bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Women Candidates for Parliament: Transforming the Agenda?
Authors: Norris Pippa , Lovenduski Joni
Published: January 2009

Why should more women be elected to positions of power in Britain? What difference would it make? This Note aims to examine these questions using data from a survey of almost six hundred men and women candidates to the British Parliament in the 1987 general election. There are two major arguments for increasing women's representation.
Must Liberals Always Vote for Liberals and Need the More Competent Candidate Always Be Preferred?
Authors: Glazer Amihai , Grofman Bernard
Published: January 2009

Anthony Downs's model of voter choice is customarily interpreted to mean that each voter chooses the candidate whose positions are closest to the voter's. Actually, however, this is too simple a picture of Downs's views. Downs anticipated ideas of prospective and performance-based retrospective voting. He recognized that voters evaluate candidates in terms of their past performances and expectations about future performance, and may discount issue proximity to a candidate if the candidate is not expected to be able to live up to his campaign promises on the issue in question.
Controlling Theatre Nuclear War
Authors: Ball Desmond
Published: January 2009

Over the past decade, both official defence establishments and independent strategic analysts have devoted increasing attention to the command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) systems which support the US and Soviet strategic nuclear forces, and to the role of these systems in crises and in strategic nuclear war-fighting. In particular, specific consideration has been given to such critical issues as the extent to which current strategic C3I systems enhance crisis stability or instability, and whether or not they would serve to control escalation in the event of a strategic nuclear exchange or, because of their vulnerabilities, would in fact contribute to the dynamics of the escalation process.
Economic Crisis, Incumbent Performance and Regime Support: A Comparison of Longitudinal Data from West Germany and Costa Rica
Authors: Finkel Steven E. , Muller Edward N. , Seligson Mitchell A.
Published: January 2009

While much is known about the effects of the economy on the popularity and electoral fortunes of political leaders, political scientists know very little about how economic decline and political performance influence support for the political regime and the stability of democratic systems. We use three cross-national longitudinal surveys to address this issue: two collected in Costa Rica in the midst of a severe economic crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s; and one in West Germany during the recession of the mid-1970s. We show that in both countries, overall support for the political regime remained extremely high during the economic decline, while satisfaction with incumbent performance fluctuated much more sharply. Moreover, at the individual level, changes in satisfaction with incumbent performance were only weakly related to changes in regime support. These results provide strong evidence suggesting that if democracies enter economic downturns with initially high levels of regime support, they will be able to withstand even severe, prolonged crises of economic performance.
The Politics of Corn Law Repeal and Theories of Commercial Policy
Authors: McKeown T. J.
Published: January 2009

The large shift in voting in the House of Commons on repeal of the Corn Laws in the 1842-46 period has led many analysts to focus on the political calculus of Peel's government and on the role of ideology in shaping this policy change. While the claim that ideology was an independent source of change lacks substantiation, the claims about Peel's changing political calculus are an important part of a larger explanation for the change in voting. However, showing that Peel had his own reasons for preferring repeal is not the same as showing why Peel was successful. An analysis of the political and economic interests of constituents and Members of Parliament reveals that these interests were systematically related to Members' votes on repeal. Repeal is thus more appropriately understood as the result of the interaction of Peel's immediate objectives with a more congenial political environment that had arisen due to the changes induced by British economic development.
Political Change in China – Power, Policy and Process
Authors: Goodman David S. G.
Published: January 2009

China's politics have changed dramatically during the last decade. Schram, in one of the works which have stimulated this review article, has characterized the period since 1978 as one of ‘Economics in Command’ by way of contrast to the exhortation to put ‘Politics in Command’ – the slogan that dominated the last decade of Mao's life and the era of the Cultural Revolution. The drive to economic modernization has replaced ‘class struggle’ as the main goal of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Political reform has been an essential part of that drive, for in its analysis of the failings of the previous three decades the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has argued that economic growth and development could not occur without political stability and institutionalization.
On Culture and Politics in America: A Perspective from Structural Anthropology
Authors: Merelman Richard M.
Published: January 2009

This article proposes a structuralist alternative to mainstream behavioural studies of political culture in the United States. After first describing the deficiencies in the mainstream approach, the article suggests that political culture as attitudes and values should be seen as surface elements of a deep cultural structure. The structuralist alternative is presented in some detail, with emphasis upon cultural narratives. Building upon structuralist theory, American political culture emerges as ‘mythologized individualism’, the ramifications of which are described in terms of American ideological cognition and in terms of American capacities to use culture as a means of realizing democratic ideals. In these latter respects, mythologized individualism is found wanting.
Looking Forward and Looking Backward: Prospective and Retrospective Voting in the 1980 Federal Elections in Canada
Authors: Uslaner Eric M.
Published: January 2009

Theories of voting have distinguished between prospective and retrospective evaluations of political parties. However, not only may both factors be at work in an election, but they may also be complementary. The 1980 Canadian federal elections were, according to most accounts, both a retrospective and a prospective referendum on the energy issue. However, previous examinations of this election have failed to show any mandate emerging from the contest. This re-analysis of election data from that contest, shows that both prospective and retrospective evaluations mattered, above and beyond the quality of leadership in the country. Moreover, the pattern of voting strongly suggests an elite-led pattern of issue concerns akin to that suggested by the ‘two-step flow of communications’. Those with the strongest pattern of issue concerns voted prospect-ively, while less committed partisans cast their ballots retrospectively.
Mobilization, Social Movements and Party Recruitment: The Italian Communist Party since the 1960s
Authors: Lange Peter , Irvin Cynthia , Tarrow Sidney
Published: January 2009

Political life in the advanced industrial democracies since the Second World War has been characterized by periods of mass mobilization and protest followed by years of relative quiescence and institutional dominance. The individual phases have prompted extensive reflection. Far less attention, however, has been devoted to how developments in one phase might influence the subsequent one. Using data from a 1979 survey of activists of the Italian Communist Party, this article examines how the cycle of protest which swept Italy in the late-1960s and early-1970s was reflected in the distribution of attitudes towards dissent within the different generations of party activists. Our findings clearly suggest that participation in social movements had independent effects on the presence of particular tolerance attitudes and that phases of mobilization affect the distribution of politically salient attitudes among party activists during a subsequent phase of institutionalization. This, in turn, has possible implications for processes of change in the Italian political system.
Time, Parties and Budgetary Change: Fiscal Decisions in English Cities, 1974–88
Authors: Page Edward C. , Goldsmith Michael , Kousgaard Pernille
Published: January 2009

The ideological differences between the Labour and Conservative parties in the 1980s are greater than at any time in the postwar era. Consequently one would expect party control at the local level to have an increasing effect on local government decisions. Using an approach to cross-time analysis that avoids some of the major shortcomings of other studies, the relationship between party control and local fiscal decisions in English cities between 1974 and 1988 can be traced. The method allows not only an exploration of the direct effect of party control, but also its indirect effects, mediated through grant penalties and rate-capping. Under Mrs Thatcher's administration the impact of party on local fiscal decisions has increased quite substantially.
Recapturing the Falklands: Models of Conservative Popularity, 1979–83
Authors: Clarke Harold D. , Mishler William , Whiteley Paul
Published: January 2009

Recently, Sanders et al. have made the intriguing and counter-intuitive argument that the impact of the Falklands war on Conservative popularity was inconsequential. Their analyses raise important theoretical and methodological issues concerning the time-series analysis of party support. This present article contends that the stepwise regression procedures employed by Sanders et al. are misleading, particularly when predictor variables are highly intercorrelated. Box-Jenkins analyses demonstrate that the Falklands strongly influenced Conservative support, net of the effects of macroeconomic conditions and personal economic expectations. The significance of the latter variable in the models confirms Sanders et al.'s argument about the role of subjective economic variables in party popularity functions. Non-economic variables are also relevant, however, and popularity functions that model them correctly will enhance our understanding of both the economics and the politics of party support.
The Social Steering of Complex Organizations
Authors: Bovens Mark A. P.
Published: January 2009

‘The first and perhaps most compelling attribute of the modern social structure which we inhabit’, according to James Coleman, ‘is theasymmetryof a large portion of its relations’. What is striking about modern society, however, is not the asymmetry of relations as such. Western societies have often been, and to some extent still are, highly asymmetric; think, for example, of the relations between feudal lords and their serfs, between factory owners and workers, between men and women. What is striking about the modern asymmetry is that the parties involved are completely different classes of entities, natural persons and complex organizations. Our (great) grandparents had to rely for their income, housing and the supply of goods and services mostly on independent employers, landlords, shopkeepers and artisans. We, on the other hand, are dealing with corporations, welfare institutions, public services, housing associations, building societies, banks and department stores. These organizations are not just rational, person-like servants, waiting quietly in the corners of society to be called upon. They also, and predominantly, act on their own account. Complex organizations are a new and powerful breed of social actors; they arecorporate actorsalongside the traditional, human actors.
The Electoral Payoffs of Fission and Fusion
Authors: Mair Peter
Published: January 2009

Political parties are not unitary actors; rather, each contains within its ranks a variety of different ideological beliefs and strategic orientations. Nor are individual political parties wholly isolated; rather, each has friends and allies among the other parties, and, of course, some implacable opponents.
Policy Direction and Performance Evaluation: Complementary Explanations of the Reagan Elections
Authors: Shanks J. Merrill , Miller Warren E.
Published: January 2009

This article reviews the range of explanations which have been proposed for voting behaviour in the US elections won by Ronald Reagan and develops a comprehensive model for the evolution of electoral choices in both of those contests. Estimates are provided for both the direct and indirect effects of several types of variables or ‘explanatory themes’, and those estimates are used to assess the relative importance of each of those themes in explaining individual-level choices and the aggregate outcomes of both Reagan elections. These procedures suggest that preferences concerning both policy direction and evaluations of national and presidential performance played major roles in the two Reagan elections – both in the individual-level decisions and in producing the Republicans' aggregate victories.
The Tiger Triumphant: The Mobilization and Alignment of the Indian Electorate
Authors: Vanderbok William G.
Published: January 2009

The literature on Indian electoral behaviour portrays parliamentary elections since independence as a series of critical, realigning and restoring contests in which voters are repelled by and attracted to the Congress party in great waves. The model is examined from the perspective of voter mobilization. Not only is the established view misleading, it often fails even to describe accurately what actually happened. Significant differences in voting behaviour are found separating the Hindi and non-Hindi speaking areas of India. District-level voting trends are explored within the framework of a multiple regression model applied comprehensively across all of India's general elections and administrative districts. Persistence of democratic politics is to a considerable degree due to the contained volatility of the Congress and opposition party coalitions.
Does Studying Politics Make a Difference? The Political Knowledge, Attitudes and Perceptions of School Students
Authors: Denver David , Hands Gordon
Published: January 2009

There has been considerable debate in recent years about the effects of the teaching of Politics upon levels of ‘political literacy’ – the knowledge and understanding of the political process and political issues which enables people to perform their roles as citizens effectively. Almost everyone receives some form of political education. For most people, however, the process of political education is informal: political knowledge, as well as opinions and attitudes, is picked up from the family, friends and the media. Informal political education also takes place in schools. In primary schools, children acquire elementary information about the political system, parties, leaders and so on. In secondary schools, subjects such as History and Geography and courses in General Studies frequently involve topics that are relevant to politics.
‘The Politics of Corn Law Repeal’: A Comment
Authors: McLean Iain
Published: January 2009

McKeown's excellent article (thisJournal, 19 (1989), 353–80) excavates a rich seam and shows that there is much more to be dug out. By voting for the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, a substantial number of MPs palpably voted against their economic interest. Even though many of the switchers can be shown to be Peelite office-holders with a vested interest in staying in office (p. 378), they cannot be described simply as Virginian (Chicagoan) self-interested actors, because everybody knew that Peel's action carried the risk of destroying the Tory coalition; his government fell in June 1846, and the Tories did not regain secure power until 1874. McKeown's regressions are valuable pointers towards alternative explanations, but the necessary limitations of his data may have led him to underestimate the effects of ideology and of consumer versus producer politics.
Corporate Political Strategies
Authors: Wilson Graham K.
Published: January 2009

With one partial exception, political scientists have carried out little empirical research on corporate political activity. That one exception is political action committees, PACs. Perhaps because of the ready availability of apparently reliable data on corporate political contributions, most empirical studies of business political activity have concentrated on PACs. The study of PACs is not, however, synonymous with the study of corporate political behaviour. Indeed, not all corporations have PACs; Sabato estimated that almost half the largest manufacturing corporations did not. At least one politically active corporation, Du Pont, refused for many years to establish a PAC.
Respecting Beliefs and Rebuking Rushdie
Authors: Jones Peter
Published: January 2009

The furore that followed the publication of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses has provided a graphic illustration of the conflicts that may still arise in societies characterized by diverse religious beliefs. This article examines how far the rules governing a plural society should require its members to defer to beliefs that they themselves do not share. In particular, it examines whether a principle of ‘respect for beliefs’ can provide adequate reason for limiting freedom of expression. A strong version of the principle, which would limit substantive criticism of beliefs, is found untenable. A weaker version of the principle, which would concern itself not with the matter but with the manner in which others' beliefs are treated, has greater plausibility and moral appeal. That also, however, proves too hazardous and indeterminate a basis for setting legal limits to freedom of expression.
Government Coalitions and Intraparty Politics
Authors: Laver Michael , Shepsle Kenneth A.
Published: January 2009

A new model of government formation is elaborated and developed to allow consideration of politics within political parties. The impact of coalition bargaining on intraparty politics is considered, as well as the impact of intraparty politics on coalition bargaining. Different intraparty decision-making regimes are shown to affect coalition outcomes. Finally, the potential impact of anticipated coalition bargaining on the choice of decision-making regime within a party is explored.
Do the American States Do Industrial Policy?
Authors: Eisinger Peter
Published: January 2009

Although students of American political economy argue that the United States has no industrial policy, this view misses entirely the recent emergence of industrial policies at the state level. An examination of twenty states that have written strategic economic development plans shows that in varying degrees state industrial policies resemble the national industrial policies of France and Japan both in terms of the structure of the underlying economic plans and in their programmatic emphasis. On the basis of the evidence here it is reasonable to conclude that the American taste and capacity for planned intervention and state participation in the market economy is far greater than might be supposed from an exclusive focus on national economic policy making.
The Market for Toleration: A Case Study in an Aspect of the Ambiguity of ‘Positive Economics’
Authors: Hampsher-Monk Iain
Published: January 2009

Liberal apologists for the free market commonly claim for it the virtue of promoting toleration by eroding – through financial penalties – economically irrelevant ‘discrimination’. This claim is contested both by a consideration of a range of evidence from economic anthropology and by a critique of the conceptual position held to sustain it. Anthropological evidence suggests that ‘perfect’ markets frequently generate long-term non-contractual dyadic ties which undermine the one-off spot-contract constitutive of the ideal market. Furthermore, the pursuit of such ties often follows and so reinforces ethnic or religious distinction. Conceptually, the liberal argument's validity hinges on the assumption that market actors prefer to maximize money-holdings rather than express intolerance or maintain discrimination. This assertion is not only empirically false, but, if true, would ironically undermine the liberal claim that free markets are ‘neutral’ with regard to actors' preferences. Thus, libertarian claims about the effect of the operation of the market can only be sustained by violating their own theoretical premisses.
The Psychological Impact of Electoral Laws: Measuring Duverger's Elusive Factor
Authors: Blais André , Carty R. K.
Published: January 2009

Duverger's law regarding the impact of electoral systems on party competition depends upon two effects: the mechanical and the psychological. The former is well defined and well documented, whereas the latter has more often been a matter for theoretical speculation. In this article we provide an operational definition of the psychological effect of electoral systems and measure its impact across twenty democratic systems over more than a century. Our findings suggest that it does exist, that it works as Duverger predicted and that its impact is about the same magnitude as the mechanical effect.
The Impact of By-elections on General Elections: England, 1950–87
Authors: Upton Graham J. G.
Published: January 2009

In his introduction to a definitive collection of articles on British by-elections, David Butler observed that by-elections ‘may offer some guide to the public mood; but who now would dare to give a figure for the likely difference between a by-election today and what would happen in an immediate general election?’
Partisanship, Policy and Performance: The Reagan Legacy in the 1988 Election
Authors: Shanks J. Merrill , Miller Warren E.
Published: January 2009

Various journalistic and academic accounts of the 1988 election suggest that George Bush's victory over Michael Dukakis should be primarily attributed to Bush's advantage in voters' comparative evaluations of the two candidates' personal qualities, or to citizens' demands to hold the line against any tax increase or to white voters' attitudes towards blacks and policies designed to assist blacks. This article, based on the 1988 National Election Study, presents evidence which contradicts all three of these conventional conclusions. Based on a multi-stage explanatory model, the authors emphasize instead the substantial roles in determining individual vote decisions that were played by preferences concerning policy direction, in arenas other than those about taxes or race, and by voters' evaluations of the Reagan administration's performance. The authors also emphasize the difference between distinguishing Bush voters from Dukakis voters and explaining the aggregate outcome of the election. In their analysis, the relatively modest size of George Bush's victory (in comparison with Reagan's margin in 1984) is given added significance by documenting the continuing role played by approval of the Reagan administration's policies, the virtual disappearance between 1984 and 1988 of the Democrats' advantage in party identification among voters and the increase in the preponderance of self-designated conservatives over liberals that took place during the same four-year interval.
Television and Presidential Popularity in America
Authors: West Darrell M.
Published: January 2009

Presidential approval ratings are a frequently used barometer of performance and popularity. However, despite recognition of the media age in which we live, little work has examined the impact of television on presidential popularity. Using a 1980 and 1984 television content study, panel data from the 1980 National Election Study and rolling cross-sectional data from the 1984 Continuous Monitoring Study, I compare two American presidents (Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan) commonly seen as having different effectiveness on television. While media effects were not uniformly present during the two presidencies, there was some evidence that television harmed popularity, particularly when the content of news stories and commentary turned negative. I conclude by discussing the ramifications of these results for presidential strategies based on ‘going public’.
Sectional Differences in Partisan Bias and Electoral Responsiveness in US House Elections, 1850–1980
Authors: Brady David W. , Grofman Bernard
Published: January 2009

In this Note we challenge the claim asserted in a 1984Wall Street Journaleditorial that partisan gerrymandering by Democratic-controlled state legislatures is the principal reason for the inability of Republicans to translate their national share of votes proportionally into seats in the US House of Representatives. In contrast to previous work, we show the critical importance of sectional (South/non-South) differences for understanding the dynamics of electoral change at the congressional level. We argue that the inability of Republicans to translate votes effectively into congressional seats is largely a product of wasted Republican votes in the South, although we recognize that a handful of states (e.g., California) are significantly gerrymandered against Republicans, and we also recognize that part of the reason for the present-day Democratic advantage in the House is an incumbency advantage that benefits the party that controls most seats.
Political and Economic Explanations for Unemployment: A Cross-National and Long-Term Analysis
Authors: Korpi Walter
Published: January 2009

This article shows that the widely accepted supply shock and real wage gap explanation of increases in unemployment rates since 1973 has only limited empirical support. The causal factors behind unemployment are best understood by focusing on conflicts of interest in Western democracies, on the distribution of power resources between major interest groups and on strategies of conflict. Given economic constraints, from this perspective unemployment appears as the labour market expression of distributive conflict, alternatives to which are inflation and industrial disputes. Strategic action by government elites and long-term patterns in settling conflicts are major factors behind the two great transformations of Western unemployment levels – the introduction of full employment in the immediate post-war period and the return to high unemployment since 1973 – as well as in variations in unemployment among eighteen Western democracies.
The Fallacy of Democratic Elitism: Elite Competition and Commitment to Civil Liberties
Authors: Sniderman Paul M. , Fletcher Joseph F. , Russell Peter H. , Tetlock Philip E. , Gaines Brian J.
Published: January 2009

Since the seminal studies of Stouffer and McClosky it has become accepted that political elites are markedly more committed to civil liberties and democratic values than is the public at large; so much so that political elites should be recognized, in McClosky's words, as ‘the major repositories of the public conscience and as carriers of the Creed’. The argument of this article is that previous analyses have erred by focusing on the contrast between elites taken as a whole and the mass public. The crucial contrast is not between elites and citizens, but rather between groups of elites that are competing one with another for political power.

Drawing on large-scale surveys of two modern democracies, Canada and the United States, this article demonstrates that differences among elites in support for civil liberties eclipse, both in size and political significance, differences between elites and citizens. The fallacy of democratic elitism, as this study shows, is its indifference to which elites prevail in the electoral competition for power.
The Theory of Government Failure
Authors: Le Grand Julian
Published: January 2009

This article outlines a theory of government failure that parallels the more well-established theory of market failure. It builds on the work of the public choice school concerning the behaviour of governments under the assumption that all relevant agents pursue their selfinterest. It examines the theoretical consequences for efficiency and equity of three kinds of government activity: provision, subsidy and regulation. The conclusion is reached that all three may create inefficiency and inequity, but that the form and magnitude of the failure will differ with the type of activity; hence it is important that the three are distinguished. It is also emphasised that the extent of government failure in each case (and whether it is greater or smaller than the corresponding areas of market failure) is ultimately an empirical question, not a theoretical one.
The Hawthorne Effect in Election Studies: The Impact of Survey Participation on Voting
Authors: Granberg Donald , Holmberg Sören
Published: January 2009

Movements of the heavenly bodies are not affected in any discernible way by the fact that there are people on earth recording the apparent movement. Similarly it is almost inconceivable that the planets would alter their orbits because of Kepler's discovery and publication of the laws of planetary motion. The social and behavioural sciences are different in that the objects under investigation may behave differently as a result of the research process. This is particularly true when the method involves naturalistic observation, surveys or experiments. When people behave differently because of being research subjects, this is called a Hawthorne effect.
Choice: Its Increase and its Value
Authors: Dowding Keith
Published: January 2009

Much has been made in recent years of increasing the choice of the citizen-consumer. This article argues that the concept of ‘increasing choice’ is far more problematic than at first appears and has little intrinsic value in itself. Choice is only to be valued in itself in the sense that the process of choice or decision-making plays a part in our discovery of our own preferences. To justify the introduction of the market process on the grounds of increasing choice is doubly wrong; first, increasing choice is not in itself valuable and, secondly, what is valuable about the market has little to do with choice.
Cultural Imagery and Racial Conflict in the United States: The Case of African-Americans
Authors: Merelman Richard M.
Published: January 2009

This paper utilizes recent Marxist cultural theory to theorize about the cultural dynamics of racial group conflict in the United States. After laying out a typology of cultural relations between dominant and subordinate groups, the article examines data on African-American cultural penetration of American public culture. The data indicate that since the late 1960s ‘imagerial hegemony’ has yielded to ‘imagerial projection’ for African-Americans. The article concludes by speculating about some interpretations and consequences of this phenomenon.
The Electoral Consequences of North–South Migration
Authors: McMahon Dorren , Heath Anthony , Harrop Martin , Curtice John
Published: January 2009

Analysis of the British Election Studies suggests that migration between the north and south of Britain does have political effects, southerly migration leading voters away from Labour and northerly migration towards Labour. This pattern persists even after controls for prior social and political characteristics, experience of social mobility, and changes in local political environment. It does, however, appear to be a new phenomenon, not apparent in the earlier election studies. The results support the hypothesis that the north-south divide constitutes a distinct new political cleavage distinct from social class and the other more familiar social bases of voting behaviour.
Comparing Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Quotas, Thresholds, Paradoxes and Majorities
Authors: Gallagher Michael
Published: January 2009

The relationship between electoral systems can be examined on a number of dimensions. Seat allocation methods are conveniently divided into two groups: those based on largest remainders and those based on highest averages. The single transferable vote has its own distinct characteristics. Focusing on certain elements – the quota, thresholds, paradoxes and the conditions under which a majority of seats can be won – enables comparisons to be drawn between seat allocation methods. Certain seat allocation methods conventionally seen as variants of proportional representation (PR) cannot be regarded as such. PR methods can be rank ordered according to whether, when complete proportionality is not attainable, they display electoral bias towards larger or smaller parties. However, a definitive ordering is elusive, since some methods that are generally more favourable to larger parties can in some circumstances set lower thresholds of representation than methods generally favourable to smaller parties.
Legitimacy in the United Kingdom: Scotland and the Poll Tax
Authors: Barker Rodney
Published: January 2009

The community charge has been described as the flagship of Thatcherism. It was also the issue which, together with Europe, brought the Prime Minister's voyage to an end and set her adrift as a political Captain Bligh whilst her parliamentary and cabinet crew sailed on without her. But though the prospect of English electoral disaster was the most immediate and obvious political effect of the new tax, its introduction a year earlier in Scotland had other and possibly longer-lasting consequences.
An Empirical Evaluation of Six Voting Procedures: Do They Really Make Any Difference?
Authors: Felsenthal Dan S. , Maoz Zeev , Rapoport Amnon
Published: January 2009

Six single- or multi-winner voting procedures are compared to one another in terms of the outcomes of thirty-seven real elections conducted in Britain by various trade unions, professional associations and non-profit-making organizations. The six procedures examined are two versions of plurality voting (PV), approval voting (AV), the Borda-count (BR), the alternative and repeated alternative vote (ALV–RAL) and the single transferable vote (STV). These procedures are evaluated in terms of two general and five specific criteria that are common in social-choice theory. In terms of these criteria one version of the PV procedure (PVO) is found to be inferior to the other five procedures among which no significant difference has been found.
Responsible, Irresponsible and Westminster Parties: A Theoretical and Empirical Evaluation
Authors: Jankowski Richard
Published: January 2009

In the only official policy position ever taken by the American Political Science Association, it advocated the transformation of American political parties into a strong, centralized two-party system. Olson has proposed a detailed explanation of why Westminster political systems and parties will produce more efficient public policy than weak, decentralized political parties. He argues that centralized political parties in two-party political systems are ‘encompassing’ and, hence, have an incentive to minimize redistributive policies. Olson thus provides a justification for the policy position taken by the APSA. I evaluate Olson's explanation from the perspective of Tullock's rent-seeking behaviour argument and the deadweight losses needed for Olson's argument to hold. An alternative formulation of encompassing organizations is presented and contrasted with Olson's definition as it applies to political institutions. Finally, an empirical test of the responsible and Westminster party systems arguments is provided. The evidence presented here rejects the claims of the Westminster and responsible party models.
A Tactical Error in the Analysis of Tactical Voting: A Response to Niemi, Whitten and Franklin
Authors: Evans Geoffrey , Heath Anthony
Published: January 2009

In their article ‘Constituency Characteristics, Individual Characteristics and Tactical Voting in the 1987 British General Election’, Niemi, Whitten and Franklin claim that in the 1987 general election ‘about one in every six voters … had tactical considerations in mind in deciding whom to vote for’. As they point out, this figure is far higher than Heath et al.'s estimate of 6.5 per cent of major party voters having ‘a tactical motivation for their vote’. It is also far higher than estimates obtained by other analyses of the 1987 election using aggregate data. In this Note we point to methodological weaknesses in Niemi, Whitten and Franklin's article which indicate that their estimate is unlikely to be a valid measure of tactical voting, at least of the concept as customarily understood by political scientists. Indeed, when looked at carefully, the evidence they present to support their expanded estimate of tactical voting serves only to re-affirm the original claims of Heath and his colleagues and the other conservative estimates of the prevalence of tactical voting.
Leaders, Politics and Institutional Change: The Decline of Prime Ministerial Accountability to the House of Commons, 1868–1990
Authors: Dunleavy Patrick , Jones G. W. , Burnham Jane , Elgie Robert , Fysh Peter
Published: January 2009

In the Westminster system the prime minister's active participation in parliamentary proceedings is a key mechanism for ensuring the accountability of the executive. We survey the evolution of the four main prime ministerial activities across the period 1868–1990. There has been a long-term decline in prime ministers' speeches in the Commons, a stepped decline in debating interventions and a significant decrease in question-answering from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s. But prime ministerial statement-making increased after 1940, ebbing away again in the 1980s. And the downward drift in question-answering was halted by procedural innovations since the 1960s, which standardized the frequency of prime ministers' appearances and lead to the dominance of ‘open’ questions. We trace the varied impacts of institutional changes and shorter-term political or personal influences. The direct accountability of the prime minister to Parliament has undoubtedly declined, a trend probably paralleled by decreasing indirect accountability. These findings raise fundamental questions about executive-legislature relations in the United Kingdom
Why Are American Presidential Election Campaign Polls So Variable When Votes Are So Predictable?
Authors: Gelman Andrew , King Gary
Published: January 2009

As most political scientists know, the outcome of the American presidential election can be predicted within a few percentage points (in the popular vote), based on information available months before the election. Thus, the general campaign for president seems irrelevant to the outcome (except in very close elections), despite all the media coverage of campaign strategy. However, it is also well known that the pre-election opinion polls can vary wildly over the campaign, and this variation is generally attributed to events in the campaign. How can campaign events affect people's opinions on whom they plan to vote for, and yet not affect the outcome of the election? For that matter, why do voters consistently increase their support for a candidate during his nominating convention, even though the conventions are almost entirely predictable events whose effects can be rationally forecast?

In this exploratory study, we consider several intuitively appealing, but ultimately wrong, resolutions to this puzzle and discuss our current understanding of what causes opinion polls to fluctuate while reaching a predictable outcome. Our evidence is based on graphical presentation and analysis of over 67,000 individual-level responses from forty-nine commercial polls during the 1988 campaign and many other aggregate poll results from the 1952–92 campaigns.

We show that responses to pollsters during the campaign are not generally informed or even, in a sense we describe, ‘rational’. In contrast, voters decide, based on their enlightened preferences, as formed by the information they have learned during the campaign, as well as basic political cues such as ideology and party identification, which candidate to support eventually. We cannot prove this conclusion, but we do show that it is consistent with the aggregate forecasts and individual-level opinion poll responses. Based on the enlightened preferences hypothesis, we conclude that the news media have an important effect on the outcome of presidential elections – not through misleading advertisements, sound bites, or spin doctors, but rather by conveying candidates' positions on important issues.
Race, Ethnicity and Political Resources: Participation in the United States
Authors: Verba Sidney , Schlozman Kay Lehman , Brady Henry , Nie Norman H.
Published: January 2009

This article uses data from the Citizen Participation Study – a large-scale survey of the voluntary activity of the American public designed to oversample African-Americans and Latinos as well as political activists – to inquire about the extent and sources of differences in levels of political activity among African-Americans, Latinos and Anglo-Whites. Considering a variety of political acts, we find that, in the aggregate, African-Americans are slightly, and Latinos are substantially, less active than Anglo-Whites. However, the resources that facilitate participation – some of which, for example, education, are related to social class and others of which, for example, religious preference and activity are associated with race or ethnicity – are distributed very unevenly across the three groups, with Latinos at a particular disadvantage. After accounting for differences in politically relevant resources, there is no significant difference among the three groups in political participation.
The Policy Basis of Government Coalitions: A Comparative Investigation
Authors: Budge Ian , Laver Michael
Published: January 2009

This article examines a key assumption of many approaches to the analysis of government coalitions, that parties are exclusively concerned with the achievement of immediate policy objectives. We first consider the extent to which policy considerations can be used to characterize coalitions formed in eight postwar democracies, using party election programmes to operationalize and test a variety of policy-based models of government formation. We then see what parties get from governments in terms of declared policy commitments, both in and out of office. The conclusion in both cases is that party policy clearly influences the formation of coalitions, but its impact is substantially modified by long-term structures and cleavages within different party systems.
People Who Live in Glass Houses: A Response to Evans and Heath's Critique of our Note on Tactical Voting
Authors: Niemi Richard , Whitten Guy , Franklin Mark
Published: January 2009

In a recent Research Note, Evans and Heath cast doubt on the validity of our measure of tactical voting. We and our critics agree on a set of ‘Main reason’ tactical voters – those who said they voted tactically in response to the question, ‘What comes closest to the main reason you voted the way you did?’ Unlike our critics, we reasoned that many of those who cast a tactical vote would not be identified so simply. Some respondents may have been reluctant to say they had voted for other than the best party. Others may have convinced themselves that the ‘best’ party was one that had a chance of winning and therefore answered in such a way as to place themselves squarely among non-tactical voters even though in other tactical circumstances they would have voted differently. Consequently, we sought to identify tactical behaviour through additional questions. Our final measure of tactical voting can be regarded as containing two components: the ‘main reason’ voters, who expressly told interviewers they voted for one party while ‘really preferring’ some other party, and ‘Other reason’ voters, whom we identified as tactical by their responses to additional questions. It is the ‘Other reason’ voters who are at issue.
Responsiveness and Deliberation in Divided Government: Presidential Leadership in Tax Policy Making
Authors: Weatherford M. Stephen
Published: January 2009

At the heart of the puzzle of representation is the responsibility to construct policy that both responds to the separatist pull of local constituencies and meets the republican aspiration that government leaders define and promote common interests. The difficulty of balancing responsiveness and deliberation is heightened by divided government, where pursuing a competitive course leads to stalemate, while compromising too readily threatens to undermine party principle. This article argues that politicians have an incentive to accommodate their strategies to divided government, and that this accommodation will take the form of centralizing power in the congressional party leadership, with an increased willingness on the part of the president and the congressional leadership to engage in substantive consultation over the content of the legislative agenda. These accommodations will foster the possibility of meaningful deliberation; whether it will occur on any given issue will depend on the context of information and interpretation. Because most policies are open to multiple interpretations, political leaders have some leeway in framing the issue and thus determining what information and which political resources will shape the strategic context. Beginning with a review of the literature on legislative processes and presidential influence in Congress, and drawing on the formal theory literature on information and uncertainty, I explicate the argument by way of an empirical case study of one of the most historically significant tax policy negotiations in the post-war period.
Why Executive-Legislative Conflict in the United States is Dwindling
Authors: Peterson Paul E. , Greene Jay P.
Published: January 2009

An examination of executive-legislative conflict occurring in US congressional committees between 1947 and 1990 reveals that, despite current concerns of gridlock, the overall level of conflict declined during this period. There are two structural sources of inter-branch conflict – constituent and partisan. The constituent basis for conflict in the United States is rooted in the differing manner in which members of the two branches are elected. Because the executive has a national constituency, it is primarily concerned with matters of national policy. Members of Congress, who have smaller, more homogeneous constituencies, are more concerned with the geographically distributive effects of these policies. The authors' evidence suggests that conflict between the executive and legislative in the United States is greatest on issues that are of both national and distributive significance. The partisan basis for conflict, long established in the House and increasingly visible in the Senate, is reinforced by competitive political contests. Yet conflict between members of Congress and executive officials of the opposite party did not increase between 1947 and 1990. And conflict with executive officials of the same party declined, producing an overall drop in executive-legislative conflict.