It is widely supposed that the level of popular support for governments depends on those governments' success in handling the economy. Some recent studies have attempted to test this idea by estimating the statistical relationship between the government's popularity in the opinion polls and various indicators of the state of the economy such as unemployment rates, inflation rates, growth rates and so on. A general finding of these studies is that popularity is significantly correlated with all these indicators of the standard of living. All of them, however, operate on the assumption that the voters behave as if they had perfect knowledge of the state of the economy as set out for example by the Government Statistical Service. Whether this assumption does, in fact, approximate to the truth will, however, depend in large part on how the popular media present economic trends and economic relationships to their public. If there are gaps and biases in the information which is presented to many voters, then those voters will be responding to a picture of the economy which may differ dramatically from the picture offered by publications such as Economic Trends and the government will be selling its policies in a highly imperfect market. The purpose of this paper is to mount a preliminary investigation into the picture of the economy which has been presented by one important medium of communication, namely mass-circulation newspapers. The aim is to show how firstly the scope and secondly the interpretation of the economic data presented by the popular press developed over the period 1960–80. The limitations of this method should be spelled out. We are not considering all the sources from which people derive information about the economy (personal communications, radio, television, newspapers), but only the last and possibly the most partisan of these. This Note offers, therefore, in no sense ‘the ordinary man in the street's perception of the economy’ but simply the picture of the economy which one influential medium of communication presented.

This article reviews the range of explanations which have been proposed for voting behaviour in the US elections won by Ronald Reagan and develops a comprehensive model for the evolution of electoral choices in both of those contests. Estimates are provided for both the direct and indirect effects of several types of variables or ‘explanatory themes’, and those estimates are used to assess the relative importance of each of those themes in explaining individual-level choices and the aggregate outcomes of both Reagan elections. These procedures suggest that preferences concerning both policy direction and evaluations of national and presidential performance played major roles in the two Reagan elections – both in the individual-level decisions and in producing the Republicans' aggregate victories.

Arrangements for sharing political power serve three purposes: to give all relevant groups access to important political decisions; to partition the policy process, thereby granting groups relevant autonomy; and to constrain holders of political power from abusing authority. A new global dataset of political power sharing institutions, 1975–2010, is introduced here, disaggregated these along three institutional dimensions: inclusive, dispersive, and constraining. Existing literature associates power sharing with democracy and civil conflict resolution. Unlike the existing literature, this dataset shows inclusive institutions are common in post-conflict states, though least strongly associated with electoral democracy. Conversely, constraining institutions, though comparatively rare in states with current or recent civil conflicts, are highly correlated with electoral democracy.

In electoral research the examination of the effect on voting behaviour of personal interaction has frequently had a subsidiary place in investigation and an ambiguous status in theory – a situation that has arisen despite evidence suggesting that personal interaction may often be a central factor in structuring voting choice. Typical of this neglect has been the approach to the phenomenon to be discussed here – the effect of neighbourhood structure on voting; for although this was first described at an early stage in voting research and subsequently re-examined several times, it has still to be adequately explained and integrated with other research findings.

AN INTELLECTUAL ODYSSEY

[L]egislative strategy, which most writers have treated as a mystical art … , may on examination by this [social choice] theory turn out to be a science with quite coherent rules.W. Riker, ‘Voting and the Summation of Preferences: An Interpretive Bibliographical Review of Selected Developments During the Last Decade’, American Political Science Review, 55 (1961), 900–11, quoted at p. 911.

At the most general level there are the things people talk about as possible subjects for group decision. Call this the feasible set. From this misty swamp, politicians – by constitutional restrictions and direction and by rhetorical and heresthetical maneuvers – form the set of considered issues.William H. Riker, Agenda Formation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), p. 2.

The problem raised when democratic majorities take decisions that impose restrictions on religious minorities may be avoided through ‘the strategy of privatization’, but not when the issue is the character of public space. This article considers a challenging case: the Swiss referendum decision to ban any future construction of Islamic minarets. It examines two grounds for opposition: the human right to freedom of religion, and the liberal principle of equal treatment of cultures. It argues that the human right is too limited, and that the equal treatment principle can be trumped by considerations of national identity when public space is involved. Nevertheless, the content of that identity and its public expression must remain open to democratic deliberation, and the Swiss decision can be faulted on those grounds.

Two major traditions of belief, democracy and capitalism, have dominated American public life from its inception. Although they have not always coexisted in perfect harmony – indeed their union has often been torn by conflict – they have managed to accommodate to each other with sufficient flexibility to have forged a viable political culture.

At the end of this series of comments, rejoinders and second thoughts on tactical voting it may not be entirely clear what is actually in dispute. The aim of this Note, therefore, is simply to take stock and to try to elucidate the points on which there is agreement and disagreement.

The formulas for electing presidents and the rules determining the legislativepowers of presidents are important variables for explaining the performance ofpresidential democracies. This article develops a strategic choice model toexplain variations in these institutional features. Based on this model, it isproposed here that constitution makers are likely to opt for more-than-pluralityrules of presidential elections when the number of parties necessary to passconstitutional changes increases. It is also proposed that the makers ofconstitutions are likely to strengthen the legislative powers of the presidentwhen the number of parties necessary to pass constitutional changes increasesand when parties are decentralized. The argument is supported by a statisticalanalysis of the determinants of constitutional choice in Latin America.

What explains local variation in electoral manipulation in countries with ongoing internal conflict? The theory of election fraud developed in this article relies on the candidates’ loyalty networks as the agents manipulating the electoral process. It predicts (i) that the relationship between violence and fraud follows an inverted U-shape and (ii) that loyalty networks of both incumbent and challenger react differently to the security situation on the ground. Disaggregated violence and election results data from the 2009 Afghanistan presidential election provide empirical results consistent with this theory. Fraud is measured both by a forensic measure, and by using results from a visual inspection of a random sample of the ballot boxes. The results align with the two predicted relationships, and are robust to other violence and fraud measures.

Elite partisan polarization has been found to have several potentially problematic effects on citizens, such as creating political distrust and different types of polarization among partisans. However, it remains unclear whether these effects are caused by the parties moving apart in terms of issue positions (issue polarization) or by the rise of disrespectful rhetoric (incivility). In the literature, these two dimensions of elite polarization often appear to affect citizens in similar ways, but typical research designs have not been well suited to disentangling their effects. To determine their unique effects, four studies have been conducted using original designs and a mix of experimental and observational data. The results show that issue polarization and incivility have clearly distinct effects. A more uncivil tone lowers political trust, but increasing issue polarization does not. Conversely, only issue polarization creates attitude polarization among partisans. Both aspects of elite polarization create affective polarization.

This article develops a game-theoretical model of European Union (EU) policy making that suggests that the amount of legislative activity depends on the size of the gridlock interval. This is consistent with Krehbiel's study of US politics. This interval depends on two factors: (1) the preference configuration of the political actors and (2) the legislative procedures used in a particular period. Actors’ preferences and procedures are not expected to have any effect beyond their impact on the gridlock interval. The study predicts smaller gridlock intervals, and thus more legislative activity, under the co-decision (consultation) procedure when the pivotal member states and the European Parliament (Commission) are closer to each other. More activity is expected under qualified majority voting in the Council than under unanimity. The results find support for these propositions in an empirical analysis of EU legislative activity between 1979 and 2009.

Social capital and community activity are thought to increase voter turnout, but reverse causation and omitted variables may bias the results of previous studies. This article exploits saint's day fiestas in Mexico as a natural experiment to test this causal relationship. Saint's day fiestas provide temporary but large shocks to the connectedness and trust within a community, and the timing of these fiestas is quasi-random. For both cross-municipality and within-municipality estimates, saint's day fiestas occurring near an election decrease turnout by 2.5 to 3.5 percentage points. So community activities that generate social capital can inhibit political participation. These findings may give pause to scholars and policy makers who assume that such community activity and social capital will improve the performance of democracy.

It is worthwhile debating the meaning of concepts only when they start to hinder the process of inquiry. This seems to be the case with Max Weber's concepts of legitimacy and legitimate authority. They are becoming increasingly popular among students of Soviet-type societies despite the numerous problems posed by their application in a socio-political context that is so different from the one Weber had in mind. This increased popularity results in a ‘conceptual stretch’. More importantly, it increases the danger of a serious misinterpretation of socio-political processes in Soviet-type societies because, as will be argued in this article, the concept of legitimacy is not appropriate for the analysis of mass compliance in such societies. Instead, the persistence of (relatively) stable social and political order in these societies, as well as the occurrences of mass dissent, may be better accounted for in terms of ‘conditional tolerance’. In order to demonstrate the utility of this concept, and to show the problematic nature of accounts in terms of legitimacy and legitimate authority, it is necessary to start with a brief reprise of Weber's conceptual scheme.

All the theories of coalition formation known to us incorporate an assumption (or a set of assumptions which imply) that coalitions which are formed must at least be ‘winning’. 1 In the present context, a coalition is said to be winning if the sum of the seats held by its members is at least a simple majority of all the seats in the parliament. Most of these theories were intended to apply to government coalitions: indeed, several of them were specifically designed for this situation. Yet out of the total of 207 governments which have formed in twelve western democracies since the war, 2 seventy-four of them have not been winning.

Do changes in health lead to changes in the probability of voting? Using two longitudinal datasets, this article looks at the impact of three measures of health – physical health, mental health and overall well-being – on voting trajectories in young adulthood. The results show that self-rated health is associated with a lower probability of voting in one’s first election, depression is related to a decline in turnout over time and physical limitations are unrelated to voting. Some familial resources from childhood are also found to condition when the health–participation effect manifests.

In 2016, attitudes related to racism and sexism were strong predictors of vote choice for president. Since then, issues related to race and gender have continued to be an important part of the political agenda. This letter shows that hostile sexism and denial of racism emerged as stronger predictors of the House vote in the 2018 cycle than they had been in 2016. The results show that the increased importance of these factors came largely from the shifting of less sexist and less racist voters from voting Republican in 2016 to voting for Democrats in 2018. Overall, the results suggest that Trump's hostility towards women and minorities is becoming part of the Republican Party's brand, and that this appears to have created an electoral penalty for Republican candidates in 2018.

The Northern Irish party system is plausibly represented as two systems, in which partycompetition occurs within nationalist and unionist blocs. Social and ideological divisions withinthese blocs constrain parties' electoral strategies and thus facilitate or inhibit cross-communalcompromise. Using Northern Irish Social Attitudes data, various accounts of these intra-communal divisions are tested and their political implications assessed. Contrary to expectationsconcerning the effects of cross-communal contact, neighbourhood integration is found to haveno relationship with partisanship although, consistent with political socialization theory, youngpeople on both sides of the divide are more likely than those who are older to support the morerecently introduced parties. Most significantly, however, there are noticeable asymmetries in thepatterns of cleavage within the unionist and nationalist blocs. Among Protestants, left–rightideology has a far stronger impact than constitutional position on patterns of partisanship; andsocial class has considerably stronger effects than does denomination. Most Protestants, whatevertheir partisanship, also express strongly unionist constitutional preferences. In clear contrast, onthe nationalist side party support is polarized along constitutional lines, there is no cross-cuttingideological division over economic inequality, and a majority of Catholics adopt a moderatestance on nationalism. It is argued in consequence, that within the unionist bloc the pattern ofintra-communal party competition militates against constitutional compromise as a solution to‘the troubles’, whereas among nationalists the unidimensional structure of competition forelectoral support and the distribution of attitudes towards the constitutional issue are likely to haveinfluenced the adoption of compromise strategies by Sinn Féin.

Compulsory voting is often linked to pro-democracy orientations in the public. However, there is reason to question the strength and universality of this link. Engaging research on the effects of coercion and punishment, this article argues that forced participation inflates the tendency of those with negative orientations towards democracy to see the democratic system as illegitimate, and to be dissatisfied with democracy. The study finds support for these expectations in analyses of three separate cross-national surveys and a natural experiment. Compulsory voting heightens dissatisfaction with democracy within key segments of the population.

Three perspectives on delegation in the European Union are presented in this article. The transaction-costs perspective focuses on information asymmetries between policy makers and implementers. According to the commitment perspective, policy makers delegate authority as a solution to commitment problems. The consensus-building perspective views the decision to delegate as a trade-off between decisiveness and inclusiveness during the bargaining process. Hypotheses are derived from these perspectives regarding the amount of delegation to both the European Commission and to member states in legislation. From detailed information on eighty-six EU laws, there is some evidence for the transaction-costs perspective as an explanation of delegation to the Commission. With respect to delegation to member states, there is some evidence for both the transaction-costs perspective and the consensus-building perspective.