scholarly journals Election proximity and representation focus in party-constrained environments

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge M. Fernandes ◽  
Cristina Leston-Bandeira ◽  
Carsten Schwemmer
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Context ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Party Size ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Electoral Cycle ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Constrained Environments ◽  
Written Questions ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
Over Time

Do elected representatives have a time-constant representation focus or do they adapt their focus depending on election proximity? In this paper, we examine this overlooked theoretical and empirical puzzle by looking at how reelection-seeking actors adapt their legislative behavior according to the electoral cycle. In parliamentary democracies, representatives need to serve two competing principals: their party and their district. Our analysis hinges on how representatives make a strategic use of parliamentary written questions in a highly party constrained institutional context to heighten their reselection and reelection prospects. Using an original dataset of over 32000 parliamentary questions tabled by Portuguese representatives from 2005 to 2015, we examine how time interacts with two keys explanatory elements: electoral vulnerability and party size. Results shows that representation focus is not static over time and, in addition, that electoral vulnerability and party size shape strategic use of parliamentary questions.

scholarly journals Election proximity and representation focus in party-constrained environments

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 674-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge M. Fernandes ◽  
Cristina Leston-Bandeira ◽  
Carsten Schwemmer
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Context ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Party Size ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Constrained Environments ◽  
Written Questions ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
Over Time

Do elected representatives have a time-constant representation focus or do they adapt their focus depending on election proximity? In this article, we examine these overlooked theoretical and empirical puzzles by looking at how reelection-seeking actors adapt their legislative behavior according to the electoral cycle. In parliamentary democracies, representatives need to serve two competing principals: their party and their district. Our analysis hinges on how representatives make a strategic use of parliamentary written questions in a highly party-constrained institutional context to heighten their reselection and reelection prospects. Using an original data set of over 32,000 parliamentary questions tabled by Portuguese representatives from 2005 to 2015, we examine how time interacts with two key explanatory elements: electoral vulnerability and party size. Results show that representation focus is not static over time and, in addition, that electoral vulnerability and party size shape strategic use of parliamentary questions.

When and Where Do Women's Legislative Caucuses Emerge?

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 671-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Mitchell Mahoney ◽  
Christopher J. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Event History Analysis ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
History Analysis ◽  
Institutional Norms ◽  
Favorable Conditions

Women have organized around their gendered identity to accomplish political goals both inside and outside legislatures. Formal and informal institutional norms shape the form this collective action takes and whether it is successful. What, then, are the favorable conditions for organizing women's caucuses inside legislatures? Using an original dataset and employing an event history analysis, we identify the institutional conditions under which women's caucuses emerged in the 50 US states from 1972 to 2009. Within a feminist institutional framework, we argue that women's ability to alter existing organizational structures and potentially affect gender norms within legislatures is contextual. Although we find that women's presence in conjunction with Democratic Party control partially explains women's ability to act collectively and in a bipartisan way within legislatures, our analysis suggests that institutional-level variables are not enough to untangle this complicated phenomenon. Our work explains how gender and party interact to shape legislative behavior and clarifies the intractability of institutional norms while compelling further qualitative evidence to uncover the best conditions for women's collective action within legislatures.

Propaganda and Protest in Autocracies

2020 ◽  
pp. 002200272097509
Author(s):  
Erin Baggott Carter ◽  
Brett L. Carter
Keyword(s):  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Half Life ◽  
Popular Protest ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Initial Effect ◽  
Temporal Persistence ◽  
Over Time

Does propaganda reduce the rate of popular protest in autocracies? To answer this question, we draw on an original dataset of state-run newspapers from thirty countries, encompassing six languages and over four million articles. We find that propaganda diminishes the rate of protest, and that its effects persist over time. By increasing the level of pro-regime propaganda by one standard deviation, autocrats have reduced the odds of protest the following day by 15%. The half-life of this effect is between five and ten days, and very little of the initial effect persists after one month. This temporal persistence is remarkably consistent with campaign advertisements in democracies.

When Moderate Voters Prefer Extreme Parties: Policy Balancingin Parliamentary Elections

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
ORIT KEDAR
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Voter Behavior ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Voter Choice ◽  
The Way

This work develops and tests a theory of voter choice in parliamentary elections. I demonstrate that voters are concerned with policy outcomes and hence incorporate the way institutions convert votes to policy into their choices. Since policy is often the result of institutionalized multiparty bargaining and thus votes are watered down by power-sharing, voters often compensate for this watering-down by supporting parties whose positions differ from (and are often more extreme than) their own. I use this insight to reinterpret an ongoing debate between proximity and directional theories of voting, showing that voters prefer parties whose positions differ from their own views insofar as these parties pull policy in a desired direction. Utilizing data from four parliamentary democracies that vary in their institutional design, I test my theory and show how institutional context affects voter behavior.

Should You Invest in an Old Bottle of Whisky or in a Bottle of Old Whisky? A Hedonic Analysis of Vintage Single Malt Scotch Whisky Prices

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Moroz ◽  
Bruno Pecchioli
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Significant Influence ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Age Effect ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Main Determinants ◽  
Collection Date ◽  
Scotch Whisky ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Jel Classifications

AbstractThis article examines the main determinants of differences in ask prices set by investors for single malt whiskies from Islay in Scotland using an original dataset collected from a web trading platform specializing in whisky investment. We find strong evidence that the vintage age (the number of years between the distillation date and the data collection date) positively affects investor asking prices. More precisely, given that the characteristics of whisky, unlike wine, do not change over time once bottled, we disentangle the vintage age effect by subdividing the vintage age into whisky age (the time spent in the cask) and bottle age (the time spent in the bottle). Our results show that whisky age has a more pronounced impact (8.9% per year on average) than bottle age (6.7%). Other findings include the significant influence of distillery reputation, with a moderating effect for independent bottling (i.e., not in-house by the distiller itself) and a positive impact for cask strength whiskies compared to diluted ones. (JEL Classifications: G11, L15, Q11)

Historical Institutionalism and Judicial Decision-Making

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Bleich
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Historical Institutionalism ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
High Court ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Over Time

This article integrates insights from different veins of historical institutionalism to offer an analytical framework that specifies how ideas, institutions, and actors account for key aspects of judicial decision-making, including change over time. To the extent that ideas are widely distributed, highly salient, and stable among actors in the judicial field, they can affect patterns of rulings in a particular issue area. The distribution, salience, and stability of norms, however, may change over time for reasons embedded in the institutional structures themselves. Existing policies, laws, or treaties create the potential for new actors to enter the judicial field through processes that theorists of institutional change have identified as intercurrence, displacement, conversion, layering, and drift. New actors can shift the relative salience of ideas already rooted in the judicial field. This ideational salience amplification can alter patterns of judicial decision-making without the fundamental and often costly battles involved in wholesale paradigm change. French high court hate speech decisions provide the context for the development of this framework and serve to illustrate the dynamic. The author uses evidence from an original dataset of every ruling by the French Court of Cassation regarding racist hate speech from 1972 through 2012 to explain the varying propensity of the high court to restrict speech that targets majorities compared to minorities.

scholarly journals Preparing for the challenge of efectively distributing leadership: Lessons learned from the creation of a leadership team

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-46
Author(s):  
Kathryn Singh
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Distributed Leadership ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Leadership Team ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Distributed Model ◽  
Leadership Model ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Leadership Lessons ◽  
Over Time

The experience of the author in creating and working with a leadership team over the course of three years in a private Mexican high school is shared. An overview of distributed leadership is provided as the theory underlying the approach taken at this new site. Information is shared on the actual institutional context of the team as well as the director’s strategy for creating and preparing the team before and during their work. In addition, the author shares the way in which the group evolved over time. Pros and cons for working under a distributed model are discussed as are recommendations for leaders and trainers of leaders. Creating a successful distributed leadership model requires a great deal of thought and effort. It is crucial that members are willing and able to make and implement wise, informed decisions. It is important, as well, to be aware of a new “worldview” that must be developed at the site in order for the work of the group to be accepted and valued.

scholarly journals Measuring Law Over Time: A Network Analytical Framework with an Application to Statutes and Regulations in the United States and Germany

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna Coupette ◽  
Janis Beckedorf ◽  
Dirk Hartung ◽  
Michael Bommarito ◽  
Daniel Martin Katz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Single Type ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Over Time

How do complex social systems evolve in the modern world? This question lies at the heart of social physics, and network analysis has proven critical in providing answers to it. In recent years, network analysis has also been used to gain a quantitative understanding of law as a complex adaptive system, but most research has focused on legal documents of a single type, and there exists no unified framework for quantitative legal document analysis using network analytical tools. Against this background, we present a comprehensive framework for analyzing legal documents as multi-dimensional, dynamic document networks. We demonstrate the utility of this framework by applying it to an original dataset of statutes and regulations from two different countries, the United States and Germany, spanning more than twenty years (1998–2019). Our framework provides tools for assessing the size and connectivity of the legal system as viewed through the lens of specific document collections as well as for tracking the evolution of individual legal documents over time. Implementing the framework for our dataset, we find that at the federal level, the United States legal system is increasingly dominated by regulations, whereas the German legal system remains governed by statutes. This holds regardless of whether we measure the systems at the macro, the meso, or the micro level.

Parliamentarians and Party Groups

2020 ◽  
pp. 304-322
Author(s):  
Reuven Y. Hazan ◽  
Reut Itzkovitch-Malka
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
New Model ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
Conceptual Confusion ◽  
Party Group

Parliamentary democracies show little variance in party unity because the vast majority of parliamentarians vote in near perfect unity with their party on recorded votes. Legislative scholars are thus presented with a paradox: in those systems where party unity is most needed, it is the hardest to study. The focus of this chapter is on the elected representatives of the party, the party’s Members of Parliament (the parliamentary party group ). This chapter addresses the importance of party unity in parliamentary democracies, as well as the conceptual confusion surrounding party unity. It presents a new model for assessing party unity that begins to solve the puzzle of how to explore party unity when near perfect unity is recorded in parliamentary voting, and delineates the recent developments in research on party unity. It concludes by proposing an agenda for future research.

scholarly journals As time goes by, the same sentiments apply? Stability of voter satisfaction with democracy during the electoral cycle in 31 countries

2020 ◽  
pp. 135406882091246
Author(s):  
Miroslav Nemčok ◽  
Hanna Wass
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Satisfaction With Democracy ◽  
Electoral Cycle ◽  
Popular Consent ◽  
Limited Generalizability ◽  
Over Time

Popular consent is an essential element for success and stability of democracies. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that “electoral winners” (i.e. voters casting a ballot for government parties) are more satisfied with democracy than supporters of the opposition parties. However, little is known about the dynamics of satisfaction during the electoral cycle: Do winners become happier and losers even more discontent over time? We approach this question by utilizing an interview date in the European Social Survey (rounds 1–8) to position individuals within the different stages of electoral cycle. The results based on 199,207 responses from 199 surveys in 31 countries suggest that satisfaction with democracy stays relatively stable during the electoral cycle across various electoral systems if the political development is predictable. However, if actions of the parties are uncertain, namely the alternations of governments tend to be frequent, partial, and opened to all parties, and hence neither winners nor losers know how steady their status is with respect to the political development in the country, their satisfaction tend to fluctuate over time. Therefore, the conclusion reached is the more stable West European democracies have limited generalizability to the low-predictable systems in Central and Eastern Europe.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document