentalism is consistently related to racial prejudice, yet the mechanisms for this relationship are unclear. We identify two core values of fundamentalism, authoritarianism and traditionalism, that independently contribute to the fundamentalism-racial prejudice relationship. We also contextualize the fundamentalism-racial prejudice relationship by suggesting that fundamentalists may show prejudice based on conceptions of African-Americans as violating values but show tolerance when prejudice is less justifiable. These ideas are tested and confirmed using three data sets from the American National Election Studies. Across all three samples, fundamentalism is related to increases in symbolic racism but decreases in negative affect towards African-Americans, and these relationships are mediated by both authoritarianism and traditionalism. [R]
64.4581 BRAUN, Daniela; TAUSENDPFUND, Markus —
We measure the impact of the Euro-crisis at the contextual and individual levels, referring to citizens’ perceptions of the crisis. We assume that during the crisis, economic explanations find their way back into the study of EU support. We test our hypotheses with 27 EU member states using different Eurobarometer surveys and apply descriptive statistics as well as multi-level regression analyses. Three conclusions emerge from the analysis: (1) the impact of the Euro crisis is stronger than in the case of the global financial crisis; (2) support for the EU depends on both the contextual and the individual level although effects of the latter are more prevalent; (3) the effect of the individual perception of the crisis on EU support is stronger in Euro countries as well as in economically powerful countries. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4917]
64.4582 BREUER, Anita; GROSHEK, Jacob —
In what ways can social media contribute to democratic transitions beyond popular rebellion? This article focuses on the attitudinal factors that lie at the heart of cultural-behavioral approaches to democratization. A key element in the democratic consolidation of post-autocratic societies is the development of a participatory political culture, which, among other factors, depends on citizens’ perceived political efficacy. Using data obtained from a Web survey among 610 Tunisian internet users, we test the degree to which respondents’ political use of the internet during the Tunisian uprising influenced their levels of internal political efficacy and whether this shift in attitudes is positively related to measurable changes in electoral participation from authoritarian to post-authoritarian rule. [R, abr.]
64.4583 BROOCKMAN, David E. —
I present a field experiment demonstrating that constituents are less likely to communicate to representatives not of their race. The experiment exploited electoral rules in Maryland [US], where several multimember districts have both black and white representatives. I provided 8,829 residents of such districts an opportunity to communicate to one of their actual representatives, whose race I randomized. Both blacks and whites were markedly less likely to communicate to their representatives not of their race. These results imply that politicians receive racially distorted communication, hearing disproportionately infrequently from constituents unlike them. [R, abr.]
64.4584 BROSSIER, Marie —
This article highlights the endogenous modes of participation in Senegal, which are not considered as such when international development programs aim to implement participatory mechanisms. By tracing the variety of practices of political participation set up by young Muslims activists led by Sheikh Bethio Thioune, a charismatic and controversial Sufi leader, this paper questions the existence of a “religious injunction”. The latter can explain the continuum of participation between religious and political spaces in which the group develops its public activities. Paradoxically, the public and political engagement of these young followers, although driven by the requirement of their religious leader, seems to empower their citizenship. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4147]
64.4585 BYRNE, Siobhan —
The theory of “transversal dialogue” suggests that participants have developed a mode of dialogue that enables them to acknowledge differences while developing common goals. In ethnicized conflict, transversal politics is understood as an alternative to the essentializing of “identity politics” as well as their undemocratic character. The empirical research, however, suggests that identity politics remains relevant for participants, particularly when cross-community dialogue is limited by external political realities and internal community divisions. In my view, understanding the ways in which identity politics contributes to the development of feminist goals related to women's inclusion in peace processes and post-conflict peace-building is not at odds with transversal politics; rather, women use both modes of politics to build feminist networks and tackle women's marginalization in hyper-masculinized and militarized zones of ethnicized conflict. [R, abr.]
64.4586 CAI Yongshun —
The author discusses why both powerful and weak interest groups in China have been able to pursue their interests successfully. He finds that both groups have access to sources of power and that their success depends partly on the state's policy priorities. By assisting weak groups to pursue their interests, the state enhances its legitimacy and resilience. [R]
64.4587 CAIANI, Manuela; CONTI, Nicolò —
[We examine] whether there is an ideological opposition to the EU in Italy, both inside and outside the Parliament, which could capture the malaise of the citizens and grow within the political system. Particularly, we explore differences and similarities between the parliamentary and the extra-parliamentary right. We show that the ways in which they perceive and (negatively) represent the EU through frames is strikingly similar, [although] these organizations do not really cooperate and are even in competition with each other. Ultimately, despite many factors being mature for issue-mobilization and the creation of an EU cleavage in Italy, the success of this process largely depends on the ability of the radical-right organizations to come to terms with their ideological background, give priority to this emerging cleavage and establish more synergies with each other. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.5058]
64.4588 CAMMAERTS, Bart, et al. —
A common interpretation of the low levels of electoral turnout among young voters is that they are apathetic and part of a generation that does not care about political issues — indeed, a selfish and materialistic generation. The authors question this common perception and test this claim against an important alternative: that the limitations to youth participation in Europe are due not to a lack of interest in the public good but rather to a combination of contextual and psycho-social factors, including the real as well as perceived inadequacy of the existing political offer. The authors assessed young people's attitudes toward democratic life in the UK, France, Spain, Austria, Finland, and Hungary. A mixture of a comparative mass survey, stakeholder interviews, an experiment, and focus groups was used. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4777]
64.4589 CAPPELLETTI, Fabio; DACOROGNA, Basile —
The appearance of divergent cantonal sections in popular votes is a recurring phenomenon in Switzerland. However, despite the importance of its analysis to evaluate the internal cohesion of political parties, this has been neglected in the recent literature. We analyze both quantitatively and qualitatively the divergent sections in popular votes in the last two legislatures (2003–2007 and 2007–2011). The quantitative analysis shows stability or even a slight decline of the phenomenon. The qualitative analysis (case studies) relativizes its impact on party cohesion: Its more important occurrences are confined to specific policy areas and caused by particular or specific causes. [R]
64.4590 CASANAS ADAM, Elisenda —
The Scottish Nationalist Party's majority in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections opened up a debate on the variety of options for Scotland's constitutional future, [including] the possibility of a multi-option referendum. However, while the UK Government strongly contested the Scottish Parliament's competence to legislate for the referendum, thus ensuring a role for itself and the UK Parliament in its design. After a period of negotiations, the UK and Scottish Governments signed the Edinburgh Agreement in October 2012, enabling the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a single-question referendum, and expressing their commitment to work together in the interests of all involved. This article [examines] the background, legal framework and negotiations leading up to the Edinburgh Agreement. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.5072]
64.4591 CELEP, Ödül —
Dealing with anti-systemic parties has become a central debate in democratic systems. Even though party closures have taken place in some European democracies, the high frequency of party closures in Turkey raised criticisms that Turkey has become the “graveyard” of political parties. Since the 1960s, a total of 27 parties were banned in Turkey. This article provides a comparative analysis of the justifications of party closures in Turkey. It examines two major political causes of party closures on two major party traditions in Turkey: (1) Political Islamists and violation of secularism (separation of religion and politics) and (2) Kurdish left and violation of territorial integrity/national unity. [R, abr.]
64.4592 CHANEY, Paul —
This article uses qualitative and quantitative methods to explore party politicization of the environment in regional elections 1998–2011. Contrary to earlier suggestions, the findings indicate that multi-level systems may facilitate increasing environmental issue-salience at the meso level. In part this is a function of nationalist parties’ prioritization of the environment. Overall, electoral discourse is shown to have a key formative role in driving policy divergence owing to inter-polity and inter/intra-party contrasts in salience and framing. From a normative perspective this suggests that the pluralizing effect of (quasi-)federalism has the potential to foster greater responsiveness in party programs through enhanced choice for the environmental issue public. This is an outcome of the expansion of electoral politics following state decentralization and associated party competition to advance distinctive proposals over rivals. [R, abr.]
64.4593 CHEN Ted Hsuan Yun; LIU Tzu-Ping; WU Chung-Li —
In order to better understand the individual-level motives for ticket-splitting, Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study has since 2001 included a question aimed at measuring respondents’ preferences for checks and balances. We argue that this set of questions, designed to measure a combination of Fiorina's policy-balancing hypothesis and Ladd's cognitive Madisonianism, is inconsistent with principles of survey methodology and thus produces data that are suboptimal. Following a method developed by Carsey and Layman, we propose an alternative concept, the policy-balancing index derived from the perceived ideological distance between respondent and political parties, which both avoids methodological violations and provides us with a more precise concept to work with. We test the index and find it to be a significant determinant of ticket-splitting behavior. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4924]
64.4594 CHENG, Joseph Yu-shek —
This article reviews the literature on the radicalization of politics in Hong Kong, with an emphasis on its causes and impact. Evidence on the deteriorating living standards and the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor has been substantial. People naturally blame the government under such circumstances. They have been especially angry with government policies favoring the business community, and the “greed” and corruption of the D. Tsang and C.Y. Leung administrations. The consensus on the origins, characteristics, modes of operation, and so on of the new social movements is strong; and the same applies to the failure of the government to anticipate and absorb their challenges. [R, abr.]
64.4595 CHICLET, Christophe —
Far-right parties across Europe have surged to the forefront in recent years. But the most spectacular example is no doubt the rise of an openly neo-Nazi movement in Greece. Many thought the country safely vaccinated against any such resurgence. Yet many forget the existence of fertile ground for the reactionary, monarchist and collaborationist currents that have never ceased to flourish since the country was liberated from the Ottoman yoke. Founded in 1992, the Golden Dawn party barely registered in election returns for many years. With the advent of the crisis, though, its popularity has soared, enabling it to win 7% of the votes in the last legislative elections. This could signal lasting instability for the Greek political scene. [R, abr.]
64.4596 CHZHEN, Kat; EVANS, Geoffrey; PICKUP, Mark —
Under conditions of economic crisis, when economic signals are relatively unambiguous, perceptions of the economy can be expected to exogenously influence government approval but this is not found when the economy is experiencing a more typical pattern of moderate growth and economic signals are more mixed. We test these arguments using British election panel surveys covering electoral cycles of moderate economic growth (1997–2001) and dramatic and negative disruption (2005–2010). We examine the most commonly employed measures of retrospective economic perceptions and estimate a range of models using structural equations modeling. We demonstrate that when the economy is performing extremely badly economic perceptions have an exogenous effect on government approval and provide a means of electoral accountability, but this is not the case in more normal circumstances. [R, abr.]
64.4597 CIAGLIA, Antonio —
The link between mass media systems and politics is widely acknowledged and has been confirmed by [much] research. However, the degree of this tie and the forms that it can take vary significantly according to different national contexts. By conducting a comparative analysis that is centered on three cases in the UK, Germany and Italy, this study addresses the overlap between media and politics from a dual perspective: the politicization of public service broadcasting and the permeability of the political system for media-related personalities or practitioners. The data show that the natural connection between political and media systems is never completely absent, although profound differences can be detected in the extent and in the implications that these connections can have for the entire system. [R]
64.4598 CLARK, Christopher J. —
In the 2008 election, did the presence of black elected officials in the state legislature play a role in mobilizing black voters? Did patterns of mobilization differ among black voters? Using the 2008 American National Election Study that I merged with contextual data, I find that disengaged black voters in states with a greater number of black state legislators, or what I refer to as collective descriptive representation, were more likely to be contacted, and as a result, were more likely to vote. On the other hand, neither collective descriptive representation nor being contacted influenced the political behavior of engaged black voters. This suggests that in 2008, descriptive representation and experiencing contact mattered more for mobilizing disengaged black voters than for mobilizing engaged black voters. [R]
64.4599 CLARK, Nicholas —
Elections to the EP have been unable to capture the public's interest — turnout remains far lower than most national elections and many who do vote appear more concerned with sending messages of approval to national political parties than electing representatives at the EU level. This paper explains why the public does not take these elections seriously. A common explanation is that the public simply does not care about EU politics. In addition to this “issue-based” argument, this article considers where a lack of trust in the EP itself may lead many individuals to abstain from EP elections. Using pre- and post-election survey data, results suggest that perceptions of the EP indeed have a significant effect on the decision to vote in EP elections. [R]
64.4600 CLEMENTS, Ben; NANOU, Kyriaki; VERNEY, Susannah —
This article analyzes whether and how public opinion towards the EU in Greece has changed in the context of the current Eurozone crisis. It provides the first detailed treatment of how the crisis has affected citizens’ views in a traditionally pro-European member state. It examines whether public opinion has become more Euroskeptic and which societal groups have changed their views and in what direction. It uses data from Eurobarometer surveys conducted before and during the current crisis. Unsurprisingly, the findings show that negative sentiment towards the EU has increased across all social groups in recent years. However, we find a paradox of a decline in general support for the EU and an increase in support for the Euro. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4917]
64.4601 COLLER, Xavier; SANTANA, Andrés; JAIME, Antonio M. —
This article spells out the methodological and technical problems that arise when building a database on politicians holding positions in representative institutions. Using the example of an existing database of Spanish MPs (1980–2011), the authors discuss the criteria they have used and the solutions applied to solve several challenges: parsimony, social desirability, multicollinearity, temporality control, adjustment to electoral results, level of information, and electoral cycles. Some descriptive statistics related to the data as well as research questions regarding political elites are also put forward. [R]
64.4602 COLLINS, Marcus —
This article argues that the Beatles were instrumental in bringing together the hitherto divergent and mutually uncomprehending realms of politics and pop. The Beatles were inventive political strategists who rehearsed virtually every technique subsequently used by politicized musicians. They practiced consciousness-raising, lobbying, patronage, abstentionism and civil disobedience. They founded utopian institutions and considered the relative merits of anarchy, democracy and revolutionary socialism. [Their many] political strategies testified to their difficulties in finding one congruent with their outlook and temperament. The anti-authoritarianism which formed the one consistent aspect of their political worldview was simplistic and their solutions were correspondingly unrealistic. They nevertheless did much to legitimize pop music as a means of political expression, to devise organizational structures to support such political activity and to politicize those who produced and consumed pop. [R, abr.]
64.4603 CONVERY, Alan —
The 2011 Scottish Conservative leadership election presented the party with two radically different visions for the future. The Scottish Conservatives rejected M. Fraser's plan to create a new independent Scottish Party of the center right and elected R. Davidson, who promised to reform the party within the UK Conservative Party. The Conservatives’ rejection of a radical break with the past suggests they will continue [with] incremental change and supports an institutionalist analysis of party adaptation to devolution. This article explores why Davidson won and examines some of the implications for the Scottish and UK Conservative parties. The center-periphery tension played out during the campaign is a dilemma for all territorial branches of statewide parties but poses especially difficult problems for the Conservatives because of the tension between unionist and center-right agendas. [R]
64.4604 CORBETTA, Piergiorgio; VIGNATI, Rinaldo —
Italy is one the most Europhile countries in the EU. Nevertheless, as surveys show, over the last few years anti-European sentiments have increasingly surfaced among Italian citizens. Furthermore, there is now an important novelty regarding the relation between Italy and Europe: the Movimento 5 Stelle (The Five Star Movement), a new party that expresses a peculiar and contradictory position towards Europe. Its leader, Beppe Grillo, sometimes advocates more, not less, unification, but he also proposes a referendum on Italian membership of the euro. Moreover, Grillo's blog frequently lends its voice to the choir of openly anti-European sentiment. Indeed, Grillo's call for direct democracy is plebiscitarian and his positions contribute to the weakening of a European project that is already facing grave difficulties of its own. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4268]
64.4605 CORDERO, Guillermo —
Social sciences have often claimed the end of religiosity as an explanatory factor of electoral behavior in Europe. Nevertheless, left and right parties still insert religious and moral issues in the agenda in order to distance themselves from their opponents. This paper shows a comparative study of 34 European democracies examining the extent to which religious voting has diminished since the 1980s. Results point to a sharp decline in the levels of religious vote until the 1980s, with a revitalization since then in some of the countries of the sample. The analysis also highlights the importance role played by the political elite on the activation of religious vote. [R]
64.4606 CORRY, Olaf —
The Eastern European revolutions of 1989–1991 were [initially] interpreted as a “rectifying revolution”, casting off the experiment of 1917. The article first points to three phases of debate about the legacy of 1989, noting the relative neglect of environmentalism in all of them. Second, it charts the centrality of environmentalist ideas to the early dissidents, the revolutionary movements that mobilized and to the global social movements that have emerged since 1989. The final section argues that this “green 1989” has been neglected because it fits badly into modernist liberal and post-socialist interpretations of 1989. Instead, using the global age thesis, “1989” is reinterpreted as a staging post in the emergence of a politics based on the limits and risks of the modern project. [R, abr.]
64.4607 COSENZA, Giovanna —
It is impossible to understand the political success of B. Grillo without taking into consideration his peculiar communication style — based on the centuries-old tradition of political satire — as well as his ambivalent relationship with the traditional media. On the one hand, Grillo dislikes broadcast TV and uses the internet to communicate with the activists of the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S); on the other, being a comedian, he is brilliantly capable of directing the attention of television and the press to his words and actions. The article shows how the main features of Grillo's style of communication — from his frequent use of swear words to his distinctive body language — has both contributed to his success and limited the extent of his movement's appeal. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4615]
64.4608 CUTTS, David —
We use a structural equation model to show that a strong local base has two key effects on Liberal Democrat support in the 2010 [UK] general election. First, it has a direct effect on Liberal Democrat support at Westminster elections by bridging the electoral “credibility gap”. Second, local success has a significant indirect effect on party performance through campaign effort. We find that the Liberal Democrats obtain appreciable electoral benefits where they campaign intensely. They also use grassroots campaigning to recruit local activists and party workers, which cements the local party infrastructure and enables the party to be more effective in targeting local resources. The total standardized effect is therefore fairly substantial even after controlling for an array of other predictors. [R, abr.]
64.4609 DANCYGIER, Rafaela M. —
Focusing on Muslims in England and employing a new data-set containing over 42,000 candidate-level observations, this article explains Muslim candidate election and selection. I make use of a rule-change whereby a subset of localities switched from the use of multimember elections to the use of single-member elections. I find that these electoral rules have no significant effect on the share of Muslims that gets elected but that they do influence the selection process: in a given election, Muslims are half as likely to be selected when only one seat is up for election as compared with when three seats are in play. Yet parties balance the slate across consecutive single-member elections, leading to similar results across systems. [R, abr.]
64.4610 DARR, Joshua P.; LEVENDUSKY, Matthew S. —
Though elite-based campaign mobilization was thought to be dead just a few election cycles ago, it has come roaring back in recent years. The vast majority of this direct voter outreach is coordinated through campaign field offices. Despite the increasing importance of such activities, little is known about where campaigns choose to locate these field offices and what effect campaign offices have on [US] election outcomes. We develop a theoretical argument about where candidates will locate these offices, and test our argument using data from recent elections. We also show that these field offices increase county-level vote share by approximately 1%, netting B. Obama approximately 275,000 additional votes in the 2008 election. We discuss the normative implications of increased campaign investment in field operations. [R]
64.4611 DEHGHANI, Morteza, et al. —
We use different text-processing algorithms to gain insight into the political rhetoric used in conservative and liberal weblogs. We specifically focus on the online debate regarding the issue of the “Ground Zero Mosque”, one of the most controversial political issues in US politics in the last several years. Overall, our results show that there are significant differences in the use of various linguistic features related to sentiments of collective identity, moral concerns, and emotional dynamics between liberals and conservatives, thus highlighting the differences between the ideological and moral frameworks of these two groups. [R]
64.4612 DEMKER, Marie —
In the EP election, the Swedish Pirate Party took two seats in the parliament and 7.1 per cent of the Swedish voters’ support. The party was absolutely new and the usual concept of populist parties does not seem to fit the Pirate movement very well. It is anti-authoritarian and aims to enhance civic liberties for youngsters, to give open access to culture through the internet and to improve personal integrity and human dignity on the World Wide Web. Transnationalism is one foundation for the party but another is a value foundation of universal human rights and individual freedom, disregarding national borders. This article is an investigation of the Pirate Party as a possible new party family, driven by new sociopolitical cleavages in the modern information society. [R]
64.4613 DEVINEAU, Julie —
This text focuses on the central role played by an Indian association, the Nation Purepecha Organization (NPO), in the (failed) process to reform the local constitution of the state of Michoacán. NPO's participation is analyzed from a historical as well as “topographic” point of view (that is the participatory spaces occupied by the organization). If the organization has used the versatile repertoire of collective action typical of Mexican social movements in rural areas (litigation, lobbying and protest), the complementarity of these different types of participation is, however, limited regarding public policies and the acquisition of collective political skills. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4147]
64.4614 DI MAURO, Danilo —
Although the downturn in Italian support for Europe appears evident, both its causes and consequences are largely under-investigated. This paper looks at the origins of diffuse support for Europe in Italy. The analysis proceeds through a three-stage strategy, observing: (1) the explanatory factors of diffuse support in Italy, (2) the effects of the economic crisis on the sentiments of support and (3) the European identity of the Italian public. The data [are from] the Eurobarometer series since 1990 and analyzed through logistic and linear models. Findings reveal the indirect effects of the current economic crisis on diffuse support for Europe in Italy, since trust towards the national government and perceptions of EU utility decrease for the effects of the recession. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.5058]
64.4615 DIAMANTI, Ilvo —
From the outset, the Five Star Movement provided a “common brand” for local action groups and movements, already active on the ground, engaged in pursuing environmental issues and in defending public amenities. Initially, its voters were oriented to the left. Then, it won support also from those on the center-right, in particular from PdL and Northern League voters, owing to the disappointment they felt as a result of scandals and internal divisions. In the end, the Movement became a sort of vehicle of anti-political protest. On the basis of this widened support, it achieved unexpected electoral success at the 2013 general election. Despite sharing the main features of the personal party model, the “personalized” nature of the leader's relationship with his voters does not stand out as much as one might expect. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “The Five-star Movement: a new political actor on the web, in the streets and on stage”, edited and introduced by Maurizio CARBONE and James L. NEWELL. See also Abstr. 64.4570, 4571, 4576, 4607, 4710]
64.4616 DICKSON, Bruce J. —
This article analyzes trends in the Chinese Communist Party's recruitment strategy and the composition of Party members. Based on original survey data, it analyzes the motives for joining the CCP, the consequences on career mobility, and the effects of Party membership on political beliefs and behavior in contemporary China. [R, abr.]
64.4617 DINAS, Elias —
Party identification is known to influence almost all aspects of political life. How this attachment develops across the adult life-cycle, however, remains unknown. I argue that people reinforce their partisan predispositions by voting for their preferred party. Voting entails a choice over a set of alternatives. This choice is likely to induce rationalization. In so doing, it provides signals of group identity, which in turn strengthens people's partisan ties. Testing this hypothesis is made difficult because it implies a reciprocal relationship between partisanship and vote choice. I address this problem by using vote eligibility as an instrument of vote in a sample of almost equally aged respondents. The results indicate that elections fortify prior partisan orientations. [R, abr.]
64.4618 DISNEY, Jennifer Leigh; WILLIAMS, Virginia S. —
This article explores the shift to the left in Latin America within the context of understanding power relations among, within, and between social movements and the state. We examine the emergence and development of social movement resistance to neoliberal globalization in Latin America over the past two decades, as well as how charismatic leaders of the left have captured state power. Through an analysis of the Zapatista and Appista Movements in Mexico, the Piqueteros and workers’ movements in Argentina, the Chavistas in Venezuela, and the Aymara coca-growers and indigenous movements in Bolivia, as well as an examination of presidential behavior and state power in these countries, this article describes and enumerates the alternative models of power in use in Latin America today. [R, abr.]
64.4619 DITONTO, Tessa M.; HAMILTON, Allison J.; REDLAWSK, David P. —
It is unclear how gender influences vote-choice. Using an informationprocessing perspective, we argue that instead of directly influencing vote-choice, candidate gender guides the amounts and types of information that voters search for during a campaign, and that effects of gender on vote-choice ultimately come from differences in information search influenced by candidate gender. Using two unique experimental datasets, we test the effects of candidate gender on vote-choice and information search. We find that subjects change their search based on a candidate's gender, seeking out more competence-related information about female candidates than they do for male candidates, as well as more information related to “compassion issues”. We also find that evaluations of candidates’ traits and issue positions are important predictors of subjects’ vote-choice. [R]
64.4620 DONOFRIO, Andrea —
The idea of Euro-communism began in the second half of the 1970s during a moment of crisis in both the European social left and the traditional right wings. The new political strategy came from the economic crisis of all Western European countries after the economic growth following World War II. At the same time the USSR's economic development was showing its limits. These circumstances led the communist parties of Italy, France and Spain to criticize that system and propose a new political strategy in order to “take power”. [R]
64.4621 DROMETER, Marcus; RINCKE, Johannes —
As institutions matter for political and economic outcomes, they are (at least partly) shaped by the interests of political agents acting under these limitations. However, empirical evidence documenting such endogenous change of institutions is scarce. We address the issue by examining the link between the degree of electoral competition and the design of ballot access restrictions in the US. Exploiting exogenous variation in electoral competition at the state level induced by the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, our main finding is that ballot access rules have been systematically tightened in response to stronger electoral competition. [R]
64.4622 ELBASANI, Arolda; SAATÇIOĞLU, Beken —
Almost no comparative research has been done on Balkan Muslims’ support for European integration with the exception of the Turkish case. This article explores the role of interest- and belief-related factors in explaining Muslim organizations’ differential support for the EU accession project in Albania and Turkey. The comparison of the most powerful Muslim organizations in both countries enables a most similar cases research design — our cases are similar in all aspects of the identified theoretical framework except for organizational capacities, which we argue explain the difference of attitudes towards the EU. [R, abr.]
64.4623 ERLINGSSON, Gissur Ó.; VERNBY, Kåre; ÖHRVALL, Richard —
When commenting on the European radical right, the term “single-issue party” is frequently bandied about. We survey the various conceptualizations of the term and then apply them to the Sweden Democrats (SD), a party with roots in extremist subcultures that gained parliamentary representation in the 2010 elections. We draw primarily on a unique survey of all parliamentary candidates to study: (1) the SD candidates’ positions on a large number of diverse issues, (2) what issues they prioritize and (3) the degree of ideological cohesion among their candidates. Secondarily, certain voter characteristics associated with the single-issue party concept are surveyed. Here, we use a large-scale exit poll to study: (1) SD voters’ demographic characteristics and (2) what issues they prioritize. We find that the single-issue party label fits the SD poorly. [R, abr.]
64.4624 FARRELL, David M. —
In his later writings, P. Mair expressed strong and ever more urgent concerns over the state of party politics and the future of representative politics itself. This paper uses Mair's thesis to frame a discussion about the state of our representative system of democracy. It sets out his arguments on party and democratic failure, then considers the question of whether the evidence supports such a perspective, or whether in fact there are signs of adaptability and change. This in turn leads to a discussion about the reform agenda in established representative democracies, with particular attention to the potential of “mini-publics” in enabling a role for ordinary citizens in debates over constitutional reform. The paper argues that this reform agenda provides evidence of democracies being reconfigured rather than stripped down. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4563]
64.4625 FEDERER-SHTAYER, Hila; MEFFERT, Michael F. —
In [Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability: The Stabilization of European Electorates 1885–1985, Cambridge, 1990] S. Bartolini and P. Mair proposed the cleavage-salience index (CS) to capture “the salience of the cleavage, that is, its importance and weight within the general context of the electoral behavior of a given country and/or period”. We demonstrate theoretically and empirically that the CS index cannot be used to measure and compare the strength of cleavages over time and for different cleavages: it does not take into account the actual, absolute level of electoral support for the cleavage block parties, which influences the potential range of the index values. As a better alternative to the original CS index, we propose the block-weighted cleavage salience index (WCS) and provide empirical data about class and religious cleavages in 11 European multiparty systems from 1950 to 2010. [R, abr.]
64.4626 FERRERA, Maurizio —
This article aims at “bringing ideology back in” for the analysis of party politics and, more specifically, for the discussion of the delicate dyad “responsiveness vs. responsibility”. It discusses the concept of ideology and how to study its adaptation and change. It then reviews the ideological shifts that have characterized welfare state discourse and politics since the 1980s: first, the neoliberal turn and its attack on the old social democratic consensus; then the gradual emergence of a new ideological perspective that is called here liberal neo-welfarism. It argues that ideology plays an important role in framing partisan strategies in the delicate and increasingly prominent field of social politics. Ideological change reflects not only exogenous socio-economic transformations but also endogenous and relatively autonomous epistemic dynamics that bridge intellectual and partisan arenas. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4563]
64.4627 FIELDING, Steven —
Echoing Plato's banishment of artists, mainstream political scientists have excluded serious consideration of art from their discipline. Yet, there are grounds for believing that it can help address “what politics means to citizens”. This study of New Labour's television dramatization suggests it can help political scientists better appreciate the dynamics underpinning the much-noted decline of popular trust in representative politics. It looks at the reasons for the narrowing of the public's picture of politics by focusing on the changing production context for television drama during the New Labour period, something that led it to emphasize “sleaze”. The article suggests such dramas consequently helped make more credible the public's pre-existing prejudices about what they supposed was the corrupt nature of Britain's political class. [R]
64.4628 FLYNN, Michael E. —
Foreign policy scholars have long emphasized bipartisanship in foreign policy-making, particularly in the context of presidential appointments to the foreign policy bureaucracy, emphasizing the role of international crises and national security in affecting bipartisanship. Despite their enduring nature, few systematic analyses of these claims exist. This study addresses these gaps using new data on appointees to the foreign policy bureaucracy. The results challenge the conventional wisdoms emerging from the foreign policy literature regarding the importance of factors like war, instead pointing to the importance of domestic political factors in affecting bipartisanship in appointments to the foreign policy bureaucracy. [R]
64.4629 FRYE, Timothy; REUTER, Ora John; SZAKONYI, David —
The authors explore how modern autocrats win elections by inducing employers to mobilize their employees to vote for the regime and thereby subvert the electoral process. Using two original surveys of employers and workers conducted around the 2011 parliamentary elections in Russia, they find that just under one-quarter of employers engaged in some form of political mobilization. They then develop a simple framework for identifying which firms engage in voter mobilization and which workers are targeted for mobilization. Firms that are vulnerable to state pressure — financially dependent firms and those in sectors characterized by asset immobility — are among the most common sites of workplace-based electoral subversion. By identifying the conditions under which workplace mobilization occurs in authoritarian regimes, the authors contribute to the long-standing debate about the economic bases of democratization. [R, abr.]
64.4630 FUENTES-RAMÍREZ, Ricardo R. —
We lack studies focusing on which institutions and processes are most likely to be successful in bringing about a transition to socialism. The Occupy Movement in the US, the “Indignados” in Spain, the Arab Spring, and the “Turn to the Left” in Latin America, all exemplify the urgency of deepening our analysis of what is to be done in the short and medium run. This study carries out a critical survey of the different institutions and initiatives currently being proposed within the Marxist tradition as tools in the transition to socialism, focusing on their strengths and weaknesses, and their feasibility in different parts of the globe. [R]
64.4631 FUJII, Seiji —
This paper explores preferences and attitudes related to fiscal federalism held by the ASEAN people in the context of environmental issues. Fiscal federalism would predict that local environmental problems will be handled more efficiently by local governments, while national environmental problems will be solved more efficiently by the national government. But it is not obvious whether citizens consider in the same way as economics theory predicts. I [consider] whether those who have higher consciousness toward environmental issues at the local level prefer local governments to decide environment policies, whether those who have more consciousness about environmental issues at the national level prefer the national government to decide, and whether those who have higher consciousness toward environmental problems at global level prefer higher levels government such as the UN to decide. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4924]
64.4632 GALAIS, Carol —
This article investigates the so-called Spanish Revolution of 2011 with a view to understanding what it reveals about the current relationship between protest and electoral modes of participation. Theories of “disaffected radicalism” that grew up following the 1960s period of civil unrest strongly advocated the view that protest activity boosted electoral abstention. More recent work on protest, however, has pointed to its “normalization” and linkage to more conventional modes of participation. The Spanish case of 15M constitutes a useful new test of the two theories, given that it mixed an explicit rejection of the choices voters faced with a criticism of political apathy. I examine the validity of each argument using a four-wave online panel survey and fixed-effects model to unravel how engagement in the 15M protest activity affected Spaniards’ attitudes towards voting. [R, abr.]
64.4633 GALLAGHER, Charles A. —
According to public opinion polls, majorities in the UK and US believe that increased immigration poses a serious threat to maintaining a shared common culture, strains social services, compromises national security and undermines the employment opportunities of long-term native-born residents. The average American believes the US is 39% black, 26% Jewish, 33% Latino, 38% foreign born and 25% gay. These beliefs and estimates of group size are incorrect or vastly distort the impact immigrants have on society. What are the public policy implications, particularly for the foreign-born population, when such distortions are the basis for how individuals respond to public policy survey questions? This paper examines how survey research may unintentionally cement stereotypes and result in public policy measures which increase social inequality. [R]
64.4634 GARRETSON, Jeremiah J. —
Studies have shown that same-sex marriage (SSM) ballot measures affected [US] voter turnout and primed voters in a manner that aided the Republican Party in 2004. However, if attitude strength plays a role in these spillover effects, then recent increases in the intensity of support for SSM on the left may have eroded — or even reversed — the pro-Republican electoral boost of these measures. Using individual- and county-level data, I demonstrate that more recent votes on SSM have mobilized more pro-Obama SSM supporters than pro-Republican social conservatives. These findings are important for understanding how ballot measures may potentially affect candidate elections. [R]
64.4635 GOETZ, Klaus H. —
Since 2008, European crisis politics have thrown the importance of time in democracy into sharp relief. The need for rapid action by national authorities, the EU and international organizations conflicts with the time-consuming nature of democratic deliberation; short-term political firefighting has given little consideration to the long-term sustainability and time consistency of policies; and decentralized decisions threaten effective synchronization within multi-level governance systems. This article suggests that democratic politics requires a balance between the temporal characteristics of responsive and responsible politics. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4563]
64.4636 GOLOSOV, Grigorii V. —
The September 2013 elections in the regions of Russia resulted in victories of the major pro-government party, United Russia, in 16 regional legislative elections, and brought success to incumbent chief executives in eight gubernatorial elections. However, the apparent recovery of United Russia from the trauma of the 2011 national legislative elections stemmed not so much from its increased popularity in the electorate, but rather from its ability to engage in manipulative vote-splitting strategies against the opposition. The rules of candidate nomination in gubernatorial elections were so restrictive that most of these elections could not be characterized as truly competitive. [R]
64.4637 GÜRCAN, Efe Can; PEKER, Efe —
This article provides a systematic understanding of the political opportunities that led to the Gezi Park Events. Our time-frame is confined to June 2013, from the eruption of the demonstrations through the unrest that followed the recapture of Gezi Park by the police. This time-frame represents the peak of the protest cycle, which partially reinvigorated in the fall. We do not provide an overall analysis of the Gezi Events, but rather tease out the particular ways in which political opportunities contribute to social mobilization. [R]
64.4638 HASSELL, Hans J. G.; MONSON, J. Quin —
This paper examines why and how [US] campaigns target habitual donors for political donations. Using the 2004 Campaign Communication Survey of registered voters who were asked to collect and send in all campaign mail they received during a campaign, we show that campaigns send donation solicitations predominantly to individuals who have previously donated to a campaign. We also show that campaigns match targeting fundraising appeals to the potential motivations for giving: campaigns target the type of fundraising appeal they use, whether ideological, solidary, or material, to match the socio-economic and partisan characteristics of the potential donor. The implication is that the “unequal” voice of participation in campaign contributions is not onesided and simply resource-based, but rather that campaigns also contribute to the situation with targeted messages to potential donors. [R, abr.]
64.4639 HESSAMI, Zohal —
This paper examines the relation between political corruption and the composition of public spending. A rent-seeking model is used to describe political rent creation through the composition of public spending. Political corruption is indicated by empirical results for 29 OECD countries for the period 1996–2009: allocation of public spending to expenditure categories characterized by high-technology goods supplied by noncompetitive industries varies positively with the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) provided by Transparency International. Previous literature on corruption in government has focused on low-income countries. The results of this study suggest that political corruption is also an issue in OECD countries. [R]
64.4640 HICKS, Raymond; MILNER, Helen V.; TINGLEY, Dustin —
Developing countries have increasingly opened their economies to trade. We analyze how economic and political variables influenced Costa Rican voters in a referendum on CAFTA-DR, an international trade agreement. We find little support for Stolper-Samuelson models of economic preferences, but more support for specific factor models. We also isolate the effects of political parties on the referendum, controlling for many economic factors; we document how at least one party influenced voters and this made the difference for CAFTA-DR passage. Politics, namely parties using their organizational strength to cue and frame messages for voters, influenced this important trade policy decision. Theories about trade policy need to take into account top-down political factors along with economic interests. [R, abr.]
64.4641 HIRSCH, Michael —
The article frames the question concerning the possibility of democracy as question concerning the foundation of social community. The focus is on social and gender aspects. It highlights the politicization of forms of social divisions of labor between classes and sexes — chiefly, two crucial institutions of bourgeois-capitalist labor society: family and the workplace. The underlying political question concerns the connection between modes of production and reproduction. The author interprets the evident post-democratic tendencies of current societies as a result of the de-politicization of the fundamental question about forms of evaluation and dissemination of various kinds of social labor and social rewards to different parts of society. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4116]
64.4642 HOBOLT, Sara B. —
Proponents of the European project often portray further enlargement of the EU as a complement to the process of building an ever closer union. The Eurozone crisis, however, has highlighted the risks associated with deeper integration and reignited the debate on differentiated integration. This contribution examines how public attitudes towards the processes of deepening and broadening are related and asks whether European citizens see them as complementary or conflicting. Using multilevel analysis of Eurobarometer data, the contribution examines the factors — individual and contextual — that shape attitudes towards enlargement and deeper political integration across the 27 member states. The findings suggest that the “winners” of integration — high-skilled individuals in core Eurozone countries — are most likely to support deepening, but oppose further enlargement out of fear that an ever wider union might be costly. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4863]
64.4643 HOFF, Benjamin-Immanuel; HOUGH, Dan —
The September 2013 German election saw A. Merkel's CDU/CSU return triumphantly to office. Merkel's party won, as she is widely admired and, most importantly, she is widely trusted to lead Germany through potentially challenging times. Yet beneath the surface, the tectonic plates of German party politics are shifting. The Social Democrats appear to be stuck in an electoral trough, while the number of politically relevant smaller parties is increasing. Although the liberal FDP failed to re-enter parliament for the first time in post-war history, and both the Pirates and Alternative for Germany (AfG) also fell at the final (5%) hurdle, the era of multi-party politics is now well and truly with us. The CDU/CSU and SPD will lead Germany until 2017, but the story of what happens then really is anyone's guess. [R]
64.4644 HOOGHE, Marc —
While party membership figures are clearly in decline in several Western countries, different interpretations have been offered on the likely consequences of this trend. Some authors stress that members have lost most of their importance for political parties that increasingly rely on professionalized campaign techniques. Other scholars have expressed concern about the decline of party membership. They emphasize the fact that party members continue to function as an important linkage mechanism providing a structural alignment between the party and society (and thus also to potential voters). By means of an election forecasting model for Belgium, we test whether party membership figures can still be related to election results. Results show that party membership has a strong effect on election results; this relation does not weaken during the period under investigation (1981–2010). [R, abr.]
64.4645 HOWELL, Jude —
This article argues that the securitization of an issue can involve not only negative, exclusionary and repressive extraordinary measures but also more positive, inclusionary and productive strategies of engagement. It also argues that such bifurcated strategies of security can evoke a spectrum of responses that sets limits on the process of securitization. It examines these two arguments through the lens of the securitization of development NGOs post-9/11 [2001]. [R, abr.]
64.4646 HUANG Chi; WANG Hung-Chung; LIN Chang-Chih —
For the legislative elections in 2008, Taiwan introduced a new mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) electoral system to replace the single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system in place for half a century. The new MMM system is a sharp departure from the original SNTV system. Whether the Taiwanese public is ignorant or fully aware of the new electoral system has attracted the attention of many Taiwanese scholars. By taking advantage of survey data conducted between 2007 and 2011, we examine the level of the Taiwanese public's awareness of the new MMM electoral system in the 2008 and 2012 elections, investigating whether most voters are knowledgeable of the new electoral system. We also test whether holding legislative elections concurrently with the presidential election influences the effect of political campaigns on people's learning electoral knowledge. [R, abr.]
64.4647 HUSSEY, Laura S. —
Scholarship commonly treats the state as social movements’ default target and venue, explaining pursuit of change through nongovernmental channels in terms of lack of political opportunity. This article presents the “pregnancy help” branch of the American pro-life movement as a potential counterexample, as its recent growth has coincided with a seeming expansion of opportunities for the pro-life movement's political wing. Using quantitative and qualitative data, this article explores the role of political opportunity in the founding, growth, and sustenance of these service-oriented pro-life organizations. I find that political opportunity concerns mattered little to the origins of the pro-life movement's pregnancy help branch, but that they contributed somewhat to the path of its development over time. [R, abr.]
64.4648 HUTTER, Swen; KERSCHER, Alena —
This article examines whether and how the Euro crisis has affected the long-term trends of politicization of Europe in France. We compare the electoral campaign in 2012 with all French campaigns since 1974. Additionally, France is put in a broader comparative perspective. Politicization is conceptualized as three interrelated dimensions: issue-salience, actor expansion, and polarization. Methodologically, the article is based on a relational content-analysis of newspaper articles. The findings show that the Euro-crisis boosted the level of politicization, and economic policies, as well as justification frames became more important. However, the degree of polarization was higher in election campaigns that focused more on constitutional conflicts over membership and were dominated by concerns with national identity and sovereignty. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4917]
64.4649 IMMERGUT, Ellen M.; ABOU-CHADI, Tarik —
Are electorally vulnerable politicians really less likely to support controversial legislation, such as pension reforms? While the literature on welfare state retrenchment has increasingly pointed to the role of electoral factors in the dynamics of social policy cutbacks, few studies actually measure the magnitude of electoral pressure and its consequent impact on the politics of reform. We have developed a quantitative measure of the electoral vulnerability of politicians and tested its impact on pension reform outcomes using an original dataset comprising 16 Western European countries from 1980 to 2003. In line with expectations, the results show that the impact of electoral vulnerability on reform depends upon the system of interest intermediation. [R, abr.]
64.4650 ISAACS, Rico; WHITMORE, Sarah —
V. Putin's United Russia and N. Nazabayev's Nur Otan represent a distinctive type of dominant party due to their personalist nature and dependence on their presidential patrons. Such personalism deprives these parties of the agency to perform key roles in authoritarian reproduction typically expected of dominant parties, such as resourcedistribution, policy-making and mobilizing mass support for the regime. Instead United Russia and Nur Otan have contributed to authoritarian consolidation by securing the president's legislative agenda, stabilizing elites to ensure their patron's hold on power, and assisting in perpetuating a discourse around the national leader. However, because these parties lack the agency to reproduce themselves, to entrench their position, and to play more than a supportive role in regime-consolidation, the lifespan of such personalist dominant parties is likely to be significantly shorter than that of dominant parties. [R]
64.4651 JARABA, Mahmoud —
Why did the well-structured and powerful Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood fail to maintain power for more than a year even though it won all of the elections in the post-Mubarak era? From the viewpoint of the Brotherhood, the ouster of M. Morsi, the first elected civilian president in the history of Egypt, by General A. al-Sisi came as a result of what Brotherhood leaders describe as Egypt's “deep state”, which includes the military, security services, bureaucracy, media and judiciary. This article argues that resistance by the deep state is only one reason for the ouster of the Brotherhood and that other factors are associated with the Brotherhood's miscalculations and strategic choices in the post-Mubarak era. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4907]
64.4652 JOHNSON, Tyler; KELLSTEDT, Paul M. —
This paper assesses the relationship between media consumption and public opinion in the US (expressed through the macro concept of Policy Mood and an analogous micro concept we call policy liberalism). At the individual level, we find that increased levels of newspaper readership reduce variance in opinion, but that increased levels of television viewership do not. At the aggregate level, our results show that the opinions of media-consuming subgroups move in parallel for the most part, with similar causal dynamics. A slight exception to this parallelism lies with those who barely, if ever, read newspapers. [R, abr.]
64.4653 JOHNSTONE, Anthony —
This article considers how much outside influence matters to the constitutional analysis of [US] state politics. It defends the political community principle applied in Bluman v. Federal Election Commission as an exception to the otherwise universal speaker-neutrality rule of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. It draws parallels between efforts to police national and state boundaries in politics, and the competing rights claims of outsiders to cross those boundaries and participate fully in domestic politics. The article suggests that the structural constitutional principle of political community supports certain state regulations of outside influence across a range of political activities. [After] reviewing the basis for the constitutional concern about outside influence, I consider the gnarled doctrinal roots of Bluman, and how they might help support state, as well as national, safeguards against outside influence. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4504]
64.4654 JOO Man-Soo; YUN Sungho —
According to the expressive view of voting, a voter derives expressive utility from casting a vote. We present two possible sources of expressive utility: social interaction with voters having the same political preferences, and interestingness of the election. We test the hypothesis that a voter's expressive utility increases as the number of voters having the same political preferences increases in the local community, where interaction occurs more frequently with others than it does with others in distant communities. We propose and test the other hypothesis, that voters’ expressive utility is larger when the election is more interesting. Using 2008 parliamentary election data from Korea, where the election consists of both 245 single-member districts and only one nationwide district for proportional representatives, we find supporting evidence for these two arguments. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4924]
64.4655 JOU, Willy —
Two elections to the legislative Yuan have been held under a mixed parallel system. [Despite] criticisms that this new system[] leads to a considerable disparity between parties’ vote and seat-shares in the district tier, insofar as the new electoral system has been accepted by both parties and voters, its fairness should be assessed not by the degree of proportionality, but rather by examining various sources of potential bias. These include differences in electoral sizes and turnout rates across districts, and the efficiency by which votes for the main parties’ candidates are distributed. The study investigates how “fair” the functioning of Taiwan's new mixed parallel system was in the 2008 and 2012 legislative elections by simulating equal and reverse-vote scenarios at the district level, and measuring the magnitude of each component of electoral bias. [R, abr.]
64.4656 JUNG Eunsook —
What role do Muslim social and educational organizations play in Indonesian politics after democratization? When democratization opens up a larger political space for Islamic organizations to participate in politics, do Muslim organizations emerge as political powers or remain socioreligious organizations? How do Muslim organizations engage in electoral politics? This article addresses these questions by examining the role of Muhammadiyah in democratic Indonesian politics. The author argues that Muhammadiyah's political behavior is driven by its institutional logic, which places its religious and social duties before its political interests. Although there have been attempts by some elites to take advantage of Muhammadiyah for their own political gains, Muhammadiyah has managed to refrain from building or supporting a particular political party at the organizational level. [R, abr.]
64.4657 JURADO, Ignacio —
Party systems diverge in their levels of nationalization. While in some countries parties obtain similar levels of electoral support in all districts, in others parties get very asymmetric electoral shares across districts. The distributive consequences of this have been seldom studied. The argument tested here is that when political parties have nationalized electorates, they have stronger incentives to provide social policies that spread benefits all over the territory. This argument is tested in 22 OECD democracies for the period 1980–2006. The results show that, regardless of the electoral system in place, there is a positive relation between party system nationalization and social spending. [R]
64.4658 JUST, Aida; ANDERSON, Christopher J. —
We develop a model of immigrant political action that connects individual motivations to become politically involved with the context in which participation takes place. The article posits that opinion climates in the form of hostility or openness toward immigrants shape the opportunity structure for immigrant political engagement by contributing to the social costs and political benefits of participation. We argue that friendly opinion climates toward immigrants enable political action among immigrants, and facilitate the politicization of political discontent. Using survey data from the European Social Survey 2002 to 2010 in 25 European democracies, our analyses reveal that more positive opinion climates — at the level of countries and regions — increase immigrant political engagement, especially among immigrants dissatisfied with the political system. However, this effect is limited to uninstitutionalized political action. [R, abr.]
64.4659 KATSOURIDES, Yiannos —
The Cyprus 2013 presidential elections marked right-wing Democratic Rally's return to power after ten years in isolation. The huge economic crisis sidelined discussions on the Cyprus problem, arguably for the first time in Cyprus's electoral history. The elections verified the prevailing trends already apparent in the rest of Southern Europe: incumbent punishment amid an unprecedented economic (and political) crisis and the parting of politics from society as evident from the high abstention rates and declining partisan loyalties. The article [examines] the country-specific characteristics of this contest which explain these outcomes. It suggests that the electoral result might be explained by Cypriots’ disappointment regarding the stalemate of the Cyprus problem, their unrealistic expectations of a change in government and their disappointment in EU and national political institutions in dealing with the economic crisis. [R]
64.4660 KAWASHIMA-GINSBERG, Kei; LEVINE, Peter —
We tested whether and to what extent young people's rates of informed voting are influenced by laws and policies that regulate the [US] electoral system and by civic education policies. Immediately after the 2012 election, a sample of 4,483 youth was surveyed. Their experiences with civic education and support from their families predicted their informed political participation as young adults, but variations in the existing state policies did not matter. This may suggest that the kinds of policies that states have enacted — such as allowing early voting or requiring one course on government in high school — are not helpful but policies that promote extracurricular participation and discussion of current issues in schools could be much more effective. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4777]
64.4661 KELLER, Ann C.; PACKEL, Laura —
Citizen groups, celebrated during their arrival on the lobbying scene, are vastly outnumbered by groups representing elite, occupationally based interests. Sensitive to the odds that non-occupational groups face, this study asks what factors have allowed patient groups to form and become active in federal politics. Using three distinct data-sets — a survey of patient groups, content-analysis of group websites, and in-depth interviews with group representatives and policy-makers in Washington, DC — this study assesses the activities of patient groups in the US and argues that patient advocacy organizations garner stability from the relatively easy provision of selective and solidary benefits. Larger patient groups are especially likely to make use of these structural advantages to pursue congressional lobbying strategies. However, even these groups seek out noncompetitive, distributive political environments. [R, abr.]
64.4662 KEMAN, Hans —
This article analyzes the development of legitimacy across 20 European democracies (1990–2010). The claim is that the democratic performance of parties affects levels of legitimacy. A conceptual and empirical discussion is presented to establish this relationship. Democratic performance is characterized by trusting parties to be responsive to the electorate and responsible in government. Legitimacy is defined as a composite measure representing satisfaction with parties, compliance with the rule of law as well as voter turnout and willingness to protest. The responsiveness of parties appears less representative on public concerns and governmental responsibility appears closer to party interests than to the general interest. Hence, a “democratic deficit” seems to have emerged across Europe, manifested by more electoral volatility, new parties and alternation in government and lower survival rates of governments. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4563]
64.4663 KLITGAARD, Michael Baggesen; NØRGAARD, Asbjørn Sonne —
We argue that partisanship matters for only some aspects of policy. Irrespective of ideological bending, governments accommodate structural pressure as well as short-term electoral interests to keep the economy on track and implement austerity measures in labor market policy that, in effect, reduce union resources and capacity to mobilize. But only governments of the right exploit structural stress to pursue long-term interest in curbing the institutional privileges of unions. Aligning short- and long-term interests is easier for social democratic governments during economic expansion, whereas governments of the right have an easier time aligning interests in periods of structural pressure. By analyzing a sample of Danish labor market reforms, this article shows that today social democratic governments still defend the institutional privileges of unions and discusses the comparative significance of the Danish case. [R, abr.]
64.4664 KLÜVER, Heike —
Policy-making in the EU has been severely criticized for a lack of democratic legitimacy. In an effort to counteract the ongoing criticism, the Commission has taken various initiatives to increase interest group participation. This article therefore sheds light on the democratic potential of this participation in European policy-making by analyzing which interest groups are represented in Brussels, how these groups are organized and how much influence they have on policy outcomes in the Union. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4826]
64.4665 KOMPSOPOULOS, Jannis; CHASOGLOU, Jannis —
Although the Greek political scene is currently in flux, our analysis leads to the conclusion that the old political system and class compromise no longer exist. This would remain true even if elections were to bring back to power both the traditional ruling parties and even if we regard SYRIZA as the actual PASOK successor. Even if SYRIZA wins the next elections, it will have to deal with its diminished abilities to fulfill the output expectations of its voters. Since it intends to govern within the institutional framework of the austerity-prone European Economic Governance, it is no daring prediction that a SYRIZA government will soon provoke widespread disappointment. In this context, many have raised the question of whether Greece would not be better off leaving the Eurozone. [R]
64.4666 KOSTER, Willem De, et al. —
Whereas electoral support for New-Rightist parties is often understood as driven by ethnocentric anti-immigrant sentiments, scholars have noted that New-Rightist politicians have, surprisingly, stressed culturally progressive arguments in the last decade. Using recent Dutch survey data (N = 1,302) especially collected for this purpose, the article analyzes the electoral relevance of three types of cultural progressiveness for voting for the New Right and their relation to the well-documented anti-immigrant agenda. The analysis shows that neither moral progressiveness nor aversion to public interference of religious orthodoxy underlies the new-rightist vote. Support for freedom of speech proves relevant, but, in accordance with literature on the new right's electoral strategy and with theorizing on framing, this only leads towards the New Right among those who are ethnocentric. [R, abr.]
64.4667 KRIESI, Hanspeter —
P. Mair linked populism to the increasing erosion of the representative function of European party systems. The specter that haunted him was “partyless democracy”, a democratic regime where parties had lost their representative function, which opened the door for unmediated populist protest. While largely sharing his interpretation of the overall structural trends giving rise to the populist challenges in Western Europe, the article is critical of the static character of his assessment. It suggests that there are three forms of “protest populism”, all of which may eventually end up transforming the West European party systems in the name of the new structuring conflicts that characterize contemporary European societies. In addition, it extends the scope of Peter's argument to the less established democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4563]
64.4668 KROSNICK, Jon A.; MALHOTRA, Neil; MITTAL, Urja —
In 2010 and 2011, highly visible national surveys documented frequent failure among the public, especially among Republicans, to acknowledge that Barack Obama was born in the US. However, different questions yielded strikingly different results. The highest rate of partisan division was generated by a CBS/New York Times closed-ended question that included potentially leading introductory sentences. The smallest partisan gap in apparent misinformation was generated by an ABC News/Washington Post open-ended question that did not ask a follow-up that was needed to gauge public beliefs about whether Mr. Obama was born in the US. This paper reviews the polls on “birtherism” and describes an experiment embedded in a nationally representative sample survey testing whether methodological features of these two questions might have distorted their results and caused the apparent discrepancy between them. [R, abr.]
64.4669 KÜÇÜKALI, Can —
This article explores how specific narratives of the past can be functionalized/instrumentalized as discursive strategies in order to gain political power. To investigate this issue, four relevant governmental and nongovernmental texts about the main opposition party in Turkey are analyzed. The Republican People's Party (CHP), which played a historic role by becoming a state party between 1923 and 1946, and which later adopted a social democratic position in the political system, has frequently been criticized by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for its historical identity. The article illuminates how discursive strategies of argumentation, nomination and predication are used to portray the CHP as an enduring bureaucratic-militarist state party and the ways in which these strategies are functionalized by AKP politicians as well as by public intellectuals in favor of the government. [R]
64.4670 LAGO, Ignacio; MONTERO, José Ramón —
We propose a new measure of party system nationalization based on a minimalist definition of the phenomenon. A perfectly nationalized party system is a party system with only national parties or, in other words, without sub-national parties. Instead of the homogeneity of parties’ vote shares or the number of parties throughout the country, our measure captures the aspirations of parties to be national whose proxy is the proportion of districts (weighted by seats) that a party runs a candidate. The measure is compared with existing indicators through a longitudinal analysis of 256 elections in 18 Western European countries from 1945 to 1998. [R]
64.4671 LAHER, Yumna —
Across the world, images of women in leadership have been painted in social media and encapsulated in culture in a way that frames their contributions to decision-making, agenda-setting and social change. Drawing on a post-positivist feminist framework broadly based on the theses of constructivism and post-structuralism, this paper serves to frame global typologies of women in leadership through an analytical assessment of cultural knowledge bases. Framing the gendered pageantry of politics in this way is arguably an important means of understanding the role played by patriarchy in constructing the roles of women in “real world” politics. [R, abr.]
64.4672 LANDA, R. G. —
The events of 2011–2013 that gave rise to many illusions in the Arab world. Instead of democracy, they brought to power Islamists. The domination of authoritarian and mostly military modernizators was replaced by domination of the most extremist fraction of clerical traditionalists. Their political and general impotence became soon evident. The impossibility to predict and to control their actions soon made them lose, or is making them lose, the support of Western countries. They have lost power in Egypt, they are losing it in Tunisia, they have not gained it in Syria, and are at crossroads in Libya, defeated and actually disintegrated. In the entire Arab World the situation is unstable, in some parts semianarchic. [R, abr.]
64.4673 LANGFIELD, Danielle —
What is responsible for the decline of democratically dominant parties and the corresponding growth of competitive party systems? This article argues that, despite a ruling party's dominance, opposition forces can gain by winning important subnational offices and then creating a governance record that they can use to win new supporters. It focuses on South Africa as a paradigmatic dominant party system, tracing the increased competitiveness of elections in Cape Town and the surrounding Western Cape province between 1999 and 2010. These events show how party strategies may evolve, reflecting how party elites can learn from forming coalitions. [R]
64.4674 LAURENT, Mathieu —
The French think tanks’ presence in French politics remains relatively invisible and at an embryonic stage of development when compared to the role their Anglo-Saxon counterparts play. Think tanks in France assign great importance to communication and the development of public presentation strategies in order to construct their legitimacy in public debates. The outbreak of new players is received in contrasting ways by already established names, resulting in either collaboration or conflict, or both. Think tanks that intend to change the “politically imaginable” by formulating innovative propositions and radical voices about institutional reform, economic and cultural problems keep asserting their presence in the political field through vague interventions. The evaluation of their influence remains a difficult task.
64.4675 LAW Siew Fang; SONN, Christopher; MacKENZIE, Cynthia —
Globalization influences the everyday life of people and events throughout the world. This article examines the interaction of global-local effects on the constructs and practices of peace through narratives of youth peace-builders in post-conflict, post-colonial Laos. We explored the hybrid “understanding” and “doing” of peace through the stories of young people involved in antihuman trafficking programs operated by a transnational humanitarian organization in Laos. Thematic analysis of interview data shows that the youth peace-builders navigated global-local influences through processes of reinventing and renegotiating the concepts of peace and peace-building in Laos. [R]
64.4676 LEE Taeku; PÉREZ, Efrén O. —
We ascertain whether, and to what degree, Latinos’ reported political attitudes vary by the language they interview in. Using several political surveys, including the 1989–1990 Latino National Political Survey and the 2006 Latino National Survey, we unearth two key patterns. First, language-of-interview produces substantively important differences of opinion between English and Spanish interviewees. This pattern is not isolated to attitudes that directly or indirectly involve Latinos (e.g., immigration policy, language policy). Indeed, it emerges even in the reporting of political facts. Second, the association between Latino opinion and language-of-interview persists even after statistically controlling for, among other things, individual differences in education, national origin, citizenship status, and generational status. [R, abr.]
64.4677 LEON, Gabriel —
Why do some countries in Latin America redistribute too much (“left-wing populism”), while others allow high levels of inequality to persist or even increase over time (“neo-liberalism”)? We argue that when a group's political influence is increasing in its wealth, there is a strategic motive for redistribution: by taking money away from a group, its ability to influence future policy is reduced. Populism arises when the poor respond to this strategic motive, while neo-liberalism results when the rich use their wealth to limit redistribution. Assuming that wealth increases political influence because it enables a group to stage a coup, we find that populism is both more likely and more extreme when the military is biased in favor of the rich. [R, abr.]
64.4678 LEÓN, Sandra —
I argue that the impact of national politics on regional elections is contingent upon the level of decentralization. I hypothesize that the greater the number of policy areas and resources in the hands of regional governments, the lesser the influence of national coat-tails on regional elections. Using the electoral results of the Spanish Socialist Party in national and regional elections from 1979 to 2009, the empirical analysis shows that regional politicians’ electoral performance is correlated to that of their national counterparts. However, this correlation has weakened as regional governments have gained greater decision-making and financing powers. This has been particularly evident in elections when the regional branch of the party rules a single-party government and competes against strong regionalist parties. [R, abr.]
64.4679 LI Junpeng —
This article applies the conflict-amplification model to the development of Falun Gong. Falun Gong emerged in the early 1990s as a health-enhancing practice and part of the state-sanctioned qigong movement in China. Faced with increasing state suspicion of qigong and fierce competition from other groups, it metamorphosed into a new religious movement in the mid-1990s. State efforts to keep Falun Gong out of the political realm had the effect of releasing the group's political potential and led to its campaign of “truth clarification”, which further alerted the state to its ideological challenge and capacity to mobilize. Through a process of mutual feedback, the antagonism between the two parties culminated in religious violence and in Falun Gong's transformation into a political movement. [R, abr.]
64.4680 LIPSEY, David —
Meritocracy has become the creed of all three British political parties. There is a consensus that progress towards it has stalled. In fact, it is doubtful how widespread the advance to meritocracy ever was and how far short of achieving it Britain fell. In any case, meritocracy, if it is not accompanied by greater equality of outcome, would not promote a happier society. It would make the rich more unrestrained in their greed and the poor more miserable thinking their poverty their own fault. [R]
64.4681 LIS, Aleksandra —
Poland's EU accession afforded Polish trade unions membership of European-wide, umbrella trade union organizations. This essay evaluates the strategies Polish trade unions adopted to represent their interests following Poland's accession to the EU. It draws on a series of interviews and document-analysis. In addition, it gauges the extent to which Polish trade unions were “Europeanized”, understood in both the context of their adoption of European policy models and their ability to win support for their causes at the European level. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4876]
64.4682 LO, James; PROKSCH, Sven-Oliver; GSCHWEND, Thomas —
This article presents a scaling approach to jointly estimate the locations of voters, parties, and European political groups on a common left-right scale. Although most comparative research assumes that cross-national comparisons of voters and parties are possible, few correct for systematic biases commonly known to exist in surveys or examine whether survey data are comparable across countries. Our scaling method addresses scale-perception in surveys and links cross-national surveys through new bridging observations. We apply our approach to the 2009 European Election Survey and demonstrate that the improvement in party estimates that one gains from fixing various survey bias issues is significant. We demonstrate that variables based on rescaled voter and party positions on the left-right dimension significantly improve the fit of a cross-national vote-choice model. [R, abr.]
64.4683 LUNDBERG, Thomas Carl —
About a decade after devolution in the UK created a Scottish Parliament elected by mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation, tensions between those representatives elected by the two different routes (single-member constituency and multimember region) remained. This article shows how controversies in 2008 over the level of office allowances, as well as the wording of the code of conduct, demonstrate that Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) held differing views on the constituency role of MSPs, and that the partisan animosity between the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Labour has been exacerbated by the competition at the constituency level facilitated by MMP. This deeply partisan outcome, while reflecting the successful operation of rational-choice logic on the part of individual politicians, worked against the larger attempt to engineer a less adversarial post-devolution politics in Scotland. [R]
64.4684 MAJIC, Samantha —
This article considers the following question: given sex workers’ barriers to participation, how do they engage in political life, if at all? To answer this, I draw on semi-structured open-ended interviews with forty adults who have supported themselves with sex work in the San Francisco Bay Area. While these individuals do not represent all sex workers in the US, they exhibit a variety of capacities and methods for expressing their voices in the polity. Even as they faced multiple disadvantages and barriers to participation, they engaged in civic and political life through voting and community-based advocacy work, and they indicated that nonprofit agencies provide spaces that potentially support and encourage these activities. [R, abr.]
64.4685 MÄLKSOO, Maria —
The Eastern enlargement of the EU has intensified calls for the reconstruction of a common European remembrance of the continent's multiple totalitarian legacies. Various political initiatives to condemn, along with counter-attempts to re-legitimize, the legacy of communism have emerged at the pan-European level. Each aspires to leave an imprint on the symbolic moral order and the legal regime of the broader European community. This article builds a conceptual framework for understanding the contestation of political and juridical regulation of the transnational remembrance of totalitarian communist regimes in Europe. Critically engaging the concept of cosmopolitanization of memory, it is argued that mnemonic identity in Europe is being transformed via new claims on “European memory”. [R, abr.]
64.4686 MANGUM, Maruice —
This research examines the effects of party competence perceptions on African-Americans’ party identification. Using ordinary least-squares regression to analyze data taken from the 1996 National Black Election Study, I regress African-Americans’ party identification and feeling thermometers for Democrats and Republicans on items that measure African-American assessments of the political parties’ ability to handle certain issues. The results indicate that those matters of race and economics influence party identification. Moreover, party competence perceptions influence partisanship more than party identification. Unlike the literature suggesting that individual factors are not significant, I find that individual life circumstances do influence African-Americans’ party identification. [R]
64.4687 MARGARETTEN, Mark; GABER, Ivor —
This article considers how and whether Twitter opens up possibilities for gauging “authentic” dialogue between politicians and citizens. “Authentic talk” has been identified as “spontaneous, unrehearsed discourse”, and we suggest, in the context of crisis in public communication and its lament about the current state of political communication, that it may be an important component in the reconstruction of political trust between politicians and people. This article examines Twitter‘s use in presenting to citizens an “authentic” view of Scottish MPs and its conveyance of trust. In order to identify authentic talk, a content analysis was undertaken on the entirety of Scottish MPs’ tweets (n = 14,066) between 25 December 2008 (the earliest recorded tweet made by a Scottish MP) to 7 August 2010. [R, abr.]
64.4688 MARTÍ, José Luis —
The dominant ideology today acclaims liberal democracy and human rights. Some analysts mistakenly affirm that a real contrast in values no longer exists, but different tendencies in political philosophy still hold very diverse positions in other central issues, like distributive justice and wealth, cultural and national identity matters or models of democracy and legitimacy. Political philosophy has reached its peak given that it brings up many challenges and problems that justify the formulation of suitable and renovated theories that should have a global perspective. It is fundamental to establish a suitable communication between political theorists and politicians.
64.4689 MARTIN, Shane —
A significant and influential body of research suggests that electoral systems influence legislators’ behavior. Yet, individual legislators are potentially motivated by other concerns, such as policy and office. What happens when competing goals predict contradictory behavior — for example, when electoral incentives clash with enticements to win prized post-election positions (mega-seats)? When party leaders cartelize the allocation of mega-seats, the anticipated effects of the electoral system on legislators’ behavior may dissolve — creating strong parties in the legislature despite a candidate-centered electoral system. New data on mega-seats and voting behavior in the Irish parliament between 1980 and 2010 supports the notion that mega-seat considerations trump the impact of the electoral system on roll-call behavior: what goes on within the legislature may be more important for influencing legislators’ behavior than what goes on at the ballot box. [R]
64.4690 MARTÍNEZ-BASCUÑÁN, Máriam —
This article aims at making an operative use if the deliberative framework as a means to examine the formation of public opinion in western democracies. It focuses and reflects mainly on Iris Marion Young's conception of asymmetrical reciprocity, which challenges the typical understanding of imagining oneself in the place of the other as the way to make a judgment regarding the situation of the other. I suggest that Iris Marion Young's proposal of asymmetry has important implications for democratic contexts that seek to take pluralism, liberty and equality in the official discourses seriously. In order to prove it I examine the public debate on the Islamic veil that has been developing in the European context, particularly in France, throughout the last few years. [R]
64.4691 MASCIO, Fabrizio Di —
This article analyzes party patronage transformations in Italy since the early 1990s, a time when political parties and the party system entered a phase of continuing change. It examines how the interaction between the temporality of party system restructuring and historical legacies rooted in the nature of public bureaucracies reproduced patronage practices aimed at capturing state resources. The article employs a historical institutionalist approach as a research framework and concludes that this provides a cogent explanatory argument for the development of state exploitation taken by Italian political parties since the crisis of the early 1990s. [R]
64.4692 MAYER, Nonna —
This lecture addresses the political impact of the Great Recession in a context of rising inequalities and retrenching welfare states. Do hard times fuel apathy or revolt, abstention or support for the extremes, and more particularly, in the European context, for thriving radical rights? To answer these questions, I take the case of France, in the 2012 presidential election, the first post-crisis one. I focus on the poor, the disadvantaged: those hardest hit by the recession. [R]
64.4693 MAZZONI, Marco; BARBIERI, Giovanni —
How has the Eurozone crisis been covered in the Italian press? Who has been identified as bearing the main responsibility for the crisis? What image of the EU has emerged from this coverage? This article answers such questions through a content-analysis of four Italian newspapers (Il Sole 24 Ore, Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica and Il Giornale) during 11 periods between 2010 and 2012. The topic is particularly important for two reasons: (1) because the continuing Euro crisis is the most significant threat facing the EU's very existence since its formation, and (2) because the media, through the coverage they provide, contribute to build both Europe and the support it needs to prosper. [R] [See Abstr. 64.5058]
64.4694 McANGUS, Craig —
This paper examines Plaid Cymru's experience in government from 2007 to 2011. Drawing on literature on autonomist parties, parties in government for the first time, and Strøm and Müller's policy/office/votes framework, the paper examines where strategic “trade-offs” were made and the consequences of such trade-offs. The paper takes a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interview and documentary data. It finds that Plaid Cymru valued the policy-seeking potential of office at the expense of vote-seeking ones because of the importance of “autonomist” goals, namely the 2011 referendum which saw primary law-making powers granted to the Welsh Assembly. Furthermore, the experience of governmental office exposed organizational vulnerabilities in the party's leadership structures which undermined the ability to construct an effective vote-winning strategy at the 2011 Welsh election, where the party lost four seats. [R]
64.4695 McCLENDON, Gwyneth H. —
What motivates individuals to participate in contentious, political forms of collective action? I consider the possibility that the promise of social esteem from an in-group can act as a powerful selective incentive for individuals to participate in contentious politics. I conducted a field experiment to isolate this esteem mechanism from others. Using measures of intent to attend, actual attendance, and reported attendance at a gay and lesbian pride event in New Jersey [US], I find evidence that the promise of social esteem boosts all three measures of participation. The article offers new theoretical and practical implications for the study of participation in nonvoting forms of collective action. [R]
64.4696 McDEVITT, Michael; SINDORF, Shannon —
Promotion of the [US] Dream Act during the 2012 campaign presented an opportunity to examine how social media might cast youth as information leaders in the promotion of voting in Latino families. To identify opportunities and barriers to enactment of the information-leading role, we triangulate findings from a post-election survey of young adults and an analysis of campaign strategies focused on access to higher education. We find that young Latinos lagged behind non-Latinos in voting and in discussion about politics with parents and that campaign messaging typically ignored the family as a context for the cultivation of aspiration through information exchange. We conclude with recommendations for how mobilization efforts in future elections can harness new media by recruiting youth as information leaders. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4777]
64.4697 McGRAW, Bryan T. —
Thinkers committed to an ideal of public reason are suspicious of religiously informed political activity as it undermines democratic political legitimacy. This paper considers J. Habermas's recent shifts on this question in light of the history of Europe's religious parties in the late 19th and early 20th c. These parties made a real and lasting contribution to Europe's democratization and their history suggests ways in which Habermas and other defenders of public reason misunderstand the nature of democratic political legitimacy. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4735]
64.4698 MECHTEL, Mario —
Using a unique dataset containing 4423 political candidates from recent elections in Germany, we show that candidates’ occupations play an important role in their electoral success. The occupational impact is far greater than gender or doctoral degree effects for a large number of occupations. We discuss three possible explanations for these “occupational effects”: (1) an occupation's public reputation, (2) the extent to which individuals carrying out certain occupations are known within their communities, and (3) occupation specific competence related to issues relevant for local politics. Looking at polls on the reputation/prestige of certain jobs, we find a strong correlation between an occupation's reputation and the electoral success of a candidate carrying out this occupation. Therefore, voters appear to use occupational reputation as a cue in low-information elections. [R, abr.]
64.4699 MEMOLI, Vincenzo; PELLEGATA, Allessandro —
This paper analyzes the perceptions of Italian citizens about the spread of corruption within EU institutions and their potential role in preventing and fighting corruption in their country. In line with the scholarly literature on this topic, we expect that citizens’ attitudes toward the EU in relation to the problem of corruption are mainly driven by their perceptions of the domestic national context. [Using] data gathered from the Eurobarometer and comparing the Italian and the European contexts, the paper shows that citizens’ opinions about corruption within EU institutions are drawn by their perceptions at the national level. However, at the same time, citizens who express more negative evaluations of the performance at the national level tend to be more confident about the role played by the EU in restraining corruption. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.5058]
64.4700 MERCEA, Dan —
There is currently an empirical gap in the literature on protest participation in liberal democracies, which has overwhelmingly focused on Western Europe and North America at the expense of Eastern Europe. This article reviews findings from a multi-method field study conducted at FânFest, the environmental protest festival designed to boost participation in Save Roşia Montană, the most prominent environmental campaign in Romania. In contrast to its Western counterparts, Romania has seen markedly lower levels of involvement in voluntary organizations that are a key setting for mobilization into collective action. Concurrently, experience with participation in physical protests is limited amongst Romanians. Specifically, the article probes recent indications that social network sites provide new impetus to protest participation as an instrumental means of mobilization. [R, abr.]
64.4701 MICHELSEN, Claus; BOENISCH, Peter; GEYS, Benny —
A vast academic literature illustrates that voter turnout is affected by the institutional design of elections (e.g., compulsory voting, electoral system, postal or Sunday voting). We exploit a simple Downsian theoretical framework to argue that the institutional framework of public good provision — and, in particular, the distribution of political and administrative competences across government levels — likewise affects voters’ turnout decisions by influencing the expected net benefit of voting. Empirically, we exploit the institutional variation across German municipalities to test this proposition, and find supportive evidence. [R]
64.4702 MILITA, Kerri; RYAN, John Barry; SIMAS, Elizabeth N. —
If candidates do not state clear issue positions, then voters cannot anticipate how the candidates will govern if elected nor hold candidates accountable for breaking campaign pledges. Yet, electoral incentives lead candidates to avoid discussing the key issues of the day. Even though silence on issues is the modal campaign strategy, this paper argues that candidates systematically make clear issue statements on occasion. We identify three variables that predict whether a candidate will address an issue and the clarity of the candidate's stance on that issue: (1) the public salience of an issue; (2) ideological congruence between candidate and district; and (3) candidate quality. This argument is tested using data on candidate position-taking regarding the Iraq War and gay marriage collected from the campaign websites of US House candidates in 2006 and 2008. [R]
64.4703 MIRYASOVA, Olga A. —
Analyzed in the article are the present-day situation of the community of Russian political and civil activists, their practices and attitude toward the power. Estimation is presented, of the transformational potential of the activists’ milieu; described are active and inactive citizens’ ideas of desirable moral order. The author comes to the conclusion that activism and interest for in politics are closely connected in Russia with oppositional attitude toward power. In this respect Russia proves to be contrary to the countries of “old” democracies, where activism and interest in politics are typical first of all of loyal citizens. [R]
64.4704 MOELLER, Judith, et al. —
This study analyzes the impact of online and offline news media use on the growth in internal efficacy among adolescents, based on data we collected in a three-wave panel survey in the Netherlands (N = 729). Additionally, we test the impact of internal efficacy on turnout using a fourth wave of the same sample (N = 612). The results show that while newspaper reading has the strongest effects among traditional news sources, actively participating in the communication process of political information online has the strongest impact on internal efficacy. Internal efficacy in turn is found to be a significant predictor of first-time voters. The article discusses media-use as a pathway to political participation through internal political efficacy. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4777]
64.4705 MOEN-LARSEN, Natalia —
Internet use in Russia is increasing rapidly. The former president of the Russian Federation, D. Medvedev, has actively utilized the internet for political purposes, and promoted its use among state officials and politicians in Russia. This article examines the online communication between Medvedev and the Russian people, as seen through his official kremlin.ru weblog. The article combines two research fields — the internet and demography — mapping the publicly generated discourse of demography as articulated on Medvedev's blog. Furthermore, the author assesses the communication between the authorities and the people, showing how it can be mismatched as individuals “talk past each other”. [R]
64.4706 MONIER, Elizabeth Iskander; RANKO, Annette —
This article examines the process through which the Brotherhood became discredited and what the implications of its resultant failure are for the international relations of the Middle East. We contend that it was not so much the content of the MB's vision that failed to win support, but that the organization became a discredited vehicle for achieving a new and stronger Egypt, free from internal authoritarianism, regional weakness and foreign dependence. We suggest that this failure had both regional and domestic causes, and that the MB's collapse will lead to a shift in regional alliances and in Egypt's status. [R]
64.4707 MORSE, Yonatan L. —
This article investigates a specific type of electoral authoritarian outcome, a competitive hegemony. In competitive hegemonies, regimes are able to dominate elections by large vote margins, but with comparatively much lower levels of electoral fraud and coercion. Using a case study of Tanzania and its ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), this article argues that distinct investments made under single-party rule into party institutionalization and the incorporation of subsistence-based peasants provided CCM with additional sources of elite cohesion, strong mobilization capacity, and therefore greater stability. The article shows how during multiparty elections elite defection has in fact been minimal, and voting patterns largely coincide with infrastructural investments made as part of Tanzania's socialist development program, ujamaa. [R, abr.]
64.4708 MOSCA, Lorenzo —
The enduring economic crisis, austerity measures and corruption scandals have created a favorable environment for the advent of new political actors all over Europe. During the last general elections (February 2013), Italy was shocked by the inexorable rise of the Five Star Movement. Beppe Grillo's creature upset the political system, occupying portions of the public sphere that had been ignored (the web) or gradually abandoned by traditional political parties (the squares). Its unusual campaigning style, its internet-based organizational structure, its atypical political positioning (beyond left and right), and its oversimplification of complex problems all help to explain its electoral performance, and distinguish it from similar anti-establishment parties that have emerged in Europe over the past decade. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4268]
64.4709 MURRAY, Gregg R.; MATLAND, Richard E. —
We use field experiments in Texas and Wisconsin [US] to address voter mobilization and turnout by evaluating nonpartisan get-out-the-vote (GOTV) messages delivered via mail during 2010 gubernatorial campaigns. We manipulate three factors in the messages: social pressure, descriptive- and injunctive-voting norm consistency, and message timing. The results present an initial field-based confirmation that normconsistent messages increase turnout; demonstrate significant message timing effects, which are mediated by state election rules; and indicate social pressure's effectiveness varies significantly more than previously found. These diverse findings suggest researchers place a greater emphasis on context when evaluating experiments and the effects of mobilization messages. [R]
64.4710 NATALE, Paolo —
The rise of B. Grillo's movement was [initially] slow. It achieved electoral success thanks to two main issues: the crisis of the traditional parties and the strong reaction of the electorate against the political class. In the early years, the MoVimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5S) was chosen by voters of the left, disillusioned by the traditional parties, and those who were previously not interested in politics, now eager to participate directly in the policy-making process. After the [recent] electoral boom, the composition of the M5S electorate has become more varied. In order to ensure that the movement endures, and to avoid a rapid end to their political adventure, M5S leaders must quickly learn to talk convincingly to the different souls that animate its support base. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4615]
64.4711 NELSON, Michael H. —
One key component of modern constitutions is the representative system. The often-contested codification of this system over time in democratizing political orders depends on a number of factors, such as the existing institutional setting, the power relations of important political actors, and the ideational resources, or political culture, available to the constitution drafters. This article examines the ideational resources drawn on by the members of Thailand's 2007 Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) in debating and deciding the shape of the National Assembly's upper house, the Senate. This is mainly done by analyzing the word-by-word minutes of their meetings. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4396]
64.4712 NEWMAN, Benjamin J.; VELEZ, Yamil —
Leading opinion research on immigration has begun to move from sizebased to change-based measures of citizens’ ethnic context. This shift is based on the theoretical assumption that over-time growth in immigrant populations is more likely to capture citizens’ attention than their current size. At present, there is no empirical evidence supporting this assumption. This article demonstrates that while the size of local immigrant populations exerts virtually no effect on perceived immigration, over-time growth strongly influences citizens’ perceptions of immigration into their community. In addition, our analyses illuminate the differential contribution of growth in local Hispanic and Asian populations to perceived immigration. [R]
64.4713 NEWMARK, Adam J.; VAUGHAN, Shannon K. —
The determinants of media coverage of political scandals are examined through a content analysis of AP Wire stories in ten states from 1998 to 2005. Tests of the conventional explanations of the amount of media coverage demonstrate that political culture, institutional factors, and the prominence of the officials involved matter, but find only mixed evidence that scandal severity is an important factor. Contrary to assumptions, sexual scandals do not generate more media coverage than other types of exposés. [R]
64.4714 NEZ, Héloïse —
The analysis of the trajectories of individuals and collectives invested in participatory institutions questions the biographical consequences of the participatory commitment, as well as the process of institutional recognition of associations. From an ethnographic research in Paris and Córdoba, we show that the individuals and the collectives who participate in a repeated and regular way join a double process of professionalization and politicization. The sociology and the multi-commitment of the regular participants sign however a failure of the participatory project “to include the excluded”, while the effects of participation on the strengthening of civil society remain contrasted. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4147]
64.4715 NORMAN, David J. —
This article explores the emergence of new spaces for civil society organizations (CSOs) as a result of an increasing interest by international donors in multi-stakeholder approaches to good governance under the “new policy agenda”. Drawing upon a contemporary case study of civil society in Cambodia, it argues that CSOs have been encouraged to perform two key roles on a national level: professional service-delivery agents and democratic watchdogs. Both roles are seen by donors as integral to supporting an accountable and professional model of the Cambodian state while drawing upon valuable private sector lessons in a synergetic model of governance. The result is the construction of particular neoliberal spaces for CSOs operating as technical implementation mechanisms in response to externally driven donor pressures. [R, abr.]
64.4716 PALOHEIMO, Heikki —
In political life, there are waves that are much longer than electoral terms. From the 1950s to the 1970s there was a social democratic conjuncture in Western Europe. In most Western European countries, support for social democratic parties increased and social democratic parties got a stronger hold in governments of their countries. From the 1980s on, support for social democratic parties has been in decline in most Western European countries. Conventional center-right parties have not much benefited from the decline of social democracy. The internationalization of economic life has blurred the traditional cleavage between left and right. In a situation like this, support for environmental parties has gradually increased, new national and monocultural populist parties have been established in most Western European countries and support for these parties has boomed. [R, abr.]
64.4717 PANAGOPOULOS, Costas; LARIMER, Christopher W.; CONDON, Meghan —
Several recent field experimental studies show that social pressure raises the likelihood of turning out to vote in elections. Ratcheting up social pressure to show subjects their own as well as their neighbors’ prior voting history significantly increases the effectiveness of direct mail messages. A key component in stimulating this effect seems to be the presence of individual vote history. When voters are presented with less specific turnout information, such as vote history for the community atlarge, the effects on turnout often dissipate. Sensitizing voters to such descriptive norms appears to do little to stimulate participation. To address this contrast, this study presents results from a voter mobilization field experiment conducted in Hawthorne, CA prior to the November 2011 municipal elections. [R, abr.]
64.4718 PARIZET, Raphaëlle —
By combining the perspective of a critical sociology and an anthropology of development, this article analyzes participatory development projects for indigenous peoples in Chiapas. In a context where the specificity of the indigenous issue refers to a conflict between the Mexican State and the indigenous peoples, “capacity-building” projects are implemented. First, I focus on the use of participation as a means to strengthen the legitimacy of a highly contested Mexican State in this federated State. Then, the article highlights the processes by which these participatory mechanisms feed a selection and building process of a local elite, thus prompted to become State's interlocutors and eventually institutional activists. In closing, I explore participation supervision as a means to control and avoid the contestatory register of politics. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4147]
64.4719 PASTE, Thomas —
In recent decades, business interests became protagonists of welfare retrenchment in many countries. In contrast, Austria's national business organization, the WKÖ (Wirtschaftskammer Östemeich), defended welfare programs and social partnership against government initiatives to dismantle them. Drawing on interviews and media reports, this article analyzes the reasons for this deviation, focusing on reforms in public pensions and social insurance administration. The article suggests that the institutional setup of interest representation in Austria explains this stance better than alternative explanations that focus on competitive advantages. The article identifies compulsory membership, equal voting rights, and encompassing organization as the relevant features of the institutional setup. These features shaped the WKÖ's social policy attitudes (1) by ensuring a strong role for small firms, and (2) by reducing the vulnerability of the organization to discontented minorities. [R, abr.]
64.4720 PEDERSEN, Helene Helboe; BINDERKRANTZ, Anne Skorkjaer; CHRISTIANSEN, Peter Munk —
Interest groups may approach political decision-makers in two phases of the legislative process: the pre-parliamentary, administrative phase, in which bills are prepared by bureaucrats; and the parliamentary phase, in which bills are discussed and possibly revised by parliamentary committees. The article investigates the factors that lead groups to engage in these phases based on group proceedings for 225 bills presented to the Danish parliament in the 2009/2010 session. We conclude that resourceful groups are clearly more active in both arenas, but the parliamentary arena is also a venue for voicing discontent and defending gains achieved in the administrative arena. [R]
64.4721 PLISCHKE, Thomas —
Survey data indicate that German voters make their final vote decision increasingly late. However, doubts persist with regard to the validity of time-of-decision measurement which is based on voters’ retrospective self-assessments. This article examines whether the increase in the share of late decisions can be replicated when applying an alternative measure of time-of-vote decision, thereby making use of panel data of eight German federal elections between 1969 and 2009. I demonstrate that the recall measurement lacks validity. Furthermore, the increase in the share of late decisions turns out to be much smaller than previously assumed. [R]
64.4722 PREECE, Jessica Robinson —
Electoral rules can motivate politicians to cultivate a “personal vote” through their legislative voting records. However, I argue that candidate-selection procedures have the ability to overpower these electoral incentives. This study — the first systematic study of how candidate selection and electoral rules interact — takes advantage of Lithuania's unique mixed electoral rules and fortuitous candidate-selection procedures. Regardless of electoral rules, MPs whose future careers depend on getting renominated by central party leaders vote against the party less than those whose careers do not. This evidence of a “selectoral connection” suggests candidate-selection procedures must be studied much more seriously. [R]
64.4723 PREVOST, Gary; KOTZE, Joleen Steyn; WRIGHT, Bianca —
The 2011 Local Government elections in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) represented the beginning of a potentially significant shift in the political landscape of South Africa. The Democratic Alliance increased its vote total from the 2006 Local Government Elections by 14.8% to 40.2% and won 10 single member ward districts previously held by the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC held on to its majority position but gained only 51.9% of the votes and 63 of the 120 councilor positions in the NMBM. Understanding the patterns of vote-shift is crucial to understanding whether or not the 2011 Local Government Elections portends the permanent decline of the ANC as a dominant electoral force in the NMBM. [R, abr.]
64.4724 PUSANE, Özlem Kayhan —
Turkish state actors have used mainly military means first to suppress the Kurdish rebellions and then to end the PKK violence from 1984 onwards. However, after the AKP came to office in 2002, the government challenged the hardline state policy and initiated a Kurdish opening. This policy has the ultimate goal of disarming the PKK and resolving the Kurdish question. However, the Kurdish opening so far has failed to bring about the desired policy outcomes because the parties to the Kurdish question have been highly divided on the side of both the state and the Kurds in Turkey. [R]
64.4725 QUARANTA, Mario —
Authors claim that political protest is “normal” in contemporary democracies, which are, therefore, “social movement societies”. This article analyzes the Italian case, showing that there has been an expansion and a gradual institutionalization of political protest, but it also tests whether there has been a “normalization” of the protester. It is argued that in a “social movement society”, protesters are more heterogeneous than in the past. Using survey data spanning over 30 years we find that the association between several individual characteristics and participation in political protest weakens or disappears. However, complete normalization of the protester has yet to be completed. [R]
64.4726 RASHKOVA, Ekaterina R. —
Students of party and electoral systems now commonly employ ethnic fractionalization as an indicator of ideological differences; however, there is no unilaterally agreed upon data-set that scholars use. In addition, extant data-sets measure heterogeneity at the national level, rather than at the district level, where electoral competition takes place and where both institutional and social factors matter most. Using a multi-level empirical analysis, this article illustrates the interactive effect of the two main district characteristics — magnitude and heterogeneity — on the number of parties. It demonstrates the analytical benefit of using district-level characteristics in explaining party system size and aims to reduce the data gap by providing a district-level ethnic heterogeneity data set for 18 European states. [R, abr.]
64.4727 RAYMOND, Christopher —
Research focusing on several post-communist countries has found evidence of social cleavage effects on political behavior similar to those found in Western Europe. In some post-communist countries, however, social cleavage effects appear far weaker (if at all). To understand why this is the case, I perform a case-study of Romania, focusing on the religious-secular cleavage. Drawing upon research that emphasizes the role of parties in forming cleavages, I argue that the reason for the absence of social cleavage effects is due to party competition for the same group of voters by parties from opposing ends of the ideological spectrum. By shifting their positions, some parties have prevented the appearance of cleavages by shaping individuals’ perceptions of the parties and, in doing so, have even altered individuals’ own left-right self-placements. [R]
64.4728 RAYMOND, Christopher; BARROS FELTCH, Brian M. —
Several recent articles have reached different conclusions regarding the impact of the religious-secular cleavage in Chile. Studies subscribing to the view that parties have considerable agency in the maintenance of cleavages have found that religiosity no longer affects vote choice, while studies rooted in a sociological perspective argue that religiosity still matters. We show that the reason for the discrepant results is because a partisan realignment is underway, whereby religious voters are gradually shifting their loyalties from the parties of the left to the parties of the right, matching a division that has taken place at the elite level. These results are consistent with an issue-evolution perspective, which provides a clearer articulation of how cleavages form than either the agency or the sociological approaches. [R, abr.]
64.4729 RIAZ, Ali —
After two decades of elections that produced a number of alternations in power, an impasse over “caretaker government” crippled the 2014 contest and has made single-party rule all too real a prospect. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4965]
64.4730 ROCHA, Daniella —
This paper deals with various political participation practices, in the case of a popular neighborhood, located in a “satellite” city of Brasilia. It observes that participation practices are not located within local participative institutions, but are rather based on the construction of political exchange relationships between local political entrepreneurs and their brokers in the neighborhoods. The paper shows that participation practices are embedded in personalized relationships with the political leaders. It is based on the observation of participation practices, on the analysis of the participative milieu as well as on the reconstitution of the political trajectories of community leaders. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4147]
64.4731 ROCHER, François —
On two occasions (1980 and 1995), Quebeckers rejected the Quebec government's sovereignty proposal. Many lessons can be drawn from the Quebec referendum experience. This article [examines] the origins and motivations of the independence movement. It focuses more specifically on the 1980 and 1995 referendums, examining in both cases the political context, the judicial-institutional framework within which these public consultations were held and the arguments raised during the referendum campaigns. Furthermore, it analyzes the results as well as the political, constitutional and juridical consequences of the federalist victories. The article concludes that attempts by Quebec sovereignists to question the Canadian political system have invariably resulted in a stronger and more consolidated central state while significantly weakening the Quebec state's ability to determine its own political future. [R] [See Abstr. 64.5072]
64.4732 ROGERS, Todd; AIDA, Masahiko —
Public opinion researchers, campaigns, and political scientists often rely on self-predicted vote to forecast turnout, allocate resources, and measure political engagement. Despite its importance, little research has examined the accuracy of self-predicted vote responses. Seven pre-election surveys with post-election vote-validation from three elections (N = 29,403) reveal several patterns. (1) Many self-predicted voters do not actually vote (flake-out). (2) Many self-predicted nonvoters do actually vote (flake-in). This is the first robust observation of flake-in. (3) Actual voting is more accurately predicted by past voting (from voter file or recalled) than by self-predicted voting. Finally, self-predicted voters differ from actual voters demographically. Vote self-prediction is “biased” in that it misleadingly suggests that there is no participatory bias. [R, abr.]
64.4733 ROGOWSKI, Jon C. —
Generations of democratic theorists argue that democratic systems should present citizens with clear and distinct electoral choices. Responsible party theorists further argued that political participation increases with greater ideological conflict between competing electoral options. Empirical evidence on this question, however, remains deeply ambiguous. This article introduces new joint estimates of citizen preferences and the campaign platforms chosen by pairs of candidates in US House and Senate races. The results show that increasing levels of ideological conflict reduce voter turnout, and are robust across a wide range of empirical specifications. Furthermore, the findings provide no support for existing accounts that emphasize how ideology or partisanship explains the relationship between ideological conflict and turnout. [R, abr.]
64.4734 ROSE, Richard —
This article opens up the closed model of the responsibility of a national government to its national electorate by adding constraints on its capacity to enact effective economic, national security and political policies. These constraints come from policy interdependence. The EU exerts a denationalizing influence through the Council, a multinational effect through the EP, and the Eurozone is designed as a transnational technocracy. Intergovernmental institutions spanning continents add further constraints. The result is a growing gap between the efforts of a national government to deliver outputs that match the preferences of voters and a reduction in the capacity of national electorates to hold accountable institutions outside their country that have a major impact on national outcomes. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4563]
64.4735 ROSENBLUM, Nancy L. —
Against the background of historical antipartyism in practice and in democratic theory, and with a focus on American political thought, this paper takes issue with contemporary arguments that value the political identity “Independent” and disparage partisanship. A typology of “Independent” is offered and both empirical and moral claims about the superiority of Independent voters are rebutted, with particular focus on the “weightlessness” of Independents. The reasons to appreciate the moral distinctiveness of partisanship for democracy are set out: commitment to political pluralism, to regulated political rivalry, and to shifting responsibility for governing. Inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and compromisingness set the contours for an ethic of partisanship. [R] [First article of a thematic issue on “Parties, partisanship and political theory”, edited and introduced by Veit BADER and Matteo BONOTTI. See also Abstr. 64.4070, 4085, 4235, 4289, 4697]
64.4736 ROSENBLUM, Nancy L.; TIVIG, Andrea —
Demographic changes and the stakes for both democracy and immigrants themselves make the political incorporation of immigrants a key political issue in the US. Two structural features of American politics provide multiple opportunities for political activity: federalism with its enormous number of state and local government elections and offices, and the permeable character of political parties. We argue that political parties are the key institutions charged with political incorporation in the US. Parties’ goal in the political incorporation of immigrants should be to create long-term partisans, not just to naturalize immigrants and create voters in the next election. Partisanship has non-instrumental significance as well. As political identity and practice, partisanship has a good claim to earning immigrants’ recognition as citizens, and a distinctive claim to achieving incorporation in a moral register. [R, abr.] [Part of a thematic issue on “Citizenship in a globalized world: the experience of immigrant democracies”, edited by Geoffrey Brahm LEVEY and Ayelet SHACHAR. Introduction by Ayelet SHACHAR, “Citizenship and the ‘right to have rights’”, pp. 114–124]
64.4737 ROSS, Karen; BÜRGER, Tobias —
It is undoubtedly true that social media such as Facebook and Twitter are influencing the ways in which politicians engage the public. But do politicians use social media in ways that enhance opportunities for dialogue between them and us? To explore this in relation to politicians’ Facebook behaviors, we interviewed New Zealand MPs about their motivations for using social media and their attitudes on such media's effectiveness as a political communication tool in the context of a general election campaign. Our findings suggest that despite their talk of citizen engagement, most politicians use social media as means of distributing information (one-way flow) and to make themselves both visible and ‘hip’ to the public. [R, abr.]
64.4738 SA VILAS BOAS, Marie-Hélène —
Why do inhabitants commit themselves in participatory institutions? This article studies grassroots women's participatory practices, through the case of women's municipal conferences in Recife. It shows that their commitment fall within a “participatory career” through which they achieve symbolical and material resources. They use these resources to construct a leadership position in their neighborhood. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4147]
64.4739 SAHOO, Sarbeswar —
Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the tribal-dominated south Rajasthan, this article analyzes the case of Rajasthan Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad (RVKP), a Hindu(tva)-oriented NGO, to demonstrate how civil society could also be anti-democratic. It shows that by utilizing development as a medium of entry, the RVKP has not only successfully presented itself as a counter-force against the “threatening others”, such as Muslims and Christians but also mobilized electoral support for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In return, the BJP-led state government has provided economic, political and legal support to the RVKP and facilitated the Hindutva politics at the grassroots level. [R, abr.]
64.4740 SALAMONE, Michael F. —
Do judicial dissents affect mass politics? The conventional wisdom is that unanimous rulings boost support for [US] Supreme Court decisions, while division fuels popular opposition. However, empirical analysis of public reaction to unanimity and dissent is sparse, incomplete, and inconsistent. Through a series of survey experiments, I expand upon existing research on public opinion of judicial unity. I find that reaction to judicial consensus is dependent on the ideological salience of the issue involved and that, contrary to conventional wisdom and recent findings, dissent can foster acceptance of rulings among the Court's opponents by suggesting evidence of procedural justice. [R]
64.4741 SANDERS, David, et al. —
Using data from the 2010 UK general election, the article shows that there is a distinctive calculus of party choice among Britain's overwhelmingly Labour-supporting ethnic minorities. Ethnic minority (EM) voters are similar to whites in the importance they accord to partisanship and valence considerations in deciding which party they vote for. However, EM voters place less emphasis on ideological spatial calculations. Additionally, across all ethnic minority groups, there is an important — and differentiated — role for perceptions of discrimination. In 2010, personal experience of (egocentric) discrimination tended to damage Labour as the incumbent governing party. In contrast, perceptions of (sociotropic) discrimination against fellow EM citizens interacted with participation in British cultural practices to increase support for Labour. These findings reflect the history of Labour and Conservative governments in the UK. [R, abr.]
64.4742 SAUNDERS, Clare —
Since the new millennium, scholars have acclaimed a vigorous global justice movement (GJM). Many accounts have stressed the tolerant identities of those involved in this movement, and/or the movement's horizontal decision-making structure. Consequently, formal organizations are often excluded from analysis, precluding the chance to assess systematically whether they are involved in social movement modes of coordination. The article uses deductive block-modeling and inferential statistics on survey data of a broad sample of 208 western European global justice organizations to uncover their modes of coordination. I find that many organizations commonly considered integral to the GJM demonstrate organizational and coalitional modes of coordination, while formal organizations often engage in coalitional work. [R, abr.]
64.4743 SAUZIER-UCHIDA, Emi —
This article analyzes the discourse of three prime ministers — Koizumi, Aso, and Hatoyama — to explore how each leader identified the political self and constructed and promoted a particular relationship with the voter before the general elections. The outcome indicates the emergence of a new political communication style based on a party-citizen relationship as business-consumer. Whereas Aso's patron-client discourse pinpoints the role of the responsible and bureaucratic state in protecting Japan, the business-consumer discourse of both Koizumi and Hatoyama demonstrates the entrepreneurial leaders’ willingness to listen to individuals in order to meet their needs and expectations. We speculate that the social norms and values of the business-consumer model might have played a role in attracting a large number of unorganized voters to Koizumi in 2005 and to Hatoyama in 2009. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4924]
64.4744 SAYEGH, Pascal-Yan —
In the past decades, we have witnessed the global re-emergence of the political meaning of both nationalism and religion. This paper explores contemporary fragments of this trend across three European countries: France, Poland and the UK. The discursive occurrences brought into the analysis are taken from state-centered political arenas as well as from more diffused or marginal sociological elements. While the approach is primarily set in the perspective of nationalism studies, the paper nourishes reflection on the negotiations of political and social significations between religion and nationalism. [R, abr.]
64.4745 SCHNEIDER, Monica C.; BOS, Angela L. —
One explanation for the dearth of women in elected office is that voters stereotype candidates based on their gender. Research in this vein often assumes that female candidates will be stereotyped similarly to women (e.g., as compassionate) and measures stereotypes as such. We question this assumption, proposing instead that female politicians constitute a subtype — a new stereotypical category with its own qualities — of the broader group of women. We compare the content of female politician stereotypes to other relevant comparison groups including politicians, male politicians, and female professionals. Using a classic methodology to determine stereotype content, we find that female politicians do not share the qualities that are ascribed to women (e.g., warm, empathetic). [R, abr.]
64.4746 SERRICCHIO, Fabio —
It is generally considered that low turnout is not related to citizens’ support for the EU or other European attitudes, such as European identity. This perspective is questioned and other individual factors are considered. In particular, a number of European attitudes are considered as independent variables together with national factors. The findings show that abstention in EP elections in Italy is directly linked to citizens’ disaffection with politics, rather than disaffection with government performance. Furthermore, attitudes toward the EU integration project play a role only when the level of political involvement is high. Thus, European questions matter and turnout in EP elections is driven not only by national-level factors, but also by citizens’ satisfaction with the EU and sense of European identity. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.5058]
64.4747 SHAH, Paru —
The ongoing underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in most levels of office continues to warrant our attention. However, scholars have focused only on what factors contribute to the electoral success of minorities, without attention to a vital precursor — the supply of minority candidates. Using data from the Local Elections in America Project, this study provides one of the first glimpses into the supply side of minority representation, detailing how demographic, electoral, and political factors affect the likelihood a black candidate is on the ballot, and the subsequent impact on the likelihood of a black candidate winning. [R]
64.4748 SIMONJAN, Renald —
Concentrating on the period of the 1990s — a very ambivalent period for Russia — and basing his argumentation on a number of important facts, the author is reasoning about the causes and consequences of the events of that time, about the role played in them by the elites and by society. Besides, such topical themes are also touched upon, as answerability of power to the people, complicacy of the country's modernization, society's value and cultural crisis. Finally, the author advances and substantiates his hypothesis as to why, after all, the period in question told so negatively on the Russians’ mass consciousness. [R]
64.4749 SINDREA, Gyda Marås —
Development aid and humanitarian assistance are increasingly subject to conditionalities aimed to secure progress in peace talks and curb rebel predatory behavior. Comparing how Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka strategized on the basis of aid before and after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, this article shows that rebel leaderships use peace negotiations to push for control over the administration of aid as a means to expand their governance capacities as de facto state actors. I argue that while peace conditionalities may encourage peace talks and ceasefires that provide space for humanitarian assistance to reach those in need, it is a poor tool to curb rebel predatory behavior and encourage peace settlements. [R, abr.]
64.4750 SMITH, Glen; SEARLES, Kathleen —
Most research examining partisan media effects uses individual differences in exposure to news sources to predict attitude change. We improve upon this approach by using variations in cable news coverage to predict subsequent changes in viewer impressions of the candidates. This approach allows us to examine the distinct effects of in-party and out-party candidate coverage. Content-analyses and survey data show that partisan media effects result from coverage of the opposition candidate, and not from coverage of the like-minded candidate. Specifically, during the 2008 [US] presidential election, increased coverage of B. Obama (J. McCain) on Fox News (MSNBC) made viewers less favorable toward Obama (McCain). Meanwhile, coverage of McCain (Obama) on Fox News (MSNBC) had minimal effects on viewer impressions. These results suggest that media effects persist even during an era dominated by selective exposure. [R]
64.4751 SOMER-TOPCU, Zeynep; ZAR, Michelle E. —
Political parties seek information about public preferences to determine how much they need to change their policies as elections approach. We argue that opposition parties can use European parliamentary election results to inform themselves about public preferences. When opposition parties lose votes at the European level, they can use this information to infer that public opinion has shifted away from the party and change their national policy strategies. We also argue that not all European elections are the same and that parties should be more responsive to those European elections that are more informative about public preferences. Empirical results from 14 EU member countries show that opposition parties use European election results and change their positions [in certain circumstances]. [R, abr.]
64.4752 SPOON Jae-Jae; HOBOLT, Sara B.; VRIES, Catherine E. de —
This study addresses the dynamics of the issue-space in multiparty systems by examining to what extent, and under what conditions, parties respond to the issue-ownership of other parties on the green issue. We argue that the extent to which other parties respond to, rather than ignore, the issue-mobilization of green parties depends on: (1) how much of an electoral threat the green party poses to a specific party; and (2) the extent to which the political and economic context makes the green issue a potential vote-winner. To analyze the evolution of the green issue, a time-series cross-section analysis is conducted using data from the Comparative Manifestos Project for 19 West European countries from 1980–2010. [R, abr.]
64.4753 SPRUYT, Bram —
This article advances the recent discussion about the alleged growth of a “diploma democracy” by introducing insights from theory of group relations, as well as presenting new empirical data. At the theoretical level, we argue that the relationship between the higher and lower educated should be seen as an asymmetric group relation. Such a relationship is unlikely to result in open educational conflict, without implying the complete absence of frustrations and tensions between groups defined on the obtained educational level. At the empirical level, we report on the results of a survey project in Flanders, allowing us to investigate to what extent the public opinion perceives educational conflict and demonstrate that this perception is consistently related to support for a core element of contemporary populism. [R]
64.4754 SQUIRE, Peverill —
I offer a novel way of documenting the flow of power between the state and federal governments. Rather than look at programs or expenditures, I examine the behavior of elected officials. Assuming that ambitious politicians gravitate toward the locus of political power, I track the flow of elected officials in the American federal system. Specifically, I look at the career paths of more than 12,000 individuals who served in the US Congress between 1789 and 2012. By analyzing the movement of elected officials between the state and federal levels, I confirm the prevailing story line on the evolution of American federalism while generating a measure that can be used to assess the relative distribution of power in the system across time. [R]
64.4755 STAUDINGER, Lori Poloni; ORTBALS, Candice —
We examine the degree to which national political setting — domestic political opportunity structures — influences the transnational activities of women's groups in the UK, France, and Germany. The literature suggests that social groups are more likely to choose international activity when national institutions provide fewer opportunities for domestic activity. Using data about women's groups’ activity from a content-analysis of news wires from 1980 to 2008, we conclude that women's groups act in the domestic sphere significantly more than they act in the international arena — even when acting on transnational issues — and that groups choose international action when domestic opportunities are less hospitable to group action. Thus, we argue that the domestic sphere continues to be a major influence on social movement activity even as globalization and transnationalism increase. [R]
64.4756 STERN, Michael J.; ROOKEY, Bryan D. —
Recent national, regional, and community-level research has shown that the internet has the potential to provide a powerful medium for political engagement. Yet, systematic analyses that consider space and place as critical components of this area of research are lacking. This issue is important inasmuch as the extant literature has clearly shown that the diffusion of sophisticated internet technology to some places has been slow and that the use of high-speed broadband modems has a significant impact on using the technology for social and economic purposes. The data for this study come from the nationally representative Pew Internet and American Life Study conducted in November 2008 directly after the US presidential election. [R, abr.]
64.4757 STOCKEMER, Daniel —
There is still a relative dearth of scholarship focusing on the activists of radical right-wing groups. I analyze the FN's members. On the basis of interview research with 44 FN activists, I find that individuals who are involved in this populist right-wing party come from diverse social and economic backgrounds and have different types of political socialization. What unites them is their high degree of motivation, their political values (for example, nationalism, anti-immigration), their personal beliefs (for example, the belief in authority and other traditional values) and the fact that they feel at ease within the FN. [R, abr.]
64.4758 STOCKEMER, Daniel; KHAZAELI, Susan —
High voter-turnout gives legitimacy to the political system and strengthens the stability of a country. Since voter-turnout matters, it is important to determine which factors boost electoral participation. While there is a vast literature focusing on institutional, socio-economic, and contextual indicators, there appears to be a shortage of scholarship on the relationship between religion and turnout. We evaluate the impact of the Islamic religion on electoral participation. Drawing on a large dataset that incorporates all legislative elections worldwide from 1970 to 2010 and controlling for compulsory voting, the electoral system type, the decisiveness of the election, the competitiveness of the election, the size of the country, the regime type and development, we find that Muslim-majority countries have lower turnout rates than majority non-Muslim countries. [R, abr.]
64.4759 STREET, Alex —
A reform of German citizenship law in 2000 was expected to greatly increase the number of foreign residents becoming German citizens. In fact, the naturalization rate fell and has remained low ever since. This outcome cannot be explained either by existing research on citizenship laws or by scholarship on individual incentives to naturalize. Instead, this article argues that the family context shapes decision-making about citizenship, with distinctive behavioral implications. Parents have an incentive to naturalize and thereby extend their new citizenship status to their children. The introduction of a right to citizenship for many children born in Germany to immigrant parents removed this incentive for the parents to naturalize. [R, abr.]
64.4760 STREET, Alex —
Immigrant-origin minorities are underrepresented in many democratic legislatures. This paper evaluates the direct effects of voter discrimination on the electoral performance of minority political candidates in Germany. Using evidence from both a survey experiment and actual election data, the paper tests two mechanisms of discrimination — negative attitudes toward minority groups and assumptions about candidate ideology — and shows that neither results in a substantial penalty for the small numbers of minority candidates who actually compete for office. Minority candidates in Germany typically run for political parties that discriminating voters would not have supported in any case. [R]
64.4761 SZWARCBERG, Mariela —
This article provides a novel answer to explain the persistence of party rallies in the mass and social media era. I argue that rallies contribute to the organizational structure of clientelist parties by providing information to different members within and outside the machine. Rallies provide party leaders with information that enables them to monitor brokers’ capacity to mobilize voters, party brokers with an opportunity to display their ability to turn out voters while monitoring voters’ responses, and voters with an opportunity to display their gratitude or fear towards brokers. In addition, rallies provide the opposition with an opportunity to gather information about the electoral strength or weakness of the clientelist party. Drawing on [information from] Argentina, Peru, Mexico and Brazil, I explain why political parties conduct rallies and why rallies will continue in the future. [R, abr.]
64.4762 THOMASSEN, Jacques; VAN HAM, Carolien —
This article reviews P. Mair's argument on the failure of political parties and the subsequent failure of representative democracy in Europe. It develops a conceptual framework to test the validity of Mair's argument against competing interpretations of the development of representative democracy. It identifies three ideal-typical models of representative democracy that seem to have succeeded each other over time: cleavage-based democracy, competitive democracy, and audience democracy. The article proposes specific empirical hypotheses for political parties and voters in each of these periods and provides empirical evidence to test the validity of these hypotheses. It concludes with a discussion of the results, evaluating whether the changes that occurred indicate failure of representative democracy or rather the emergence of a different form of representative democracy. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4563]
64.4763 URBAN, Carly; NIEBLER, Sarah —
Presidential candidates in the US do not intentionally advertise in states without rigorous competition for electoral votes. However, in some areas of noncompetitive states, media markets overlap with battleground states, exposing these regions to political ads. These spillover advertisements allow us to examine the relationship between advertisements and individual campaign contributions, with data from the Wisconsin Advertising Project and the Federal Elections Commission. Using propensity-score matching within uncontested states, we find that 2008 aggregate giving in zip codes exposed to political ads was approximately $6,100 (28.1% of mean contributions) more than in similar zip codes without advertisements. [R]
64.4764 VAJNŠTEJN, Grigorij I. —
Over the last twenty-five years, populism has become one of the defining features of politics in many developed countries, in Europe in particular. In order to characterize all processes and new tendencies that define the populist phenomenon and its development, it is necessary to consider and compare European electoral statistics since 2001. The reading of those statistics is, however, problematic, since the very definition of populism is contradictory and ambiguous. Once a definition of populism based on statistical data has been established, the link between the rise of electoral support for left populism and the economic crisis becomes clear.
64.4765 VAN DE WARDT, Marc —
Do parties de-emphasize issues in response to internal divisions among their supporters, and are niche parties more likely to do so than mainstream parties? This study builds on previous research demonstrating that parties change their issue positions in response to their supporters. By means of a pooled time-series analysis of 197 parties in 14 West European countries between 1986 and 2006, this study provides convincing empirical evidence that parties downplay issues in response to internal divisions among their supporters. There are, however, no differences between niche and mainstream parties in their responsiveness to internal disagreement. This study has important implications for the literature on responsiveness between parties and their supporters, as well as for our understanding of the strategic behavior of niche vis-à-vis mainstream parties. [R, abr.]
64.4766 VERGANI, Matteo —
While there are relevant studies on both local political subcultures and party activism in Italy, the literature misses the relations between these two social and political phenomena. This article bridges the lacuna by presenting a typology of the local branches of the Italian PD (Democratic Party) based on the relationship between the features of party activism and the local political subcultures. Four types of local PD branch emerge: the “showcase” branch, the “administrative” branch, the “company” branch and the ‘committee’ branch. The article discusses each type, while drawing on 40 in-depth interviews collected during field research. Insights into the relationship between local political subcultures and party activism in Italy are offered. [R]
64.4767 VERNEY, Susannah —
The Greek election of May 2012 failed to produce a government, resulting in repeat elections six weeks later. This shock outcome was a symptom of a broader delegitimization of the national political system. Over the past decade, Eurobarometer data show a much more extensive loss of confidence in political institutions in Greece than in the EU as a whole. In a first phase, rising political discontent was managed within the traditional political framework through alternation in power between the two major parties. In contrast, the second phase, following the outbreak of the Greek sovereign debt crisis, led to the dramatic fragmentation of the party system and changed the mode of government formation. This process is not reversible and entails serious democratic dangers. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4268]
64.4768 VOICU, Malina; PERAL, Edurne Bartolome —
This article focuses on the effect of early socialization on the support for democracy among citizens who have been ruled under two different nondemocratic regimes. We compare the dynamics in Spain and Romania during the post-totalitarian period with the aim of identifying how coming of age operated in these two different totalitarian regimes and how each type of non-democratic regime affected the legitimacy of the new democratic rule. Using survey data from various sources (Standard Eurobarometer, Central and Eastern Eurobarometer and Candidate Countries Eurobarometer) that allow both longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons, we decompose the social change in support for democracy over the post-totalitarian period in both countries using cross-classified fixed effects models. [R, abr.]
64.4769 De VRIES, Catherine E.; GIGER, Nathalie —
This study suggests that performance voting is characterized by extensive individual heterogeneity. Most economic voting studies to date treat voters as rather homogeneous in their reactions to economic performance of incumbents. Yet, a large and well-established line of research from the American context demonstrates the conditional impact of political sophistication and salience on voters’ political attitudes and behavior. Building on this work, this article explores individual-level variation in performance voting due to political sophistication and salience. Utilizing cross-national data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) including 25 democracies, performance voting is examined across an array of policy areas including the economy, social welfare, immigration and national security, and it is shown that political sophistication and salience are key moderators of performance voting. [R, abr.]
64.4770 WAHMAN, Michael —
Electoral coordination has been a primary concern for scholars of African politics, interested in topics such as ethnic conflict mitigation and democratization, for decades. However, understanding of micro-level electoral coordination in Sub-Saharan Africa is generally still very limited. This study investigates voter coordination in Sub-Saharan Africa using constituency-level election results. Studying 20 single-member district elections during the period 1990–2010 in five Anglophone African countries (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia) demonstrates that many African elections continue to show low levels of electoral coordination. Using a multi-level regression analysis, the study shows that the most important explanation for low levels of coordination across Africa is high voter volatility. [R, abr.]
64.4771 WALL, Matthew; KROUWEL, André; VITIELLO, Thomas —
Our research design combines factual data on the recommendations received by users from the site's log files with users’ responses to pre-advice and post-election survey items. We find that the effects of online recommendations on vote-choice depend on the congruence of the recommended party with the users’ pre-existing preferences. When the site recommended a party that was being seriously contemplated by the user, the user was demonstrably more likely to go on to vote for the recommended party. We find that this effect was not visible among voters who indicated that they were only seriously considering one party for their vote-choice when they visited the site. [R]
64.4772 WALLACE, Sophia J.; ZEPEDA-MILLÁN, Chris; JONESCORREA, Michael —
This article utilizes data from the Latino National Survey (2006) to analyze temporal and spatial variation in the effects of the immigrant rights marches in 2006 on Latino attitudes towards trust in government and self-efficacy. Using a unique protest dataset, we examine the effects of proximity and scale by mapping respondents’ specific geographic location against the location of the marches as well as size of the protests using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). We find that local proximity to small marches had a positive impact on feelings of efficacy, whereas large-scale protests led to lower feelings of efficacy. [R, abr.]
64.4773 WALTER, Annemarie S. —
This article examines which political parties are the most likely targets of negative campaigning in a multiparty system. The choice of target is an important strategic decision parties make when deciding on their campaign strategy. The article advances existing research on negative campaigning, contributing to the development of a general theory on negative campaigning by examining its use in a multiparty system. Finally, it presents new content-analysis data on negative campaigning from ten Dutch Parliamentary elections between 1981 and 2010. The findings show that large parties, ideologically proximate parties, parties close to the median party position and government parties are the most likely targets of negative campaigning in the Dutch multiparty system. [R, abr.]
64.4774 WEINSCHENK, Aaron C.; HOLBROOK, Thomas M. —
We examine why levels of campaign spending vary across US mayoral elections. Although there has been debate about the extent to which spending is damaging or beneficial, few analyses have sought to understand the factors that inhibit or promote campaign spending. We focus on the impact of city-level attributes, political institutions, and contestspecific factors and find that a number of the variables we consider have important effects on campaign spending, including local government form, term length, scope of local government, an experienced candidate pool, and open seat and runoff elections. We discuss the implications of our findings for local policy-makers. [R]
64.4775 WESTINEN, Jussi —
How does a sudden electoral upset affect the dynamics in the spatial distribution of votes? This article approaches the question in the context of Finnish parliamentary elections in 2007 and 2011 by exploring whether the exceptional success of a nationalist-populist True Finns Party (PS) in 2011 changed some of the fundamentals in the traditional stronghold areas of other parties. A totally new stronghold area did not emerge as the electoral support of PS was geographically extremely evenly distributed. The findings contradict with the conventional wisdom that nationalist-populist parties have a potential clientele on restricted geographic areas. It was tested whether the True Finns dominated areas were characterized by such social structural macro-level characteristics that have typically explained the popularity of radical right populist parties elsewhere in Western Europe. [R, abr.]
64.4776 WICKS, Jan LeBlanc, et al. —
The authors examine whether predictors of adult political consumerism (i.e., boycotting and buycotting) and factors associated with youth civic and political participation also predict youth political consumerism. Data from a national mail survey of [US] adolescents and their parents (n = 876) conducted in October 2012 are used to examine predictors of youth political consumerism. Factors analyzed include youth political and civic participation, parental modeling of boycotting and buycotting, and parental encouragement of following news and politics. Other factors examined include youth civic education, extracurricular participation, and youth social or civic attitudes. In addition, the authors assess differences between youth who boycott and those who buycott. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 64.4777]
64.4777 WICKS, Robert H., et al. —
A national mail survey of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 (n = 876) was conducted immediately before the 2012 US presidential election to investigate socialization agents that may correlate with political and civic engagement. The relative importance of potential correlates of engagement including demographics, parents, peers, schools, religion, traditional media, social networks, and digital communication were evaluated. Regression analysis revealed that civically engaged youth identify with a religion, participate in civic education activities at school and extracurricular activities, take action (e.g., boycotting or buycotting), develop attitudes about citizenship, and engage in online/social media political activities. Politically engaged youth come from higher income households, discuss news and politics, take action, and are very prone to engage in online/social media political activities. [R, abr.] [First article of a thematic issue on “Young citizens, media, and political participation revisited: sociological aspects. Part I”, edited and introduced by Robert H. WICKS. See also Abstr. 64.4588, 4660, 4696, 4704, 4776]
64.4778 WOLLOCH, Nathaniel —
Early 19th c. liberal thought is the source of modern Western ideological view of nature. David Ricardo, T. R. Malthus, and particularly John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville suggest that this view is dialectical in nature. On the one hand, it evinces recognition of the environmental price resulting from increasing industrialization, but on the other it recognizes that this price, though deplorable, was nevertheless unavoidable and necessary. Early liberals also recognized that it was precisely increasing mastery of nature which enabled an appreciative attitude toward nature to emerge. 19th c. liberal thought can thus be viewed as the source for recognizing a key aspect of present-day thinking about human-nature relationship and the dilemma between the need to utilize nature and conserve it. [Part of a section on “Ecology, liberalism and democracy”, introduced by Éloi LAURENT. See also Abstr. 64.4195]
64.4779 WONKA, Arndt; RITTBERGER, Berthold —
Recent studies suggest that national parliaments cannot simply be labeled “losers” of European integration. National parliaments have institutionally adapted to the EU in order to better scrutinize and control their governments in EU affairs. While existing research shows how parliaments employ their institutional opportunities to exercise scrutiny in the national arena, this paper suggests that MPs also employ informal strategies to obtain information on EU affairs to control and influence their governments. It argues that MPs primarily act through political parties, which are viewed here as multi-level organizations, and make use of their partisan ties to regional, transnational and supranational party actors to obtain information on EU issues. The article probes this argument by drawing on original data obtained through a survey of German MPs in 2009. [R, abr.]
64.4780 WRIGHT, Gerald C.; BIRKHEAD, Nathaniel —
Individual-level studies of partisan and ideological change find that individuals generally adjust their ideological preferences to match their partisan affiliation. In examining this process among the [US] state electorates, we find that contrary to these studies, states have adjusted their partisanship to match their ideology. In addition, we use a measure of state elite ideology to show that state parties have a role in the character of the partisan sort of the states. These results are consistent with political explanations of party strategy and rational mass responses for the character of macro-political change in the states over the last halfcentury. [R]
64.4781 ZEGLOVITS, Eva; AICHHOLZER, Julian —
Potential consequences of lowering voting age to 16 have been discussed in recent scientific and public debates. This article examines turnout of young voters aged 16 to 17 in Austria, the first European country that lowered the general voting age to 16. For this purpose we use unique data taken from electoral lists of two recent Austrian regional elections. The results support the idea that the so-called “first-time voting boost” is even stronger among the youngest voters as turnout was (1) higher compared to 18- to 20-year-old first-time voters and (2) not substantially lower than the average turnout rate. We conclude that our findings are encouraging for the idea of lowering voting age as a means to establish higher turnout rates in the future. [R]
64.4782 ZITTEL, Thomas —
Electoral systems provide incentives for legislators to either go it alone pursuing personal votes or to rather cooperate in teams seeking partisan votes. How does the German mixed system function in this regard? This article theoretically and empirically addresses this question with regard to the 17th German Bundestag and in light of most recent severe cutbacks in defense budgets providing incentives to pursue pork. The article draws from a newly collected database enclosing structural, behavioral and policy-related information on individual legislators and the districts they represent. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4366]
64.4783 ZVEREV, Andrej L. —
The article tackles the problem of psychological sources of the activist type of modern Russian youth's political behavior. Psychological reasons of young people's coming to politics are analyzed, and principal tends are revealed, of social mobility in the frameworks of youth socio-political organizations of different political orientations. Considered is the influence of young politicians’ political socialization, of their motivation moulds, of their personality features on their choice of their own models of political behavior in modern Russian politics. [R] [See Abstr. 64.4203]