How Open Lists Undermine the Electoral Support of Cohesive Parties

How does ballot structure affect party choice? We argue that open lists undermine the electoral support of cohesive parties, to the benefit of internally divided parties. We conduct a survey-embedded experiment in the aftermath of the European migrant crisis, presenting German voters with real parties but fictitious politicians. A crossover design varies ballot type and exposure to candidate positions on immigration. We find that the internally divided Christian Democrats gain votes at the expense of the cohesive Alternative for Germany when open lists are used and candidate positions are known. For individuals who are equally attracted to both parties, switching is most likely if their immigration preferences lie near the midpoint between the two parties. Overall, our analysis establishes conditions under which ballot structure can affect the electoral performance of parties in general, and that of the populist right in particular.

Policy Preferences Influence Vote Choice When A New Party Emerges: Evidence from the 2017 French Presidential Election

A common explanation for electoral victories is that the winning candidate adopted issue positions that appealed to voters, implying that citizens’ choices are based on policy preferences. However, it is not straightforward to determine the causal direction between citizens’ issue preferences and their party choice. An alternative possibility, strongly supported by prior research, is that voters adopt the positions of the parties they vote for to rationalize their votes. The 2017 French presidential election offers a unique opportunity to address that question, as it saw the victory of a candidate who was not backed by one of the established parties. Using panel data, we show that policy preferences measured prior to Macron’s emergence as a candidate led voters with a particular bundle of preferences to support him. We conclude that policy preferences clearly do matter to vote choice and that this effect is most visible when a new party emerges.

An Analysis of the Link between Individual Identity Traits and Radical Party Choice

While recent trends in the study of radial party voting have tended to focus on egalitarian attitudes and individual personality traits in their endeavor to explain radical party choice, the present study pits individual identity traits in the spotlight of ballot box behavior, using data from the World Values Survey and European Values Survey. We analyze the link between exclusive and inclusive identity (identifying with a more restricted ‘in-group’ versus identifying with a larger community) and the propensity to vote for radical right and radical left parties, using differences in individual identification with respondents’ home nation and as European citizens. The results show that exclusive individual identity is a good predictor of radical right party choice, even in the presence of redistributive and egalitarian values usually associated with left-wing voting. The results also speak to the literature on welfare chauvinism. While the presence of strong egalitarian and redistributive attitudes does indeed normally predict radical left party preference in line with previous findings, this relationship is complicated by the presence of exclusive individual identity, which moderates the former’s effect and can induce egalitarian voters to prefer radical right parties. In conclusion, the paper explores the interaction of identity and social class.

The Way Things Were

This chapter concerns the British general elections of 1964, 1966, and 1970. The first contest ended thirteen years of Conservative government, although Labour secured an overall majority of just four seats. The 1966 election resulted in a comfortable victory for Labour, which was expected to win again in 1970. Instead, the Conservatives confounded the opinion polls and returned to office. In each case relevant developments in the preceding inter-election period are described (including trends in party popularity) and an account of the campaign provided. In addition, the election results themselves—patterns of party support and of turnout—are extensively analysed. The chapter also sets out the contemporary explanation of party choice in Britain offered by the influential work of Butler and Stokes which stressed the primary roles of class and party identification.

Economic Risk within the Household and Voting for the Radical Right

ABSTRACT This article investigates how unemployment risk within households affects voting for the radical right. The authors contribute to recent advances in the literature that have highlighted the role of economic threat for understanding the support of radical-right parties. In contrast to existing work, the authors do not treat voters as atomistic individuals; they instead investigate households as a crucial site of preference formation. Combining largescale labor market data with comparative survey data, they confirm the expectations of their theoretical framework by demonstrating that the effect of occupational unemployment risk on radical-right support is strongly conditioned by household-risk constellations. Voting for the radical right is a function not only of a voter’s own risk, but also of his or her partner’s risk. The article provides additional evidence on the extent to which these effects are gendered and on the mechanisms that link household risk and party choice. The results imply that much of the existing literature on individual risk exposure potentially underestimates its effect on political behavior due to the neglect of multiplier effects within households.

Part 1 General and Special Reports, 1 General Comparative Report: Global Perspectives on the Hague Principles

This chapter presents the General Comparative Report, which addresses, article by article, the Hague (or HCCH) Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts of 2015 (the Hague Principles). The General Comparative Report compares the Hague Principles with the state of the law in over sixty jurisdictions worldwide and with supranational rules and soft law principles. It aims to encourage legislators, courts, practitioners, and academics to further develop their domestic private international law systems and possibly benefit hereby from the Hague Principles by consistently and adequately applying, interpreting, and amending domestic, supranational, and regional private international law (PIL) in the context of party choice of law. The chapter then details the structure of the Report and the questionnaire used to address the issues covered by the Hague Principles. It also provides an introduction and a comparative overview of each of the Articles of the Hague Principles.

Part 1 General and Special Reports, 7 International Commercial Arbitration: Perspective on the Hague Principles in International Commercial Arbitration

This chapter studies how the private international law rules of most jurisdictions have traditionally addressed State court litigation, without considering the specificities of international arbitration. Many nations have now created their own legislation for international arbitration or adopted the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. These laws regularly contain their own rules dealing with parties’ choice of law on the merits. The chapter then explores choice of law in international arbitration with a particular view on the Hague Principles which are, as paragraph 4 of their Preamble discloses, intended to apply equally to courts and arbitral tribunals. It analyses the approach arbitral tribunals have taken when confronted with choice of law issues, and particularly a party choice of the law applicable to the merits of the dispute. The chapter also assesses whether it is correct and if so, for which reasons, and in which way, that commercial parties have a larger autonomy in arbitration, compared to litigation, to choose non-State rules of law, and which types of rules they may choose. Finally, it demonstrates why, how, and to what extent the Hague Principles can contribute to define, delineate, interpret, and supplement existing (conflict of law) regimes in the field of international arbitration.