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Elections
Kinds of Elections Selected AbstractsCONTRIBUTIONS AND ELECTIONS WITH NETWORK EXTERNALITIESECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 1 2005Adam Meirowitz This paper develops a model of campaign contributions and electoral competition. Contributors have separable preferences over policy and the electoral success of the candidate they support, as in influence buying. Policy preferences are single peaked over a single policy dimension. A candidate's chances of victory are increasing in the relative size of her war chest. In equilibrium, potential contributors balance incentives to donate to a candidate that is desirable on policy grounds and ensuring that they back the likely winner. With exogenous candidate positions, we find conditions under which, in equilibrium, contributors donate to the candidate that is less desirable on policy grounds solely because they consider the candidate viable. We also find that there is a degree of indeterminacy, wherein multiple equilibria inducing different lotteries over the final policy often exist. With endogenous candidate locations, we find that while median policies are always supportable as equilibrium, it is often the case that any pair of candidate locations is supportable in equilibrium. These results suggest that in settings with substantial influence buying, median policy interests may not be represented. [source] Campaign Contributions with Swing VotersECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 3 2003Manfred Dix We analyze contributor behavior when there are two types of voters: positioned voters, who care about the ideological positions of candidates, and swing voters, who care about only the leadership abilities of candidates. Campaign expenditures, which are funded by contributions, are assumed to influence voters' perceptions of a candidate's ability. We find that the number of swing voters may have unexpected consequences on equilibrium campaign contributions. In particular, total contributions may increase as the number of swing voters decreases. Elections are won by doing two things: mobilizing your base and winning the independent swing voters. (Karl Rove, campaign strategist for George W. Bush) [source] How (not) to operationalise subnational political opportunity structures: A critique of Kestilä and Söderlund's study of regional electionsEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2009KAI ARZHEIMER Based on an aggregate analysis of the French regional elections of 2004, Kestilä and Söderlund, in their 2007 article, ,Subnational Political Opportunity Structures and the Success of the Radical Right: Evidence from the March 2004 Regional Elections in France', examine the impact of subnational political opportunity structures on the success of the radical right and argue that such an approach can control for a wider range of factors and provide more reliable results than cross-national analyses. The present article disputes this claim on theoretical, conceptual and methodological grounds and demonstrates that their empirical findings are spurious. [source] A Strange Affair: The 2002 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in FranceGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 3 2002Alistair Cole First page of article [source] Non-Political Caretaker Administrations and Democratic Elections in Bangladesh: An AssessmentGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 3 2000Habib Zafarullah [source] Argentina Becoming ,Normal': The 1999 ElectionsGOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 1 2000Torcuato S. Di Tella [source] Democracy and Human Rights in the Mexican States: Elections or Social Capital?INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2004Caroline Beer Why does the relationship between a government and its citizens deteriorate to violence? Large-N cross-national quantitative analyses of human rights violations have found an inverse relationship between democracy and violations. These analyses, however, have not been able to address the central finding of an influential subnational analysis of democracy that stresses the importance of a single dimension of democracy, social capital. In this article we combine these two streams of research with fresh data from the Mexican states to investigate how and why democracy inhibits violations. Theoretically, we connect a policy interest in protecting human rights to politicians' office-seeking goals and to the level of social capital. Empirically, our data allow us to disentangle two principal components of democracy, elections and social capital, and include important control variables, notably ethnic diversity, which have been largely left out of the cross-national analyses. Our central finding is that the electoral components rather than social capital produce important consequences for the protection of citizens' human rights. [source] European Elections and Domestic Politics: Lessons from the Past and Scenarios for the Future , Edited by W. van der Brug and C. van der EijkJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 3 2009JULIET LODGE No abstract is available for this article. [source] American Business and Political Power: Public Opinion, Elections and Democracy; Stuck in Neutral: Business and the Politics of Human Capital investment; Does Business Learn?JOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2001Graham K. Wilson [source] Probabilistic Voting and Accountability in Elections with Uncertain Policy ConstraintsJOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMIC THEORY, Issue 1 2007ADAM MEIROWITZ We consider accountability in repeated elections with two long-lived parties that have distinct policy preferences and different levels of valence. In each period the government faces a privately observed feasibility constraint and selects a publicly observed policy vector. While pure strategy equilibria do not exhibit tight control on government policy making, complete control is possible in mixed strategies. In optimal equilibria voters use reelection functions which depend on policy in a manner that causes the governing party to internalize voter preferences. In these optimal equilibria the voters use different reelection functions for different parties. [source] Ethics in Multiparty Elections in TanzaniaJOURNAL OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Issue 4 2000Amon E. Chaligha [source] Rewarding Lula: Executive Power, Social Policy, and the Brazilian Elections of 2006LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2007Wendy Hunter ABSTRACT This article analyzes Luiz Inácio da Silva's resounding reelection victory in the wake of corruption scandals implicating his party and government. Voters with lower levels of economic security and schooling played a critical role in returning Lula to the presidency. Least prone to punish the president for corruption, poorer Brazilians were also the most readily persuaded by the provision of material benefits. Minimum wage increases and the income transfer program Bolsa Família expanded the purchasing power of the poor. Thus, executive power and central state resources allowed Lula to consolidate a social base that had responded only weakly to his earlier, party-based strategy of grassroots mobilization for progressive macrosocietal change. Although Lula won handily, the PT's delegation to Congress shrank for the first time, and the voting bases of president and party diverged. The PT benefited far less than the president himself from government investment in social policy. [source] Elections and Economic Turbulence in Brazil: Candidates, Voters, and InvestorsLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2006Anthony P. Spanakos ABSTRACT The relation between elections and the economy in Latin America might be understood by considering the agency of candidates and the issue of policy preference congruence between investors and voters. The preference congruence model proposed in this article highlights political risk in emerging markets. Certain risk features increase the role of candidate campaign rhetoric and investor preferences in elections. When politicians propose policies that can appease voters and investors, elections may have a limited effect on economic indicators, such as inflation. But when voter and investor priorities differ significantly, deterioration of economic indicators is more likely. Moreover, voter and investor congruence is more likely before stabilization, when an inverted Philips curve exists, as opposed to following stabilization, when a more traditional Philips curve emerges. [source] Money, Elections, and Democracy in BrazilLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2001David Samuels ABSTRACT Brazil,s 1993 law requiring candidates to report their campaign contributions has generated a new source of data to explore the supposition that Brazilian elections are extraordinarily expensive. An examination of these data from Brazil,s 1994 and 1998 general elections reveals that most money for Brazilian electoral campaigns comes from business sources and that leftist candidates have extremely limited access to such financing. The effect on democracy is that Brazil,s largely unregulated campaign finance system tends to decrease the scope of interest representation. [source] Egypt's 2000 Parliamentary ElectionsMIDDLE EAST POLICY, Issue 2 2001Mona Makram-Ebeid [source] 2004 ASNE Council Elections; ASNE and SNAME Environmental Committee Judges Science FairsNAVAL ENGINEERS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2004Capt. Dennis K. Kruse USN (Ret.) First page of article [source] CNO to Speak at HSIS 2003; ASNE and SNAME to Sponsor MEETS 2003; 2003 ASNE Council ElectionsNAVAL ENGINEERS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2003Capt. Dennis K. Kruse First page of article [source] Voters, Parties, and the Endogenous Size of GovernmentAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2002Jans-Peter Olters Elections, often to a considerable degree, influence the fiscal policies of governments installed on the basis of their results. Yet, economists have tended to view politicians' behaviour either as being determined exogenously or as the result of a social planner's maximisation of a well-defined social-welfare function (subject to some appropriate technology and resource constraints). The latter approach, given (i) its inherent abstraction from important politico-economic interactions, (ii) the theoretical difficulty in deriving a non-contradictory "collective utility function" (as demonstrated by Arrow), and (iii) the inability to estimate a stable relationship that could explain political preferences with economic variables,is viewed as being an unsatisfactory tool for the joint description of a country's economy and polity. On the basis of explicit micro-economic foundations and a democratically coordinated decision-making mechanism over the "optimal" provision of public goods and the corresponding taxes required to finance them, this paper will introduce a simple economic model of politics that subjects individuals to a,two-tiered,political decision-making process over party membership and electoral participation, thereby endogenising the evolution of the competing parties' ideologies, households' electoral behaviour, and the key factors explaining the design of fiscal policies. Having the majority party's median delegate determine on the "optimal" degree of income redistribution suggests that a country's wealth distribution is a crucial explanatory variable explaining its politico-economic development path. [source] Voters, Patrons and Parties: Parliamentary Elections in Ireland, c.1692,1727PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY, Issue 2005D. W. HAYTON First page of article [source] Who Should Run Elections in the United States?POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 3 2008R. Michael Alvarez Much has been said since the 2000 presidential election regarding the administration of elections in the United States, particularly about how election administrators are selected and to whom they are responsive. Unfortunately, there has been little research on the different administrative structures that are possible and the preferences of Americans regarding these different administrative options. In this article we present the results from a national survey of American adults in which we asked them their preference for whether elections should be run by partisan or nonpartisan officials, whether the officials should be elected or appointed, and whether the administration of elections should be by a single unitary executive or by an election board. In addition to eliciting the basic preferences of Americans about these administrative choices, we also undertake a deeper analysis of these data to determine the underlying patterns in support for the different administrative options. [source] Critical Elections and Political Realignments in the USA: 1860,2000POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2003Norman Schofield The sequence of US presidential elections from 1964 to 1972 is generally regarded as heralding a fundamental political realignment, during which time civil rights became as important a cleavage as economic rights. In certain respects, this realignment mirrored the transformation of politics that occurred in the period before the Civil War. Formal models of voting (based on assumptions of rational voters, and plurality-maximizing candidates) have typically been unable to provide an account of such realignments. In this paper, we propose that US politics necessarily involves two dimensions of policy. Whatever positions US presidential candidates adopt, there will always be two groups of disaffected voters. Such voters may be mobilized by third party candidates, and may eventually be absorbed into one or other of the two dominant party coalitions. The policy compromise, or change, required of the successful presidential candidate then triggers the political realignment. A formal activist-voter model is presented, as a first step in understanding such a dynamic equilibrium between parties and voters. [source] Roll-Off at the Top of the Ballot: International Undervoting in American Presidential ElectionsPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 4 2003Stephen Knack Every four years, more than two percent of voters fail to cast a valid vote in the U.S. presidential contest. The 2000 election highlighted the fact that many intended votes are voided because of voter confusion associated with complicated ballot designs or voting equipment. Using survey data, this study provides estimates of the proportion of voided presidential ballots that do not represent errors but rather intentional undervotes. Voters who are older, poorer, and who do not identify with either major party are more likely to intentionally refrain from casting a presidential vote. Differences between African-American and white voting patterns are very minor, implying that racial disparities in the rate of voided votes cannot be attributed to a stronger tendency among African-American voters to intentionally skip the presidential contest. [source] Polls and Elections: Opinion Formation, Polarization, and Presidential ReelectionPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2009BARRY C. BURDEN The authors examine the dynamics of public opinion formation and change around a sitting president and their implications for reelection contests. Because of the biases inherent in information processing and the information environment, two distinct, but simultaneous, effects of citizen learning during a presidential term are expected. For those with prior opinions of the president, learning contributes to more polarized evaluations of the president. For those initially uncertain about the president, learning contributes to opinion formation about the president. Because the gap in uncertainty generally favors the incumbent over a lesser-known challenger, races with an incumbent presidential candidate are typically marked, perhaps paradoxically, by both a polarization of public opinion and an incumbency advantage. [source] Polls and Elections: Dixie's Kingmakers: Stability and Change in Southern Presidential Primary ElectoratesPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2009SETH C. MCKEE Recent presidential primaries have taken place against the backdrop of a secular realignment in the South, a shift that carries important consequences for nomination politics. In this article, we use statewide exit polls to trace changes between 1988 and 2008 in the Southern Democratic and Republican primary electorates. We find that the Democratic electorate has grown strikingly more liberal, more racially diverse, and less heavily Protestant over the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has solidified into a conservative, almost exclusively white primary electorate. We also identify a growing partisan gender gap in the region. The findings suggest that it will be increasingly difficult for a centrist white Democrat, such as Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton, to use the South as a launching pad to the nomination. In addition, the growing polarization of the parties' Southern primary electorates will likely continue to widen the ideological distance between the major presidential nominees. [source] Polls and Elections: Editorial Cartoons 2.0: The Effects of Digital Political Satire on Presidential Candidate EvaluationsPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2008JODY C. BAUMGARTNER While the number of full-time editorial cartoonists has declined in the past few decades, several have taken their craft online in the form of animated Flash cartoons. In this article I test the effects of one of the more popular animated editorial cartoons on presidential candidate evaluations of 18- to 24-year-olds. A posttest-only experimental design was used to survey students from several universities in six states. The results from this online experiment suggest that these editorial cartoons have a negative effect on candidate evaluations. However, viewing the clip did not change candidate preferences and an analysis of the control group suggests that viewership of online humor may have a positive effect on political participation. [source] Elections: Personal Popularity in U.S. Presidential ElectionsPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2004Martin P. Wattenberg A commonly held view is that presidential elections are largely personality contests, and that the candidate with the best-liked personality wins. But is this really the case? Based on a careful analysis of national survey data from the last 11 presidential elections, this article concludes that such a view is unfounded. The most personally popular candidate does not always win in the U.S.,indeed, in recent elections, the most personally popular candidate has generally lost. Much more central to candidate evaluations, and to who emerges victorious, are perceptions of candidates' stands on the issues. [source] Fiscal Policy and Presidential Elections: Update and ExtensionPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2000ALFRED G. CUZÁN This article updates, deepens, and extends previous articles published in this journal on the relation between fiscal policy and presidential elections. It presents evidence that is consistent with the view that voters reward fiscal frugality and punish fiscal expansion. The relationship is robust with respect to economic conditions, presidential incumbency, number of consecutive terms in the White House by presidents of the same party, and war. An intriguing finding is that, when fiscal policy is controlled for, incumbency advantage practically disappears. It is hoped that these findings will stimulate more political scientists, especially students of the presidency, to pay more attention to the role of fiscal policy in presidential elections. [source] Elections and public polling: Will the media get online polling right?PSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING, Issue 12 2002Dennis W. Johnson Public survey research came in for much criticism during the 2000 elections. The greatest controversy centered on the flawed data coming from the Voter News Service exit polls in Florida. For the long run, however, a more important issue concerned the validity and media reporting of surveys conducted online. Most online surveys are pseudo-polls, whose findings have no merit and should not be reported by the media. Their value is entertainment only. The fundamental problems with online surveys are that the samples drawn are unrepresentative of the population as a whole and the participants are self-selected. Two survey firms are trying to resolve the issue of sampling errors, using fundamentally different strategies, and spending enormous sums of money to create truly representative panels. The 2000 election results showed that online polling, done right, can be even more accurate than traditional telephone surveys. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] The Public Administration of ElectionsPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 5 2008Robert S. Montjoy The performance of election systems in the United States depends heavily on complex networks of people, tasks, organizations, and relationships, as well as the voting technology that has received so much attention since the presidential election of 2000. Public administration has much to contribute to our understanding of these systems. This article provides an overview of the field, highlighting linkages to theoretical approaches in public administration and emphasizing the importance of management in a brief case study. [source] Partisan Polarization and Congressional Accountability in House ElectionsAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010David R. Jones Early research led scholars to believe that institutional accountability in Congress is lacking because public evaluations of its collective performance do not affect the reelection of its members. However, a changed partisan environment along with new empirical evidence raises unanswered questions about the effect of congressional performance on incumbents' electoral outcomes over time. Analysis of House reelection races across the last several decades produces important findings: (1) low congressional approval ratings generally reduce the electoral margins of majority party incumbents and increase margins for minority party incumbents; (2) partisan polarization in the House increases the magnitude of this partisan differential, mainly through increased electoral accountability among majority party incumbents; (3) these electoral effects of congressional performance ratings hold largely irrespective of a member's individual party loyalty or seat safety. These findings carry significant implications for partisan theories of legislative organization and help explain salient features of recent Congresses. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||