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AbstractCorrect voting in elections has been extensively analysed in the recent past. However, thus far, correct voting in direct legislation has hardly been investigated. This is all the more surprising since direct legislation is a more demanding form of democracy and, thus, to vote one's true preferences in direct legislation represents a greater challenge than picking the "right" party or the "right" candidate at elections. Moreover, the few researches on the correctness of individual referendum votes used a measurement method that we think has some methodological shortfalls. Instead, we want to propose another better‐suited method of measuring correct voting in direct legislation settings. This method makes use of voters' stances on the issue at stake. Besides, we will scrutinize the share of correct voting as well as its determinants on the Swiss popular vote of November 2009, which included three rather different propositions. The study shows that a majority of Swiss voters are indeed able to vote their true preferences. The ability to vote correctly depends primarily on the individual voter's project‐specific knowledge, but also, under certain circumstances, on the use of heuristics.

This paper analyses the case when the political struggle not is channeled through policy choices, but through what information to adopt. The paper presents a simple model to analyze collective decisions of adopting new information when different parties' payoffs are contingent upon the new information. In equilibrium we demonstrate that the adopted information is biased towards "political correctness" rather than being informative (in the Blackwell sense). These results may be relevant when designing decision mechanisms for institutions that are to be keen on new information.

In the paper we discuss the reasons behind a specific permissiveness of the Polish judicial authoritieswith regard to hate speech. Hate speech is criminalized by various provisions of the PolishCriminal Code. But as conducted surveys and statistics show, these regulations do not seem tobe used adequately. The acceptance of hate speech does not necessarily result from the fact thatwe are a less tolerant society, but also to a large extent, from the fact that the scope of what isallowed to be said, especially publicly, is in Poland very broad. Paradoxically, it seems that in this'new democracy' there is more freedom of speech than in Western countries, where political correctnessplays a very important role in public and social life. The lack of responsibility that goeswith freedom of speech and of boundaries on what might be expressed in public, the scurrilouslanguage used also by high-ranking officials, influence the rules of socially acceptable behaviour.These rules also influence the scope of what is considered criminal behaviour. When tackling theproblem of the acceptance of hate speech, it is also very important to remember that legal acts,especially criminal law, might not necessarily be the best way to change the attitudes in a society.Restrictions on freedom of speech might not only have a freezing effect but also be counterproductive– that which it is prohibited to say tends to be said more. The problem is to strike the rightbalance between those two possible outcomes.

Nationalism & the principle of self-determination are ideologically & politically exploited concepts. Nationalism is associated with irrationality, & blamed for fanaticism, xenophobia, & general aggression, by social scientists. These theorists on nationalism generally exhibit lack of respect for emerging nations, & objectivity is sorely lacking. It is understood that such theories develop from political & historical circumstances, so it is difficult to analyze nationalism objectively. Social scientists should not call nationalist force within a state disintegrative because that places the state's territorial integration above the rights of nations to self-determination. In addition, models for analysis are lacking, especially since nationalist movement spring from diversity. In the European case, the legitimacy of the European Union is lacking because the need for a European nationalism is in question. Thus, the establishment of the European Union has to be preceded by the construction of European nationalism. Adapted from the source document.

Intro -- Title Page -- Introduction -- A Testament -- The Book of Gynesis -- The Book of Exit-us -- The Book of Leave-it-alone-icus -- The Book of Daughteronomy -- The Book of Joshin' -- The Book of Noodges -- The Book of Sam(esex)ual -- The Book of Queens -- Take This Job and Shove Him -- PCalms -- A Different Testament -- The Gospel of the Hysterical Jesus -- Affirmative Acts -- The First Letter of Paul to Everybody in General -- Paul's Second Letter to Everybody in General -- The Letter of One of Several Guys Named James -- The Revelation of Joan -- Footnotes.

Recent studies in political psychology report a significant association between personality traits and ordinary citizens' attitudes and behaviors in the political arena. A growing body of literature examines the influence of personality on individuals' attachment to a political party and vote choice in electoral settings. In line with these studies, we analyze the relationship between personality traits and "correct voting", i.e., the extent to which citizens vote in accordance with their own preferences and values. Using a large-scale national survey fielded in the context of the 2008 presidential election, we find that, after controlling for well-known predictors of correct voting, some of personality traits not only exert a direct influence on correct voting, but also moderate the effect of strength of party identification, a well-established determinant of correct voting. These findings provide new evidence for the idea that individual differences such as dispositional personality traits are deeply intertwined with both vote choice and democratic representation.