A Credible Change: How Parties Use Election Promises to Counteract The Loss of Reputation When They Dilute Their Policy Positions

John Stuart Mill believed it would be unethical to spend any money on his campaign for parliament in 1865. A century and a half later, elections have changed almost beyond recognition, yet the same ethical debates surrounding the role of money in politics remain. Writing almost exactly 100 years after Mill had expressed his view, political scientist Stein Rokkan quipped that in elections “votes count but resources decide” (Rokkan, 1966, p. 105). It has long been the received wisdom that this is the reality in so-called established democracies, a situation that John Girling has described in terms of a “misfit” between democracy and capitalism (Girling, 1997). This topic is therefore a salient one for democratic theory, although it is noteworthy that a disproportionate amount of the theoretical discussion of campaign finance has taken place in the empirical context of a single country—the United States—which has rules and traditions of political finance that are relatively unusual among democracies. As a result, the broader links between political donations and democratic theory remain underexplored. It is often held that political donations are a legitimate form of political participation, reflecting norms of freedom of expression and freedom of association. Making a monetary contribution to a party, candidate, or political organization of choice may seem like a reasonable alternative for those who want to “do something” but are time poor. The problem from a democratic perspective is that, above a very low level of universal affordability, citizens have differential ability to contribute, which means that any contribution of a typical real-world value represents a far larger cost to some citizens than to others. The impact of these perverse effects of private money on electoral politics is one of the reasons why two-thirds of states fund electoral campaigns from the public purse and three-fifths provide direct funding to parties (IDEA, 2018), numbers that have grown in recent years (Koss, 2010; van Biezen, 2008). The uneasy cohabitation in really existing democracies between unequal economic resources and the norm of political equality is generally accepted among political practitioners as a necessary evil, given the cost of modern electoral campaigns. The practical electoral arrangements of contemporary democratic states virtually all reflect mixed models combining public and private financing, and the majority of democracies place some limits on political donations (IDEA, 2014, 2018). No democracies currently ban private donations, though in some the cap is relatively restrictive; for example, in Estonia, the maximum donation is €1200 and in Belgium €2000 per annum (IDEA, 2018). In the era of cheap and virtually universal internet access, dense media coverage of politics, and widespread public funding of political processes, there is scope for revisiting this question and exploring whether under nonideal conditions there is still a justified role for the private funding of electoral campaigns. The aim of this analysis is to assess the role of private money in electoral politics against core criteria of democratic theory, drawing on empirical experience from across the range of contemporary democracies. My conclusion, which is consistent with classic liberal, deliberative, republican, social, and communitarian understandings of democracy, is that private funding is incompatible with democratic principles on two grounds: it risks resulting in political inequality among citizens and it threatens the judgmental autonomy of elected representatives and those who would seek election to representative bodies. I argue that parties, candidates, and other political organizations should be funded instead from the public purse, and from private contributions in the form of flat party membership or supporter fees, or a system whereby the state gives vouchers of equal value to all citizens, and citizens can then donate the value of their voucher to the political object of their choice. While there is discussion in the field of democratic theory that is devoted specifically to campaign finance (Beitz, 1989; Christiano, 2012a; Hopkin, 2004; Pelletier, 2014; Thompson, 1987, 2002), the normative study of this topic tends to be dominated by American jurisprudence, which frames the debate within the narrow confines of U.S. constitutional law. The intended contribution of the current analysis is thus (a) to broaden out this debate and recenter it in relation to key democratic theory concepts, specifically democratic rights and political equality as understood with reference to systems of political finance common in established democracies across the globe; (b) to specify seven distinct ways in which private finance can violate political equality (and hence seven finance-related phenomena that must be prevented in order to preserve political equality); and (c) to develop an argument about the relationship between private finance and judgmental autonomy that concludes that payments by voters to politicians should be treated in the same way as payments by politicians to voters. The discussion will be limited to the democratic ethics of electoral finance, defined as money and in-kind resources used to fund electoral campaigns. Money inveigles its way into politics in a multitude of ways, and this analysis does not pretend to be relevant to all of them. My argument against private political donations assumes political equality to be fundamental to democracy. It also embraces the nonideal conditions of social and economic inequality, vulnerability to manipulate and be manipulated, and heterogeneous citizen adherence to democratic norms. The argument starts in the first part with the case against private electoral finance on the grounds that it is a violation of political equality among citizens. The second part offers a critique of private finance as a violation of the judgmental autonomy of electoral representatives and candidates for public office. The third part assesses common justifications for private finance on the grounds of freedom of association and freedom of expression. The fourth part considers possible objections to the perspective set out here based on empirical evidence of the effects of different electoral finance regimes found in contemporary democracies, while a fifth part concludes. In this section, I explore what is entailed in the principle of political equality in elections and the various ways in which private electoral finance may be held to violate that principle. Two main types of violation are identified: unequal consideration of citizen interests (pertaining to political elites) and unequal opportunity to persuade others (pertaining to citizens). These are elaborated in terms of seven specific negative effects that private finance can have on political equality in institutional contexts typical of contemporary democracies. The political equality of citizens is at the core of democracy. There is a relatively widespread consensus among democratic theorists working in different traditions that all citizens have an equal right to take part in the making of political decisions, and a right to equal consideration by the public institutions (e.g., Christiano, 2012b; Dahl, 1989; Dworkin, 2000; Pettit, 2012; Philips, 1991; Walzer, 1983; Wilson, 2019; Young, 2000). The reasoning of these authors is broadly consistent with the view that the bargain at the heart of liberal democracy is the toleration of economic inequality in society, provided political equality is maintained. Discussions of the negative effects of private political finance are often framed in terms of corruption. But corruption understood in a narrow legalistic sense may not be the best frame, as it does not always succeed in fully encompassing the problem. Corruption is commonly defined as the abuse of public trust for private gain (or some variation thereon) (e.g., Girling, 1997; Johnston, 2014; Rose-Ackerman, 1999; Rothstein & Varraich, 2017). The politics of many democracies have been punctuated in recent years by political party funding scandals involving the allegedly corrupt use of money to finance election campaigns, from the U.K. Ecclestone Affair in the 1990s to the Alternative for Germany donation scandal of 2017–2020. Yet the frequency of the empirical link between private finance and corruption is not evidence that there is a necessary logical or causal connection between the two. In the U.S. context, the Supreme Court's Buckley v. Valeo ruling of 1976 found that preventing (the appearance of) corruption was a legitimate reason for restricting campaign finance, and this was a justification given for allowing limits on campaign donations to stand. Commenting on the academic debate provoked by this case, Strauss maintains that “those who say they are concerned about corruption are actually concerned about two other things: inequality, and the nature of democratic politics” (Strauss, 1994, p. 1370). Abstracting away from legal definitions of what is corrupt, the problem with corruption from a democratic perspective is that it generates political inequality. A criminal who bribes a judge, a businessperson who bribes a politician to vote a certain way, a construction company that bribes a bureaucrat in order to be awarded a contract, and a motorist who bribes a policeperson to avoid being given a speeding ticket are all benefitting from a breach of the neutrality norm that the public officeholder in question is meant to respect. Not all political inequality takes the form of corruption, but corruption virtually always enacts political inequality. If campaign donations induce politicians and parties to alter their policy positions or otherwise treat citizens differentially depending on the amount of money citizens have given to support an election campaign, this is a violation of the principle of political equality, whether or not it falls into legal or normative definition of corruption (Thompson, 2002, p. 109). Arguments about campaign finance that are framed in terms of corruption are thus to a great extent red herrings; what is legally corrupt in one context will not be legally corrupt in another context, as laws vary across jurisdictions, but the actions in both contexts may be problematic for the same reason that corruption is problematic if they generate political inequality. There is also a second way in which private finance violates political equality: differential ability to donate or spend on behalf of a campaign affords citizens unequal opportunity to persuade others; in other words, it is a violation of the principle of equality of opportunity for political influence, or the principle that “people who are equally motivated and equally able to play this role, by influencing binding collective decisions, ought to have equal chances to exercise such influence” (Cohen, 2001; cf. Brighouse, 1996; Christiano, 2012a; Pettit, 2012, pp. 209–211). If citizens have differential ability to influence politics due to variations in personal wealth, they are not equal in their opportunity to contribute to the political process through agenda-setting and debate. This is true whether or not the contributions in question generate political change. It is also true of small donations, if a large number of small donations come disproportionately from more affluent citizens. For example, if there is a cap on donations of $100/€100 per annum, but only citizens with an annual salary of at least $40,000/€40,000 can afford to give that much, then parties have an incentive to adjust their policies to cater to people earning over $40,000/€40,000. If only 70% of the electorate has an income over $40,000/€40,000 a year, then parties have less incentive to pay attention to the interests of the 30% of the electorate that is unlikely to make donations. In as much as the more affluent will undoubtedly have policy references and positions on issues that differ systematically from those of the less affluent, even relatively modest donations are likely to bias the positions taken by parties/candidates. This argument is compatible with the existence of influence differentials that derive from variations in interest in politics. Dworkin argues that the distribution of resources should be “ambition sensitive” but not “endowment sensitive” (Dworkin, 2000, p. 89). The same logic can be applied to political influence (even if Dworkin himself does not make this connection). If someone cares passionately about politics and they want to influence political outcomes, there should be no limit on their ability to do this through persuasion, which is a discursive act. Those affected by a ban on private donations could, and most likely would, avail themselves of discursive modes of influence. Those channels of influence are roughly egalitarian, in that differential access to the internet, to time, and to discursive resources is not nearly as pronounced as differential access to money. If someone cares enough about politics to try to influence it, they can rearrange their life such that they have time to blog, tweet, and campaign face-to-face to advance the cause they support. The point is sometimes made that more educated people have a discursive advantage in politics in that they are able to make more persuasive arguments, but recent experience suggests that this may be an academic fantasy. Plenty of poorly educated people have advanced political claims that may not conform to the logical standards of university professors, but can, in the age of social media, reach out to and convince a very large number of people. Prohibitions on private finance do not interfere with the right of citizens to persuade others; they simply limit this influence to discursive tools. Finally, the effective requirement for candidates in some jurisdictions to draw on private resources to fund their election campaigns can lead to inequalities in the ability of citizens to put themselves forward for election to representative assemblies (Cagé, 2018; Lessig, 2015). Not only does this impinge on equality of opportunity to contest elections, but it can also have consequences for the adequacy of representation. When candidates are disproportionately drawn from the richer groups in society, this will lead to a demographic skew in elected assemblies that could potentially bias policymaking in favor of the better off, even in the absence of pressure on representatives to please donors. In sum, citizens have differential ability to contribute money to parties and candidates. If the ability of parties and candidates to achieve their ends depends in part on raising money from private donations, their activities will be skewed toward those most able to contribute. This is true whether or not donations are capped at a moderate amount such as $100/€100, as a cap set at a level that makes donation far more affordable for some than for others will result in contributions coming disproportionately from the affluent, and the views, needs, and expectations of the affluent are bound to differ systematically from those of the poor. Only if donations are limited to a level at which everyone can afford to contribute will differential political influence be eliminated; at this level (say $10/€10), it makes more sense to convert payments into flat membership or supporter fees. Party position effect: Donations to political parties (or the anticipation of such donations) might potentially sway the policy positions parties take, or the extent to which they prioritize certain policies over others and make greater efforts to get some issues onto the political agenda. Political recruitment effect: The differential ability of prospective candidates to raise campaign funds might deter talented individuals from seeking elected office. Representative behavior effect: Donations to the campaigns of individual elected representatives (or the anticipation of such donations) might, in relevant electoral systems, influence the issues raised in the legislature by these representatives, the committees they choose to sit on, or their voting behavior. Executive behavior effect: Donations to the parties of government ministers or to the campaigns of presidential candidates (or the anticipation of such donations) might, where such donations are possible, influence donor access to members of the executive and the opportunity to shape policy at the stage where options are formulated and selected. Mobilization effect: Donations to election campaigns might influence the ability of candidates and parties to mobilize electors to go to the polls. Conversion effect: Donations to election campaigns might influence the ability of candidates and parties to persuade voters to change their view on policy issues relevant to the election, to change the priority they accord to different issues, and/or to change their vote choice. Legitimation effect: Donations to political parties and candidates might enable political elites to reshape, through their campaign material and other political discourse, what are considered to be acceptable policy positions. All seven effects have in common their ability to reshape political agendas, public deliberation, and decision-making so as to benefit donors, and thereby undermine citizens’ equal right to exercise their freedoms of expression, association, and political participation. Any democratic defense of private campaign finance would need to argue against all seven effects, and it is unclear that any defense so far advanced has met that requirement. It is also worth noting that the effects on political elites are largely structural features of donation regimes: they may well function even in the absence of actual donations, as the possibility of donations can be expected to condition the choices that parties and elected representatives make about their policy priorities, positions, and activities. A somewhat different argument against the use of private finance in democratic elections is that it constitutes a threat to the deliberative process through which elected representatives and parties debate policies. Autonomy of political judgment, and in particular, the expression of judgments in deliberative fora, is a crucial component of democratic public reason (Christiano, 1996; Kolodny, 2014, p. 310; Pitkin, 1967; Rawls, 1997). Representatives whose views have been conditioned by private donations can be expected to be less willing to give accurate reasons for their positions and be less open to deliberation (Sunstein, 1997, p. 25), and donations may thereby hinder autonomous political judgment (Christiano, 1996, pp. 222, 257; Strauss, 1994; Thompson, 1987, pp. 111–116). The policy positions that politicians are expected to advance vary with the model of democracy under consideration—according to a Burkean model, elected officeholders are expected to promote the collective good, whereas in the party accountability model, politicians advance the interests of the supporters of their party or those of their of the model it is not to democratic politicians to the positions they take, to and to use their autonomous judgment to promote the interests they have been elected to If a is that they need to for funding to people than they need to for they have an incentive to shape their expressed judgments so as to cater to prospective than to all voters. if the judgments they in deliberation and voting are by this is a to public reason 1997). argues that deliberation must be made possible, as a of democracy, and set from the of 1997, p. The alternative is an of democratic debate and a of a structural to that which from payments by politicians to commonly as In of the it is for a or party to pay a for their vote (IDEA, this is the of for expression of a vote that is in for a and it political equality by those who are in positions to vote 2010; These are that the in is use in democracies. This logic can be to private campaign donations, as donations have the same relationship to their as payments for have to voters. of the way in which is commonly will to draw out the of this The of and influence” in case to where people positions of to influence over the less in the context of elections, is and influence is pp. might the of these to political yet there is empirical evidence that the need for to in elections often politicians and parties in established democracies in where they are to pressure from to alter their political positions has been in empirical & 1994; 1991; Thompson, and that are more to groups in the electorate who are more likely to make donations In democracies, political elites are at of by economic interests that over their political & 2000; Rothstein & Varraich, in such it is no to of politicians as being in a position with to private in the same way that in are often to pressure from When influence is to be this is a about the impact of money on the or of autonomous political judgment, in that the of money for on the part of voters. do not change their their influence on a or party would result that or party their policy positions in order to campaign donations. as democratic party on parties policy that are to of the electorate and for on this that systematically bias the positions taken by one or more parties can be expected to skew the party system in favor of the interests by Political systems that on of influence to corruption or other of In it is often not to bias or of this though this is no justification for not seeking to against to political may and the of a donation may not be of the extent to which their policy offers are by donations. A who a low to a for election to elected can be to have no of thereby the policy position of the or influencing the actions that may take elected to office. If a larger sum, may do so with the of influencing that but may be as the amount is may be a to be elected to may a policy that will to in but may to the donations It is also to the causal impact of a as that impact may well be between what might be the and direct of impact that campaign donations can have on the behavior of The most form of impact is the of campaign which “do not reflect the of public and thus policymaking through their influence on I above as the impact is where officeholders their with monetary in but no is made I above as the representative behavior direct impact is of money for in the legislature (or other a representative behavior 1997, p. the of it, more of influence might to be less But argues that the by which campaign finance behavior should be is not the extent to which influence is direct or is in normative the impact that behavior has on the electoral and 1997, p. I would argue that the should be the impact such behavior could have on the process and the opportunity to skew judgmental by with the institutional to that is common in democracies. of on is their In many voters take the money that a and they vote for their the of the some way toward from that might they not to have their of the at are even they do not alter vote choice and there is thus no there is no on to that a has in been by the of a to laws to have been the practical of between a donation that simply a politician to put forward a and one that that private campaign donations are problematic for the same reason that efforts to are even if be is not as an of the of candidates, parties, or though the case for this could be made in the same terms as the case is made for allowing campaign finance donations on grounds of freedom of expression. contemporary democracies therefore under electoral rules that are as they donations by politicians to voters with no of political yet they donations by voters to politicians with no of political If donations to one of electoral are from a democratic point of view, then so are donations to another as both types of are potentially to to private money in politics are commonly met with the but what about the rights of freedom of association and freedom of This considers these rights in relation to campaign A virtually all of modern democratic theory is the that democratic politics is on the of and open and organization that to develop and the of elections are to freedom to and views is it be that voters choices at the polls. Those who private finance as an means of freedom of association and expression it on these though as I seek to in this section, such are often in the context of electoral politics that is in the of political The freedom to form and take part in to political ends is relevant to electoral finance as this right may be used to donations to political parties and other political such as American political support or that support political parties in many relevant in this context are whether can be as a form of association, and whether the state can to the activities of parties and other the right to should the right to donate to association of choice from the that beyond the most any form of association and the most of resources is the members who have come to form the association. in states with public funding regimes the majority of parties must certain in terms of vote or

Many studies have found that European parties change their policy positions in response to changes in public opinion. This is both theoretically and normatively appealing, suggesting that European party politics operates in a way that is consistent with spatial models. Nonetheless, virtually all previous studies are based on a single, uni-dimensional measure of public opinion: left–right self-placement from the Eurobarometer surveys. This measure has a number of flaws, including the fact that political conflict in Europe now occurs across multiple issue dimensions beyond the classic divide on state involvement in the economy. We used new measures of Europeans’ ideological positions across four different issue dimensions and 26 countries from 1981–2016, together with data on parties’ policy positions from their manifestos, to re-evaluate findings on responsiveness. Across many different model specifications, samples and outcome measures, we found virtually no evidence that European political parties respond to public opinion on any issue dimension. Our findings suggest that scholars may require better measures of party positions, more nuanced theories of responsiveness (for example to sub-groups, or across longer time horizons), or may need to refocus their attention towards responsiveness via policy outcomes rather than parties’ policy commitments.

This article is based on data from the 1980 National Election Study surveys. It reports findings concerning the rates at which voters become familiar with presidential candidates and their policy positions, trends in public opinion during the 1980 presidential campaign, and the dynamics of individual attitudes that underlie those trends. The impact of political attitudes on the individual vote decision is assessed within the context of a simultaneous equation model. In addition, the net effects of attitudinal distributions on the election outcome are estimated. The analysis yields support for the retrospective voting model and provides no evidence for the contention that Reagan's victory was the result of his policy or ideological positions.

How do legislators, many of whom hold policy positions that are not consistently conservative or progressive, position themselves on the left–right ideological scale? Analyzing data from the Parliamentary Elites in Latin America (PELA) survey, this paper leverages combinations of moral and economic policy positions to determine the weight—germaneness—of each policy on that scale. Using bi‐ and multivariate models on a database of about 5000 legislators, we confirm the importance of economics but also find that moral issues can be germane to the left–right placement of many of the region's legislators. The relative germaneness of the policies is inconsistent for legislators of the left and right. The left is more heterogeneous because moral policies are less germane to their identification. However, many centrists hold conservative economic and moral views, blurring the tie between policy and ideological positions. We confirm that contextual factors can sharpen the issue‐to‐ideology relationship.

This article is based on data from the 1980 National Election Study surveys. It reports findings concerning the rates at which voters become familiar with presidential candidates and their policy positions, trends in public opinion during the 1980 presidential campaign, and the dynamics of individual attitudes that underlie those trends. The impact of political attitudes on the individual vote decision is assessed within the context of a simultaneous equation model. In addition, the net effects of attitudinal distributions on the election outcome are estimated. The analysis yields support for the retrospective voting model and provides no evidence for the contention that Reagan's victory was the result of his policy or ideological positions.

Bar’s study examines and analyses the historical narratives and use of Jewish history put forward by Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932–1990), one of the most extreme far-right radicals ever to hold political power in Israel. Drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources, Bar reviews the ways in which Kahane’s historical interpretation is used to support his modern political and ideological positions. He finds that two main paths serve as a fulcrum for Kahane’s historical reception to justify his demands for segregation and separation between Jews and Gentiles (including the forced transfer of Israeli Arabs and/or Palestinians) on a theological-historical basis. The first is admonitory, and utilizes the Holocaust as a negative example to show how assimilation and coexistence—in Israel or elsewhere—between Jews and Gentiles leads to an inevitable ‘physical and spiritual Auschwitz’. The second path is a positive one, which looks to the utopian ‘golden ages’ of Jewish history in ancient times as an example of how past heroes and leaders, such as biblical figures or the Hasmoneans, behaved in the face of hardships and risks of assimilation, as well as the destruction of Jewish lives and religious practices.

I was excited to read Powell's response to our published research report Impact of hospital nursing care on 30-day mortality for acute medical patients. Here, I expand on and respond to some of Powell's comments. How nurses are educated is evolving in Ontario, Canada as it is in many other places across the world. In Ontario, Registered Practical Nurse preparation is being modified and curricula for these programs are being enhanced and updated. Further, diploma preparation for Registered Nurses previously offered exclusively in community colleges for Registered Nurse entry to practice is no longer an option in the Province of Ontario. Baccalaureate university preparation is now the minimum entry to practice criteria for the Registered Nurse. Baccalaureate university preparation for Registered Nurses has been in existence for many decades in the Province of Ontario. This educational route is not new. However, as with all educational programmes, baccalaureate university curricula across all universities undergo regular review and revitalization to ensure their appropriateness and relevance. As well, improvements in the preparation for unlicensed assistive personnel (e.g. personal support workers) are also being advocated and undertaken in Ontario. Because this category of personnel is unlicensed, this preparation is optional. However, in Ontario's very large healthcare system, the impact of changes to nursing and unlicensed assistive personnel preparation across the various healthcare sectors (e.g. acute care hospitals, community healthcare and long-term care) may not be felt or known for a decade or more. Though not stated by Powell but implied by some is that the revised educational preparation for Registered Practical Nurses may be considered equivalent to the previous educational preparation of diploma or college prepared Registered Nurses. I strongly recommend that caution be used in making such an assumption or conclusion. Firstly, I am compelled to review and reaffirm the study findings relevant to Powell's comments. The findings are not only that a higher proportion of Registered Nurses caring for acute medical patients is associated with lower 30-day medical mortality but that a higher proportion of baccalaureate university-educated nurses is associated with lower 30-day mortality rates for acute medical patients. In fact, the impact of care provided to acute medical patients by baccalaureate university-educated Registered Nurses on lower mortality rates is even larger than the impact of the overall proportion of Registered Nurses caring for medical patients. A 10% increase in the overall proportion of Registered Nurses (currently a mix of both diploma/college prepared AND university-educated nurses) is associated with six fewer patient deaths for every 1000 acute medical patients discharged. Keeping all other variables constant, including the proportion of Registered Nurses providing care to medical patients, a 10% increase in the proportion of baccalaureate university-prepared Registered Nurses is associated with nine fewer deaths for every 1000 patients discharged. Regardless of one's political or ideological position, the evidence strongly suggests that delivery models of nursing care for acute medical patients should use the highest possible proportion of baccalaureate university-educated Registered Nurses. Powell is concerned that readers may make sweeping generalizations about study findings. He asserts that extreme caution must be taken when applying findings related to nursing staff mix and educational preparation. He makes this conclusion based on above described changes planned and being implemented to educational preparation of Registered Practical Nurses in Ontario and the changes to entry to practice requirements for Ontario Registered Nurses. Powell claims that ‘this study represents conditions at a point in time that have become significantly altered, rendering research finding inappropriate for comparison to the newly emerging healthcare system’. He suggests that the nursing workforce of 2006–2007 is dramatically different than that of 2003. I suggest that this is not so. It may be a decade or more before we see any significant change in the nature and makeup of the Ontario nursing workforce, particularly within acute care hospitals, which was the focus of this study. I do concur with Powell's recommendation to use caution before applying findings from any one study. Research consumers must always consider the weight of evidence, the context and time in which the evidence was generated, as well as the rigour of methods used to generate the evidence before application should be considered. Powell stated that the results ‘do not address the human resources challenges for nursing in today's healthcare systems and practice environments’. I agree. It was never our intent to limit our research and target our findings to only the realm of what is possible given shortages of nursing personnel, limited educational seats for nurse education, costs of educational preparation, and so on. The purpose of this research was to understand the nursing-related determinants of 30-day mortality for acute medical patients. Good research is about trying to come to know the truth, regardless of how palatable that truth may be to consumers. One might ask, what is the best model of hospital nursing care delivery for acute medical patients? Based on these study findings and those of others cited in the study report, I recommend consideration of a new model of care delivery to be considered for nursing care of hospitalized acute medical patients. I refer to a care delivery model consisting primarily of baccalaureate university-educated nurses. Though this model may not be seen as favourable by all, because of cost challenges, human resource supply challenges and so on, evidence is mounting that such a model may be best for specific groups of acutely and complexly ill patients such as those in this study. This indeed would be a new model of care delivery that Powell and others should consider to minimize the lower mortality for acute medical patients. Research is undertaken in a period of time. Our world is not static even though we try to come to know it through activities such as research that are almost always time bound. Decisions about whether or not potential research consumers choose to apply the findings of a particular study undertaken at one time to different settings at different times should not be taken lightly. This research was undertaken less than 4 years ago in year 2003. The degree of change in the Ontario healthcare system landscape or any other jurisdiction over these few years is still to be determined. Opinions about the nature and impacts of these changes remain simply opinions and impressions until formally investigated. Further research will indeed be required to identify the real nature of the changes in educational preparation of nurses and the impact on patient and healthcare system outcomes such as mortality. I agree that future research is required to understand the impact of changes made to the educational preparation for nurses. These impacts will not likely be known for years to come. Not mentioned by Powell are other on-going changes to our healthcare system such as changes in primary care, changes to funding formulae, changes in physician educational preparation, and so on. Powell also suggested that these findings may be used to support a political or ideological position and detract from the potential to realize a new and improved healthcare delivery model. I can think of no better source of support for a political or ideological position than that of theory and related evidence developed through rigorous research.

The decree by which the Cortes of 22 May 1809 were summoned by the Junta Suprema of the realm marked the beginning of a political debate of great intensity in Spain. Through this debate the different political positions and the various ideological profiles arising from the deep constitutional crisis of 1808 became gradually crystallised. This article approaches that debate from the regional perspective of one of the territories or provinces of the Bourbon monarchy—namely, the old Kingdom of Valencia— and by examining three figures relatively unknown to historians, Jose Canga Arguelles, Bartolome Ribelles and Francisco Xavier Borrul. Through an analysis of their works we can identify the diverse political and ideological positions within a broad constitutional reconsideration of the monarchy. This reconsideration will ultimately transcend the stereotypes of a radical and universalising liberalism, on the one hand, and of conservative and historicist positions, on the other.

Spatial theories of voting are appealing because they link voters’ electoral choices to candidates’ policy positions. Yet if voters lack political sophistication and awareness of candidate positions, they may not measure up to the cognitive demands of spatial voting models. Using district experts to ascertain House candidates’ positions on the same liberal-conservative scale as in a survey of constituents, we find that proximity voting is common, even among voters unaware of candidates’ ideological positions. Since voting based on party identification or presidential approval often produces votes consistent with the spatial model, such alternative decision rules explain this result by serving as powerful proxies for proximity voting. In addition, facilitator variables such as involvement in politically expert interpersonal networks, the ideological difference between candidates, and voters’ distance from the district ideological cut point help explain proximity voting.

Political candidates' ideological positions have been used to explain success in inter-party competition, but little is known about how they impact success in intra-party competition. Here, candidates' positions on the Left–Right and GAL–TAN dimensions are analysed in three Finnish parliamentary elections (2011, 2015, 2019). Candidates' ideological positions are measured in terms of their ideological distance from their own party's median candidate. Absolute ideological distances between candidates and their party's median candidate decrease candidates' preference votes. Furthermore, the effects are contingent on the general ideological position of the candidate's party. However, these interactions do not follow any clear pattern, as more rightist candidates in right-wing parties and more green-alternative-libertarian candidates in traditional-authoritarian-nationalist parties all experience a decrease in their preference votes. This effect is large enough to be a decisive factor in intra-party competition between the last candidate that was elected and the first one that was not.

A well-studied hypothesis in the political economy literature is that economic globalisation leads to the convergence of economic policies because of increasing international constraints. However, little is known about how parties adapt their policy positions during economic crises. This paper investigates parties’ policy shifts in economically harsh times. It highlights the important distinction between long-term trends (e.g., economic integration) and relatively short-term economic fluctuations when studying party competition. During economic downturns parties have an incentive to intensify the debate on economic policies and emphasise their distinct policy positions. In other words, parties strategically position themselves on salient issues. The empirical analysis combines party manifesto data with macro-economic indicators and survey data from 28 European countries between 1980 and 2021. The findings show that party polarisation increases when the economy is in decline, and positions converge during economic recovery. Further analyses explore the mechanism and reveal an indirect effect: parties adjust their policy positions in reaction to changing voter priorities and grievances in times of economic distress. Overall, the article contributes to a larger literature on party competition and political responsiveness by showing that external shocks, such as economic crises, influence the diversity of political offers among established parties.

In this study we aimed to contribute to the comprehension of the ideological positionings of Córdoba (Argenina) citizens that refuse to self-position in the ideological continuum (or that self-position in the center. A quantitative study with two samples of both sexes was performed: university students and general population. A closed questionnaire containing socio-demographical variables, ideological self-placement and ideological positionings towards situational issues (security, drugs, abortion, economy, democracy, among others) was applied. Variance Analysis was carried out to acknowledge the differences between the groups regarding their ideological positionings. Results show differential profiles between the groups, and ratify that these people possess conservative and progressive ideological positionings though they do not self-identify either with the right or with the left. Based on the results, the usefulness of transcending mere symbolic analyses of political ideology is discussed, emphasizing the contribution of operative measurements of citizenship’s political ideology.

Based on an analysis of both published and newly identified sources, this paper will attempt to carry out a comparative analysis of the essential content, nature, scale, social and national composition, political and ideological views and positions, and the ideological foundations and practical results of the struggle by partisan, anti-Nazi resistance movements in the Rostov oblast and in western Serbia during the Second World War. These regions were unique in terms of natural and geographic conditions, the ethnic and social composition of their populations, and their ideological views and political positions. Therefore, special attention will be given to identifying, thoroughly describing, and conducting a comparative analysis of the common and unique features of the partisan movement in these two regions. The paper will also demonstrate the influence of political, socioeconomic, ethnic, and social factors on the scale of this movement, the degree to which it was supported by the local population, the results of its activities in each of these areas both generally and in relation to their correlation and comparative analysis. The final generalizations and conclusions about the role and significance of the partisan movements in the Rostov oblast and in western Serbia during the Second World War, and their general and more specific features will also be substantiated.

Although extensive research analyzes the factors that motivate European parties to shift their policy positions, there is little cross-national research that analyzes how voters respond to parties’ policy shifts. We report pooled, time-series, analyses of election survey data from several European polities, which suggest that voters do not systematically adjust their perceptions of parties’ positions in response to shifts in parties’ policy statements during election campaigns. We also find no evidence that voters adjust their Left-Right positions or their partisan loyalties in response to shifts in parties’ campaign-based policy statements. By contrast, we find that voters do respond to their subjective perceptions of the parties’ positions. Our findings have important implications for party policy strategies and for political representation. Research on political representation in Europe emphasizes the linkages between parties’ policy positions and their supporters’ policy beliefs. According to this responsible party model of political representation, it is normatively desirable that parties’ policy programmes – and governing parties’ policy outputs – match the views of the party’s supporters, a desiratum that reflects Sartori’s observation that “citizens in Western democracies are represented by and through parties. This is inevitable” (1968, page 471, emphasis in original). Over the past thirty years dozens of studies have analyzed the mass-elite policy linkages that the responsible party model highlights (see, e.g., Dalton 1985; Powell 1989; Iversen 1994). These studies typically report reasonably close matches between parties’ positions and their supporters’ policy preferences, particularly with respect to policy debates over Left-Right social welfare issues (see, e.g., Dalton 1985). In an evolving political environment wherein both parties and voters shift their policy positions, policy correspondence between political parties and their supporters can be maintained through some combination of party elites responding to their supporters and these supporters responding to party elites, i.e., elites may dynamically adjust their policy positions in response to shifts in their supporters’ beliefs, a process we label party responsiveness, and party supporters may dynamically adjust their beliefs in response to shifts in their preferred party’s policy positions, a process we label party persuasion. Alternatively, rank-and-file voters may switch their partisan loyalties in response to parties’ policy shifts, i.e. voters may engage in policy-based partisan switching. The latter two processes both involve voters responding to parties, and we collectively label these as processes of partisan adjustments. We analyze the dynamics of voters’ responses to shifts in European parties’ Left-Right positions. We ask the following questions: When parties shift their Left-Right policy statements, as re1 An alternative representation criterion emphasizes the link between government policies and the median voter position in the electorate (see, e.g., Powell 2000; McDonald and Budge 2005). flected in their election manifestos, do citizens update their perceptions of the parties’ Left-Right positions? And, do we observe partisan adjustments in response to parties’ shifting policy statements, i.e., do citizens respond to parties’ statements by shifting their own Left-Right positions (a persuasion process) and/or their partisan loyalties (partisan switching)? The surprising answer we provide to each of the above questions is no. We find no substantively or statistically significant evidence that voters adjust their perceptions of parties’ Left-Right positions in response to the policy statements in parties’ election manifestos – a conclusion that is striking given that interviews with European political elites that we conducted (discussed below) suggest that parties campaign on the basis of these manifestos. We also find no evidence of citizens’ partisan adjustments in response to parties’ policy statements, i.e., we find no evidence that voters adjust their Left-Right positions or their partisan loyalties in response to these policy statements. This latter conclusion holds both for analyses of national election surveys from five European countries, and for separate analyses of Eurobarometer data from 12 countries over the period 19732002. Simply put, we find that when parties shift the statements in their policy programmes – statements that form the basis for the parties’ election campaigns, according to the party elites we interviewed – there is no evidence that voters respond by adjusting their perceptions of the parties’ Left-Right positions, their own Left-Right positions, or their partisan loyalties. By contrast, we find that European citizens do react to their perceptions of parties’ Left-Right positions, i.e., citizens adjust their Left-Right positions and their partisan loyalties in response to the parties’ policy images. Overall, our findings thereby suggest that Left-Right ideology does matter to 2 The five countries are Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway, the five European polities for which national election survey data are available over a lengthy time period. 3 The twelve countries that are included in the Eurobarometer surveys are Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Luxembourg, Greece, Ireland, Belgium, and Italy.

The paper refers to the problem of constructing modern day political leaders' communication with the voters. The peculiarities of convergent communication, which is inseparable from modern day communication, allow to produce a model of communicative process participants, determine the most significant communicative competencies of convergent participants and offer proper solutions of communicative problems. The authors come to a conclusion that within the framework of the digital society, possessing new channels of communication, new technologies of transferring and storing information etc., the basic communicative strategies, characterizing participants of communication, peculiarities of their consciousness and, consequently, peculiarities of receiving and processing the information, remain unchanged. We also have to admit the unchangeability of discursive strategies considered as primary principles of activity, which can be chosen by a participant. It should also be noted that these strategies can be traced to the archetypical models of behavior of the Headman, King, Judge, Warrior, Teacher, Father, Son etc. New communication channels (social networks, sites of politicians, YouTube channels, messengers etc.), used extensively in modern day politics, aim to change not the strategies, but the discourse formats, corresponding to the communication channels, on the one hand, and possessing the ability to organize dialogical relations between the creator and the recipient, on the other hand. The authors also claim that the chosen communicative strategies should correspond to those archetypes that underlie politician's image and the chosen communicative strategies are not supposed to undermine these archetypes.