THIS STUDY ASSESSES THE ABILITY OF LEGISLATORS TO PREDICT CONSTITUENCY OPINION BY COMPARING THE PREDICTIONS MADE BY MEMBERS OF FLORIDA'S LOWER HOUSE WITH ACTUAL CONSTITUENCY OPINION AS REFLECTED IN SUBSEQUENT REFERENDUM RESULTS. AN ATTEMPT IS ALSO MADE TO IDENTIFY WHAT INFLUENCES LEGISLATORS' PREDICTIONS. PREVIOUS CONSTITUENCY VOTING BEHAVIOR IS OFTEN THE GUIDE TO THE LEGISLATORS' PREDICTIONS.
Both in the Czech and European contexts, the Council of the EU is a relatively frequent subject of interest in political science research. A substantial amount of work (both in the tradition of qualitative and quantitative research) focuses especially on the process of coalition building and the impact and functioning of the different levels of the Council. This theoretical discussion analyzes the possibilities which both the qualitative and quantitative approaches offer concerning research dealing with the coalition behavior of one concrete EU member state. In doing so, it takes into account various specifics which characterize the Council of the EU and which substantially influence the behavior of its member states. The paper concludes that the qualitative approach (while being to a substantial degree complementary to the quantitative tradition) offers better tools for an analysis focusing on the coalition behavior of one member state than its quantitative counterpart. One of the reasons lies in the nature of our research which deals with the process of promoting the interests of the Czech Republic in the EU Council, with a special emphasis on coalition building and searching for compromises.
Military coups are considered most likely when state political capacity is low and the army's corporate interests are threatened. However, these conditions are also frequently present in situations in which the military remains politically passive, weakening the explanatory power of these propositions. In Russia, an extremely weak state coexists with an army whose corporate interests have been threatened over the past decade, yet the military has not intervened in high politics. Two alternative explanations for this behavior are examined, one based on internal cleavages in the army (organizational structure) and the second on officer corps norms (organizational culture). Although both accounts are plausible, organizational culture provides the best explanation for Russian military passivity. The importance of this variable is demonstrated in a study of Russian military behavior from 1992 to 1999. Studying nonevents, and moving beyond the coup/noncoup dichotomy, provides a more complete picture of military behavior in domestic politics.
The representative model, typically used to study legislative behavior, is used with various survey data to examine the relationship between PO on the Vietnam War & the sentences of federal district judges from 1967 to 1975. The noncoercive linkage between the judges & their constituencies, which explains the congruency of public preference & policy, is the political recruitment of judicial authorities from the locality that they serve. The independent & dependent variables are aggregated on the national, regional, & district levels; over the 9-year period the r between national PO & sentencing after a 2-year time lag is .957, between regional PO & sentencing .894, & between state PO & sentencing .697. When other PO variables & role-alter variables from the bureaucratic model are included in a path analysis, 56% of the variation in sentences at the district level is explained. PO is the significant correlate of judicial policy; members of Congress, the Dept of Justice, US Attorneys, & jurors also refelct PO in their effect on the judges. Defendant behavior makes a difference in specific cases within a time period, but PO correlates with changing sentence patterns over time. 6 Tables, Appendix. Modified HA.
There are two ways of understanding the corporate culture: as a resource within marketing strategies, or as an expression of the way of being of an organization, which sets, not only the positioning of its image among stakeholders or public but also the generation of leaderships, through which the organization influences public policies in a locality or country. This research is situated in the second viewpoint. In other words, this investigation identifies the aspects characterizing the corporate culture of the Universidad Técnica de Cotopaxi and how they determine the generation of local leaderships. It also explores the bonds with the corporate culture in the university context. Moreover, it describes the most relevant aspects of it inside the institution and analyzes experiences in the leadership formation among teachers, employees, and workers. Besides, it uses a qualitative approach and the descriptive method, which consists of focus group techniques and in-depth interviews. The presence of counter-hegemonic discourses, obtained as an outcome, is marked by certain myths, characterized in three categories: the humanistic sense in its interrelations and practices, the exercise of criticism as a political identity, and the institutional unit as an attitude of self-defense. ; Existen dos formas de entender la cultura corporativa: como un recurso más dentro de las estrategias del marketing o como una expresión de la forma de ser de una organización, que marca, no solo el posicionamiento de su imagen entre los stakeholders o públicos, sino también la generación de liderazgos, a través de los cuales la organización incide en las políticas públicas de una localidad o país. Este trabajo se ubica en esa segunda perspectiva. Identifica qué aspectos caracterizan a la cultura corporativa de la Universidad Técnica de Cotopaxi y cómo determinan la generación de liderazgos locales. Indaga conceptualmente lo relacionado con la cultura corporativa en el contexto universitario, describe los aspectos más relevantes de esta en la institución estudiada y analiza experiencias en la formación de líderes entre docentes, empleados y trabajadores. Lo hace a través del método descriptivo, con un enfoque cualitativo, en el que se acude a las técnicas de grupos focales y entrevistas en profundidad. La presencia de discursos contrahegemónicos que se obtuvo como resultado está marcada por ciertos mitos, caracterizados en tres categorías: el sentido humanista en sus interrelaciones y prácticas, el ejercicio de la crítica como identidad política y la unidad institucional como actitud de autodefensa.
Political corruption is a key theoretical issue regarding the quality of democracy. And it was a main theme from the empirical point of view during the last Spanish local elections, held on May 27, 2007. This paper focuses upon the electoral behavior of foreigners on that occasion & aims to know whether & to what extent corruption mobilized those citizens. Data confirm that there is a relationship between public charges of political corruption & electoral mobilization, but this is not enough as to affect election results. Adapted from the source document.
In the public debate and amongst scientists anxiety prevails concerning the situation of modern parliamentary democracy regarding nearly all established of nearly democracies. The concern focuses on the electoral loss of middle parties and heavily fluctuating election results, and the rise of radical Left and Right, where words such as pallet democracy, crisis and Weimar republic are used. The author sketches the outlines of different research directions he studied regarding European politics: voter behavior; decreasing importance of the Left-Right antagonism; decreasing political faith; increasing numbers of extreme Right parties. This to study more closely the different aspects of the alleged crisis of European party democracies (do citizens have unrealistically high expectations of government; the evolution from cartel parties to campaign parties, including the growing importance of the media; lack of party representation for large groups of citizens). Foremost, the author mentions that neo-liberal economic policies of the European Union do not parallel public opinion of EU member states. Figures. O. van Zijl
In this paper, we leverage a 10-wave election panel to examine the relative and dynamic effects of voter evaluations of Bush, Palin, Biden, McCain, and Obama in the 2008 presidential election. We show that the effects of these political figures on vote choice evolves through the campaign, with the predictive effects of President Bush declining after the nominees are known, and the effects of the candidates (and Palin), increasing towards Election Day. In evaluating the relative effects of these political figures on individual-level changes in vote choice during the fall campaign, we also find that evaluations of the candidates and Sarah Palin dwarf that of President Bush. Our results suggest a Bayesian model of voter decision making in which retrospective evaluations of the previous administration might provide a starting point for assessing the candidates, but prospective evaluations based on information learned during the campaign helps voters to update their candidate preference. Finally, we estimate the 'Palin effect,' based on individual-level changes in favorability towards the vice-presidential nominee, and conclude that her campaign performance cost McCain just under 2% of the final vote share. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]
Political apathy & disinterest contribute to low voter turnout. Historically, political & electoral instruments such as postal voting have been adopted to increase voter participation. Today, online voting & other forms of electronic voting are the more sophisticated high-tech versions of efforts to improve participation. Online voting instruments face many of the same challenges confronted by earlier reforms that include ensuring privacy, maintaining secrecy & integrity, & preserving equal access to the polls. Drawing on the path dependency literature in comparative politics, this paper argues that how countries address the new challenges associated with electronic voting is partly a function of their experience with postal voting reforms. In some countries, postal voting has a long tradition as an alternative to the balloting. Other countries have implemented universal all-postal voting systems. And still others are resistant to absentee voting & allow it for only a limited set of circumstances. The paper examines postal voting across six countries & considers how these experiences may influence the adoption of new electoral reforms. 1 Table, 34 References. Adapted from the source document.
By means of a re-analysis of the most relevant data source – the International Social Mobility and Politics File – this paper criticizes the newly grown consensus in political sociology that class voting has declined since World War II. An increase in crosscutting cultural voting, rooted in educational differences, rather than a decline in class voting proves responsible for the decline of traditional class-party alignments. Moreover, income differences have not become less, but more consequential for voting behavior during this period. It is concluded that the new consensus has been built on quicksand. Class is not dead – it has been buried alive under the increasing weight of cultural voting, systematically misinterpreted as a decline in class voting, due to the widespread application of the so-called Alford index.
PurposeTax evasion is an economic crime that nearly all world countries suffer from. Its consequences are countless, including poor public spending on infrastructure projects and social welfare programs, low economic growth and development, institutional mistrust and fiscal deficits. For developing countries in particular, targeting development programs and infrastructural investments requires an efficient tax collection policy to generate sufficient funds for such purposes. This makes the tax evasion problem a critical one and countering it extremely policy relevant. Based on evidence that shows how the understanding of taxpayers' behavior is an essential factor in fighting evasion, this paper aims to test different factors that might incentivize citizens using a behavioral and experimental approach, in non-Western educated industrialized rich democracies (non-WEIRD) countries, to comply more.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a survey experiment to examine the impact of different behavioral primes on tax compliance behavior. Specifically, it observes subjects' compliance behavior in two contexts: voice and empathy. A total of 273 students from a big public university in Egypt were randomly selected to participate in this study.FindingsIn the "Voice" treatment, the explanatory variable (VOICE) was found statistically significant, thus confirming the hypothesis that democracy, through having a voice in the decision-making process, affects compliance positively. As for the "Empathy" treatment, the explanatory variable (EMPATHY) was also found significant. This confirms the second hypothesis that triggering feelings of empathy, through highlighting the good cause behind public spending that uses taxpayers' money, affects compliance behavior positively.Research limitations/implicationsDespite the fact that the experimental methodology is a methodology with high internal validity, examining the impact of a specific intervention on behavior, a replication of the experiment in other contexts might be useful in increasing the external validity of the findings. Specifically, conducting this experiment on a nonstudent sample might lead to even more powerful results by increasing the ecological validity of the results.Practical implicationsThis study advocates a more behaviorally informed public policy. Specifically, Egyptian policymakers are recommended to adopt behavioral nudges as a complement to existing policies. The authors believe the findings, if confirmed by repeated experiments (lab, lab-in-the-field and rational choice theories on both student and non-student samples) in a number of Arab countries, might also help in offering cost-effective nudges for the Arab world policymakers, where culture and the political context are to a great extent similar.Social implicationsThe findings of the study have a number of social implications. Higher tax compliance will enable higher levels of public spending on a number of social targets such as education, health and welfare programs.Originality/valueWhile the study builds on recent research examining how to incentivize tax compliance, it simultaneously seeks to make three contributions. First, the study design aims to apply recent advances in behavioral sciences (impact of voice and empathy) in a policy area that has not seen much use of such interventions in the Egyptian context (i.e. tax compliance). Second, the study is policy relevant in the sense that it aims to increase the effectiveness of existing government policies by complementing them with behavioral primes. Third, there is nearly no literature found applying this topic in a non-WEIRD country such as Egypt.
Policy-sensitive models of judicial behaviour, whether attitudinal or strategic, have largely passed Britain by. This article argues that this neglect has been benign, because explanations of judicial decisions in terms of the positions of individual judges fare poorly in the British case. To support this argument, the non-unanimous opinions of British Law Lords between 1969 and 2009 are analysed. A hierarchical item-response model of individual judges' votes is estimated in order to identify judges' locations along a one-dimensional policy space. Such a model is found to be no better than a null model that predicts that every judge will vote with the majority with the same probability. Locations generated by the model do not represent judges' political attitudes, only their propensity to dissent. Consequently, judges' individual votes should not be used to describe them in political terms. Adapted from the source document.