Long-standing results demonstrate that, if policy choices are defined in spaces with more than one dimension, majority-rule equilibrium fails to exist for a general class of smooth preference profiles. This article shows that if agents perceive political similarity and difference in ‘city block’ terms, then the dimension-by-dimension median can be a majority-rule equilibrium even in spaces with an arbitrarily large number of dimensions and it provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such an equilibrium. This is important because city block preferences accord more closely with empirical research on human perception than do many smooth preferences. It implies that, if empirical research findings on human perceptions of similarity and difference extend also to perceptions of political similarity and difference, then the possibility of equilibrium under majority rule re-emerges.

This article contributes to the empirical turn in deliberative democratic theory, by studying the presence of arguing (discussion on the merits) and bargaining in the working groups of the Council of the European Union. It uses a survey of representatives of member states to analyse to what extent, under what circumstances, and by whom, arguing is used. The results indicate that arguing is indeed common in the Council working groups, but also that there is substantial variation. Most arguing is found in intergovernmental policy areas and by the most powerful and well-connected actors. The findings point to the conclusion that higher stakes and political pressure make actors less willing and able to engage in arguing.

Political protest is seemingly a ubiquitous aspect of politics in advanced industrial societies, and its use may be spreading to less developed nations as well. Our research tests several rival theories of protest activity for citizens across an exceptionally wide range of polities. With data from the 1999–2002 wave of the World Values Survey, we demonstrate that the macro-level context – levels of economic and political development – significantly influences the amount of popular protest. Furthermore, a multi-level model examines how national context interacts with the micro-level predictors of protest activity. The findings indicate that contemporary protest is expanding not because of increasing dissatisfaction with government, but because economic and political development provide the resources for those who have political demands.

Institutions operating beyond direct control of government, such as central banks, constitutional courts and public broadcasters, enjoy guarantees of de jure independence, but de jure independence is no guarantee of de facto independence. This is especially so for public broadcasting, where cultural variables are often assumed to be decisive. In this article, the de jure and de facto independence of thirty-six public service broadcasters world-wide are operationalized, and de jure independence is found to explain a high degree of de facto independence when account is taken of the size of the market for news. Other variables considered in previous literature – such as bureaucratic partisanship and the polarization of the party system – are not found to be significant.

In Western democracies it is held that parties and their positions affect how politicians choose to make public expenditure and investment. This article examines the public policy choices of politicians in India, a large well-established democracy with remarkable subnational variation. Public expenditure, from education and health to agriculture and irrigation, is analysed. Counterintuitive findings – that election timing and political factors play a strong role in the subnational states, and that party competition increases investment in education – are explained by highlighting the role economic and political uncertainty plays in politicians’ choices. Building a ‘Polanyi’ argument enhanced by a supply-side mechanism highlights the importance of compensation and insurance and the imperatives of political stability for subnational politicians, who attempt to maximize re-election chances in an uncertain environment.

This article examines how voters attribute credit and blame to governments for policy success and failure, and how this affects their party support. Using panel data from Britain between 1997 and 2001 and Ireland between 2002 and 2007 to model attribution, the interaction between partisanship and evaluation of performance is shown to be crucial. Partisanship resolves incongruities between party support and policy evaluation through selective attribution: favoured parties are not blamed for policy failures and less favoured ones are not credited with policy success. Furthermore, attributions caused defections from Labour over the 1997–2001 election cycle in Britain, and defections from the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat coalition over the 2002–07 election cycle in Ireland. Using models of vote switching and controlling for partisanship to minimize endogeneity problems, it is shown that attributed evaluations affect vote intention much more than unattributed evaluations. This result holds across several policy areas and both political systems.

This article investigates support for redistributive land policy in contemporary South Africa. From a large survey conducted in 2004, the author assesses whether contemporary policy preferences reflected egocentric instrumentalism – direct and immediate profit from redistributive policies – or symbolic justice – non-instrumental concern for contemporary and historical injustices against groups. Analysis of the data decidedly favours the symbolic justice hypothesis. Land redistribution is a symbolic issue for most black South Africans, grounded in values connected to land as a symbol and in concern for the historical injustices of apartheid and colonialism. Because land policy preferences are so strongly associated with concerns for historical injustices against groups, the land issue remains volatile and resistant to ‘simple’ economic solutions. Land is thus an example of historical injustices colliding with demands for contemporary fairness.

This article analyses the relationship between the representatives and the represented by comparing elite and mass attitudes to gender equality and women’s representation in Britain. In so doing, the authors take up arguments in the recent theoretical literature on representation that question the value of empirical research of Pitkin’s distinction between substantive and descriptive representation. They argue that if men and women have different attitudes at the mass level, which are reproduced amongst political elites, then the numerical under-representation of women may have negative implications for women’s substantive representation. The analysis is conducted on the British Election Study (BES) and the British Representation Study (BRS) series.

This article reviews comparative research on institutions and economic performance, identifying analytical gaps in the political economy of growth literature. It also examines core assumptions underpinning the good-governance approach to development. Contrasting experiences of conceptual and policy issues in East Asia and Latin America are discussed. The author suggests future scholarship in this field should distinguish between the rules and the play of the game; move beyond the property rights approach to development; stress the distributional, endogenous nature of institutions; investigate the role of informal constraints and human learning; and consider sources of credible commitment and self-enforcing growth. Focusing on some uncertainties in the accepted wisdom on good governance and development, this article furthers the consolidation of research on the political foundations of prosperity.