bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Works Councils
Authors: Gumbrell‐McCormick Rebecca , Hyman Richard
Published: May 2010

This article focuses on works councils, adopting the definition of Rogers and Streeck. It is concerned with countries with generalized systems of representation – where participation structures exist largely independently of management wishes – and not with those where representative bodies may be established voluntarily through localized management initiatives. The article also limits attention to bodies with the capacity to discuss a broad agenda of employment- and work-related issues; this means, for example, that the statutory health and safety committees, which exist in many countries without works councils, are ignored. On this definition, works councils are almost exclusively a phenomenon of continental Western Europe, and the article discusses why this is the case. Its focus is specifically on national institutions; it does not examine the one instance of mandatory supranational structures: European Works Councils. Nor does the article consider board-level employee representation.
Employee Share Ownership
Authors: Kaarsemaker Eric , Pendleton Andrew , Poutsma Erik
Published: May 2010

Employee share ownership involves employees acquiring shares in their employer so that they become shareholders. It takes a variety of forms, some of which may have greater significance and effects than others. The extent to which employees possess profit sharing, information, and participation rights varies considerably. This variety means that generalizations about employee share ownership have to be made with caution, as becomes evident in this article. The article provides more details of the various types of employee share ownership plans, before providing information on the incidence of employee share ownership. It examines the factors associated with the use of employee share ownership plans by companies (‘determinants’). The article also reviews the extensive literature on the effects of employee share ownership on attitudes, behaviour, and performance.
Labour Union Responses to Participation in Employing Organizations
Authors: Gall Gregor
Published: May 2010

This article provides a multilayered theorization of labour unionism's relationship to participation in order to provide the basis for examining unions' experience of, and response to, participation. This requires an exposition of the broad parameters of the relationship between labour unionism and participation before examining the conceptual implications of these parameters. In doing so, participation is defined broadly as the reality, rhetoric, and aspiration of worker involvement in task determination as well as contributing to higher-level, decision-making processes concerning the employment relationship, enterprise, and markets, whether coming from workers, employers, or states. This then concerns, with varying degrees of depth and breadth, direct and indirect participation at different levels of employing organizations and over an array of subjects. In essence, the focus of the article is on bilateral arenas of engagement between workers and employer representatives that are not formally and conceptually predicated on the involvement of any third parties.
Employee Voice and Mutual Gains
Authors: Lewin David
Published: May 2010

This article focuses on employee voice in non-union enterprises. It provides a brief review of the literature on employee voice and mutual gains that focuses on how they are linked. The article summarizes the evidence, including a new source of evidence, about the incidence of alternative dispute-resolution (ADR) systems and practices in (US-based) non-union enterprises. Furthermore, it draws on a sample of such enterprises to estimate the extent to which employees actually exercise voice under these ADR systems and practices. The article then analyses the survey, interview, and archival data drawn from four of these non-union enterprises to document and assess the extent to which employee exercise of voice under these enterprises’ ADR systems and practices result in mutual gains to employer and employee. Finally, it summarizes the main conclusions of this study and derives certain implications for a broadened theoretical perspective on employee voice and mutual gains.
Participation Across Organizational Boundaries
Authors: Marchington Mick , Timming Andrew R.
Published: May 2010

The recent growth of inter-organizational contracting poses a significant threat to the traditional conception of employment. Where organizational boundaries overlap, it no longer makes sense to think of the employment relationship as a contract between a single employer and an employee. This article seeks to articulate the implications of this paradigm shift from the perspective of participation in organizations. It distinguishes between direct and indirect participation as the organizing framework. The article analyses how direct and indirect participation operate across organizational boundaries at multi-employer workplaces. It offers a brief discussion of how subcontracting within multi-employer sites has blurred boundaries and disordered hierarchies within and between organizations that work together on a commercial contract at the same workplace. The article also examines direct and indirect participation in the context of these organizational forms. It ends with a brief discussion of the implications of these issues for future research.
Public Policy and Employee Participation
Authors: Budd John W. , Zagelmeyer Stefan
Published: May 2010

Employee participation is frequently seen as a private issue for organizations and their employees. Employee participation programmes can generate positive externalities with benefits for more than the corporate bottom line; similarly, the lack or repression of various forms of employee participation can cause harm through negative externalities that spillover into families, communities, and nations. When seen in this light, it becomes clear that employee participation is more than a private affair. Rather, it raises important issues for public policy through governmental regulation of the employment relationship. This article discusses the rationales for public policy interventions in the domain of employee participation and describes various policies that policymakers in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere are using or can use to promote forms of employee participation which benefit not only organizations but also workers and their families and communities.
Corporate Governance and Employee Participation
Authors: Gospel Howard , Pendleton Andrew
Published: May 2010

This article examines the role and extent of employee participation in the main areas of corporate governance. It becomes apparent that there are considerable differences between countries in governance institutions and practices. Many of these differences hinge on the role of employees in the governance process. The article provides an overview of the main practitioner and academic perspectives on governance, highlighting differences in the role accorded to employees. It outlines the broad national and comparative perspectives to provide some context for the subsequent discussion of more specific aspects of employee involvement. The article also identifies the main elements of corporate governance systems: the involvement of owners, the role of governing boards, information flows and transparency, the remuneration of managers, and the market for corporate control. All these are addressed with reference to the actual and potential participation of employees. In the last section, some broad conclusions are drawn.
Cross‐National Variation in Representation Rights and Governance at Work
Authors: Frege Carola , Godard John
Published: May 2010

This article focuses on the differences between the United States and Germany. These two nations are viewed as representative of distinctive varieties of capitalism, and they have very different representation rights and institutional norms accounting for these varieties. The contribution of this article is to address the reasons for this variation and why it persists in view of such pressures. It begins by briefly describing cross-national differences in representational rights and in organizational governance structures associated with these rights (or lack thereof). The article then addresses various explanations that have or can be advanced to explain this variation and why it persists. Next, based on these explanations, it adopts a historical-institutionalist perspective to explore the historical basis of this variation.
Employee Participation in Developing and Emerging Countries
Authors: Wood Geoffrey
Published: May 2010

Work and employment relations vary not only according to individual strategic choices by managers, and actions and responses by employees, but also by the social and economic context. Development is a complex and multifaceted process of structural transformation, including economic and social changes. While a common distinction is often drawn between nations who have attained a degree of socio-economic development characterized by certain levels of income, productivity, investment, formal employment, technological deployment and a range of human capital indicators, the latter category is an extremely broad one in itself. It may encompass ‘emerging market’ nations such as Brazil and South Africa, and nations where economic activity centres around the production of unprocessed or semi-processed primary commodities, with only limited downstream industrial development. This article primarily focuses on this second category, although some attention is also devoted to the case of ‘emerging markets’.
Political Science
Authors: Coen David , Grant Wyn , Wilson Graham
Published: May 2010

What does political science as a discipline contribute to the understanding of the relationship between business and government? The field has long been a stepchild within the discipline with many fewer practitioners than the study of fields such as voting behavior, political parties, or legislatures. And yet, the relatively small number of political scientists involved in the field has generated at least four distinct debates on business and government. The first debate ironically concerns claims that the study of politics has relatively little to contribute to understanding business and government. In a highly influential book published four decades ago, the then prominent American political scientist, Charles Lindblom, argued that markets constituted a prison that robbed democratic governments of effective choice.
Law and Business
Authors: Shaffer Gregory
Published: May 2010

This article puts business center stage as a means to understand law. Law consists of systems of rules, standards, and procedures that social institutions create and apply. These social institutions may be public or private. The rules, standards, and procedures that they create provide a framework in which business strategizes and operates. Business, in turn, uses law as a resource to advance and defend business aims. This article assesses the reciprocal interaction of business and law. Law helps constitute business by recognizing business organizational forms, and business helps constitute law.
Varieties of Capitalism and Business
Authors: Hancké Bob
Published: May 2010

“Varieties of Capitalism” (VoC) approaches the question of business and state relations from a different angle, which allows for a combination of empirical range and analytical sharpness. Diversity within capitalism follows from the institutional solutions to the perennial information and coordination problems that firms face. Since such institutional solutions come in a limited number of discrete blocks, only a handful of them can be coherent enough to survive. This article first presents the basic outline and the main criticisms of VoC, and, based on that review and debate, explores three key dimensions of modern capitalist economies that influence business–state relations: the nature of business networks, cross-class coalitions between labor and capital, and the role of the state. That discussion leads to a revised typology of VoC which pays more attention to relations between the state and different coalitions of producer groups. The final section concludes.
The Global Firm
Authors: Crouch Colin
Published: May 2010

Three potential resolutions exist in the political theory literature to the problem of how to subject the giant firm to political science analysis. Under pluralist theory, the existence of high levels of competition in both economy and polity prevent concentrations of either economic or political power, and thereby limit or even cancel out any undue influence exercised by particular firms. Under neo-corporatist theory, firms exercise their political influence through formally constituted associations. This both maintains a level playing field among firms, at least within the sectors represented by an association, and makes transparent the way in which influence is exercised. In the theory of international political economy (IPE), the firm is treated more seriously, but is seen as a simple economic actor maximizing its profits, exercising political influence only in order to achieve that goal. This last comes closest to confronting issues of political analysis raised by the giant firm, but does so by “importing” economic theory into political analysis.
Business and Political Parties
Authors: Wilson Graham , Grant Wyn
Published: May 2010

Although it is conventional in political science to distinguish between political parties and interest groups, in practice the distinction is less clear. The conventional definitions suggest that political parties seek to capture power; interest groups aspire to influence public policy. Even the names of political parties make it obvious, however, that in practice this distinction is not absolute. The linkage in the UK between Labour parties and unions is usually clear. In the United States, the Minnesota branch of the Democratic Party is still called the Democratic Farm Labor Party. Farmers' parties used to be fairly common although as in the Swedish case they have generally adopted labels that are more encompassing such as, to continue the Swedish example, the Center Party. Parties do not call themselves “The Business Party” but are often described as such. What does this mean? On what basis is it reasonable to identify a party as the business party? There are a number of different indicators that can be used.
Business Representation in Washington, DC
Authors: Werner Timothy , Wilson Graham
Published: May 2010

Several broad generalizations about the nature of business representation in Washington would command general agreement. First, business representation is organizationally fragmented and competitive. Second, there is no hierarchical relationship between business organizations. Third, peak and trade organizations are not the only source of business representation in Washington. Large corporations increasingly have their own “in-house” lobbyists in a governmental affairs unit; although, this trend varies by industry and firm size, there was a marked increase between 1991 and 2001 across industries in the emphasis firms placed upon hiring in-house lobbyists. Fourth, business groups are often part of short-lived coalitions that can link businesses with other types of organizations or pit one group of businesses against another.
European Business–Government Relations
Authors: Coen David
Published: May 2010

In making the claim for a unique European business–government relationship this article sets out in the first part of the issue, which is about why firms located to Brussels and how they and EU institutions learned to play a specific lobbying game. In so doing the article describes how the creation of the single market and the concurrent increases in regulatory competencies of the Commission and the increasing fiscal and monetary convergence of member states reduced the ties to home capital lobbying and incentives for individual lobbying of the EU. Having identified what motivated lobbying of the EU and the creation of government affairs offices in Brussels, the first section attempts to explain how best practice and lobbying norms emerged over time—especially as interest group overloading created a more competitive political environment and pressure on EU institutions to manage interest group representation via the creation of an elite pluralist process of fora and consultations. The second part assesses how large firms have organized their political affairs functions and developed increasingly sophisticated government and EU affairs offices in Brussels.
Business Politics in Latin America
Authors: Schneider Ben Ross
Published: May 2010

This article proceeds in several steps to analyze business politics in Latin America. The second section briefly reviews a general conceptual framework that distinguishes the sources of business preferences as well as a range of ways that business influences policy-makers. The third section takes these analytic building blocks and incorporates them into an examination of the dynamic, strategic interaction between business and government. This section develops the portfolio analysis of the range of political investments that business in Latin America typically employs, including lobbying, campaign finance, business associations, personal networks, and corruption.
Japanese Business–Government Relations
Authors: Hamada Yukihiko
Published: May 2010

This article first reviews major explanations of the Japanese business–government model. Where it departs from general treatment of participation of business interests, it especially focuses on large Japanese multinational firms' lobbying strategies within the policy-making process. Then, in order to highlight the nature of the Japanese business–government model, the pattern of Japanese business lobbying is explained in detail, with special attention to firms' preferences for collective lobbying through their business associations and their lobbying instruments. In addition, the article refers to the development of Japanese business interests in the US and Europe, and points out the enduring national business culture among Japanese firms in the age of globalization.
International Regulators and Network Governance
Authors: Camerra‐Rowe Pamela , Egan Michelle
Published: May 2010

This article explores the rise of international regulation, the creation of transnational networks, and their implications for business and national governments. The article is divided into five parts. First, it examines the impact of globalization on business and the dilemmas it creates for business and governments. Second, it explores the wide range of formal and informal ways that business and government have sought to regulate the international economy. Third, it examines explanations for various types of global governance. Fourth, it analyzes some of the issues raised by global governance including enforcement issues, democratic legitimacy, and accountability to the public. Finally, the article concludes with some suggestions for future research.
The State, Business, and Training
Authors: Heyes Jason , Rainbird Helen
Published: May 2010

The first section of this article discusses why training and skill formation are considered to be central to economic competitiveness and company performance and the ways in which business interests may be involved in social institutions and policy-making in this arena. The second section explores the political economy of training and skill formation, identifying the strengths and limitations of different approaches and typologies. The third section extends the analysis of business and social institutions by examining the emerging supranational level for economic and employment policy. Here, the principal focus is on the European Union as a regional bloc in which training policy has played a significant role as an arena of social dialogue between organized interest groups at the European level. The fourth section examines the training and human resource management practices of multinational companies, exploring the extent to which they intersect with national institutional arenas in which business interest groups operate. The conclusion assesses continuity and change in the relationships between the state and business interests in the field of vocational training.
Entrepreneurship and Small Business Policy
Authors: Greene Francis J. , Storey David J.
Published: May 2010

This article aims to review the extent to which public policy can enhance entrepreneurship and so garner the economic benefits identified by van Praag and Versloot. To achieve this aim the article has four sections. It begins by addressing the conceptual confusion caused by the different definitions of “entrepreneurship and small business (public) policy.” Following Hart, it takes “public policy” to be the intended use of powers by government to impact on societal outcomes. It then follows Lundstrom and Stevenson and suggests that entrepreneurship policies focus upon individuals who are not yet business owners; here the policy objective is to shift them into becoming business owners. In contrast, small business or “small and medium sized enterprise” (SME) policies focus upon existing businesses.
Media Economics and the Political Economy of Information
Authors: McCluskey Jill J. , Swinnen Johan
Published: May 2010

The supply of information through commercial media has increased rapidly over the past decades. Commercial mass media has become the key information broker in our society, and it is where most people obtain their information. Mass media has become an important factor in influencing public opinion. Yet the media is criticized as being sensationalistic and biased in its reporting, giving demonstrators prime time coverage and ignoring careful analyses. This article reviews the emerging literature on the economics of the media and its implications for business and government.
Competition Policy
Authors: Wilks Stephen
Published: May 2010

Competition policy is a complex policy field which requires knowledge of competition law and economics as well as familiarity with the framework of policy and the agencies of enforcement. There is a large amount of literature dealing with the law and economics but surprisingly little work which provides an overall assessment of policy. Unfortunately, discussion of competition policy is therefore segregated into rather insular sub-specialisms. This article presents an outline of the main elements of policy but also seeks to cover new ground by presenting a distinctively “political economy” analysis of competition policy. It argues that competition policy is simultaneously a growing area of legal regulation, a core component of economic policy, and a mode of balancing public and private power in contemporary liberal democracy.
Introduction
Authors: Leighley Jan E.
Published: May 2010

This text evaluates the intellectual developments and challenges in the field of American elections and political behavior. The organization of the volume was guided by two observations. First, that the study of American elections and political behavior reflects both the advances and challenges of seeking to understand the political world through empirical scientific approaches. Second, that the realities of American elections and political behavior have changed over the past fifty years. This book discusses the issues in research design, primarily highlighting the varied approaches that mark the field today. It also concentrates on laboratory and field experiments, along with formal modeling. It then shifts to the more ‘substantive’ topics of political participation, vote choice, and interests in American electoral politics. The non-presidential elections are also described. Furthermore, overviews and critical analyses of the study of individuals, elections, and representation are presented.
Optimizing Survey Questionnaire Design in Political Science
Authors: Pasek Josh , Krosnick Jon A.
Published: May 2010

This article provides a summary of the literature's suggestions on survey design research. In doing so, it points researchers toward question formats that appear to yield the highest measurement reliability and validity. Using the American National Election Studies as a starting point, it shows the general principles of good questionnaire design, desirable choices to make when designing new questions, biases in some question formats and ways to avoid them, and strategies for reporting survey results. Finally, it offers a discussion of strategies for measuring voter turnout in particular, as a case study that poses special challenges. Scholars designing their own surveys should not presume that previously written questions are the best ones to use. Applying best practices in questionnaire design will yield more accurate data and more accurate substantive findings about the nature and origins of mass political behavior.
Why is American Turnout so Low, and Why Should We Care?
Authors: Martinez Michael D.
Published: May 2010

The vast literature on voter turnout in the United States addresses a variety of theoretical perspectives with a range of methodological tools, but students often return to three basic questions: Why is American voter turnout so low? Why is American voter turnout declining? And does low turnout really matter? This article specifically deals with these questions. It also explores American voter participation with both comparative and longitudinal perspectives. In addition to the changes in the social and partisan landscapes, changes in mobilization patterns also accounted for a portion of the change in turnout. It shows the conflicting incentives felt by elites, who shape the environment in which Americans vote. Election officials and candidates may value higher voter turnout in the abstract, but not to the exclusion of other political concerns and motivations.
American Voter Turnout in Historical Perspective
Authors: McDonald Michael P.
Published: May 2010

This article tries to understand American voter turnout rates in a historical perspective. In order to do this, the pool of eligible voters, the voting procedures, and the political circumstances surrounding the elections in a given period should be addressed. The article discusses the four eras in American participation: Founding Era, Party Machine Era, Segregation Era, and Nationalization Era. The Founding Era witnessed the lowest voter turnout rates in American history due to measurement error. The Party Machine Era serves as an indicator of the important role political parties played in organizing American society. The Segregation Era marks a period of retrenchment in voter turnout. The overwhelming voting trend during the Nationalization Era has been a tearing down of walls, not building them. An active area of research is how procedural changes affect voter turnout, from how people are registered to when and how they cast their ballots.
Expanding the Possibilities
Authors: Harris Fredrick C. , Gillion Daniel
Published: May 2010

This article tries to incorporate the perspectives on both conventional and so-called unconventional tactics into a toolbox theory of participation in which individuals employ a variety and a combination of participatory acts to achieve desired political and social goals. It also argues that individuals will choose actions that are selected less for their acceptability in the political culture than for their perceived effectiveness in obtaining desired political goals. But before this alternative perspective is considered, the article first outlines how political scientists and sociologists have conceptualized political activism. A toolbox framework of political behavior can be incorporated into a new research agenda by asking innovative questions, as well as through the data collection process and methodological approaches. From a toolbox perspective, there is the possibility that individuals are engaged as voters and boycotters, as political campaigners and demonstrators rather than as actors in two different sets of participatory worlds.
Voter Registration
Authors: Brown Robert D.
Published: May 2010

This article investigates the most prominent themes in voter registration. It also describes an important limitation in the work on voter registration: research on voter registration has focused primarily on voter registration as a determinant of political behavior, to the detriment of the understanding of actual behavior of registering itself. It then provides some concluding observations on how addressing this limitation may offer insight into an important paradox in the voter registration and participation literatures: how it is possible that registration laws have become significantly liberalized over the years, yet with relatively little payoff in terms of voter turnout and increased representativeness of those who vote? It first deals with the influence of the registration requirement on voter turnout. Additionally, the resulting implications for the composition of the active electorate are explained. The impacts of election reforms designed to reduce the impact of this institutional barrier to voting are shown.
Early, Absentee, and Mail‐in Voting
Authors: Stein Robert M. , Vonnahme Greg
Published: May 2010

This article describes what is known and what is not known about voting early. It specifically refers to absentee voting, mail-in voting, and in-person early voting generally as ‘early voting’. Moreover, it determines what is believed to be a fruitful research agenda on early voting, as well as the methodological challenges that scholars will likely confront. A brief history of early voting is first presented. The turnout effect of early voting is wasted on early voters but has a significant and positive effect on the likelihood that infrequent voters will ballot on election day. It is shown that parties and candidates have an important role in catalyzing the effects of election reforms. The convenience and accessibility of a voter's election-day voting place is a significant incentive to voting. Future research on election reforms might pick up from more basic research on models of voter turnout.
Digital Democracy
Authors: Mossberger Karen , Tolbert Caroline J.
Published: May 2010

This article investigates the evidence and debates over the influences of the internet on how, and how much, citizens participate. It concentrates on the knowledge and involvement of individual citizens. In particular, it describes how online participation affects ‘offline’ participation, the nature of participation, and political representation more generally. A key consideration is how internet use for information or participation differs from alternatives ‘offline’, and whether citizens' use of the internet actually causes, or merely reflects, changes in civic engagement and participation. It argues that the internet has the potential to transform participation in several important ways. The extant evidence reveals more about links between internet use and voting than how online politics affects the decision to vote. The literature about the differences in networks and participation online strongly suggests the need for more social network analysis.
The Study of Electoral Behavior
Authors: Bartels Larry M.
Published: May 2010

This article discusses the developments of electoral behavior. It is shown that the political aspects of the Columbia studies are the ones that have turned out to have the most influence on subsequent voting research. This work demonstrated the rich potential of election surveys as data for understanding campaigns and elections. The next advance in election studies emerged in the following decade at the University of Michigan. The American Voter was the acknowledged foundation for the entire field of voting research in the decade following its publication. The theoretical account of voting behavior drew heavily upon the metaphor of a ‘funnel of causality’. The ‘funnel of causality’ provided a convenient framework within which to pursue both a comprehensive program of electoral accounting and a more selective strategy of explanation. Elections and the Political Order signaled a continuing interest in the relationship between electoral behavior and the broader workings of government.
Organizing American Politics, Organizing Gender
Authors: Sanbonmatsu Kira
Published: May 2010

This article describes the gender differences in mass behavior and candidacy. It also needs to ask: when does American politics organize gender? Perhaps the most common theoretical foundation underlying research on gender and behavior is the idea that gender differences in interests may lead to gender differences in voting behavior. The existence of gender differences depends on what aspect of behavior is examined, at what point in time, and whether men and women are compared at the individual or aggregate level. Gender differences are often small or non-existent, which would seem to suggest that gender is not a central dividing line in American politics. The mobilization studies that identify politics as a source of gender differences in political behavior are described. It then suggests new areas for research with two brief examples.
Local and National Forces in Congressional Elections
Authors: Burden Barry C. , Wichowsky Amber
Published: May 2010

This article provides a discussion on local and national forces in congressional elections. The tension between local and national forces is the most compelling feature of congressional elections. The wavering of congressional elections between local and national matters is a direct result of the institution's wavering between a national body of policy makers and a collection of local representatives. The central unit of analysis in the study of congressional elections has been the candidate. If challenger decisions are indeed the keys to understanding congressional elections, clearly more research is needed to understand how deterrence and strategic decisions operate. The growing sources of data on voters, candidates, and the campaign environment provide rich opportunities to develop middle-range theories examining systematic variations in the national-local divide.
Studying State Judicial Races in a Transformed Electoral Environment
Authors: Langer Laura , Leonard Meghan , Polk Andrea
Published: May 2010

This article provides a discussion on judicial politics — state court elections and campaigns. It also reviews some of the major trends in the existing scholarship and suggests which scholarly directions have advanced the understanding of judicial elections and campaigns, which debates are unresolved, and which lines of inquiry prompted new discoveries and suggested important avenues for future inquiry. It presents an overview of the past twenty years of scholarship on state court elections and campaigns. Some of the more recent and significant contributions have been made in the area of judicial campaigns and, in particular, the consequences of electioneering activities for electoral success, judicial voting behavior, and a court's legitimacy. Systematic examinations of state court elections and campaigns have advanced the science of politics both theoretically and methodologically and opened new paths of political inquiry about elections across all three branches of government.
Primary Elections
Authors: Norrander Barbara
Published: May 2010

This article focuses on publications of primary elections from the last ten years. The candidate field for primaries contains diversity in both the strength and number of contenders. The direct primary literature actually does a better job at explaining candidate entry. Political science research from the 1980s and 1990s pointed to two main actors in momentum: media and voters. Campaign strategies are more varied and perhaps more effective in primaries rather than general elections. The impact of electoral rules is reported. The 2008 presidential nominations at first glance would appear to break from the pattern of recent nominations. The close contest between Obama and Clinton refocuses attention on the rules: rules for delegate distribution, rules for caucuses, and rules for participation (i.e., open versus closed primaries).
Direct Democracy in the United States
Authors: Bowler Shaun , Donovan Todd
Published: May 2010

This article provides an argument that other questions arise from the study of voting on ballot propositions that relate to the variety of voter preferences, how voter opinions are formed, and how voters think about democratic institutions. Although voting on some proposals may well be quite difficult and voting on many proposals may well tax the patience of most voters, it is all too easy to overstate the difficulties voters have in understanding what is going on with a given proposition. The study of ballot propositions can advance the study of voting behavior, especially in the areas of framing effects, the dynamics of choice, and questions about how voters reason and about how democratic institutions and processes should function. Each of these points is discussed in turn. It is shown that there is a complex relationship between mass preferences, institutions, and policy.
Voters in Context
Authors: Stone Walter J. , Buttice Matthew K.
Published: May 2010

Political behavior is a function of individual characteristics, the political and social contexts in which they are embedded, and interactions between context and individual variables. The studies and hypotheses organized on one dimension by two types of citizen response are addressed, these are: engagement and choice. The article also defines the strategic decisions of candidates and others who define the political context. The two aspects of this dimension are candidate investment and differentials. It is imperative to take full account of how competition between leaders stimulates citizen response. The study of how citizens react to the context facing them must also include theory and evidence about how that context gets defined. Formal theoretical work on candidate strategic choices, especially with respect to position-taking on the issues, has advanced, but research on many of the other choices that shape the political context is less developed.
Parties, Elections, and Democratic Politics
Authors: Aldrich John H. , Griffin John D.
Published: May 2010

The claim of this article that party competition is a necessary precondition for democracy may not strike all readers as particularly innovative. It starts by defining what is meant by a political party, by a party system, and by a competitive party system. Then, it describes how both citizens and politicians benefit from the construction of and adherence to clear party labels in a self-enforcing equilibrium. Meaningful party labels allow voters to play a substantial role in selecting the direction of policy and holding politicians accountable; ambitious politicians affiliate with parties that create meaningful and popular labels; a party will be competitive when its label attracts a sufficient number of voters and ambitious candidates; and a competitive party system consists of two or more parties each of which is in equilibrium.
Organized Interests: Evolution and Influence
Authors: Francia Peter L.
Published: May 2010

This article shows that interest groups make use of different strategies and have had to adapt to evolving legal and political environments. First, it provides an overview of what interest groups want and the activities that interest groups have pursued historically to achieve their goals. Next, it explores the effect of organized interests in American elections, with a specific focus on the effects of financial contributions, voter mobilization efforts, and efforts to set the campaign agenda. Furthermore, the article presents a discussion on the state of the academic research on interest groups, and offers some suggestions for researchers to pursue in the future. It is shown that laws that regulate interest group activities are not a trivial matter. In particular, campaign finance laws have played a significant role in affecting the strategies, tactics, and the influence of interest groups in American politics.
Redistricting
Authors: Grofman Bernard , Brunell Thomas L.
Published: May 2010

This article shows how districting practices in the US differ from those in other countries. It specifically addresses the following questions: ‘Who gets to make decisions about redistricting?’; ‘What are the types of criteria by which redistricting plans might be evaluated?’; and ‘Who benefits from a given plan?’ It is thought that these three questions may deal with institutions, ideas, and interests, respectively. A useful way to think about redistricting criteria is in terms of a fivefold division of criteria into ones based, respectively, on person, place, race, political party, and candidate status. In addition, the effect of redistricting is described. It is generally showed that if a person is not interested in redistricting, that person must not be interested in politics, or in democratic theory.
On Participation
Authors: Junn Jane
Published: May 2010

This article provides an argument for the consideration of individuals in dynamic relationship to both categories and the context of power in the study of political behavior. It argues that contemporary scholars of US political behavior should consider more carefully two important assumptions when analyzing the relationship between political participation and democracy in the United States. The first is the assumption of individuals as a unit of analysis in stable and meaningful categories. A second assumption which suggests holding to greater scrutiny involves the uniformity of political agency. Education and other individual-level resources may work in different ways in influencing political participation among minority populations. Furthermore, if one assumes that individuals participate in politics partly as a reflection of their political needs or demands, and these vary across groups due to social and political structures, then the nature of political action is likely to vary across groups.
Studying American Elections*
Authors: Abramson Paul R. , Aldrich John H. , Rohde David W.
Published: May 2010

This article reviews what American elections, through the National Election Study (NES) and similar survey-based analyses of the electorate, have accomplished. What were the major intellectual questions and theoretical debates that have arisen as a result of elections, and where have they taken us? It then evaluates the directions that have spun off from this common core in recent years, and asks where they are likely to lead. Scholars have used NES surveys to test propositions drawn from all of these approaches. However, none of them provides a comprehensive answer to questions of how voters decide whether to vote and for whom. The classical paradigm of the large-N random survey has already taken many new directions. The results are changing the nature of the research problem and it is therefore likely to change the nature of the theoretical structure of the field. It seems likely that new theory will emerge from advances in social psychology and neuroscience.
In Search of Representation Theory
Authors: Hurley Patricia A. , Hill Kim Quaile
Published: May 2010

This article addresses the central concepts for and most critical research challenges that characterize the systematic study of representation. It also determines the frontier of knowledge and the most notable gaps in that frontier — based on what is known from both classic and contemporary research. It then recognizes that the topic of democratic representation leads to many topical questions of interest to both scholars and the general public. Additionally, it describes how elections affect representation, investigating the influence of turnout, candidate choice, competition, electoral frequency, and electoral change on the extent of policy representation. The representation of minorities is considered. A discussion of complex models of representation that move beyond the basic assumptions of most empirical work on the subject is further provided. Finally, the article emphasizes how a number of contradictory empirical results can be resolved.
Quantitative Approaches to Studying the Presidency
Authors: Howell William G.
Published: May 2010

This article outlines the state of quantitative research on the presidency a quarter century after George Edwards issued his original entreaty. After briefly documenting publication trends on quantitative research on the presidency in a variety of professional journals, it describes the substantive contributions of selected quantitative studies to long-standing debates about the centralization and politicization of presidential authority, public appeals, and presidential policy making. It also pays particular attention to the ways in which recent scholarship addresses methodological issues that regularly plague studies of the organization of political institutions, their interactions with the public, and their influence in systems of separated powers. The literatures on bureaucratic control, public appeals, and unilateral policy making have made considerable advances in the past few years. There are still several challenges that face quantitative research on the US presidency.
Presidential Transitions
Authors: Pfiffner James P.
Published: May 2010

This article begins by exploring the development and increasing complexity of the transition of the presidency in the second half of the twentieth century. It also explores the key elements that influence successful transition and suggests questions that future scholars might address. The keys to a successful transition entail mastering the following elements: early planning, White House staff, cabinet, presidential personnel, media relations, the policy agenda, and finally the overall shift from campaigning to governing. The article then provides possible directions for future scholars. Transition research suffers from some inherent drawbacks. The best scholarship on presidential transitions has exploited primary sources in some depth. Personnel recruitment presents a major organizational challenge in every transition. The fundamentals of presidential transitions have been analyzed in a rich, scholarly literature. Perhaps the broadest and most important questions that future scholars can address concern how transitions affect governance.
Presidents and the Political Agenda
Authors: Wood B. Dan
Published: May 2010

This article discusses the current state of scientific research on the president and the political agenda. It also points toward gaps and limitations in the literature and areas for future research. It starts by describing the presidents and general theories of agenda setting. Presidents must compete with a variety of influences if they want to focus systemic attention on their issue priorities. Their main paths for focusing systemic attention are through the mass media and making direct appeals to the public. Agenda setting is a critical element of presidential leadership. The presidential issue priorities may not be ripe for consideration due to constraints on the agenda space or the dominance of more pressing matters. There are many instances where the president is simply one of the players in a policy-making process that is always ongoing. It is stated that the American president is a significant actor in setting political agendas.
Leading the Public
Authors: Edwards George C.
Published: May 2010

Leading the public is at the core of the modern presidency. Gaining and maintaining office, obtaining support from an independently elected legislature, and increasing the party's representation in Congress depend on public opinion. The premise that the president has considerable potential to move the public is so widespread. The presidential public leadership is discussed in this article. The article also reports on different aspects of potentially leading the public through exploiting existing opinion. There are several means by which presidents might increase their chances of success in leading the public by exploiting existing public opinion. The rudimentary state of the understanding of public leadership may be an advantage to scholars of the presidency.