Electoral Participation and Republican Moderation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Electoral Participation ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Critical Juncture ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Outright Rejection ◽  
Democratic Elections

This chapter traces how electoral participation contributed to the moderation of republicanism. It argues that liberal democratic elections simply do not allow for revolution. The decision by Irish republicans to participate in elections in 1981 was a critical juncture. The path it chose pushed the movement in an increasingly moderate direction, moving away from parallel states and outright rejection in favour of ambivalent electoral participation. Once this path was chosen republicans became locked-in, resulting in republicans fractionalising their long-term goal into short-term aims, courting voters beyond their core supporters, increasing engagement with ruling institutions, and using the existing system rather than trying to overthrow it. This electoral direction was later reinforced by the power-sharing arrangements which brought republicans into government. Moderation occurred in spite of republicans rejecting the legitimacy of the electoral institutions in which they were now competing. Electoral participation was a rational choice by republicans to pursue their goals through a new means in the hope of avoiding marginalisation.

Animal Protein and Rational Choice: Diet in the Eighteenth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bruegel ◽  
Jean-Michel Chevet ◽  
Sébastien Lecocq
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Meat Consumption ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Rational Choice Model ◽  
Elite Status ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Long Term Variations

Analysis of the account books of the convent school of Saint-Cyr between 1688 and 1788 reveals the causes of the institution's changing patterns of meat consumption. Although a rational-choice model can explain short-term variations in the school's diet, economic variables alone are not sufficient to explain its long-term variations, as evolving tastes began to infiltrate Saint-Cyr's traditional, aristocratic diet. The unintended side effect of this development was to improve nutrition, which the school managed to do without running afoul of claims to elite status.

Electoral Participation in the French Fifth Republic

1973 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Rosenthal ◽  
Subrata Sen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
Spatial Model ◽  
Heuristic Model ◽  
Electoral Participation ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
Decision Making Model

Variations in second ballot abstention and blank and invalid ballot rates (over the cross-section of French election districts) are examined for all four legislative elections of the French Fifth Republic. Analysis was conducted primarily through a heuristic decision-making model and a spatial model developed from the theories of Riker, McKelvey, and Ordeshook, and Davis, Hinich, and Ordeshook.Abstentions appear to be primarily influenced by long-term factors and the competitiveness of the contest. Blank ballots appear to be primarily dependent upon short-term factors, especially nonvoting from the alienation that results when a candidate present on the first ballot is not present on the second. The alienation model and the heuristic model, though partly collinear, make independent contributions to the explanation of the blank ballot variance.

Conspiracy Theories?

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-148
Author(s):  
Steve Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Critical Reasoning ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Media ◽  
Reasoning Skills ◽  
Democratic Societies

This chapter examines what, if anything, governments in Western liberal democratic societies should do to reduce rates of acceptance of unwarranted conspiracy theories. It begins by addressing three concerns. One is that it is unclear what counts as a conspiracy theory. A second is that it might be supposed that the acceptance of unwarranted conspiracy theories is not harmful. And if the acceptance of unwarranted conspiracy theories is not harmful then it is unclear why governments should be trying to reduce their rates of acceptance. A third concern is that it is unclear that we should be encouraging governments to undertake the project of reducing the popularity of unwarranted conspiracy theories, given that sometimes governments themselves have been known to mislead us about conspiracy theories. The chapter then looks at short-term and long-term strategies to reduce the popularity of unwarranted conspiracy theories. Long-term strategies include promoting critical reasoning skills through schooling and other forms of public education; promoting knowledge of the media and how it works; and making government operations more transparent and accountable.

Reform Capacity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Lindvall
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Bargaining Problems

Reform capacity—the ability of political decision-makers to adopt and implement policy changes that benefit society as a whole—can be achieved in two different ways. One method is to build institutions that concentrate power, enabling governments to ignore losers from reform. The other method, which governments rely more on in systems where power is shared, is to build institutions that enable governments to compensate losers from reform. The book discusses numerous empirical examples of how governments have built support for reforms by compensating losers. These examples are drawn from several different policy areas, including trade and labor market policy, fiscal policy, social policy, and tax and economic policy. If political decision-makers in power-sharing democracies are able to solve the bargaining problems that can sometimes complicate negotiations between winners and losers, power-sharing systems have certain advantages over power-concentration systems. Power sharing can lead to high reform capacity in societies where interest groups are powerful enough to block reforms. Power sharing can also lead to high reform capacity when reforms have short-term costs and long-term benefits, since it helps to correct some of the short-sightedness inherent in democratic policymaking.

scholarly journals Electoral competition and the party politics of public investments

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110363
Author(s):  
Olivier Jacques
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Time Inconsistency ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Public Investments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Investments In Education ◽  
Electoral Competitiveness

When do political parties propose long-term investments? Electoral competitiveness should be a key variable explaining parties’ investment priorities: parties can be less responsive to voters’ short-term priorities and overcome time inconsistencies when they are more likely to win the next election. The article distinguishes the characteristics of three types of investments in education, environmental protection and technology and infrastructure, gathered from the Comparative Manifesto Project. It finds a linear positive relationship between parties’ probability of entering office and the proportion of manifestoes allocated to statements about technology and infrastructure. In contrast, statements about education are highest at high levels of electoral competitiveness, as parties propose more education to attract voters, while statements about the environment are affected by parties’ ideology on the left-right axis rather than by electoral competitiveness. Power-sharing institutions help parties to overcome time inconsistency problems, reducing the impact of electoral competition on investments.

scholarly journals Stable Support for Democracy in East and Southeast Asia? Examining Citizens’ Trust in Democratic Institutions

East Asia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Mauk
Keyword(s):  
Social Trust ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Value Orientations ◽  
Performance Evaluations ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Support For Democracy ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
Democratic Stability

AbstractRecent democratic regressions and crises suggest democracy is at risk across East and Southeast Asia. One of the factors that can determine democratic stability are citizens’ attitudes. While previous research has concentrated on support for democracy-in-principle, this contribution argues that it is political trust, i.e. support for democracy-in-practice, which is crucial for democratic stability. For democracies to be stable, political trust should be high as well as rooted in long-term factors like liberal democratic value orientations or social trust to protect it from short-term fluctuations following economic crises or political scandals. This contribution therefore examines not only the current levels and development of political trust but also whether it is influenced more by long-term factors (liberal democratic value orientations, social trust) or short-term factors (economic performance evaluations, incumbent support). The empirical analysis shows political trust in five East and Southeast Asian democracies (Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, South Korea, Taiwan) to be mostly mediocre and primarily dependent on economic performance evaluations and incumbent support. Among the five democracies, citizens in Japan appear most resilient to democratic regressions; on the other hand, Taiwanese democracy seems least equipped to master future crises.

Future-Oriented Reforms

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Lindvall
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Pension Systems ◽  
Political Risks ◽  
Winner Takes All

Theories of policymaking need to take into account that political institutions, and decision-makers, are situated in time. This chapter shows that when it comes to reforms with investment-like properties—policy changes that are associated with short-term costs and long-term benefits—reform capacity can be higher in power-sharing systems than in power-concentration systems. The reason is that investment-like reforms are associated with great political risks in countries with winner-takes-all political competition. The chapter's empirical sections are concerned with two types of future-oriented reforms: reforms of old-age pension systems and reforms of tax systems. Power sharing has been associated with high levels of reform capacity in both of these policy areas.

Information and Self-Enforcing Democracy: The Role of International Election Observation

2014 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan D. Hyde ◽  
Nikolay Marinov
Keyword(s):  
Short Term ◽  
Election Observation ◽  
Election Fraud ◽  
Credible Information ◽  
Democratic Elections

AbstractThis article argues that when democracy is not yet institutionalized, leaders have little incentive to push for clean elections, in part because they are likely to face accusations of fraud from domestic opposition groups regardless of their true behavior. Reputable international election observers can facilitate self-enforcing democracy by providing credible information about the quality of elections, thus increasing citizens’ ability to coordinate against the regime when election fraud occurs, and discrediting “sore loser” protests. Patterns of postelection protests are consistent with the argument, including that postelection protests are more likely and last longer following negative reports from international observers. International election observers help promote democracy by making postelection protest more accurate in the short term, thereby increasing incentives for leaders to hold democratic elections in the long term.

scholarly journals Introduction to Symposium on Pierre-Hugues Verdier and Erik Voeten, “Precedent, Compliance, and Change in Customary International Law: An Explanatory Theory”

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 239-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Wuerth
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Explanatory Theory ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
University Of Georgia ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The University

AJIL Unbound is pleased to announce three commentators who will discuss the article by Pierre-Hugues Verdier and Erik Voeten entitled “Precedent, Compliance, and Change in Customary International Law: An Explanatory Theory.” The article argues that rational choice scholars have overlooked key characteristics of customary international law and that those characteristics undermine the enforcement of customary norms through decentralized punishment. Instead, Verdier and Voeten contend, states may comply with customary international law even if their short-term interests are to defect, because states know that their decision to defect generates precedent that undermines the norm as a whole. Our commentators on this article are, first, Professor Tim Meyer, from the University of Georgia, who maintains that Verdier and Voeten overstate the distinction between custom and treaties. Second, Professor Jens David Ohlin, from Cornell, asks what happens to custom when states cannot appeal to long-term interests. He argues that compliance in these “one-shot” scenarios can be understood partly by considering the formation of plans by states which may act rationally in carrying through on their obligations without re-evaluating their plans. Finally, Professor Alejandro Lorite Escorihuela, from the University of Quebec at Montreal, argues that the role of precedent is clear from both the doctrine and practice of customary international law, so that it is unclear what rational choice methodology is adding to our understanding of custom, a critique he buttresses in part through an examination of some of the examples discussed in the article.

scholarly journals Power-sharing, conflict resolution, and the logic of pre-emptive defection

2020 ◽  
pp. 002234332092469
Author(s):  
Chelsea Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Negotiated Settlements ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
Commitment Problem ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Cross National

Conclusions about the potential for peace via power-sharing are mixed. For some, power-sharing does little to overcome the commitment problem characterizing a transition from conflict, while others argue that such concessions provide signals of parties’ willingness to incur costs. This article develops and tests a new theory, aiming to shed light on the mechanisms through which power-sharing bargains help to overcome the commitment problem. I argue that government parties tend to hold an electoral and military advantage, which heightens incentives for rebel leaders to defect from a settlement prior to conceding their capacity to use violence. Where settlements provide discrete guarantees that offset the risks of electoral defeat and the co-optation of forces, these incentives for pre-emptive defection should be mitigated. I offer a novel disaggregation of provisional power-sharing subtypes, distinguishing between long-term and short-term arrangements. The analysis rests on an original, cross-national dataset of government-and-rebel dyads to negotiated settlements signed between 1975 and 2015 (N = 168). The logistic regression results clearly indicate that power-sharing settlements stipulating ‘consociational’-style reforms are significantly more likely to resolve conflict between settlement dyads, all else equal. Meanwhile, standard conceptualizations of power-sharing, which include transitional coalitions and troop integration, appear unlikely to secure rebel commitment beyond the transition period, which helps to explain the contradictory findings in existing research.

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