Suchergebnisse

How does making electoral systems more candidate-centered affect party unity? Using a principal-agent perspective, this study makes three contributions to the literature on this topic. Conceptually, it suggests thinking about the incentives due to personalization as arising from a shift in electoral impact from party selectors to voters. Theoretically, it incorporates this notion into a spatial model of parliamentary voting that also considers principals' monitoring capacities. From the resulting framework follows a rich set of observable implications, notably that candidate-centered electoral systems facilitate rather than undermine collective action within parliamentary parties under certain conditions. Empirically, this study then analyzes the 2010 reform of Sweden's flexible-list proportional representation system, which changed the preference vote threshold. As expected, I find that when extreme (district-based) selectors disagree with the moderate bills supported by the party group leadership, personalized rules incentivize politicians to support these policies and vote in unison.

How does making electoral systems more candidate-centered affect party unity? Using a principal-agent perspective, this study makes three contributions to the literature on this topic. Conceptually, it suggests thinking about the incentives due to personalization as arising from a shift in electoral impact from party selectors to voters. Theoretically, it incorporates this notion into a spatial model of parliamentary voting that also considers principals' monitoring capacities. From the resulting framework follows a rich set of observable implications, notably that candidate-centered electoral systems facilitate rather than undermine collective action within parliamentary parties under certain conditions. Empirically, this study then analyzes the 2010 reform of Sweden's flexible-list proportional representation system, which changed the preference vote threshold. As expected, I find that when extreme (district-based) selectors disagree with the moderate bills supported by the party group leadership, personalized rules incentivize politicians to support these policies and vote in unison. ; German Research Foundation

In contrast to the study of outcomes such as social spending, systematic comparative analysis of political processes underlying welfare state change is scarce. This study deals with the influence of government parties and second chambers as veto players in social entitlement legislation. It asks three questions regarding the duration and outcome of the legislative process at the parliamentary stage. Does the number of government parties or the ideological distance between them affect the passage of bills? Under which circumstances do second chambers have an influence? Does the ideological position of the leftmost governing party affect the speed of passage of bills in policy areas where there is pressure for retrenchment? The hypotheses are tested using an original dataset on social entitlement bills initiated in Belgium, Germany and the UK between 1987/88 and 2002/03. Event history analysis at the level of individual bills yields the following results: proposals initiated from among the government parties on the floor are delayed by a higher number of parties in government, by greater ideological distance between them, if the second chamber is controlled by the opposition and its approval is mandatory, if the left veto player is more rightwing and if the bills deal with expansionary or mixed policies. Cabinet bills, in contrast, are not affected by any of these factors. The results point to a number of further research questions and show that quantitative studies in comparative welfare state research can go beyond testing simple hypotheses with macro-level outcome data. © 2008 Cambridge University Press. ; German Research Foundation ; Gottlieb Daimler- and Karl Benz-Foundation

In parliamentary systems of government, dyadic representation between MP and geographical constituency is considered to be of secondary importance and is typically understood as work related to particularised issues (e.g. constituency service, "pork" allocation and local matters). This paper argues that personal representation need not be particularistic. It may also come in the form of attention to national policy for local reasons, when issue salience varies across geographical constituencies due to the number of affected people or problem severity. The specific focus of the study lies on private members' bills related to social security (pensions, unemployment, welfare). These three policies differ, among other things, in their alignment with class divisions and their link to the economic left–right dimension. They therefore allow for studying how both the party constituency and the geographical constituency shape MPs' legislative work. The article develops specific predictions regarding how left–right position, electoral support among the affected group, and district-level recipient numbers affect legislative activity in the three policy fields. The empirical analysis uses data from Belgium (1999–2007). The results suggest that Belgian MPs represent party and geographical constituency in the case of pensions and unemployment benefits, but not in the same way as when it comes to social welfare.

"Wahlprogramme spielen eine wichtige Rolle, sowohl in der Praxis der repräsentativen Demokratie als auch in der politikwissenschaftlichen Forschung. Es gibt allerdings nur wenige Arbeiten zur Frage, wie Parteien Wahlprogramme formulieren. Der Autor stellt eine explorative Studie zur Entstehung der Landtagswahlprogramme für die Wahl in Baden-Württemberg im Jahr 2006 vor. Der empirische Teil basiert erstens auf Interviews mit Akteuren, die zentral am Vorbereitungsprozess beteiligt waren, und zweitens auf einem Vergleich zwischen den von der Parteiführung auf den Parteitagen eingebrachten Entwürfen und den Endversionen der Programme. Die Interviewergebnisse werden zu einem stilisierten Modell zusammengefasst. Sie zeigen, dass die Vorgehensweise der Parteien relativ ähnlich war, es aber Unterschiede vor allem im Ausmaß der Mitgliederbeteiligung in der Phase vor dem Parteitag gab. Diese war geringer in den beiden Volksparteien. Alle untersuchten Parteitage erweiterten den ihnen vorgelegten Entwurf deutlich. Das Ausmaß der Änderungen am Ausgangstext war höher bei GRÜNEN und WASG und damit bei den Parteien mit der vermutlich stärksten policy-Orientierung der Mitglieder. Zum Abschluss vergleicht der Autor die Ergebnisse mit denen ähnlicher Studien." (Autorenreferat)

Horowitz's article claims to present strong empirical support for the argument that involvement in war negatively affects democracy. It is argued here that the results based upon regressions for countries of the post-communist area are flawed. As Horowitz denies the existence of a substantial reciprocal effect of democracy on war, he does not address the arising endogeneity problem at all. This results in an overestimation of the negative consequences of war on democracy. Building on the theories of democratic peace, democratization-related conflict and the outbreak of civil wars, it is asserted that countries which are ex ante less democratic in the transition period have a higher probability of war involvement. A reanalysis tackles the occurring endogeneity problem by using change in democracy as the dependent variable. The results provide evidence that the original models suffer from endogeneity bias. The effect of war on the difference in levels of democracy is not significant, and the model performs much worse in predicting the change in democracy rather than the level. One conclusion is that further research on the consequences of war on democracy has to deal both theoretically and methodologically with the reversed causality problem.