This article discusses the accuracy and sources of economic assessments in three ways. First, following the rational expectations literature in economics, a large sample of countries over a long time period permits tests of the unbiasedness implication of the rational expectations hypotheses (REH), revealing much variation in the accuracy of expectations and the nature of the biases in expectations. Secondly, a theory of expectation formation encompassing the unbiasedness prediction of the REH and setting out the conditions under which economic expectations should be too optimistic or too pessimistic is elucidated. Zaller’s theory of political attitude formation allows the identification of variables conditioning the accuracy of expectations across contexts, drawing a link between the thinking of political scientists and economists about expectation formation. Finally, the theoretical argument that political context impacts the accuracy of average expectations is tested.

This article proposes that foreign-imposed regime changes (FIRCs) make civil war onset more likely when they damage state infrastructural power, as in the context of interstate war, and when they change the target’s political institutions as well as leadership. Using rare events logit to analyse civil war onset from 1920 to 2004, it is found that interstate war and institutional change are virtually necessary (though not sufficient) conditions for an FIRC to cause a civil war. Many control variables are included. The results are robust to different research design specifications; nevertheless, they cannot confirm that occupation troops make an FIRC more likely to spark civil war.

Siblings are a potentially important source of political socialization. Influence is common, especially among younger siblings and those close in age, who tend to interact most frequently. This suggests that the positions of an individual's next-older sibling will hold particular sway. In policy questions with a gender gap, then, those whose immediately older sibling is a sister will be more likely to absorb the typically female preference; those born after a brother, the male preference. Evidence from the United States shows that this pattern holds for general left–right orientation as well as for the preferred balance between public and private sectors. Just as American women are more likely to lean left and to see government intervention positively, so are Americans whose next-older sibling is female.

Classical rational choice explanations of voting participation are widely thought to have failed. This article argues that the currently dominant Group Mobilization and Ethical Agency approaches have serious shortcomings in explaining individually rational turnout. It develops an informal social network (ISN) model in which people rationally vote if their informal networks of family and friends attach enough importance to voting, because voting leads to social approval and vice versa. Using results from the social psychology literature, research on social groups in sociology and their own survey data, the authors argue that the ISN model can explain individually rational non-altruistic turnout. If group variables that affect whether voting is used as a marker of individual standing in groups are included, the likelihood of turnout rises dramatically.

Scholars have argued that there is a broad gender gap in support for the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan. We uncover strong evidence that age, rather than gender, along with rural or urban location, serves as the most critical determinant of party support. Through logistic regression, propensity score matching and simulation techniques applied to four large-scale datasets; we demonstrate that age effects are consistent but slowly diminishing across cohorts between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s. As Japanese women and men age, they come to support the LDP at similar rates controlling for education, income and other demographic factors. We argue that this age gap is a result of socialization and redistribution and not educational levels or socio-economic status, as is often suggested.

The political ‘centre’ is often discussed in debates about public policy and analyses of party strategies and election outcomes. Yet, to date, there has been little effort to estimate the political centre outside the United States. This article outlines a method of estimating the political centre using public opinion data collected for the period between 1950 and 2005. It is demonstrated that it is possible to measure the centre in Britain, that it moves over time, that it shifts in response to government activity and, furthermore, that it has an observable association with general election outcomes.

Elections are inherently about selecting good candidates for public office and sanctioning incumbents for past performance. Yet, in the low salience context of ‘second-order elections’ to the European Parliament, empirical evidence suggests that voters sanction first-order national incumbents. However, no previous study has examined whether voters also use these elections to select good candidates. This article draws on a unique dataset on the political experience of party representatives in eighty-five national elections to the European Parliament to evaluate the extent to which voters prefer candidates with more political experience. The results show that selection considerations do matter. Parties that choose experienced top candidates are rewarded by voters. This effect is greatest when European elections are held in the middle of the national electoral cycle.

Evidence for long-term cycles in the parliamentary seat share of the major British parties is presented in this article. Spectral analysis of data from 1832 to 2005 suggests a cycle period of about twenty-eight years, similar to findings in US studies and to cycle-length estimates restricted to the post-1950 period in Britain. A four-parameter voter–party interaction model developed by Merrill, Grofman and Brunell is adapted and applied to Britain. That model depends on tensions between parties’ policy and office motivations and between voters’ tendency to sustain the governing party while reacting against non-centrist policies. The model operates homeostatically, projects patterns consistent with the empirical record and fits the data better than models based on economic factors or autoregressive predictions.

A six-wave 2005–09 national panel survey conducted in conjunction with the British Election Study provided data for an investigation of sources of stability and change in voters’ party preferences. The authors test competing spatial and valence theories of party choice and investigate the hypothesis that spatial calculations provide cues for making valence judgements. Analyses reveal that valence mechanisms – heuristics based on party leader images, party performance evaluations and mutable partisan attachments – outperform a spatial model in terms of strength of direct effects on party choice. However, spatial effects still have sizeable indirect effects on the vote via their influence on valence judgements. The results of exogeneity tests bolster claims about the flow of influence from spatial calculations to valence judgments to electoral choice.

The British Conservative party during 1997–2005 appeared to support the view that parties react to defeat by energizing their core vote base. Using a series of spatial and salience-based definitions of the core vote, combined with elite interviews with William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, the three Conservative leaders between 1997 and 2005, empirical evidence in support and also refutation of the core vote critique is evaluated here. The analyses suggest that Conservative issue strategies between 1997 and 2005 were chosen on grounds of spatial proximity and public perceptions of issue ownership, and that an appeal to Conservative voters was consistent with a broader appeal. The implications of this evidence are important for conceptualizing and applying party base explanations in Britain and beyond.

Theories of inter-group threat hold that local concentrations of immigrants produce resource competition and anti-immigrant attitudes. Variants of these theories are commonly applied to Britain and the United States. Yet the empirical tests have been inconsistent. This paper analyses geo-coded surveys from both countries to identify when residents’ attitudes are influenced by living near immigrant communities. Pew surveys from the United States and the 2005 British Election Study illustrate how local contextual effects hinge on national politics. Contextual effects appear primarily when immigration is a nationally salient issue, which explains why past research has not always found a threat. Seemingly local disputes have national catalysts. The paper also demonstrates how panel data can reduce selection biases that plague research on local contextual effects.

We use a multi-level modelling approach to estimate the effect of ethnic diversity on measures of generalized and strategic trust using data from a new survey in Britain with a sample size approaching 25,000 individuals. In addition to the ethnic diversity of neighbourhoods, we incorporate a range of indicators of the socio-economic characteristics of individuals and the areas in which they live. Our results show no effect of ethnic diversity on generalized trust. There is a statistically significant association between diversity and a measure of strategic trust, but in substantive terms, the effect is trivial and dwarfed by the effects of economic deprivation and the social connectedness of individuals.

Can ideological inconsistency in legislators’ voting records be explained by uncertainty about constituent preferences? Do legislators ‘hedge their bets’ ideologically when faced with constituency uncertainty? This article presents an uncertainty-based theory of ideological hedging. Legislators faced with uncertainty about their constituent preferences have an incentive to present ideologically inconsistent roll-call records. Legislators experiment with a variety of roll-call positions in order to learn the preferences of their constituents. An examination of US senators during 1961–2004 shows that uncertainty due to black enfranchisement and mobilization led to higher ideological inconsistency in legislative voting records. Ideologically inconsistent behaviour by elected officials can be characterized as best responses to a changing and uncertain environment. These results have implications for representation and the stability of democracy.

In a global economy, a country’s international economic ties affect both how desirable pre-electoral fiscal manipulation is to the government, and how costly it is to the government to engage in such manipulation. Governments are more likely to engage in pre-electoral fiscal manipulation when the country’s exchange rate is flexible and the domestic economy is highly open to international trade, and when the exchange rate is fixed and the domestic economy is relatively closed to international trade. This argument is tested empirically through a quantitative analysis of changes in government debt in twenty OECD countries from 1974 to 2008.

Hegemonic party regimes are non-democratic regimes that (1) rule with the aid of a dominant political party and (2) hold multi-party elections. Elite coalitions organized under the aegis of a hegemonic party are most vulnerable in elections that coincide with poor economic performance. A declining economy provides elites with a platform around which they can mobilize support to challenge incumbents in elections. As a result, the likelihood of defections from hegemonic parties increases as income declines. This study’s original dataset, which includes 227 elections for the chief executive in hegemonic party dictatorships from 1946 to 2004, and its case studies of defections in Zimbabwe under ZANU-PF in 2008 and Turkey under the Democratic Party in 1955 provide evidence for this proposition.

Nations have historically sought power and prosperity through control of physical space. In recent decades, however, this has largely ceased. Most states that could do so appear relucant, while the weak cannot expand. This article presents a theory of imperialism and decolonization that explains both historic cycles of expansion and decline and the collective demise of the urge to colonize. Technological shocks enable expansion, while rising labour costs and the dynamics of military technology gradually dilute imperial advantage. Simultaneously, economic development leads to a secular decline in payoffs for appropriating land, minerals and capital. Once conquest no longer pays great powers, the systemic imperative to integrate production vertically also becomes archaic.

This study evaluates the extent of party-system extremism in thirty-one electoral democracies as a function of electoral-system proportionality. It uses data from the Comparative Studies of Electoral Systems project to estimate the extent of party-system compactness or dispersion across polities and to determine whether more proportional systems foster greater ideological divergence among parties. Electoral system characteristics most associated with party-system compactness in the ideological space are investigated. The empirics show that more proportional systems support greater ideological dispersion, while less proportional systems encourage parties to cluster nearer the centre of the electoral space. This finding is maintained in several sub-samples of national elections and does not depend on the inclusion of highly majoritarian systems (such as the United Kingdom).

Research suggests that the costs of international conflict (e.g. casualties) alter public opinion, executive approval and policy positions of elected officials. However, do casualties affect voting in terms of aggregate outcomes and individual vote choices? This article examines how casualties from interstate conflicts affect voter behaviour, specifically incumbent vote share. Using the investment model of commitment to model individual vote choice, it is argued that increases in the costs of conflict (i.e., more casualties) can increase the probability that voters will support the incumbent, increasing incumbent vote share. This model is tested with both cross-national aggregate data from twenty-three countries and individual-level British survey data. The results support the argument.

One of the most profound changes in the interest group sector over the last fifty years is interest groups’ increasing need to attract financial donors in order to assure long-term sustainability. Groups’ growing propensity to attract ‘chequebook’ members is thought to compromise their ability to foster the personal involvement of individuals in their communities. Yet we know very little about the consequences of these dynamics for the strength of the interest group sector in American communities. This widespread macro-level analysis of the interest group sector indicates that human capital is more important than financial capital for the strength of a community's interest group sector. Financially disadvantaged communities may still enjoy the benefits of a strong interest group sector provided they have a citizenry equipped with time to donate.

This article seeks to further our understanding of how social structure affects the onset of civil war. Existing studies to date have been inconclusive, focusing only on single-cleavage characteristics of social structure, such as ethnic or religious fractionalization. This study argues that models that do not take into account the relationship between cleavages (or cleavage structure) are biased and thus reach faulty conclusions. With the focus on the cleavages of ethnicity and religion, the effects of two characteristics of cleavage structure on civil war onset (cross-cuttingness and cross-fragmentation) are defined and tested. A new index of ethno-religious cross-cuttingness (ERC), derived from national public opinion surveys, reveals that ERC is a significant determinant of civil war onset when interacted with ethnic fractionalization.