Redrawing the Political Map of Russia: The Duma Election of December 2003

Two experts on the electoral geography of post-Soviet Russia examine the disruption of the relatively stable pattern of political choice evident in the returns from the December 2003 elections to the Russian Duma. The paper documents major shifts, relative to three previous Duma elections, in turnout and the percentage share of vote among major parties and broad party groupings (liberal/reform, nationalist, KPRF/Agrarian, and centrist). Prominent among the latter are the resurgence of nationalist parties, the losses suffered by the communists, the virtual elimination of the reform parties from the national legislative scene, and the consolidation of power by the favorite party of the Kremlin. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O10, R10. 9 figures, 2 tables, 21 references.     

Location and Political Choice in Post-Unification Berlin: Explaining the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) Vote, 1999 and 2001

A paper examining the factors contributing to the growing electoral support for the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism) in post-unification elections in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) uses detailed data for Berlin's electoral districts to elucidate the micro-geography of the East-West divide in the PDS vote. Using two methods of ecological inference, King's and entropy maximization, the authors show that the explanation of the PDS support in Berlin elections in 1999 and 2001 can be attributed to the "Mauer in den Köpfen" (wall in people's heads) that is coincident with the division of the city along the former Berlin Wall. This geographic division far exceeds any socio-demographic explanation of the PDS vote. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O10, R10. 9 figures, 4 tables, 98 references.     

Turnout,preferential voting and vote flows in the E.U. election1

ABSTRACT

This article aims at focusing on four main features of the European elections that were held on 26 May 2019. Firstly, it analyses electoral turnout, both from a diachronic and a geographical point of view. Secondly, it presents electoral data and identifies winners and losers of the vote, not only by comparing 2019 E.U. results to 2014 E.U. results and 2018 political results, but especially focusing on the territorial dimension of electoral dynamics. Thirdly, it discusses flows of vote in five Italian cities (Brescia, Turin, Florence, Naples, Palermo), in order to give a clearer picture of how citizens (potentially) changed their electoral preferences from 2018 to 2019. Fourthly, it focuses on preferential vote, with the aim of distinguishing between parties characterized by ‘micro-personalization’ and ‘macro-personalization’. On many of these aspects, the 2019 European elections in Italy can be understood on the basis of the well-known ‘second-order election theory’. Yet, there are also interesting empirical findings that deviate from this pattern, among which the electoral success of the League – one of the two parties in government at the moment of the elections – merits further attention and can be mostly explained on the basis of government political action. That same electoral success, in addition, represented one of the causes that led to the end of the so-called yellow-green government in August 2019.     

Poland Divided: Spatial Differences in the June 2003 EU Accession Referendum

Results of the June 2003 referendum on Poland's accession to the European Union are assessed by a noted American electoral geographer and a Polish historian, in terms of voter turnout, percentage "yes" vote, and percentage of eligible voters casting yes ballots. They then proceed to test the association between voting patterns and four basic variables that, according to pre-referendum surveys, would influence the patterns regionally: general east-west location within Poland (and proximity to the pre-existing EU border), rural-urban residence, occupation (in agriculture vs. industry/services), and unemployment/income levels. In concluding, the authors note possible implications for subsequent elections in Poland. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O18, R10. 2 figures, 5 tables, 35 references.     

The challenges to democracy and citizenship surrounding the vote to Italians overseas

In 2003, a presidential decree enacted legislation guaranteeing Italian voters overseas the right to postal voting as well as parliamentary representation within their respective electoral constituency. The electoral weight of the overseas-based constituent had a remarkable effect on the 2006 election results. In the tightest vote in the Republic's history, the vote of overseas Italians, which was one of the decisive features of the election, helped provide the winning centre-left coalition with a slender majority in the Senate. Election results notwithstanding, the question of whether to grant the vote to Italians overseas has faced challenges of a procedural, normative and political nature. What may have been initially seen as a democratic right may well be cast aside as it poses challenges to overseas electoral relationships with the Italian national polity, Italian citizenship and multinational allegiances, diasporic identity, electoral participation and political representation in homeland political institutions. The overseas vote for Italians may be contested further in the near future, which could translate into a radical rethink of its validity and democratic global extension.     

Shifting Electoral Geography in Russia's 1991 and 1996 Presidential Elections

This research note reexamines Russia's 1991 and 1996 presidential elections, focusing—unlike studies emphasizing stability of Russia's electorate—on differences in electoral geography in the two elections, with oblast-level vote totals for Boris Yel'tsin in 1991 and 1996 being only poorly correlated. Although Yel'tsin's performance in both elections was better in urban than in rural regions, the urbanrural divide in 1996 is shown to differ from that in 1991. Nonetheless, the Russian electorate is stable after 1993, regional voting patterns between 1993 and 1996 being both similar to each other and different from that in the 1991 election. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O50, Z10. 6 tables, 14 references.     

The Lega Nord goes south: The electoral advance in Emilia-Romagna: A new territorial model?

The article focuses on the feature of the Lega Nord's (LN) electoral advance into new Italian regions, by stressing the similarities and differences with its historical bases of support. In order to verify whether the expansion has followed a common pattern in historical and well-defined territories of the leghista settlement, results of flow-of-votes analysis in eight different sub-areas of two Northern regions (Emilia-Romagna and Veneto), are reported. Data makes empirically credible the hitherto suggestion of a LN breakthrough among new sectors of the electorate. Estimations of vote shifts show both signals of electoral continuity, and change. While in Veneto no radical change in LN's voters profile occurred, indications from flow-of-votes in Emilia-Romagna has detected a statistically significant (even if minor) flow from the center-left parties.     

Do reluctant voters vote less accurately? The effect of compulsory voting on party–voter congruence in Australia and Belgium

We know compulsory voting is associated with higher levels of electoral turnout. It has been suggested that this leads to a trade-off with the quality of the vote, i.e. the ideological congruence between voters and the party they vote for. In this study, this claim is investigated using data from the 2007, 2010, and 2013 elections in Australia. We also include a comparison with two recent elections in Belgium, another country with compulsory voting. The results show that reluctant voters vote less ideologically congruent, but that this effect is mediated by political knowledge and political interest. However, this does not lead to less ideologically congruent election results at the aggregate level and compulsory voting does not have an impact on electoral results. We speculate that in future studies, it is important to make a distinction between reluctant voters, and those who take a strong hostile stand on the electoral process.     

District Voter Turnout and Dyadic Representation in Congress

One of the most important tools by which citizens can influence their elected officials' behavior is through voting—the electoral connection. Previous studies demonstrate that the opinions of voters are better represented than the opinions of nonvoters within an electoral jurisdiction, but we do not know whether jurisdictions with higher levels of aggregate voter turnout are better represented by their elected officials compared to those with lower levels of turnout. Using data compiled across five congressional sessions (2003–2013), this article investigates whether congressional districts with higher voter turnout are better represented by their member of Congress (MC). We find evidence that district voter turnout positively conditions the relationship between district opinion and MC voting behavior even after accounting for the possible effects of electoral competition and district income and racial demographics. In addition, we uncover evidence that partisan differences exist in this conditioning effect such that higher voter turnout enhances roll call voting responsiveness among Democratic MCs but not among Republican MCs. These findings suggest that congressional districts as a whole benefit from a political responsiveness standpoint when more of their constituents turn out to vote and contribute to literatures on political representation, political participation, democratic accountability, and the U.S. Congress.     

Electoral Disproportionality and Bias Under the Alternative Vote: Elections to Australia's House of Representatives

Studies of electoral disproportionality and bias under Australia's alternative electoral system have mainly relied on the two-party preferred (2PP) vote totals for all electorates, irrespective of whether these are needed to determine the election outcome there. We argue that separate analyses should be undertaken for two groups of electorates – where the determination is made using the first-preference (FP) votes and where the 2PP redistributed votes are needed because no candidate wins a majority of FP votes, illustrating this with an analysis of the 2007 House of Representatives election results.     

‘We Lost on the Numbers,But for Us It's a Victory’: New Caledonia's 2018 Referendum on Self-Determination

On 4 November 2018, more than 141,000 voters in New Caledonia went to the polls to determine the political status of the French Pacific dependency. A referendum on self-determination, the culmination of a 20-year transition under the 1998 Noumea Accord, posed the question: ‘Do you want New Caledonia to accede to full sovereignty and become independent?’

In an unprecedented turnout, 56.67 per cent of voters decided to remain within the French Republic, while 43.33 per cent voted Yes for independence. These figures, with a clear majority opposing full sovereignty, suggest a setback for New Caledonia's independence coalition Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS). In reality, the size of the Yes vote has disappointed partisans of the French Republic and opened the way for a second referendum in 2020.

After briefly outlining the 1998 Noumea Accord, the article details the results and participation rates in the November 2018 vote. It then focuses on different aspects of the referendum campaign, including: the role of opinion polling, administration of the referendum by the French state; disputes over electoral registration; international monitoring; key objectives of the anti-independence parties; grassroots campaigning by the FLNKS and the significance of the youth vote. It flags some issues in the aftermath of the referendum, as New Caledonians prepare for the next local elections to be held on 12 May 2019.     

Vote evolution in Spain, 1977–2007: A spatial analysis at the municipal scale

This paper presents a spatial analysis of the results in the general elections of contemporary Spain (1977–2007). By using electoral data at municipal level, we have traced back the evolution of the vote at high spatial resolution, thus providing a more accurate overview of the evolution of modern Spanish politics and offering empirical evidence on the nationalization thesis. We demonstrate that this approach reveals several processes that remain hidden when aggregated data are used, especially the clustering patterns in the smooth transition from dictatorship to full democracy (the so-called Spanish Transition). We found a statistical normalization process of the left/right dynamics with a growing number of balanced municipalities with a similar number of votes for left and right parties. The tendency towards a Gaussian histogram centered on a value of 50% for the left vote is an indication of political normalization after 40 years of dictatorship.     

After Cloture: Vote Switching,Credit Claiming,and Position Taking in the United States Senate

Vote switching in the United States Senate is not an uncommon occurrence. Nearly one in 10 cloture-final passage vote pairs involves senators switching their vote. We find that this inconsistency in voting behavior is a result of the combination of electoral pressures and the impact of the traceability of consequences in light of party forces and personal preferences. In general, we find that electorally vulnerable members of the majority party are more likely to engage in vote switching. The same is true of more electorally secure members of the minority party. However, the traceability of consequences is also a governing force in that electorally vulnerable members of the majority party are more likely to use vote switching as a credit claiming opportunity during periods of low media scrutiny. Electorally vulnerable members of the minority party are more likely to engage in position taking when there is greater media scrutiny.     

Teaching Canadian Literature

Abstract

Canada and the United States are two democracies on the North American continent sharing a common border, common British heritage, and for the most part a common language. At the same time, the two political systems abound with structural differences. Canadians, unlike voters in the U.S., cannot split their votes among various parties and candidates, and the single house Parliamentary system with tight party discipline renders an individual back-bench MP relatively powerless. The questions addressed by this article concern similarities and differences of Canadian and U.S. urban voters as they make electoral selections in these similar cultures and dissimilar, yet democratic, political systems. First, do social factors such as class, ethnicity, and religion provide similar bases for cleavage in Canada and the U.S.? Canadian society supposedly has a more easily defined class structure than the U.S. Does this difference carry over into the area of electoral choice? Do ethnicity and religion, as reported, differentiate party support in both countries? Second, individual factors such as the voter's party identification and impression of the party leaders (or presidential candidates) have been shown in the U.S. to be of dominant importance in predicting an individual's vote. What is the relative importance of these factors in determining voting choice in the two countries? The three-party Canadian context renders difficult any clear-cut comparisons to the two-party U.S., but useful avenues of speculation emerge. The NDP has a working-class base, but cannot attract the poor. Class does not significantly distinguish PC's and Liberals, the dominant parties, and on ethnicity and religion PC and NDP supporters bear a strong resemblance to each other. In the U.S. the expected associations obtain between Democratic vote and working class, Catholic religion, and foreign-born parentage. Party identification and attractiveness of the party leader, long recognized as important influences on voters in the U.S., seem from these data to play a similar role in Canada. Consequently, the individual electoral decision is dominated by more similarities than might be suggested from observing the differences in electoral and decision-making structures. Perhaps culture rather than political structure is dominant (within certain limits) in a voter's electoral decisions.     

The global spread of preferential voting: Australian institutional imperialism?

In recent years, a number of countries have adopted versions of the ‘Australian’ electoral system of preferential voting for both national and sub‐national elections. This article examines the diffusion of preferential voting systems around the world. It distinguishes between various types of preferential voting manifested in both majoritarian (eg alternative vote) and proportional (eg single transferable vote) contexts. It then examines the empirical record of the adoption of preferential voting in Europe, North America and the Pacific, identifying three ways in which the ‘Australian’ system has been transferred to other countries, via colonial transplanting, international imitation, and normative appeal. While the first two approaches have been traditionally influential, in recent years the normative appeal of preferential voting systems has become paramount. This is in part because of the globalisation of electoral assistance, which has provided an important opportunity for the diffusion of what have been, until recently, distinctively ‘Australian’ electoral procedures.     

Method and Confusion in the Study of the Household: A Review

Abstract

When analyzing Woodrow Wilson's narrow victory in the presidential election of 1916, students of the Electoral College have focused on the closeness of the popular vote in California. None of them have noticed that Wilson's victory in the Electoral College depended on non-enforcement of the Penalty Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Using Morgan Kousser's analysis of voter disenfranchisement across the South between 1880 and 1910, this article demonstrates that Charles Evans Hughes would have won the electoral vote if the Penalty Clause had been enforced when the House was reapportioned following the 1910 census.     

Sentimental Science: Recent Essays on the Politics of Presidential Selection

Most studies of Senate elections have used aggregate data to examine the sources of electoral success. These studies have shown that incumbency, challenger quality, and candidate spending are important sources of electoral outcomes. Yet research also suggests that issues matter in Senate elections. In this study, we show that the abortion issue was an important source of vote choice in some of the 1990 Senate elections.     

Party registration choices as a function of the geographic distribution of partisanship: a model of `hidden partisanship' and an illustrative test

The Public Choice literature has identified conditions in which voters in multi-candidate contests would have an incentive to vote strategically rather than vote for the most preferred candidate or candidates. In the US, where party registration and party primaries play a critical role in the electoral process—especially in states with closed primaries—the existence of multiple layers of elections across constituencies can induce strategic falsification of party registration that is tied to the geographic distribution of electoral strength. Following V. O. Key, we should expect that a long history of one party dominance in local elections should encourage voters to register in the party whose elections are most determinative of electoral choices, even if that is not the party with which they most identify. However, in many states, while politics may be dominated by one party locally, there may be real two-party competition for at least some offices at the state level and for the presidency.We use a `natural experiment' to view the link between party registration and voting for president and obscure judicial offices in order to test the hypothesis that, for whichever party is the minority party in the local unit, party registration will understate the voting support in presidential or other statewide elections, where that party's candidates have a realistic chance to win. In the modern South this hypothesis can be shown to imply that the relationship between Republican party registration and vote shares for Republican candidates for president or statewide office ought to be curvilinear. To test this and other related hypotheses, we examine data on political units (e.g. counties) with considerable variation in party registration and concomitant variation in the extent of one-party dominance of local politics by looking at county level data from North Carolina for the presidential elections and obscure judicial elections in 1984 and 1996. As hypothesized, for the North Carolina data the relationship between party registration and voting can best be fit by a quadratic function, but the strength of the quadratic term is much less for the 1996 data, reflecting the increase in Republican registration and the success of local GOP candidates in the 1990s.     

What it means to be a “true American”: Ethnonationalism and voting in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

A number of important factors predicted white people vote choice in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, including voters' economic assessments, sexist attitudes, racial resentment, and status threat. In this paper, I establish that ethnonationalism—a set of beliefs concerning what it means to be a “true” American—was also a significant factor in the estimations of White Americans when casting their vote for president in 2016. Data from a nationally representative sample of White Americans show that ethnonationalism was a robust predictor of vote choice for Trump even after controlling for predictors known to shape vote choice, including economic assessments, sexist attitudes, racial resentment, status threat, and sociodemographic indicators. These results indicate that ethnonationalism, although correlated with some of these factors, operated primarily as an independent factor that shaped White vote choice. The findings have important implications concerning the electoral activation of White majorities concerned about the perceived threat that demographic change poses to American national identity.     

Russia's Electoral Geography: A Review

A noted specialist on the electoral geography of Russia reviews the existing body of work on the subject based on national elections, beginning with the RSFSR returns from the March 1989 voting for seats in the the USSR Congress of People's Deputies and extending to the presidential race of 2004. The author identifies major themes and methodologies relevant to a discussion of the political topography of Russia, before assessing the extent to which the country's emergent electoral landscape has been described. He emphasizes the importance of scale in interpreting the spatial patterns of electoral outcomes, as well as the social and economic correlates of voting across the regions. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H10, O10, R10. 4 figures, 84 references.