All the prime minister’s glory? Leader effects and accountability of prime ministers in parliamentary elections

Politics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 444-459
Author(s):  
Jan Berz
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
German State ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Important Extension

Are prime ministers held accountable for their government’s performance? The personalisation of parliamentary elections and subsequent voting behaviour based on the personality of party leaders questions the accountability of elected governments. In this article, I analyse the confounding of prime ministers’ leader effects by voters’ evaluation of government performance to examine whether prime ministers are held accountable for the performance of their government. I use individual-level data from British, Danish, and German elections and a natural experiment at the German state level to show that voters hold prime ministers personally accountable. The findings constitute an important extension of electoral accountability and have implications for the study of personalisation and presidentialisation in parliamentary democracies.

When Marriage Gets Hard: Intra-Coalition Conflict and Electoral Accountability

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110243
Author(s):  
Carolina Plescia ◽  
Sylvia Kritzinger
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Economic Evaluations ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Level Data ◽  
European Election ◽  
Election Studies

Combining individual-level with event-level data across 25 European countries and three sets of European Election Studies, this study examines the effect of conflict between parties in coalition government on electoral accountability and responsibility attribution. We find that conflict increases punishment for poor economic performance precisely because it helps clarify to voters parties’ actions and responsibilities while in office. The results indicate that under conditions of conflict, the punishment is equal for all coalition partners when they share responsibility for poor economic performance. When there is no conflict within a government, the effect of poor economic evaluations on vote choice is rather low, with slightly more punishment targeted to the prime minister’s party. These findings have important implications for our understanding of electoral accountability and political representation in coalition governments.

Persistent Legacies of the Empires: Partition of Poland and Electoral Turnout

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542090767
Author(s):  
Piotr Zagórski ◽  
Radosław Markowski
Keyword(s):  
Religious Service Attendance ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Electoral Turnout ◽  
Cultural Legacies ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Service Attendance

During the long nineteenth century, Poland was divided among the Russian, Habsburg, and Prussian empires. The partition produced regional diversity in political culture and in institutional and economic development. We examine how the cultural legacies of the empires have influenced the propensity of Poles to cast a ballot in parliamentary elections since 1989. Polish National Election Study individual-level data are used to assess whether higher levels of electoral turnout in Galicia are indeed a legacy of the Habsburg rule. Our results confirm that, even after controlling for socio-demographic factors, there is a positive, substantive, and significant effect on turnout of living in the ex-Habsburg part of Poland. This effect can be explained by the frequency of religious service attendance and by ideology. Inhabitants of Galicia not only attend religious services more frequently and are more conservative than their counterparts in the rest of Poland, but also the more frequently they attend church and the closer to the radical right they place themselves, the more mobilized they are to vote. The impact of the legacies of the empires on political behavior in Poland seems persistent.

scholarly journals Members versus Experts: The Perceptions of Party Leadership Styles in New Democracies

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 810-825
Author(s):  
Sergiu Gherghina
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Styles ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Party Members

Party leaders are highly relevant for contemporary political arenas. Their leadership styles have been often investigated relative to their behaviour and attitudes, but rarely through the lenses of those who observe them closely. This article aims to fill this gap in the literature and compares the ways in which party members and experts evaluate leaders on the transactional–transformational continuum. It uses individual-level data from a survey conducted in 2018 with a modified version of the MLQ. The analysis focuses on eight parliamentary parties in Romania and Bulgaria, covering 19 party leaders and 33 terms over a period of 15 years (2004–2018). The results indicate important differences in the assessment of party leaders, with members having more heterogeneous opinions and seeing them more transformational in comparison to experts.

Building Bridges for Student Success: Are Higher Education Articulation Policies Effective?

2009 ◽  
Vol 111 (10) ◽  
pp. 2444-2478 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josipa Roksa
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Research Question ◽  
State Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Transfer Success ◽  
Bachelor's Degree Attainment ◽  
Education Performance

Background/Context Although the importance of facilitating transfer from community colleges to 4-year institutions is almost universally accepted, there is little consensus on how to measure transfer success or evaluate policies aimed at assisting students in making this educational transition. Despite the increasing attention on transfer in recent decades, the most fundamental types of questions, such as whether community colleges are successful at facilitating transfer and bachelor's degree attainment and whether articulation policies are effective, lack satisfactory answers. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study I describe challenges associated with current endeavors to facilitate and measure transfer success, attempt to resolve some of the inconsistencies in previous research on articulation policies, and illuminate promising paths for the future. Research Design The manuscript begins with a synthesis of previous research, including different definitions of transfer success and articulation policies. I then analyze state-level and individual-level data to examine the effectiveness of articulation policies using these distinct definitions. Finally, I draw on descriptive information from various higher education systems to illustrate the variety of strategies adopted to facilitate transfer, and I suggest potential explanations for why statewide articulation policies may not appear effective. Conclusions/Recommendations The current state of knowledge and data collection efforts make it impossible to provide definitive answers regarding the effectiveness of articulation policies in higher education. I conclude with recommendations for improving future research and policy regarding this crucial transition in higher education, including collecting and sharing data (with collaboration between higher education institutions and state and federal governments), clearly defining goals of articulation policies and evaluating them accordingly, and developing a consistent set of definitions and measurements of transfer success. I suggest that these recommendations can be implemented by building on existing systems of collaboration and coordination in higher education. The 2/4 community college-baccalaureate transfer function is one of the most important state policy issues in higher education because its success (or failure) is central to many dimensions of state higher education performance, including access, equity, affordability, cost effectiveness, degree productivity, and quality. Wellman, 2002, p. 3

Minority Threat, Worker Power, and Discriminatory Complaints: State-level Effects on Racial Income Inequality among Men

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-227
Author(s):  
David Maume ◽  
Ervin (Maliq) Matthew ◽  
George Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ◽  
State Level ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Minority Population ◽  
Pay Gap ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Minority Threat ◽  
Level Data

Because U.S. states are meaningful polities with differing cultures and institutions, they are important locations for the struggles for resources. Yet there have been surprisingly few studies of how state-level cleavages and institutions shape the pattern of income inequality, especially by race. This article matches individual-level data on income and its determinants (from the Current Population Survey) to state-level measures (mostly from Census data) of varying demographic, power, and institutional configurations. A multilevel model of the racial pay gap is estimated showing that racial income inequality increases with the size of the minority population in the state but decreases with the rate of filing racial discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The index of labor market power (a scaled index of union density and the size of the public sector) increases pay across the board but does not reduce racial income inequality. The findings suggest that recent and current neoliberal efforts across states to shrink government, limit unions, and abandon enforcement of antidiscrimination will lower wages for all workers and exacerbate racial income inequality.

scholarly journals Do People in Conservative States Really Watch More Porn? A Hierarchical Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802312090847
Author(s):  
Samuel L. Perry ◽  
Andrew L. Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
State Level ◽  
Ecological Fallacy ◽  
Hierarchical Analysis ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Pornography Consumption ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Evangelical Identity

Recent studies have found that state-level religious and political conservatism is positively associated with various aggregate indicators of interest in pornography. Such studies have been limited, however, in that they either did not include data measuring actual consumption patterns and/or did not include data on individuals (risking the ecological fallacy). This study overcomes both limitations by incorporating state-level data with individual-level data and a measure of pornography consumption from a large nationally representative survey. Hierarchical linear regression analyses show that, in the main, state-level religious and political characteristics do not predict individual-level pornography consumption, and individual-level religiosity and political conservatism predict less recent pornography consumption. However, interactions between individual-level evangelical identity and state-level political conservatism indicate that evangelicals who live in more politically conservative states report the highest rates of pornography consumption. These findings thus provide more nuanced support for previous research linking religious and political conservatism with greater pornography consumption.

Strategies of Flexible Accumulation and Perceived Employment Insecurity: Is There a Connection?

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-351
Author(s):  
Travis Scott Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Job Insecurity ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
State Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Employment Insecurity ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Flexible Accumulation ◽  
Perceived Job Insecurity

Existing research on perceived employment insecurity tends to focus on perceptions of job insecurity (a worker’s perception of how vulnerable their position is with their current employer). This study examines perceived labor market insecurity (a worker’s assessment of their job prospects in the broader labor market) alongside perceived job insecurity. The author uses individual-level General Social Survey and publicly available state-level data from 1977 to 2012 to determine and identify strategies of flexible accumulation (e.g., deindustrialization, deunionization, and financialization) that may be associated with these outcomes. The findings indicate that these strategies are associated with greater levels of perceived job insecurity but are not significant for perceived labor market insecurity, which is only positively associated with unemployment at the state level. The author also finds that individual-level factors such as income and part-time status have differing effects for each outcome. In a time characterized by higher levels of employer-employee detachment, these findings have important implications for the study of employment insecurity.

scholarly journals How Political Careers affect Prime-Ministerial Performance: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402199717
Author(s):  
Florian Grotz ◽  
Ferdinand Müller-Rommel ◽  
Jan Berz ◽  
Corinna Kroeber ◽  
Marko Kukec
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Research ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Political Careers ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Domestic Affairs

Even though Prime Ministers (PMs) are the central actors in parliamentary democracies, little comparative research explores what makes them perform successfully in office. This article investigates how the political careers of PMs affect their performance. For this purpose, we make use of a unique expert survey covering 131 cabinets in 11 Central and Eastern European countries between 1990 and 2018. Performance is defined as a two-dimensional set of tasks PMs ought to fulfill: first, managing the cabinet and directing domestic affairs as tasks delegated to their office, second, ensuring support of parliament and their own party, who constitute the direct principals. The findings indicate that a simple political insider career is not sufficient to enhance prime-ministerial performance. Rather, PMs who served as party leaders have the best preconditions to succeed in office.

The Politics of Choice Reconsidered: Partisanship, Ideology, and Minority Politics in Washington’s Charter School Initiative

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-92
Author(s):  
Loren Collingwood ◽  
Ashley Jochim ◽  
Kassra A. R. Oskooii
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Charter School ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Shed Light

Charter schools enjoy support among Republican and Democratic lawmakers in states and Congress, but little research has examined their support among the electorate. We take advantage of Washington’s 2012 charter school ballot initiative—the first voter-approved charter initiative in the United States—to shed light on the politics of school choice at the mass level. Because in-depth, individual-level voter data are often unavailable in state-level elections, we leverage extensive precinct- and district-level data to examine patterns of support and opposition toward the charter school initiative, focusing on how partisanship, ideology, and demographic factors serve to unify or divide voters. Our analysis reveals that the coalition of supporters cut across usual partisan and demographic cleavages, producing somewhat strange bedfellows. This finding has important implications for the strategies advocacy groups may consider as they seek to expand or limit school choice programs via ballot initiatives as opposed to the statehouse, and provides suggestive evidence regarding the evolving shapers of voter support for school choice and ballot initiatives more generally.

Labor Unions and Voter Turnout in the American States: Direct Versus Indirect Mobilization

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Gidong Kim
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
State Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
American States ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Level Analysis ◽  
Aggregate Strength

Abstract I examine the relationship between labor unions and voter turnout in the American states. Though it is well known that unions increase turnout directly, we know less about their indirect effects. Moreover, the indirect effects may consist of nonmember mobilization and aggregate strength. To examine the direct and indirect mechanisms, I analyze both state-level panel data and individual-level data with a multilevel approach. First, my panel analysis shows that unions are positively associated with turnout as expected. Yet, the association is observed only in midterm elections, but not in presidential elections. Second, more importantly, my individual-level analysis suggests that indirect nonmember mobilization and indirect aggregate strength are positively related to turnout, while direct member mobilization is not. The findings imply that the direct effects are limited and, thus, that decreasing levels of voter turnout due to recently declining union membership come primarily from indirect mobilization rather than direct mobilization.

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