Centrist by Comparison: Extremism and the Expansion of the Political Spectrum
In: Political behavior, Volume 39, Issue 1, p. 157-175
ISSN: 1573-6687
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In: Political behavior, Volume 39, Issue 1, p. 157-175
ISSN: 1573-6687
SSRN
Working paper
In: Political behavior, Volume 37, Issue 4, p. 977-994
ISSN: 1573-6687
In: Political behavior, Volume 37, Issue 4, p. 977-994
ISSN: 0190-9320
In: Electoral Studies, Volume 31, Issue 2, p. 364-371
This study aims at contributing to the literature on the effect of political competition on electoral participation. I test the Downsian Closeness Hypothesis (DCH) on data from runoffs in general elections in Hungary. The expected closeness of the runoffs is proxied with first round margins of victory. The findings of the paper are consistent with the DCH: increases in margins between two parties in the first round significantly decrease turnout in the second, even when turnout in the first round is controlled for. This is in line with the theoretical considerations of the DCH but contrary to a large part of the existing empirical literature. The estimates of closeness are substantially greater than in previous papers and suggest that previous studies of the DCH using actual closeness as a proxy for expected closeness encountered a serious measurement error problem. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]
In: Research & politics: R&P, Volume 10, Issue 3
ISSN: 2053-1680
Recent studies have documented large discrepancies between mass preferences and policies in U.S. states consistent with theories that highlight the oversized influence of affluent Americans on policymaking. In this note, we replicate and extend a recent such study (Simonovits, Guess, and Nagler, 2019) to assess how policy bias evolves in time. Specifically, relying on novel data and methods, we construct measures of minimum wage preferences and compare them to observed policies in each state for the years of 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2021. We demonstrate that, averaged across states, policy change closely tracked a pronounced increase in preferences for higher minimum wages, but the size of policy bias remained relatively stable. However, this national pattern hides an increasingly polarized policy landscape: in many states, insufficient responsiveness led to an increasing deviation between preferences and policies, while in other states policy changes—larger than preference changes—closed initial policy bias.
In: Quarterly journal of political science: QJPS, Volume 18, Issue 4, p. 543-570
ISSN: 1554-0634
In: The journal of politics: JOP, Volume 80, Issue 4, p. 1283-1296
ISSN: 1468-2508
In: Journal of experimental political science: JEPS, Volume 4, Issue 2, p. 95-106
ISSN: 2052-2649
AbstractCan politicians use targeted messages to offset position taking that would otherwise reduce their public support? We examine the effect of a politician's justification for their tax policy stance on public opinion and identify limits on the ability of justifications to generate leeway for incongruent position taking on this issue. We draw on political communication research to establish expectations about the heterogeneous effects of justifications that employ either evidence or values based on whether or not constituents agree with the position a politician takes. In two survey experiments, we find small changes in support in response to these types of messages among targeted groups, but rule out large benefits for politicians to selectively target policy justifications toward subsets of the public. We also highlight a potential cost to selective messaging by showing that when these targeted messages reach unintended audiences they can backfire and reduce a candidate's support.
In: Public choice, Volume 160, Issue 3-4, p. 327-344
ISSN: 1573-7101
We propose a new method to test for the existence of the bandwagon effect, the notion that voters are more likely to vote for a given candidate if they expect the candidate to win. Two-round election systems with a large number of single-member districts offer an ideal testing ground because results from the first round provide a better benchmark for voter expectations than any possible alternative measure. Using data from the 2002 and 2006 general elections in Hungary, we find that the lead of a candidate in the first round is magnified by about 10 percent in the second round, controlling for country-wide swings of the electorate between the two rounds and for the behavior of voters of smaller parties. A separate exercise suggests that at least part of the effect is caused by the lower probability of individuals voting in the second round if their preferred candidate is likely to lose by a large margin. Adapted from the source document.
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Working paper
In: The public opinion quarterly: POQ, Volume 81, Issue 3, p. 759-768
ISSN: 1537-5331
In: The journal of politics: JOP, Volume 84, Issue 3, p. 1806-1811
ISSN: 1468-2508
In: Political behavior, Volume 41, Issue 2, p. 337-348
ISSN: 1573-6687