Party's Chances Research Articles

Party over preference? Strategic primary voting in the age of outsiders*

AbstractObjectiveSome primary voters cast their ballot for a candidate they do not most prefer in hopes that doing so will increase their party's chances of winning the general election. However, the emergence of party “outsider” candidates challenges prevailing assumptions about the persuasive pull of electability arguments on voter decision making. In this project, we analyze whether and when supporters of “outsider” candidates resolve strategic dilemmas relative to supporters of “insider” candidates.MethodsWe administer survey experiments to Republicans and Democrats immediately before the 2016 and 2020 primaries, respectively.ResultsAlthough voters in both parties are willing to vote strategically, there are critical differences when it comes to the loyalty primary voters feel to outsider primary candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.ConclusionStrategic voting decisions are not based merely on electability, particularly in the case of “outsider” candidates. Scholars should integrate additional factors into future work on voter behavior in primaries.

Canadian Participation in the Spectrum Management Consultation Process: Involvement, Indifference, or Exclusion?

AbstractCapitalist state regulatory theory posits that state agencies will be driven by the twin goals of capital accumulation and state legitimation in their regulatory actions. How true is this proposition when applied to Canadian telecommunications policymaking? Does industry prevail with regulators, or do consumers exercise equal influence? Using data on Industry Canada's public consultation processes, the authors examine who has participated and how intensely, and discuss each party's chances of reaching agreement with the regulator.

Canadian Participation in the Spectrum Management Consultation Process: Involvement, Indifference, or Exclusion?

AbstractCapitalist state regulatory theory posits that state agencies will be driven by the twin goals of capital accumulation and state legitimation in their regulatory actions. How true is this proposition when applied to Canadian telecommunications policymaking? Does industry prevail with regulators, or do consumers exercise equal influence? Using data on Industry Canada's public consultation processes, the authors examine who has participated and how intensely, and discuss each party's chances of reaching agreement with the regulator.

Growing Secularisation in a Catholic Society: The Divorce Referendum of 28 May 2011 in Malta

The divorce referendum held in Malta on 28 May 2011 was another watershed in Maltese politics, particularly because it confirmed the secularising trends in Maltese society and exposed the complicated cleavages within the Maltese electorate. The result was a major political embarrassment for the ultra-conservative Prime Minister and leader of the Nationalist Party, particularly after he doggedly voted against the divorce bill in parliament notwithstanding the referendum result. The Catholic Church was also embarrassed after leading an aggressive ‘no’ campaign that did not resonate with the demands of society or the expectations of progressive Catholics. While the issue has severely affected the ruling Nationalist Party's chances of winning the next general election, due in the first quarter of 2013, it may have forced the Church finally to contemplate serious reforms.

Sufism, Salafism and state policy towards religion in Algeria: a survey of Algerian youth

During the summer of 2011, the University of Algiers and Binghamton University undertook a public opinion survey of youth in Algeria to assess their views of Sufism and Salafism and governmental policy towards religion in Algeria. In this survey that included more than 2000 respondents from all regions of the country, an analysis of the data obtained reveals mass disillusionment among youth with both political parties and religious institutions in the country. This widespread disenchantment may explain why we have not observed high levels of social mobilisation in Algeria in the wake of the 2011 revolutions and revolts known as the ‘Arab Spring’. Our survey reveals that Algerian youth see Sufi organisations as oriented towards peaceful change, yet they also see Sufis as practitioners of unacceptable religious practices (bidaa). The majority of respondents also believe that the government's support of Sufi orders involves a political effort to increase the ruling party's chances of electoral success while deflecting Salafist critiques of government.

Inefficiency Costs, Parties Chances, Redistribution Restrictions, and Their Impact on the Survival of Democracies: A Formal Modeling Approach

In this paper I propose a model to understand the effects of inefficiency costs, changing in electoral chances of parties and exogenous restrictions on the feasible redistribution on the survival of democracies. First, I show some data that suggest influences, other then per capita income on the democratic survival. Then, I build a model of democracy as a repeated game where parties, at each stage, have to propose redistribution platforms and the winner can perform its most preferred redistribution. I then study how changes in inefficiency, political chances of parties and redistribution restrictions imply in changes in the feasible redistributions set (a set where democracy can be sustained). I show that an increase in efficiency also increases the feasible redistributions subset; that a change in electoral probabilities of one party impacts on the feasible redistribution; and, that by impose proper feasible subsets can only in specific cases, disturb the survival of the democracy.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the best Socialist candidate of them all? The left-right location of the candidates in the Socialist Party primary and the probability of Socialist success in the presidential elections of 2012

Using a one-dimensional model of multi-bloc two-part competition across the two rounds of the French presidential election, and drawing on polling results from several months in advance of the election, we examine the Socialist Party's chances of winning the French presidency in 2012. Although the polls show that the Socialist Party has a high probability of winning the presidency, using our model, we argue that their likely success can be strongly affected by which candidate wins the 9 and 16 October two-stage Socialist Party primaries. We also show that our one-dimensional model allows us to estimate how the removal of Dominique Strauss-Kahn from the set of candidates shifted votes among the other candidates in the primary based on which of them was seen as ideologically closer to him. We also provide insights into the strategic calculations of President Sarkozy in his 2007 campaign and in anticipation of the 2012 election.

From Madison to Wall Street: Assessing the Electoral Consequences of Protest on the Left

This paper compares three movements with respect to their impact on elections: the Tea Party, the pro-labor protests in Madison and other capitals, and Occupy Wall Street. Findings: 1) Both the Tea Party and the labor protests have moved directly to electoral action. 2) The Tea Party increased its influence by its willingness to sabotage Republican Party chances of victory; the labor-based insurgency, in contrast, has never opposed a Democratic incumbent. 3) Occupy Wall Street is unlikely to lead to electoral activism by its participants, but has had a major indirect influence by changing the national issue agenda.

Patronage and Elections in U.S. States

Does control of patronage jobs significantly increase a political party's chances of winning elections in U.S. states? We employ a differences-in-differences design, exploiting the considerable variation in the dates that different states adopted civil service reforms. Our evidence suggests that political parties in U.S. states were able to use state-level patronage to increase the probability of maintaining control of state legislatures and statewide elective offices. We also find that an “entrenched” party, in power for a longer time, can use patronage more effectively. We consider several alternative hypotheses that might plausibly account for the patterns in the data, but find no evidence to support them.

Surgery in safe hands: a manifesto for surgery

The current parliament will expire in 2010 and there will be a general election by June at the very latest. The UK is therefore set for a long and possibly increasingly bitter election campaign with health care prominent in the wrangling. Politicians of all parties are seeking to stake a claim with the electorate to be the best defenders of the NHS. With massive public spending cuts almost certain and likely budget restrictions for many years to come it is crucial to each of the party's chances how well they convince the public that health care is safe in their hands.

Candidate and Party Strategies in Two‐Stage Elections Beginning with a Primary

In the United States and Latin America, candidates for national and state‐level office frequently must win primary elections in order to advance to the general election. We model policy and valence issues for office‐seeking candidates facing such two‐stage elections. We determine a Nash equilibrium for the candidates' optimal strategies, and we find that holding a primary is likely to increase a party's chances of winning the general election, particularly in situations where valence issues that involve the candidates' campaigning skills and that are not known prior to the campaign are more salient than policy issues. Furthermore, we find that primary elections are especially likely to benefit parties that expect to be underdogs in the general election. Our conclusions are directly relevant to U.S. politics and by extension to the strategic decisions that many Latin American parties currently confront, about whether it is strategically desirable to hold primaries.

The Limbaugh Effect: A Rush to Judging Cross-Party Raiding in the 2008 Democratic Nomination Contests

This paper examines the potential for strategic Republican crossover voting in the March 4, 2008 Democratic primaries. Some observers note that conservative media figures encouraged Republicans to raid the Democratic primary in order to weaken the Democratic Party's chances in the November election. Analysis of exit poll data from 38 states suggests that Republicans may have been voting strategically in Democratic primaries, but there is little evidence that March 4th was unusual in the scope of strategic behavior.

Electoral Systems and Political Transformation in Post-Communist Europe by Sarah s> Birch (review)

REVIEWS 153 lie. They are criticalof the failureof the United Statesto do more to promote democracy and economic reform, particularly in I99I-92. The fact that acrimony over such issuesas NATO enlargement or Kosovo did not resultin a return to the Cold War is taken to show that 'historyhas vindicated those Wilsonians in all three U.S. administrations who believed that Russian transformationwas a U.S. securityinterest'(p. 365). 'Realists' might respond that Moscow's acquiescent attitude reflected consciousness of its weakness. The authors themselves remark on the 'breathtakingspeed' of Russia's decline as a major power (p. 359); where Khrushchev once dreamt of overtakingthe West, Putin now aspiresto catch up with Portugal.As ispointed out, therewas a lag inWashington'sperception of this, and in his firstterm Clinton had no higherforeignpolicy prioritythan the support of El'tsin. But later in the decade Russia received much less attention, and lessconsiderationwas given to thewishesof itsleaders.In other respects,too, the storytold here seems to vindicate a 'realist'perspective.The valuable statistics(and tables) on aid not only show how small the American effortwas in comparisonto that of Europe (especiallyGermany)but also how much more aid was provided for securitypurposes (thedismantlingof Soviet nuclear and chemical weapons) than for economic assistance or democracy promotion. This reflected the prioritiesof Congress, which of course has to appropriatethe funds. Whatever latitude of choice the United States enjoys with respect to its external environment, there are significant internal constraintson policymakers'ability to chart the nation's course. In this case, the influence of domestic lobbies is apparent over NATO enlargement, the distribution of aid between Russia and the Newly Independent States (especiallyUkraine)and the amount thatwent in the form of food. Finally, there is the question of how much influence on Russian internal developments the United States could have had a subject on which the authors seem in two minds (p. 40). The dream that propaganda and foreign aid can produce an American-styledemocracyin Russiadatesbackat least to I9I7. The authors are evidently close to Russian reformerswho shared this aspiration,but historysuggeststhatin both countriesmost people have always had otherpriorities. StCatharine's College, Cambridge JOHN A. THOMPSON Birch, Sarah. ElectoralSystemsand Political Transformation in Post-Communist Europe. One Europe or Several? Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2003. xii + 2 I2 pp. Notes. Tables. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. ?45.00? THIS is an important and well-written contribution to the fast-growing literature on electoral systems and party politics in the new democracies of Eastern Europe. The main aim of the book is to explore the influence of electoral systemson the degree of inclusion of citizens into political processes and to establish the patterns of impact of electoral systems on party system institutionalization. Included in the study are lower house parliamentary elections between i990 and 2002 in twenty states of East-Central Europe 154 SEER, 83, I, 2005 (ECE);only Azerbaijan,Belarusand Yugoslaviabefore 2000 were left out on the basis of not being democratic enough by international standards. The book convincingly demonstrates its main hypothesis, namely that electoral systems have a systematic impact on how representativestructuresfunction even in the period shortly after regime change. The first part serves as an introductionto the generaldiscussionaboutthe originsof electoralinstitutions in ECE. In the second part the relationship between electoral rules and inclusion of voters into political processes is explored. The third part deals with questions of how electoral institutions influence the size and shape of partysystemsanditsoverallstabilityandchange. The analysisissupplemented with a summaryof electoralresultsin all countriesunderconsideration. Even though the relationshipbetween electoralsystemsand partycompetition is notoriously complex, the author argues that in establishing electoral institutions,politicians in ECE in many cases took a long-term view and did not necessarilychoose the electoral rulesthat would enhance theirindividual or party chances. Moreover, despite ratherfrequent tampering with various aspects of electoral systems (e.g. gradual increases in electoral thresholds), generallythe electoralinstitutionsshow considerablestabilityand persistence. Unlike the single member district (SMD) majority systems used in the Communistperiod, all new democraciesuse electoralsystemswith important (or only) proportional representation components. In addition, in many countrieselectoral systemsare specifiedin the constitutions,a practice rather unusualin WesternEurope. Because no countryin ECE adopted compulsoryvoting, variousaspectsof electoral institutions and other political variables (e.g. closeness of political competition or support for the left...

Small parties in the new bundesländer: Bündnis 90/die grünen in brandenburg

This article considers party system development in the eastern Länder looking at the fate of the small parties that have seen their aggregate share of the vote dwindle at successive state elections to the extent that the eastern states display a three‐party system comprising the CDU, the SPD and the PDS. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and the FDP are notable casualties, since they are now extra‐parliamentary parties, having previously enjoyed the status of coalition partners. Bundnis 90/Die Grünen in the Land of Brandenburg is singled out for detailed analysis as a representative of this fate. Paradoxically, the fact that Biindnis 90 had been successful in the 1990 Landtag elections contributed to its downfall in 1994. This position of power meant that there was no incentive for key members to meet compromises and merge with the Greens. The resulting split in the party following an exceedingly acrimonious merger process did not help the party's chances at the next Landtag elections.

Turning On or Turning Off? Mobilization and Demobilization Effects of Participation in Presidential Nomination Campaigns

Much of the literature emphasizes the negative effects of presidential nomination campaigns on the general election stage. Studies of divisive have suggested that primaries undermine a party's chances in the fall campaign, and the literature on the carryover finds that supporters of nomination-round losers are less likely to support their party's nominee than are those who backed the winner. We argue this literature has underestimated the mobilization effects that result from nomination campaigns. Employing data from our studies of caucus attenders in 1984 and 1988, we find evidence of a mobilizing effect of participation in nomination campaigns. In a properly specified analysis, the evidence for mobilizing effects is much stronger than for demobilization. That is, activity for a nomination contender-even when the activity is in support of a candidate who loses his or her nomination bid-increases the level of participation for the party's ticket in the fall campaign. We suggest some ways our findings can be reconciled with the literature, and we argue that an appreciation of these positive effects can motivate a reassessment of the contemporary nomination process.

October Missiles and November Elections: The Cuban Missile Crisis and American Politics, 1962

I told you that the President would move on Cuba before [the] election, Sen. Norris Cotton of New Hampshire reminded his constituents a week after President John F. Kennedy had dramatically announced that the United States was imposing a quarantine against Cuba to force Soviet missiles from the Caribbean island. Another Republican standing for reelection in 1962, Rep. Thomas B. Curtis of Missouri, told voters in his district that the Cuban missile crisis was phony and contrived for election purposes. Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, like many others, suspected that the Kennedy administration had played politics with foreign policy to help Democrats in the congressional elections of November 6.1 The claim and fear that presidents play politics with foreign policy, especially in electoral seasons, is familiar and often well founded. Throughout American history, suspicions have flourished that presidents take unusual and sometimes extreme diplomatic or military steps, utter hyperboles, practice deceit, or manufacture foreign crises to improve their own and their party's chances at the polls. Like political leaders before him, Kennedy had invited imputations that he exploited foreignpolicy issues for political gain or that he made diplomatic decisions in response to domestic political pressure. Indeed, about a month before the missile crisis, Kennedy had made a conspicuous political decision in foreign affairs: to sell Hawk missiles to Israel. American Jews had lobbied intensely for the sale; some of them had even withheld contributions from congressional candidates until they saw Kennedy act on the deal. The sale of those short-range missiles, the administration

GREECE AND ITS RELATIONS WITH THE WEST: A CASE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT

Papandreou and the Pan‐Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) are committed to bring about change in Greek society, but they must decide how much change, and how quickly that can be accomplished without hindering the party's chances for electoral victory. Data drawn from two separate surveys covering, respectively, relevance of three types of issues (foreign policy, civil liberties and economic policy) on the voting of Greeks, and Greek attitudes towards EEC membership/unification of Western Europe, suggest that the leftist parties in Greece are supported in large part by those who do not favour strong ties with the West. The influence of the US inside Greece cannot be easily limited, and successful pursuit of an interdependent and multidimensional foreign policy, limiting Greece's dependence on the West (especially the USA) is not easy to achieve. Papandreou faces problems from the right, who do not favour his measures of change, and from the extreme left, who feel he is reneging on promises; he needs to maintain his electoral support while at the same time trying to limit international conflict.

But How Many Candidates Should We Have in Donegal? Numbers of Nominees and Electoral Efficiency in Ireland

When the results of an analysis fly in the face both of generally accepted theory and the practice of professional politicians, it is usually a good idea to reconsider whether the point is really established. Such is the case with the small literature regarding the effects of nomination strategies on the outcomes of Dáil Éireann elections that has developed in these pages since the publication of an article by Cohan, McKinlay and Mughan (‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1973’, thisJournal, v (1975), 363–83). The original article made several valuable points, including a demonstration that patterns of transfer votes may be more important than the distribution of first preference votes in determining the result of elections under the single transferable vote (STV) system, and an extension of the wasted vote concept to STV, majority, and proportional elections. Unfortunately, the notes that have followed have all focused on the most questionable conclusion of the original article, that overnomination hurts a party's chances of electing the maximum possible number of deputies.

Rejoinder

In dealing with the question of the overnomination of candidates in Irish constituencies, Lijphart and Irwin have found that overnomination does tend to injure a party's chances of electing more candidates given the vagaries of proportional representation with the single transferable vote. They conclude that ‘this favourable ten-to-one ratio appears to entail strong support for the proposition that overnomination can be dangerous and should be avoided’. My disagreement with them is not in their methods and findings, but in their interpretation of the significance of those findings.

Comment on “Changing the Rules Changes the Game”

Since the bright summer and dark fall of 1972, Democrats have been disputing whether the McGovern-Fraser commission's reforms were a triumph for justice and democracy or a recipe for electoral disaster. Party-watching political scientists, however, must surely agree that they provide us a veritable mother lode of research material. The dispute reminds us forcefully that however unimportant party rules and processes may seem to some academics, most of the people who operate our political system's inner circles believe the stakes of intraparty fights are well worth fighting for and recognize party rules as a major factor determining their outcomes. The reforms demonstrate that the parties' rules and structures are not fixed forever beyond the power of human volition, and thus teach us that henceforth we must be more sensitive to the possibilities of change and more concerned with its probable consequences. As a former commission member who freely accepts one twenty-eighth of whatever praise or blame our reforms deserve, I have read with fascination Mr. Cavala's account of California's delegate slatemaking rules and practices 1972. I recall that California concerned us more than any other state: our Guideline C-6 was written and adopted mainly to up its closed slate-making processes; our Guideline B-6 was an effort to persuade California and a few other states to repeal the winner-take-all provisions of their presidential primary laws; and most of us hailed as a great triumph the new slate-making procedures worked out through long and often painful negotiations between the California party and the national commission's chairmen and staff. As a political scientist who has come to believe that impact studies offer the most promising way our discipline can make a scholarly contribution to the formation and evaluation of public policies, I welcome Cavala's focus on the interpretation, application, and consequences of California's new slatemaking rules. I regret that his data consist so largely of his own undocumented participant-observer's impressions, but perhaps that is the best one can do so soon after the fact. I should add that his observations are quite consistent with those I have seen newspaper accounts and heard from other participants, including those who worked for candidates other than Cavala's. Accepting his account as essentially accurate, then, what does it tell us about the reforms' impact? Cavala's central conclusion is that the new rules were intended to serve new purposes and that the efforts of the candidate organizations to bend them to the old purposes failed miserably. In 1968 and before, he tells us, the typical presidential candidate organization California put together its delegate slate for the primary so as to broaden its appeal and thus improve its candidate's chances of winning. After the primary the winning organization sought to increase the party's chances of carrying the November by adding prominent party leaders and contributors who had supported losing candidates or no candidate the primary. The main object of the old closed procedures was thus to maximize what might be called combat effectiveness, first for the primary and then for the general election. There was no nonsense about open access: if the slatemakers thought you would help them win, you were in; if not, you were out. Cavala relates how the leaders of the candidate organizations 1972 (including McGovern's, which Cavala held a high position) hoped to serve these same purposes under the new rules and even take advantage of them to jettison some deadwood. But the rules routed them. Guideline C-6's requirements for access resulted district caucuses dominated (he do.s not say packed) by people with little or no past service to the party or feelings of obligation to its leaders. Consequently, he reports, they were less likely than the slatemakers of earlier years to pick delegates for the purpose of enhancing their candidate's chances of winning the primary, and even less likely to step aside after the primary to make room for party notables. And the injunction Guidelines A-1 and A-2 that the delegation should include women, young people, and members of minority groups in reasonable relationship to their presence the population of the state became a prime criterion at each district caucus as well. Moreover, Cavala reports that most of the people attending the