Candidate Choice Research Articles

Thwarted voters at the 2000 US presidential election

This article examines the behavior at the 2000 US presidential election of the self-described Democrats who, prior to the election but after the candidates were nominated, preferred Bill Bradley to Al Gore, as well as of the Republicans who had a higher opinion of John McCain than they did of George W. Bush. These “thwarted voters” are examined with regard to turnout, candidate choice, and motivations, and they are compared on these dimensions with thwarted voters at earlier US presidential elections. Attention is given to estimating the extent to which their behavior in 2000 was critical for the popular vote totals, and counterfactual analysis is employed to estimate the probable effects on the election’s outcome of marginal alterations in the voters’ perceptions of the candidates’ attributes.

A Promise Fulfilled? Open Primaries and Representation

Academics and political practitioners alike have long concerned themselves with the representativeness of primary electorates. Hoping to moderate the ideological extremity of primary voters, state parties have increasingly adopted more open primary eligibility rules. This article explores the extent to which open and modified-open primaries actually attract a more representative electorate than their closed counterparts. Using state-level exit poll data from 1988 through 2000, we compare the ideological, age, and income representation of primary electorates with general election voters. We find that open primaries result in the ideological convergence of the parties’ primary electorates, although the extent of this convergence is contingent upon the candidate choices within individual election years. Notably, open primaries are responsible for the inclusion of younger participants in both parties’ primaries. While reformed primary structure may weaken party control over the nomination process, it clearly ...

The Role of Issues in the 2000 U. S. Presidential Election

Between 1992 and 2000, the concerns of the public shifted from economic to domestic issues. Despite perceptions of prosperity, Gore could not capitalize on the economic improvements that occurred under the Clinton‐Gore administration. Similarly, George Bush was not able to take advantage of the moral issue based on claims of growing distrust of government grising from scandals in the Clinton‐Gore administration. With no single burning issue facing the electorate, broader enduring issues carried more sway in the election outcome. Bush gained an advantage on issues such as defense spending, investing social security funds in the stock market, and the role of government in assistance to minorities. Gore was advantaged by issues dealing with spending on government services and women's righs. Gore was slightly advantaged by the issues, but the public was almost evenly dividedon those most relevant to vote choice, helping to explain why the election turned out so close.

Indirect Costs of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Hospitalizations: A Commentary

98 Much controversy surrounds the choice of optimal candidates for the prophylaxis of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) based on published cost-effective measurements. The measurement of indirect costs associated with chronic illness is increasingly being recognized as a critical portion in understanding total health-care costs. The addition of indirect cost information to current cost-effectiveness ratios can potentially alter the approval coverage for treatment by payer groups. RSV is a highly prevalent condition among children that can affect primary caregivers’ productivity. The aggregate cost of providing prophylaxis for infants at risk for RSV is substantial, but the economic consequences of lost and reduced productivity for caregivers of this population can also be sizable. RSV is the leading cause of childhood hospitalizations, costing the United States over $300 million [1]. Monthly prophylaxis using palivizumab (Synagis®) or RSV-IGIV (Respigam®) has proven effective in reducing the risk of RSV, RSV hospitalizations, and associated direct medical costs. Cost-effective analyses have left many employers and managed care groups challenged to find the optimal balance of providing prophylaxis to certain infant candidates. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement on RSV, only certain infants with prematurity (gestational age) and/or other risk factors are recommended for prophylactic treatment for the prevention of RSV [2]. The policy statement states in its recommendations that “given the large number of patients born between 32 and 35 weeks and the cost of the drug, the use of palivizumab in this population should be reserved for those infants with additional risk factors until more data are available.” The cost benefit analyses supporting this recommendation suggest that both the cost and the logistics associated with prophylaxis for this subset of infants may outweigh the potential cost benefits. Many organizations have been modifying the AAP’s recommendations to create their own guideline criteria for determining prophylactic treatment for RSV almost exclusively based on direct medical and pharmacy costs [3]. An increasing number of organizations have begun to include indirect productivity costs in assessing the cost benefit of chronic conditions. This more inclusive method is viewed as an investment in human capital that promotes a healthier and more productive workforce. Additional information assessing the indirect costs associated with RSV hospitalizations can aid employer groups and managed care organizations in estimating the overall cost burden and better identifying candidates for prophylaxis. One such study attempting to address the issue surrounding lost time and out-of-pocket costs associated with RSV hospitalizations is presented in this issue of Value in Health by Leader et al. [4]. The study begins to address the addition of indirect costs for RSV prophylaxis treatment evaluation. The article sheds light on the time and out-of-pocket costs associated with RSV hospitalizations for specific cohorts of infants that have not received prophylaxis for RSV. Issues not addressed in this study include the actual lost time and costs directly related to missed work. The survey identified the time and out-ofpocket costs for the primary caregiver and up to four additional family members (or friends) who were affected by the infant’s hospitalization episode. These total costs for all the persons involved were used to estimate the societal burden associated with the hospitalizations.

Cultural impact on European staffing decisions in sales management

This paper tests propositions derived from the sales and human resource management literature about the adoption of sales personnel recruitment and promotion policies in an international context through a comparative study of managers in six European countries. The results indicate that the regional culture of decision-makers has a strong effect on their choice of recruitment and promotion candidates. This study attempts to identify key sales personnel characteristics for international staffing policies.

Portrait of an Interdisciplinary Life. John Neubauer zum 70. Geburtstag

In 1982, while waiting at Schiphol, the Dutch national airport, John Neubauer, then Professor of German at the University of Pittsburgh, read an advertisement in the Times Literary Supplement for a professorship at the University of Amsterdam. He decided to give it a try – to return to Europe which he left some decades ago. Selection committees had a rich choice of candidates in those days of major funding cuts (a period from which the University still has not recovered). Nevertheless, the committee's decision was not too difficult and, since 1983, John has occupied the chair of Comparative Literature (Algemene in het bijzonder Vergelijkende literatuurwetenschap) at the University of Amsterdam.

Intra‐party competition under preferential list systems: the case of Finland

In an election for the Eduskunta, Finland's Parliament, voters are asked to select a particular candidate from a party list. This article analyses the intra‐party choice of candidates on the occasion of Finland's 1999 election. It seeks to provide quantitative estimates of intra‐party competition by using three measurements: position effect, the Gini index of inequality and intra‐partisan defeats. The study shows that whether a candidate's name comes first, middle or last on a party list has an effect on voting choice in Finland. It also suggests that Finnish voters tend to disperse their preferences widely among a party's candidates, with the result that a large proportion of incumbents are defeated by newcomer candidates.

On the Interplay of Informational Spillovers and Payoff Externalities

This thesis consists of four independent essays, which consider different topics in information economics and political economy. The first two papers are variants of the same idea. An uninformed principal, e.g., a government, will make a decision. In order to gain more information it may consult two experts; however, these experts have a private interest in certain policies being implemented. The question is, to gain as much information as possible, should the principal consult experts who are biased in the same direction, or experts who prefer different decisions? The main result is that, as long as collusion between experts can be prevented, homogeneous panels are superior to heterogeneous ones, and this advantage increases with the experts’ informational precision. In the third paper, two firms consider entry in a new product market and must decide when to enter the market and how to design their product. Firms do not know for certain what the best design is, so both firms want to outwait the other’s decision in order to gain more information. The focus of the paper is on which firm will make the first decision. The main result is that if products are strong (strategic) substitutes, the worst informed firm makes the first decision in equilibrium. The analysis should apply to a range of other contexts, such as investors’ trading decisions or the policy choices of political candidates. The final paper asks the following question: Could it be that parties in a two-party system may benefit from using several candidates in the same election? To promote the use of multiple candidates, I assume that a party never runs the risk of having its votes split up among its candidates. Despite this, it turns out that parties have a strong incentive to restrict their number of nominees. Paradoxically, it seems that the more uncertain parties are about voter opinion, the fewer candidates they want to use. In particular, with a uniform voter distribution the optimal number of candidates is one.

Phylogenetic evidence for frequent positive selection and recombination in the meningococcal surface antigen PorB.

Previous estimates of rates of synonymous (d(S)) and nonsynonymous (d(N)) substitution among Neisseria meningitidis gene sequences suggested that the surface loops of the variable outer membrane protein PorB were under only weak selection pressure from the host immune response. These findings were consistent with studies indicating that PorB variants were not always protective in immunological and microbiological assays and questioned the suitability of this protein as a vaccine component. PorB, which is expressed at high levels on the surface of the meningococcus, has been implicated in mechanisms of pathogenesis and has also been used as a typing target in epidemiological investigations. In this work, using more precise estimates of selection pressures and recombination rates, we have shown that some residues in the surface loops of PorB are under very strong positive selection, as great as that observed in human immunodeficiency virus-1 surface glycoproteins, whereas amino acids within the loops and the membrane-spanning regions of the protein are under purifying selection, presumably because of structural constraints. Congruence tests showed that recombination occurred at a rate that was not sufficient to erase all phylogenetic similarity and did not greatly bias selection analysis. Homology models of PorB structure indicated that many strongly selected sites encoded residues that were predicted to be exposed to host immune responses, implying that this protein is under strong immune selection and requires further examination as a potential vaccine candidate. These data show that phylogenetic inference can be used to complement immunological and biochemical data in the choice of vaccine candidates.

The Hidden Logic of Candidate Selection for Chilean Parliamentary Elections

The political consequences of Chile's two member district (binominal) parliamentary electoral system have been the subject of much academic and political debate.' Most analyses of the electoral formula have focused on its consequences for the country's party system.2 Nonetheless, little has been written on how the system affects parliamentary candidate selection and electoral list composition. The process of candidate selection is little understood by Chileans and students of Chilean politics alike. Very little has been written on internal party processes in Chile or in Latin America generally. In addition, most studies of candidate selection focus on European parliamentary governments or the United States and are less relevant to Latin America's predominantly multiparty, presidential systems. This article makes some preliminary generalizations concerning the process of parliamentary candidate selection in Chile. It sets out the context of electoral reform and its connection to candidate selection and goes on to suggest some of the impediments to understanding the process in Chile. It then explores the actual mechanisms of candidate selection for legislative elections on three interrelated, yet analytically distinct, levels. First, it suggests what makes candidates attractive to political parties and analyzes how parties choose candidates. Second, it explores the rationale of party elites in forming pacts and coalitions and discusses the most important variables that determine which of the subpacts' constituent parties are awarded candidacies in which districts. Third, it analyzes the incentives that shape candidate selection within major coalitions and the way these coalitions determine the composition of national lists. It establishes generally applicable rules that govern candidate selection within coalitions and provides a schematic diagram of these rules. The final section provides evidence of these rules through empirical discussion of the candidate selection process, underscoring some of the paradoxes in candidate choice produced by this unique electoral system. Contrary to simplistic assumptions concerning the desire of parties and coalitions to maximize votes, a much more complex constellation of variables influences where and with which coalition partners candidates run. Leaders attempt to achieve a series of discrete objectives, many of which are contradictory and some of which are not particularly well thought out in terms of their political consequences. Maximizing

Voting by Successive Elimination and Strategic Candidacy

We study the impact of strategic choices of self-interested candidates of whether or not to enter an election. We focus on strategic candidacy in the context of the tree and binary voting procedures used by small groups such as committees. We offer a comprehensive analysis for the special but important case of voting by successive elimination. Strategic candidacy slightly enlarges the set of candidates that can be equilibrium outcomes relative to the traditional analysis which takes the set of candidates as fixed. Pareto-dominated candidates can be elected in equilibrium under voting by successive elimination when strategic candidacy is considered, in contrast with a fixed set of candidates. Journal of Economic Litterature Classification Numbers: D71, D72.

Ethics and Values in Psychoanalytic Education: Challenges

Changes both within the profession of psychoanalysis and in society as a whole have affected our psychoanalytic training programs and presented new ethical challenges. Whereas in earlier decades training programs needed to be concerned primarily about the inviolability of the training analysis and the choice of appropriate analytic candidates, today there is little support for psychoanalysis as a treatment modality. Institutes are experiencing greater competition in attracting quality candidates and in providing them with adequate training experiences. This strain encourages institutes to operate in unethical ways to attract candidates. On the other hand, within the profession itself we are experiencing much theoretical ferment and the increasing feminization of the profession. These changes are affecting our training institutes and our ethical values in both positive and negative ways.

The Partisan Heuristic in Low-Information Elections

Much literature has focused on the influence of partisan information on voter decision making. In this article, we attempt to gain a better understanding of this effect by comparing the survey responses of vote-choice questions that provide party labels and those that do not. We show that less educated survey respondents are substantially less likely to express a vote preference when party labels are not available to them. In addition, we also find evidence that those who can state a vote intention in nonpartisan races are less able to link their candidate choice to their party identification. We conclude by demonstrating that, when surveys do not provide partisan cues, the small number of re- spondents who are willing to state their vote intentions and the large number of those who appear to be guessing create great difficulties for pollsters trying to predict election results.

Association studies of bipolar disorder.

Association studies in outbred populations represent an important paradigm for investigation of complex traits, such as bipolar disorder, both to follow-up regions of interest from linkage studies (by systematic linkage disequilibrium mapping and positional candidate studies) and for pure functional studies. The advantages of the association method include its relative robustness to genetic heterogeneity and the ability to detect much smaller effect sizes than are detectable using feasible sample sizes in linkage studies. The candidate gene approach is potentially very powerful, particularly when used within the context of a VAPSE (variation affecting protein structure or expression) paradigm, but a major problem is that the efficiency in the choice of candidates is inevitably a function of the level of previous understanding of disease pathophysiology. To date, most candidate gene studies in bipolar disorder have focussed on the major neurotransmitter systems that are influenced by medication used in clinical management of the disorder. Early studies often used anonymous markers in the hope of detecting linkage disequilibrium but recently direct examination of polymorphisms of known or presumed functional relevance has become more usual. Most studies in the literature have been of the unrelated case-control design with samples rarely exceeding 200-300 subjects. No definitive findings have yet emerged although there have been some interesting preliminary findings including those with polymorphisms within the genes encoding catechol-o-methyl transferase (COMT), monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and the serotonin transporter (hSERT; 5-HTT). In this article we critically review the current status of the literature within the context of the important methodological issues and limitations inherent in the use of association studies for genetic dissection of bipolar disorder. We conclude by examining likely future directions and developments in the field.

Misreporters in Candidate Choice Models

When asked whether they voted in the last election, many survey respondents say they did even though they did not. Although misreporting has the potential to produce specious findings in candidate choice models, researchers have ignored its effects on our understanding of candidate choice. We test an established candidate choice model first with and then without self-reported voters whose turnout could not be validated, in order to gauge whether misreporters undermine empirical tests of candidate choice models. The results for three different presidential elections indicate that misreporters have little impact on the overall performance of the model or on the impacts of most predictors. Misreporting does produce some misleading findings, but its disruptive effects are confined to factors peripheral to the model; misreporters have little or no effect on party identification or candidate evaluations, the main factors shaping candidate choice.

Mapping the organization of atrial fibrillation with basket catheters. Part II: Regional patterns in chronic patients.

The aim of this study was to investigate the spatial patterns of organization of fibrillation in the right atrium using bipolar recordings from a basket catheter in a population of 17 patients with persistent AF. The number of occurrences (NO) (i.e., the number of points laying on the baseline) was used as an objective measure of organization. This parameter significantly matches Wells' criteria for the classification of bipolar recordings during AF. The anatomic correspondence of the splines with eight atrial regions (namely anterior free wall, lateral free wall, posterolateral free wall, posterior free wall, posterior atrial septum, atrial septum, tricuspid valve, and anterior tricuspid valve) was assessed by fluoroscopic projections and electrogram morphology. Each region was further divided into high, mid-high, mid-low, and low segments. It was observed that individual and well-defined patterns of organization characterize the electrical activity of the right atrium in patients with persistent AF. When observed over 10 minutes, these patterns are rather stable in time. In each patient, the NO measurements were significantly different in the various right atrium regions (P < 0.0001 for all patients, Friedman test). The NO averaged over the population was significantly different among the regions (P < 0.001, Kruskal-Wallis test), owing to a common disorganized pattern observed in the tricuspid valve and anterior tricuspid valve regions. When these regions were removed from the analysis, the differences among the remaining regions were not statistically significant (P = 0.77). In conclusion, the quantitative assessment of organization in the entire right atrium showed an individual rather than common distribution. This may have implications in the choice of regions candidate for ablation.

TAIWAN IN 2000 Managing the Aftershocks from Power Transfer

Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC) in 2000 was overwhelmed by such issues as the March presidential election and its impact on the island’s conflict-prone political system, the fragile relationship with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and a shaky economy. The victory of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shui-bian in the presidential election was itself a milestone in the ROC’s political development, for it ended the more than half century rule of the Kuomintang (KMT). Beijing’s saber rattling over the Taiwanese electorate’s choice of a pro-independence candidate was less noisy than expected. However, just as people began congratulating themselves on the smooth power transfer and the relatively tranquil state of cross-Strait relations, Taiwan suddenly was caught up by the unprecedented eruption of a feud between the new president and the KMT-dominated Legislative Yuan. Political uncertainty, plus the DPP’s pro-environment and pro-welfare policies, put Taiwan’s stock market into a tailspin. President Chen and his KMT opponents collided over the issue of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Chen’s first prime minister Tang Fei resigned under great pressure. A DPP minority government was formed in October. At the end of the year the KMT majority in the Legislative Yuan was gearing up to impeach the president. All in all, Taiwan experienced unprecedented volatility in its domestic politics, and it is certain that shocks of greater magnitude are waiting ahead.

Party Democracy: An Audit of Australian Parties

Competition between candidates representing political parties is usually regarded as a central feature of a liberal democracy. However, where competition between parties fails to provide the public with an effective choice of candidates, the real competition between candidates is displaced to a competition for party endorsement within particular parties. The paper examines the democratic implications of this displacement, and reports the findings of an audit of candidate-selection procedures within the principal Australian parties. The paper argues inter alia that the closed nature of electoral competition and the public status of Australian political parties imply that their internal affairs should be conducted democratically. The paper defines internal party democracy in structural and procedural terms. It applies realistic standards - realistic, because too much internal democracy could render a party ineffective and restrict electoral competition - in conducting an audit of the candidate-selection rules and the composition of candidate-selection voting panels for the principal Australian parties. The paper concludes with a suggestion for policy reform.

Policy-specific alienation and indifference in the calculus of voting: A simultaneous model of party choice and abstention*

This article aims to combine the spatial models of candidate/party choice and abstention/participation choice in a single decision model and to provide empirical reaction functions. The starting point of this study is the hypothesis of a sequential ordering of candidate choice and participation choice (Riker and Ordeshook, 1973). The proposed model simultaneously considers the choice among n≥ 2 parties and the abstention option. It differentiates between policy-specific effects of alienation and indifference. The models are estimated with nested multiattributive discrete choice models which are theoretically founded on random utility theory.

Reforming the Russian electoral system

There were no competitive elections until the very last years of Soviet rule. A choice of candidate, however, became possible after 1988, and in 1993 under Boris Yeltsin an entirely new Constitution provided for the election of a two‐chamber assembly, half through a national party‐list contest and half through a contest among candidates in single‐member districts. The discussions that preceded the introduction of these arrangements, and that continued afterwards, ranged the supporters of majoritarianism (including the president and the regionally‐based upper house) against the supporters of a mixed system that included party lists (favoured by most members of the Duma or lower house). For majoritarians, a system based on single‐member constituencies would keep deputies closer to their constituents, and it would disadvantage their political opponents, particularly the Communists. For those who favoured a system that included national party lists, it would give coherence to the Duma and encourage deputies to address the needs of the country as a whole. These sharp divisions helped to ensure that there were no significant changes in the laws that regulated the 1995 and 1999 Duma elections.