Incumbency, Parties, and Legislatures: Theory and Evidence from India

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-331
Author(s):  
Alexander Lee
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
And Control ◽  
Incumbency Disadvantage

Incumbent legislators in some developing countries are often thought to face an electoral disadvantage relative to challengers. This article traces this effect to high levels of centralization within the political parties and governments of these countries. In political systems dominated by party leaders, legislators face substantial formal and informal constraints on their ability to influence policy, stake positions, and control patronage, which in turn reduce their ability to build up personal votes. This theory is tested on a dataset of Indian national elections since 1977, using a regression discontinuity design to measure the effects of incumbency. Candidates less affected by centralization-those from less-centralized political parties and from parties not affected by restrictions on free parliamentary voting - have a low or non-existent incumbency disadvantage.

The Politics of Succession in Charismatic Movements: Routinization versus Revival in Argentina, Venezuela, and Peru

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-315
Author(s):  
Caitlin Andrews-Lee
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Leadership Selection ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The World ◽  
And Control

Scholars suggest that charismatic movements must institutionalize to survive beyond the death of the founder. Yet charismatic movements around the world that have maintained their personalistic nature have persisted or reemerged. This article investigates the conditions under which politicians can use their predecessors' charismatic legacies to revive these movements and consolidate power. I argue that three conditions - the mode of leadership selection, the presence of a crisis, and the ability to conform to the founder's personalistic nature - shape successors' capacity to pick up their forefather's mantle and restore the movement to political predominance. To demonstrate my theory, I trace the process through which some leaders succeeded while others failed to embody the founder's legacy across three charismatic movements: Argentine Peronism, Venezuelan Chavismo, and Peruvian Fujimorismo. Alexander Lee, Incumbency, Parties, and Legislatures: Theory and Evidence from India Incumbent legislators in some developing countries are often thought to face an electoral disadvantage relative to challengers. This article traces this effect to high levels of centralization within the political parties and governments of these countries. In political systems dominated by party leaders, legislators face substantial formal and informal constraints on their ability to influence policy, stake positions, and control patronage, which in turn reduce their ability to build up personal votes. This theory is tested on a dataset of Indian national elections since 1977, using a regression discontinuity design to measure the effects of incumbency. Candidates less affected by centralization - those from less-centralized political parties and from parties not affected by restrictions on free parliamentary voting - have a low or non-existent incumbency disadvantage.

The Primary Effect: Preference Votes and Political Promotions

2016 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
OLLE FOLKE ◽  
TORSTEN PERSSON ◽  
JOHANNA RICKNE
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Primary Effect ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Internal Organization ◽  
Causal Impact ◽  
Local Party

In this analysis of how electoral rules and outcomes shape the internal organization of political parties, we make an analogy to primary elections to argue that parties use preference-vote tallies to identify popular politicians and promote them to positions of power. We document this behavior among parties in Sweden's semi-open-list system and in Brazil's open-list system. To identify a causal impact of preference votes, we exploit a regression discontinuity design around the threshold of winning the most preference votes on a party list. In our main case, Sweden, these narrow “primary winners” are at least 50% more likely to become local party leaders than their runners-up. Across individual politicians, the primary effect is present only for politicians who hold the first few positions on the list and when the preference-vote winner and runner-up have similar competence levels. Across party groups, the primary effect is the strongest in unthreatened governing parties.

scholarly journals Elections and the Regression Discontinuity Design: Lessons from Close U.S. House Races, 1942–2008

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devin Caughey ◽  
Jasjeet S. Sekhon
Keyword(s):  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Covariate Adjustment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Covariate Balance ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
And Control

Following David Lee's pioneering work, numerous scholars have applied the regression discontinuity (RD) design to popular elections. Contrary to the assumptions of RD, however, we show that bare winners and bare losers in U.S. House elections (1942–2008) differ markedly on pretreatment covariates. Bare winners possess largeex antefinancial, experience, and incumbency advantages over their opponents and are usually the candidates predicted to win byCongressional Quarterly's pre-election ratings. Covariate imbalance actually worsens in the closest House elections. National partisan tides help explain these patterns. Previous works have missed this imbalance because they rely excessively on model-based extrapolation. We present evidence suggesting that sorting in close House elections is due mainly to activities on or before Election Day rather than postelection recounts or other manipulation. The sorting is so strong that it is impossible to achieve covariate balance between matched treated and control observations, making covariate adjustment a dubious enterprise. Although RD is problematic for postwar House elections, this example does highlight the design's advantages over alternatives: RD's assumptions are clear and weaker than model-based alternatives, and their implications are empirically testable.

scholarly journals Winners and Losers of the Ballot: Electronic vs. Traditional Paper Voting Systems in Brazil

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Schneider ◽  
Kelly N. Senters
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Electronic Voting ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Voting Systems ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Ballot Design ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Gradual Transformation

AbstractScholars concur that free and fair elections are essential for proper democratic functioning, but our understanding of the political effects of democratic voting systems is incomplete. This article mitigates the gap by exploiting the gradual transformation of voting systems and ballot structures in Brazil’s 1998 executive elections to study the relationship between voting systems and viable and nonviable candidates’ vote shares, using regression discontinuity design. It finds that the introduction of electronic voting concentrated vote shares among viable candidates and thus exhibited electoral bias. We posit that this result occurred because viable candidates were better able to communicate the information that electronic voters needed to cast valid ballots than were their nonviable counterparts. The article uses survey data to demonstrate that electronic voters responded to changes in ballot design and internalized the information viable candidates made available to them.

Stemmen in Vlaanderen op 13 december 1987 : Een statistische analyse

Res Publica ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-50
Author(s):  
Marc Swyngedouw ◽  
Jaak Billiet
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Occupational Status ◽  
The Political ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Statistische Analyse ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Linear Modelling ◽  
Log Linear

Taking into account the limits of such data, this study analyses the shifts in voting behaviour from the national elections in 1985 to those in 1987 in Flanders, using log-linear modelling. The use of data from poll surveys for estimating shifts between subsequent elections poses some methodological problems.The second part presents the results of the analysis. About 13,51 % of -the 1985-voters switched. Although there are significant shifts between all the political parties, the Christian Democratic Party (CVP) loses on all fronts. A log-linear analysis of party-reference by sex, age and occupational status shows the strength and weakness of each party in different societal categories. In conclusion, an interpretation of the shifts is proposed. The following factors can account for the major shifts : the desintegration of the catholic pillar, the emergence of a dual society, the affinity between neo-liberalism and yuppie-culture and the conflict between the language communities.

Unis and Bna: the rôle of ‘Traditionalist’ parties in Niger, 1948–60

1975 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Finn Fuglestad
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Party Leaders

The institutional framework imposed upon Niger in 1946, tended to function according to traditional political concepts, norms, notions and values. Hence the distinction established in this paper between ‘traditionalist’ (UNIS/BNA) and ‘modern’ political parties, refers to the degree of reliance upon this traditional culture and also to the degree to which party-leaders were able to manipulate the norms, notions, etc., of the traditional political systems, in order to gain influence within the new institutional framework. The French Administration, functioning largely as an indigenous chieftaincy, was to a certain extent forced to interfere in politics, since an electoral victory for a ‘modern’ political party (i.e. the évolués) would have to be interpreted—according to the logic of traditional political theory—as a loss of the ‘force’, ‘power’ or ‘luck’, without which the French could no longer be regarded as the legitimate rulers of Niger.If the French finally decided to collaborate with the évolués (and in the process disentangled themselves from the ‘chieftaincy-model’), it was because the évolués constituted the only group capable of grasping the intricate problems of economic development and of running a modern state.

How Indian Parties Connect Voters to Leaders

Asian Survey ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (5) ◽  
pp. 969-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Kushner
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Uttar Pradesh ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Party Platforms

How do political parties in developing countries, without access to accurate polling data, understand their voters? I examine the role that various sources of information play in political party platforms, and how the method of data collection affects parties’ policy and political efforts, primarily by using interview data from 2012 and 2013 with workers from four leading parties in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. I theorize the role of party workers as a key conduit for information between party leaders and the voters they represent.

Funding Liquidity Risk and the Dynamics of Hedge Fund Lockups

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Adam L. Aiken ◽  
Christopher P. Clifford ◽  
Jesse A. Ellis ◽  
Qiping Huang
Keyword(s):  
Hedge Funds ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Hedge Fund ◽  
Liquidity Risk ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Control Variables ◽  
Funding Liquidity ◽  
And Control ◽  
Funding Risk

Abstract We exploit the expiring nature of hedge fund lockups to create a new measure of funding liquidity risk that varies within funds. We find that hedge funds with lower funding risk generate higher returns, and this effect is driven by their increased exposure to equity-mispricing anomalies. Our results are robust to a variety of sampling criteria, variable definitions, and control variables. Further, we address endogeneity concerns in various ways, including a placebo approach and regression discontinuity design. Collectively, our results support a causal link between funding risk and the ability of managers to engage in risky arbitrage.

I. The Committee-Men in the Long Parliament, August 1642–December 1643

1965 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Glow
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
The Political ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The World ◽  
The Commons

It has been said that the Civil War was won by committees. Recent writers on this subject have begun to show how parliamentary policy and its execution was forged in the committee chambers rather than on the crowded floor of the House of Commons. This article is concerned with the personnel of these committees, in particular with those men who were not famous for their political activities and attitudes. Obviously, a core of leaders was needed in order to direct the business of the committees, to give continuity to their proceedings and to ensure that their work was in accord with the policy of the Commons. But the political ‘parties’ were relatively small, and with all the enthusiasm in the world their members could not attend personally to all aspects of government, civil and military. This study is concerned with the men who had no known political views but who contributed a great deal of time and effort to the running of parliamentary affairs. Because of their relative obscurity in the House it will be useful to ask why they were chosen to serve on certain committees, how their background and activity compared with that of their more ‘political’ colleagues, and how they reacted to situations where they were required to take a political stand. Above all, it will be possible to judge whether these men formed a coherent group rather than a random collection of individuals. These men owed their positions to their administrative skill rather than to their political affiliations. As administrators they were responsible to the legislature, and during a time of intensified state intervention, they became analogous to a non-political civil service, ready to execute the policy decisions of the party leaders.

Digital Capitalism and the End of Politics: The Case of the Italian Five Star Movement

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loris Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
The Political ◽  
European Politics ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Digital Capitalism ◽  
The Family ◽  
Political Organizing ◽  
Five Star Movement

In the Italian national elections in 2013, the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Star Movement, M5S), founded just four years earlier, gained 25 percent of votes, more than any other party. Analyses and interpretations are divided between those who consider M5S a member of the family of European populism and those who see M5S’s propositions as akin to the values of the left and social movements. The debate on M5S fits into the context of important ongoing trends in European politics: the growth of populist political movements; the emergence of outsider parties able to challenge stable political systems; changing relationships between parties and social movements; changes in the forms of political organizing. This article investigates the political and cultural nature of this party by (1) analyzing its discourse on democracy, its organizational choices and its main issues; (2) comparing these elements with populism and the left; and (3) linking its fundamental characteristics to contemporary economic processes usually termed “digital capitalism.”

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