Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction / Marc Buhlmann and Jan Fivaz -- 2. A "selection model" for political representation / Jane Mansbridge -- 3. Beyond trustees and delegates / Andrew Rehfeld -- 4. Institutional constraints and territorial representation / Audrey Andre, Sam Depauw and Kris Deschouwer -- 5. Promises and lies : an empirical comparison of Swiss MPs' pre- and post-electoral positions / Lisa Schadel, Daniel Schwarz and Andreas Ladner -- 6. Beyond congruence / Lisa Disch -- 7. Dimensionality of the European issue space / Jan Kleinnijenhuis and Andre Krouwel -- 8. Representation of political opinions : is the structuring pattern of policy preferences the same for citizens and elites? / Jan Rosset, Georg Lutz and Kathrin Kissau -- 9. "Alignment of objectives" between parties and their electors : the role of personal issue salience in political representation / Nathalie Giger and Zoe Lefkofridi -- 10. Studying the voter-party match : congruence and incongruence between voters and parties / Jonas Lefevere. [et al.] -- 11. Measuring representation : rethinking the role of exclusion / Suzanne Dovi -- 12. Conclusion / Marc Buhlmann and Jan Fivaz.

AbstractOur contribution analyses the influence of campaign advertisements on vote choice in the 2011 elections to the Swiss National Council. Concretely, we ask whether and to what extent the relative exposure to party ads of a preferred party exerts a reinforcing effect on an individual's party choice. We make use of the two‐wave panel structure contained in the RCS survey data of the Selects 2011 and combine it with data on advertisements in 20 important national and regional newspapers. We find that increasing exposure to the campaign of one's preferred party may reinforce individuals with strong party attachment in their initial vote choice. Yet this effect only materializes with substantial campaign duration and exposure. Additional and exploratory analyses revealed that particularly the two recently emerged parties, the GLP and BDP, might have made a slight difference by potentially persuading defecting voters with the help of their campaign.

In a cross-country comparison of 33 European countries, we tested whether a high degree of female representation attenuates the assumed negative impact of gender on political involvement. Our multilevel analyses show positive interactive effects of female representation: the degree to which the representation of women in a given country's national parliament was descriptively adequate was positively related to women's ratings of the importance of politics and self-reported political interest. With respect to political participation, the findings are mixed. Adapted from the source document.

This contribution investigates the determinants of judicial confidence. It argues that this is the decisive source of legitimacy for the third branch. Fairness and impartiality, i.e. the independence of the judiciary, are paramount in fostering citizens' confidence in the justice system. Through several multilevel analyses, the study tests whether judicial independence promotes the development of an individual's confidence in the justice system. The results show that judicial independence has a positive impact on the development of individual trust. However, public beliefs about the trustworthiness of judicial institutions do not seem to originate from constitutional rules (de jure independence) but from actual events and real life experiences (de facto independence). Adapted from the source document.

Individual-level explanations of electoral participation typically argue that non-voting is determined by a combination of facilitative and motivational factors. We advance the argument that, beyond individual characteristics, there are pivotal contextual features which enable or impede individual action through specific incentive structures. Thus, contextual factors influence the individual propensity to vote or to abstain. For the first time the data of Selects 2003 allows for the testing of contextual effects, at least on the cantonal level. Several multilevel analyses show that high party competition, compulsory voting, and strong Catholicism foster individual participation. The findings clearly indicate that an individual's propensity to vote is influenced by personal characteristics as well as by cantonal attributes. Adapted from the source document.

Explores cross-cantonal variation in public education expenditure between 1985 & 1998. Four possible explanations are located: sociodemographic & socioeconomic pressures, the impact of political institutions, the partisan theory, & the power resources of organized interests. Taking the research advantage of Swiss federalism, our findings provide strong evidence that educational expenditure is systematically related to the sociodemographic & socioeconomic pressures in a given canton. Further, consensus democracy promotes educational finance, while the decentralization of the cantonal polity lessens the educational policy output. Finally, the instruments of direct democracy as well as partisan variables do not seem to account for differences regarding the budget expenditures on education in the Swiss cantons. 4 Tables, 1 Appendix, 54 References. Adapted from the source document.

Introduces an issue about Swiss national elections.

Representation is crucial for democracy: good representation helps to increase responsiveness, foster electoral turnout, increase political interest and include minorities. However, what good representation should be is debated. In this contribution we distinguish the substantive and the descriptive approach of representation. While the two forms start from different normative assumptions, they both suggest the same impact of high degrees of representation: increased political interest, higher electoral participation and better minority inclusion. We examine the degree of representation of cantonal citizens in the Swiss national parliament. Our results suggest that the cantons differ concerning substantive and descriptive representation. The two forms seem to be mutually exclusive. Testing for the different impacts, the results suggest a better performance of descriptive representation fostering political interest and weakening the attenuating impact of gender on the formation of political interest. Our contribution should be understood as a tentative draft for a more in-depth analysis of political representation in Switzerland. Adapted from the source document.

Measuring characteristics of democracy is not an easy task, but anyone who does empirical research on democracy needs good measures. In this article, we present the Democracy Barometer, a new measure that overcomes the conceptual and methodological shortcomings of previous indices. It allows for a description and comparison of the quality of thirty established democracies in the timespan between 1995 and 2005. The article examines its descriptive purposes and demonstrates the potential of this new instrument for future comparative analyses. Adapted from the source document.