Suchergebnisse

Estimating the impact of turnout on House election results is problematic because of endogeneity and omitted variable bias. The following study proposes an instrumental approach to correct for these problems by using a series of fixed effects two-stage least squares panel-data regression models covering three congressional apportionment cycles (1972-1980; 1982-1990; 1992-2000). The analysis tests whether voter participation decreases the House incumbent's electoral support, regardless of the level of competition in the district. The study also aims to determine if an increase in participation benefits Democratic candidates and whether this effect is constant across apportionment cycles. The results show that the influence of turnout on incumbency vote share is conditional on the level of presidential support in the district. This finding is explained by the surge and decline thesis of Campbell (1960). Adapted from the source document.

Abstract. This study analyses legislative voting in the first ten Canadian Parliaments (1867–1908). The results demonstrate that party unity in the House of Commons dramatically increased over time. From the comparative literature on legislative organization, we identify three factors to explain this trend: partisan sorting, electoral incentives and negative agenda control. Our empirical analysis shows that intraparty conflict is primarily explained by the opposition between Anglo-Celtic/Protestants and French/Catholic members of Parliament. Once lawmakers sort into parties according to their religious affiliations, we observe a sharp increase in voting unity within the Liberal and Conservative caucuses. Ultimately, our results highlight the importance of territorial and socio-cultural conflicts, as well as agenda control, in explaining the emergence of parties as cohesive voting groups in the House of Commons.Résumé. Cette étude analyse le vote législatif dans les dix premiers parlements canadiens (1867–1908). Les résultats démontrent que l'unité partisane à la Chambre des communes a augmenté dramatiquement durant cette période. En nous basant sur les principales théories liées à l'organisation des législatures, nous identifions trois facteurs pour expliquer cette tendance : la classification partisane; les pressions électorales; et le contrôle de l'agenda législatif. Nos analyses empiriques confirment que les conflits intra-partisans au Parlement s'expliquent principalement par l'opposition entre les députés Anglos-Celtiques/Protestants et Francos/Catholiques. À partir du moment où les députés commencent à rejoindre les principaux partis selon leur groupe religieux, nous observons un accroissement important de l'unité législative au sein des caucus libéral et conservateur. Les résultats de cette recherche soulignent l'importance des conflits territoriaux et socioculturels, mais aussi de l'agenda législatif, pour expliquer l'émergence des partis politiques comme groupes cohésifs à la Chambre des communes.

Abstract.We analyze legislative voting in the 35th (1994–1997), 38th (2004–2005), and 39th (2006–2008) Canadian Parliaments. Using Poole's (2005) optimal classification algorithm, we locate MPs and their parties in a two-dimensional geometric model. The first dimension represents the division between governing and opposition parties that has been found in similar parliamentary systems. The second dimension captures the opposition between the Bloc Québécois and the rest of the legislature. We find a clear separation between the Reform party (and later the Conservative party) and the Bloc Québécois in the 35th and 38th Parliaments, with the Liberal and the New Democratic parties occupying the centre. However, in the 39th Parliament, the ordering changes with the Conservatives and the New Democrats near the centre, and Liberal and Bloc MPs occupying the extremes. We explain this change by the capacity of the governing party to control the legislative agenda and the recent minority governments in the House of Commons.Résumé.Nous analysons le vote législatif au trente-cinquième (1994–1997), au trente-huitième (2004–2005) et au trente-neuvième (2006–2008) Parlement canadien. En utilisant la méthode de classification optimale développée par Poole (2005), nous situons les députés de la Chambre des communes et leurs partis dans un modèle géométrique comprenant deux dimensions. La première dimension représente le conflit entre le gouvernement et les partis d'opposition que l'on retrouve également dans d'autres systèmes parlementaires, alors que la seconde dimension correspond à l'opposition régionale qui existe entre le Bloc Québécois et les partis fédéraux. Nous constatons une nette polarité entre le Parti réformiste (et plus tard le Parti conservateur) et le Bloc Québécois au trente-cinquième et au trente-huitième Parlement, alors que le Parti libéral et le Nouveau Parti démocratique se trouvent au centre. Cependant, au trente-neuvième Parlement, nous observons un changement dans la polarité régionale, puisque ce sont maintenant les Libéraux et les Bloquistes qui occupent les deux extrémités, alors que les Conservateurs et les Néodémocrates se situent au centre. Nous expliquons ces mouvements par la capacité du gouvernement de contrôler l'agenda législatif et par les récents gouvernements minoritaires à la Chambre des communes.

In recent decades, the scientific forecasting of election outcomes has made great strides in a number of advanced industrial democracies. One country that has not received much attention to date is Canada. In this article, we present a vote function model to forecast Canadian federal elections. We explain our model's theoretical underpinnings and assess its statistical properties and forecasting capabilities against all federal elections held between 1953 and 2008. We then explore potential ways for improving the model's accuracy. We conclude by discussing the forecast of different hypothetical scenarios for an upcoming federal election. Adapted from the source document.

This article presents a case study of the recent merger between the Progressive-Conservative Party and the Reform/Canadian Alliance parties. The selection of this case serves to illustrate the current limits of existing party organisational change and party coalition theories when it comes to explaining party mergers. We propose an alternative theoretical framework that introduces some minor adjustments to the existing literature in order to account for the party merger phenomenon. In this framework, three factors are shown to be most likely to have led to a party merger in the Canadian context: votes-seats disproportionality, access to new resources (electoral and financial) and rebranding. We conclude with a discussion regarding these factors' potential for explaining other cases of party mergers. Adapted from the source document.

The authors propose a reexamination of the conditioning effect of political sophistication on economic voting in U.S. presidential elections. Replicating Gomez and Wilson's (2001) analysis with survey data from the past five American presidential elections (1988—2004), they show that low sophisticates strictly rely on sociotropic economic judgments in their intention to support the incumbent party's candidate. For their part, high sophisticates appear to use both sociotropic and pocketbook evaluations in their voting intention, but only in elections where the sitting incumbent is running for reelection (1992, 1996, and 2004). Most of these findings do not hold, however, once the postelectoral reported vote is used as the dependent variable. Indeed, the authors find that pocketbook evaluations do not have a significant impact on high sophisticates' reported vote choice, and they also find important variance in economic voting effects among low sophisticates. The results indicate that high sophisticates continue to use sociotropic evaluations in their voting decision, but only in incumbent elections. Overall, the analysis raises doubts about some of the previous studies' conclusions and underlines the importance of considering the moderating role of contextual factors such as incumbency and political campaigns in economic voting studies.

The authors present a response to Gomez and Wilson's comments related to their article "Economic Voting and Political Sophistication in the United States: A Reassessment," published in this issue of Political Research Quarterly.

Legislative speech records from the 101st to 108th Congresses of the US Senate are analysed to study political ideologies. A widely-used text classification algorithm -- Support Vector Machines (SVM) -- allows the extraction of terms that are most indicative of conservative and liberal positions in legislative speeches and the prediction of senators' ideological positions, with a 92 per cent level of accuracy. Feature analysis identifies the terms associated with conservative and liberal ideologies. The results demonstrate that cultural references appear more important than economic references in distinguishing conservative from liberal congressional speeches, calling into question the common economic interpretation of ideological differences in the US Congress. Adapted from the source document.

This article examines the past 50 years to update an analysis of the relationship between income and partisanship. Earlier, Nadeau and Stanley noted that therewas a change in partisanship in the South from inverse class polarization, in which higher income individuals more often identified with the Democratic Party, to normal class polarization, but the permanence of the shiftwas open to question. Now, with a longer time perspective and even greater partisan change, it can be concluded that class-based partisanship is not only a reality in the South but that it is now considerably stronger than in the rest of the country. Moreover, the South has not simply surged past a stable non-Southern level; greater polarization in the South has occurred in the context of growing class polarization in the non-South.