Suchergebnisse

What are the ethical responsibilities that social science researchers have, not only to the people we study but also to ourselves as scholars and other scholars? This article argues that as political and social scientists, we need to expand our notion of research ethics, to adopt a notion that embraces treatment of our subject–participants and ourselves as researchers. This study is anchored in the still-growing literature on research ethics in fieldwork and draws on political science work on the ethical implications of the risks and realities of sexual violence for scholars who conduct fieldwork. The article looks beyond political science to feminist-informed research in the social sciences as it develops the argument about the ethical responsibilities of social scientists. In investigating the overarching question, the article addresses resources for survivors of sexual harassment and assault during field research.

The conclusion to the special issue takes stock of both the first and the second generations of research on preferential proportional representation (PR) and electoral personalism. The article uses this appraisal in order to locate this project's achievements within extant scholarship. It argues that the project not only reevaluates but also challenges the wisdom on preferential PR. In challenging the canon, the project enriches the study of electoral institutions, political parties, legislative politics, comparative politics, and political science more broadly.

AbstractIn parliamentary systems, legislative parties are the building blocks for executive coalitions. A standard assumption in the large literature on coalition politics is that legislative parties form fixed units from one election to the next. Under some conditions, however, this assumption falls flat. For instance, about one-fourth of legislators in the Italian lower house switched parties between 1996 and 2001. How is legislative party switching linked to the politics of executive coalitions? This paper examines how government composition affects the direction of party switching, and how party switching affects the reallocation of cabinet office. I devote in-depth scrutiny to Italy. Subsidiary country cases, chosen to maximize institutional variation, are Australia, Britain, Canada, France, and Spain.

Analyzes coalition politics and research, focusing on the Christian Democratic party and intraparty competition over governing office.

Governments in Italy both change and remain the same. From 1946 to 1992 the Christian Democratic Party always held governing power. But almost no cabinet stayed in office more than a few years, and many governments collapsed after only a few months. How can instability coexist with stability in this way? How can governments break up at such low cost and with so little effect on alternation? These questions are rooted in—but not resolved by—the available game-theoretic literature on coalitional behavior. My answer is that politicians' purposive actions can reduce the costs of coalition. I argue that the costs of making, breaking, and maintaining coalitions depend on political institutions and on the array of parties and voters in policy space. Institutional and spatial conditions structure politicians' opportunities and attempts to lower costs. Under some conditions, as I show, coalitions are cheap, and politicians can easily make coalitions even cheaper. The inference is that this framework comprehends both Italy's extremes and the degrees of stability found in other parliamentary democracies.

Governments in Italy both change and remain the same. From 1946 to 1992 the Christian Democratic Party always held governing power. But almost no cabinet stayed in office more than a few years, and many governments collapsed after only a few months. How can instability coexist with stability in this way? How can gvvernments break up at such low cost and with so little effect on alternation? These questions are rooted in - but not resolved by - the available game-theoretic literature on coalitional behavior. My answer is that politicians' purposive actions can reduce the costs of coalition. I argue that the costs of making, breaking, and maintaining coalitions depend on political institutions and on the array of parties and voters in policy space. Institutional and spatial conditions structure politicians' opportunities and attempts to lower costs. Under some conditions, as I show, coalitions are cheap, and politicians can easily make coalition even cheaper. The inference is that this framework comprehends both Italy's extremes and the degrees of stability found in other parliamentary democracies. (American Political Science Review / FUB)

Why do informal rules emerge alongside—and at variance with—the formal constitutional constraints that shape bargaining over coalition governments? The presence of informal rules at odds with formal rules appears as an anomaly within both institution-free and institution-focused theories of coalitions. The author argues that politicians create informal rules in order to alter formal institutions that do not function to their benefit. The costs of a formal change in institutions offer incentives to politicians to invent informal rules as alternatives to such change, and repeated interactions teach politicians what to expect and then invent. The author's emphasis on the manipulability of rules echoes long-standing themes in the study and practice of politics.