Personal Vote Research Articles

Careerism, Committee Assignments, and the Electoral Connection

Most scholars agree that members of Congress are strongly motivated by their desire for reelection. This assumption implies that members of Congress adopt institutions, rules, and norms of behavior in part to serve their electoral interests. Direct tests of the electoral connection are rare, however, because significant, exogenous changes in the electoral environment are difficult to identify. We develop and test an electoral rationale for the norm of committee assignment “property rights.” We examine committee tenure patterns before and after a major, exogenous change in the electoral system—the states' rapid adoption of Australian ballot laws in the early 1890s. The ballot changes, we argue, induced new “personal vote” electoral incentives, which contributed to the adoption of “modern” congressional institutions such as property rights to committee assignments. We demonstrate a marked increase in assignment stability after 1892, by which time a majority of states had put the new ballot laws into force, and earlier than previous studies have suggested.

Measuring the ?personal vote? of members of Congress

This paper uses a pooled time series/cross sectional research design to measure the “personal vote” of three groups of members of Congress. The personal vote is defined here as that part of a candidate's vote share that is unique to him or her. It is measured using a legislator-specific intercept for each legislator in an equation predicting vote share. The other variables in the equation account for the effects of the election year environment and the tenure of the representative. Three cohorts of representatives are analyzed: 1) those whose careers ended before 1966, 2) those whose careers began after 1965, and 3) those whose careers began before 1966 but ended after. The mean legislator-specific intercept is nearly twice as large for the first group as for the second; it is 29 percentage points larger for the first than the third. A second stage regression explains these intercepts using legislator characteristics, party affiliation, region of origin, and number of terms served. The term effects increase at an increasing rate as tenure increases for all those whose careers end after 1966. Personal vote accumulates nearly twice as fast for those first elected after 1965 as for those first elected before 1966.

Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: A rank ordering of electoral formulas

Seat allocation formulas affect candidates' incentives to campaign on a personal rather than party reputation. Variables that enhance personal vote-seeking include: (1) lack of party leadership control over access to and rank on ballots, (2) degree to which candidates are elected on individual votes independent of co-partisans, and (3) whether voters cast a single intra-party vote instead of multiple votes or a party-level vote. District magnitude has the unusual feature that, as it increases, the value of a personal reputation rises if the electoral formula itself fosters personal vote-seeking, but falls if the electoral formula fosters party reputation-seeking.

Political recruitment: gender, race and class in the British parliament

1. Puzzles in political recruitment Part I. Who Selects and How?: 2. The structure of political recruitment 3. Conservative recruitment 4. Labour recruitment 5. Minor party recruitment Part II. Who Gets Selected and Why?: 6. Supply and demand explanations 7. Gatekeeper attitudes 8. Candidate resources 9. Candidate motivation 10. Comparative candidate recruitment Part III. Does the Social Bias Matter?: 11. The values, priorities and roles of MPs 12. The personal vote 13. Reforming recruitment.

Democracy and the personal vote: A cautionary tale from Japan

The debate on the merits of various electoral systems focuses primarily, and properly, on the relationship between a party's percentage of the vote and its percentage of the seats. The choice between proportional systems and systems that purposefully reduce the number of parties mirror two basically different theories of democracy: the consensus and the majoritarian. However, a second dimension needs also to be considered—the degree to which the electoral system produces incentives to create candidate, as opposed to party, support. Japan presents us with an electoral system that is ‘medium’ on the consensus versus majoritarian dimension, but produces extremely strong incentives for candidates to rely on their personal vote. Both dimensions have serious implications for the quality of democracy.

The Subterranean Role of Health Care Reform

The Subterranean Role of Health Care Reform

Synopsis of Proposals on Botanical Nomenclature ‐ Tokyo 1993. A review of the proposals concerning the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature submitted to the XV International Botanical Congress

Each personal member of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy is entitled to participate in the Preliminary Mail Vote on nomenclature proposals submitted to the XVIII International Botanical Congress, as stated in Division III of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (McNeill & al. in Regnum Veg. 146. 2006). Authors of proposals to amend the Code and members of the Permanent Nomenclature Committees (described in Div. III.2) are also entitled to participate, but no institutional votes are allowed. A voting form is inserted in this issue of Taxon and, if lost, available from www .iapt-taxon.org (sub Nomenclature). The voting forms (ballots) should be returned to the IAPT Office, Institute of Botany, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, A-1030, Vienna, Austria, by 31 May 2011, so that they may be included in the tabulation to be made available to members of the Nomenclature Section of the Congress. The sessions of the Nomenclature Section, which will take definitive action on proposals, will be held in the Copland Theatre, Economics and Commerce Building 148, University of Melbourne (Parkville campus), Melbourne, Australia, from Monday, 18 July 2011 (09:00 hours) to Friday, 22 July 2011 (see http://www.ibc2011.com/ NomenclatureSection.htm). Each person registered for at least one full day of the Congress is entitled to enrol as a member of the Nomenclature Section. Registration for the Congress should be done in advance (see http://www .ibc2011.com/Registration.htm); the confirmation received will be the evidence of eligibility for registration for the Nomenclature Section, which will start during a welcoming reception on Sunday, 17 July, at 16:00 hours at The School of Botany Building 122 on the Parkville campus; Nomenclature Section registration will continue on Monday, 18 July at 08:00 hours at the Copland Theatre. Each member of the Nomenclature Section is entitled to one personal vote in the sessions. Personal votes can neither be transferred nor accumulated; one person never receives more than one personal vote. A member of the Nomenclature Section may be the official delegate of one or more institutions, thereby carrying their votes, but no one person is allowed more than 15 votes (including his or her personal vote). Official delegates are required to submit their credentials and to collect their voting cards when registering for the Nomenclature Section. Institutions are being advised of their allocation of votes in March 2011, in accordance with Division III of the Code. INTRODUCTION

The Eastern European Revolution and Education in Czechoslovakia

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Eastern European Revolution and Education in CzechoslovakiaBotho von KoppBotho von Kopp Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 36, Number 1Feb., 1992Special Issue on Education in a Changing Europe Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/447084 Views: 7Total views on this site Citations: 10Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1992 The Comparative and International Education SocietyPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jiří Zounek, Libor Juhaňák, Klára Záleská Education, Life, and Digital Technologies in the Czech Republic: The Story of a Post-Socialist Country in Central Europe, (Feb 2022): 17–43.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90040-3_2Laura B. Perry Democratic Aspects of Communist and Post-communist Schooling in Central and Eastern Europe, (Aug 2012): 155–171.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4728-9_9Richard Pesik, Tatiana Gounko Tertiary education in the Czech Republic: the pathway to change, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 41, no.66 (Dec 2011): 735–750.https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.573639N.K. Napier, M. Harvey, K. Usui Management Education in Emerging Economies: The Impossible Dream?, Journal of Management Education 32, no.66 (Jul 2008): 792–819.https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562908319994Allen Hicken, Joel W. Simmons The Personal Vote and the Efficacy of Education Spending, American Journal of Political Science 52, no.11 (Jan 2008): 109–124.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00302.xLaura B. Perry The seeing and the seen: contrasting perspectives of post‐communist Czech schooling, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 35, no.33 (Sep 2005): 265–283.https://doi.org/10.1080/03057920500212548N.K. Napier, N.T.T. Mai National Economics University and Boise State University: International Cooperation in Vietnam, (Jan 2004): 311–326.https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-8072-9_20Barbara Heyns Markets for Organizational Reform, (Jan 1995): 57–80.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1094-3_4David N. Plank, William Lowe Boyd Antipolitics, Education, and Institutional Choice: The Flight From Democracy, American Educational Research Journal 31, no.22 (Jun 2016): 263–281.https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312031002263Robert F. Lawson The American Project for Educational Reform in Central Europe, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 24, no.33 (Jan 1994): 247–257.https://doi.org/10.1080/0305792940240305

The Personal Vote in Australian Federal Elections

Although there has been little reliable evidence to date, the ‘personal vote’ for local Members of Parliament in Australian elections is generally thought to be negligible by political scientists. This article analyses new data from the 1987 Australian National Social Science Survey which demonstrate that the personal vote is a significant factor in federal lower house elections even when numerous other variables known to influence voting behaviour are controlled for. The data allow a calculation of the potential electoral effect of the personal vote which shows that it could be worth at least 3 per cent in some circumstances. The analysis tests for varying levels of personal voting in safe and marginal seats, Labor and coalition seats, urban and rural seats and according to the length of time the incumbent has been in office. Lastly, the electoral effects of the social background of local members are examined.

The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence

The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence

Constituent Service and the “Incumbency Effect” - Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn and Morris Fiorina: The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Pp. x268. $25.00.)

Constituent Service and the “Incumbency Effect” - Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn and Morris Fiorina: The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Pp. x268. $25.00.)

The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence.Bruce Cain , John Ferejohn , Morris Fiorina

<i>The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence.</i>Bruce Cain , John Ferejohn , Morris Fiorina

The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence, by Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn and Morris Fiorina

The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence, <i>by Bruce Cain, John Ferejohn and Morris Fiorina</i>

An Experiment in Approval Voting

The first major experimental comparison of approval voting with regular plurality voting occurred in the 1985 annual election of The Institute of Management Sciences (TIMS). In approval voting a person votes for (approves of) as many candidates as desired, the winner being the candidate with the most votes. By permitting more votes than the number of positions to be filled, approval voting collects more information from the voter than does plurality voting. This can make a difference, for example, when three candidates compete for a single office. In such situations two candidates with wide but similar appeal sometimes split a majority constituency so that, under plurality voting, a minority candidate is elected. By contrast, approval voting is likely to identify the candidate who is most broadly acceptable to the electorate as a whole. In the TIMS experiment society members received an experimental approval ballot along with their official plurality ballot. Two contests involved three candidates running for a single office and a third, five candidates for two positions. Surprisingly, in two of the three contests, approval voting would have produced different winners and neither of the changes was of the type usually emphasized in the approval voting literature. The experiment demonstrated the practicality of approval voting and showed that it can elect a set of candidates different from that which plurality voting would. Direct comparison of ballots makes it possible to determine why the experimental switches occurred. It is shown that in each reversal the approval winner had broader support in the electorate than the plurality winner. The experiment also provided empirical data on how voters distribute approvals across candidates and indicated that, in this case, their behavior was roughly, but not exactly, consistent with theoretical analyses of voting efficacy.

Mass Media and Legislative Campaigns in a Unitary Parliamentary Democracy: The Case of Britain

In the British parliamentary system, legislative campaigns are short, intense affairs with a strongly national cast. The media system is highly centralized, and its content emphasizes national parties and leaders. Campaign expenditures at the constituency level are minimal, although central party expenditures are more substantial. Access to political broadcasting is based on centrally determined policies for allocating free time to national parties. The influence of incumbency on a personal vote is less than in the United States, but it may be growing in Britain under conditions of weakened party loyalties and increased electoral volatility. The role of the local media in heightening visibility and therefore the electoral chances of legislative candidates is yet to be investigated. Suggestions are offered for comparative research on the effects of national system variables and intracountry com

The Role of Mass Media in West German Election Campaigns

In the German political system, elections to the national and state legislatures are based upon a mixture of party lists and individual local candidate choice. The mass media system consists of nationalized television programming and regional and local newspapers. Because paid advertising by parties is prohibited, there are few opportunities for the development of a personal vote. Since 1984, however, four pilot projects have been initiated to experiment with commercial television, and parties are using paid commercials on these outlets. Attention and exposure to campaign coverage is high, but their effects on voter preference and turnout vary widely. Advertising in campaigns is likely to increase, but the strong national forces of the German electoral system are unlikely to lead to a renaissance of the local candidate.

Toward A Political Explanation of Government Vote Losses in Midterm By-Elections

By-elections in parliamentary democracies are remarkable for the almost invariable loss of support experienced by governments relative to the preceding general election. There has been, however, surprisingly little research into this phenomenon. Using Britain as a test case, this article goes some way towards filling this gap. It identifies and tests three political explanations of governments' by-election vote losses, which it labels the turnout, referendum and personal vote models. No simple conclusion emerges, since different results are obtained depending on whether the models are treated as separate entities or their interplay is taken into account by integrating them into a single causal model. This latter strategy is argued to involve a superior conceptualization of the processes at work in bringing about governments' midterm vote losses.

The Constituency Service Basis of the Personal Vote for U.S. Representatives and British Members of Parliament

Under the guise of the “incumbency advantage,” American research of the past decade has devoted heavy emphasis to what may be termed the “personal vote” in congressional elections. Is this phenomenon purely American, or is it susceptible to comparative treatment? This article contrasts the personal vote in the 1980 U.S. House elections with that in the 1979 British general election. The analysis utilizes data from surveys conducted by the Center for Political Studies and British Gallup in combination with interviews of congressional administrative assistants (AAs) and British MPs and party agents whose constituencies fall in the sampling frames of the mass surveys. The analysis finds an incumbency advantage or personal vote in Britain which is much weaker than that in the United States but of somewhat greater importance than is commonly believed. As in the United States, constituency service appears to be an important component of the personal vote.

Special Report From the Committee on Reorganization

The Committee on Reorganization of the Academy has been appointed to study the constitution and by-laws of the American Academy of Pediatrics and make suggestions for such changes as may seem indicated. The Committee is anxious to call its existence to the attention of the members and request that they inform the Committee of any ideas that they may have relative to the organization of the Academy. The State Chairmen discussed the problem at some length at the Annual Meeting in Dallas in December. It was felt that the Academy had grown to the point where its basic organization should be examined carefully within the near future. It was specifically suggested that a formal organization be developed in the individual states so that the State Chairmen could be elected rather than appointed. It was also felt that the District and Alternate District Chairmen should be elected by the membership of the district concerned rather than by the membership of the entire Academy. Several State Chairmen expressed the view that members feel that they do not have a personal vote in the affairs of the Academy and that the organization of the Academy should allow for more active participation by individual members.