Citizens Vote Research Articles

Empirical Relationship between general elections and exchange rate: A study from Pakistani Market 1970 – 2009

The paper studies the link between general elections in Pakistan and the depreciation of exchange rate. The paper is unique in a way that no previous study has been done in Pakistan. We strive to prove that Pakistani politicians try to manipulate the exchange rate in some way so that they can get votes of citizens and when the elections are over, exchange rate depreciates at an increasing rate. Due to the presence of high degree of random disturbance in the data we used vector auto regression. The results given by vector auto regression confirms all the previous studies that whenever the elections are over the exchange rate depreciates at a very high rate than it was before the elections which in turn also confirmed that in pre-elections; politicians try different methods to get votes in their favor. We took time series data from 1970 to 2009, which covers a total of nine general elections held in Pakistan. Keywords - Depreciate, Elections, Exchange Rate, Political stability

Reconsidering the political economy of farm animal welfare: An anatomy of market failure

Animal welfare is often cited as a classic public good, which implies market failure and, thus, that government intervention is required. However, the current literature does not provide an accessible account of how governed markets are supposed to cope with the issues of animal welfare. This paper seeks to fill this gap by re-considering the political economy of animal welfare. Conceptual analysis shows that the major cause of market failure in the case of farm animal welfare is a problem of consumption externalities. It is the specific regulation of animal welfare conditions which is a public good (or bad). Two important conclusions follow from this analysis, which are largely unexplored in the literature on animal welfare. First, measurement of potential market failure, through identifying actual willingness to pay (WTP) for animal welfare friendly products, is potentially misleading. The difference between citizen votes and consumer WTP for animal welfare is not prima facie evidence for either market failure or a gap in the market. Second, conventional arguments in favour of subsidies and assistance to producers for better animal welfare are misconceived and potentially counterproductive. A more rational policy is to subsidise the consumption of animal welfare friendly products.

Between order and disorder: a 'weak law' on recent electoral behavior among urban voters?

A new viewpoint on electoral involvement is proposed from the study of the statistics of the proportions of abstentionists, blank and null, and votes according to list of choices, in a large number of national elections in different countries. Considering 11 countries without compulsory voting (Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Spain, and Switzerland), a stylized fact emerges for the most populated cities when one computes the entropy associated to the three ratios, which we call the entropy of civic involvement of the electorate. The distribution of this entropy (over all elections and countries) appears to be sharply peaked near a common value. This almost common value is typically shared since the 1970s by electorates of the most populated municipalities, and this despite the wide disparities between voting systems and types of elections. Performing different statistical analyses, we notably show that this stylized fact reveals particular correlations between the blank/null votes and abstentionists ratios. We suggest that the existence of this hidden regularity, which we propose to coin as a ‘weak law on recent electoral behavior among urban voters’, reveals an emerging collective behavioral norm characteristic of urban citizen voting behavior in modern democracies. Analyzing exceptions to the rule provides insights into the conditions under which this normative behavior can be expected to occur.

The law-politic Review of the Electionfor overseas Citizen Voting Rights

The law-politic Review of the Electionfor overseas Citizen Voting Rights

Plus ça Change: Race, Gender, and Issue Retrospections in the 2008 US Presidential Election

What role did race and gender play in vote choice for US president in 2008? With an African‐American Democratic presidential nominee and a female Republican vice presidential nominee, were the black–white racial gap and the gender gap different in 2008 than in previous years? We find that the racial gap between black and white voters was larger in 2008 than it was in three of the four previous presidential elections, but not significantly larger than the gap in 1996 when white Democrat Bill Clinton won reelection. This gap is still present after we include control variables. On the other hand, the apparent gender gap whereby women are more likely than men to support Democratic candidates goes away once we include controls. Other factors – namely Iraq retrospections, ideological voting, and partisan identification – played a role as large or larger in citizen vote choice as did race or gender in the 2008 general election. Even though a voter’s race was a key predictor in 2008 and even though there may be a widening racial gap, it is important not to overstate the role of race relative to other well‐known predictors of the vote.

Uninformed Voters for Sale: Electoral Competition, Information and Interest Groups in the US

SUMMARY This paper analyses how certain electoral settings affect the activity of special interest groups within US state politics. The main result of cross-sectional regression analyses suggests that informed and educated voters prevent political parties from catering to special interests, diminishing the number of lobby registrations, the total amount of campaign contributions as well as groups' overall influence. Electoral competition is believed to exert a curvilinear effect on groups' importance within the political decision making process of each state. Another finding indicates that, in a situation of high electoral competition, voters' level of information plays a pivotal role in determining interest groups' activities. Parties seem to increasingly value median voter's concerns whenever the electorate is informed and political races are expected to be close. An environment of competitive elections and uninformed voters, in contrast, furthers interest groups' activity and strengthens their position within the political arena. This is explained by the rationale that, under such circumstances, politicians increasingly exchange narrowly targeted policies for campaign contributions in order to buy the votes of impressionable citizens.

Election Briefing No 52: Europe and the Presidential Election in Romania, November 22-December 6 2009

Key points: • On 6 December 2009, following two rounds of elections, the incumbent Traian Basescu won a narrow victory of 50.33% over Mircea Geoana’s 49.67% and was elected President for a second five-year term. • For the first time in post-communist Romania, the votes of citizens living abroad changed the outcome of the elections. • The campaign revealed a pre-occupation for personal attacks, monologues, and divergent discourses which replaced substantial policy debates on common ground and priorities for the country. • During the campaign for the first round, the media played a crucial role through its biased reporting of events. • Exit polls broadcast during election day triggered bandwagon and intimidation effects that secured the access of the first two candidates into the second round. • The election was dominated by domestic issues, the European dimension being left aside. • The consequences of the presidential election results were visible at the level of government in Romania. The continuity of Mr Basescu as President implied the survival of a government that had failed a vote of confidence six weeks before the election.

Explaining politics: culture, institutions, and political behavior

Introduction: Personality and Environment Part 1: Culture and Politics 1. The Impact of Culture 2. Cultures and Conflict 3. Politics and Cooperation 4. The Diversity of Political Culture 5. The Origins and Persistence of Political Culture Part 2: Individuals in Politics 6. Who Becomes Political? Who Doesn't? 7. Citizen Voting Behavior 8. The Beliefs of Political Activists 9. Political Ideologies and Post-Industrial Values Part 3: Institutions and Systems in Politics 10. Institutions and Behavior: The Impact of Voting Systems 11. Institutions and Leadership: A Comparison of Parliamentary and Presidential Systems 12. Institutions and the Balance of Power 13. The Impact of Parties on Political Behavior 14. How the Media Structure Politics 15. The Personality of Political Leaders 16. The Impact of Globalization: Democracy, Anarchy, or ... ?

The Impact of Television Market Size on Voter Turnout in American Elections

The turnout literature has identified individual, social, and institutional factors that increase citizen voting. Our article shows that local television market size also affects turnout. Larger television markets tend to give disproportionate attention to higher-level races involving statewide or national offices. Because voters in larger markets should be exposed to less information about the lower-ticket races in which they are eligible to vote, we expect market size to affect levels of turnout. This article tests market size impact using a novel combination of aggregate turnout data for local voting areas, census data giving contextual information about these areas, and data detailing the boundaries of local television media markets. Using the Record of American Democracy data set, our aggregate-level analysis covers four election cycles (1986 to 1990) and nearly every county in the continental United States. Our analysis shows that voter turnout is negatively associated with television market size, a relationship that is stronger in midterm election years.

The Valence Advantage of Presidential Persuasion: Do Presidential Candidates Use Oratory to Persuade Citizens to Vote Contrary to Ideological Preferences?

Can voters be persuaded to support a candidate based on a candidate's communication skills instead of a candidate's issue positions? Combining theoretical insights on voter decision-making drawn from valence theories of candidate-position taking with insights from theories of rhetoric and persuasion, we argue that candidate rhetoric can sway voters to a candidate's side. We examine the sophistication and style of candidate speech in U.S. presidential elections from 1976-2004 using Flesch-Kincaid grade-level measures and Diction measures of presidential speech. We find that more sophisticated campaign speech by a candidate results in a higher likelihood that a citizen will vote for that candidate, though this effect of linguistic sophistication is conditioned by voter cognition. The most highly educated voters are most likely to use the non-policy dimension of complex rhetoric in casting their vote. This finding runs contrary to the conventional wisdom that higher educated voters - because of their cognitive abilities - would be most likely to vote 'rationally' based primarily on issue preferences. We also find that candidates who present themselves using language that draws on themes of commonality, activity, and realism are more likely to win a citizen's vote in the election. These results suggest that rhetoric matters: it can sway voters, but it also suggests that soaring and powerful rhetoric can be offset when the voter perceives high ideological congruence with the rhetorically-disadvantaged candidate.

Democracy, the Rational Patron, and the Rational Client

Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Edited by Herbert Kitschelt, Steven I. Wilkinson New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 390 pp., $96.00 cloth (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-86505-0), $37.99 paper (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-69004-1). Patrons, Clients and Policies , by Herbert Kitschelt and Steven Wilkinson, is a noteworthy contribution to what has become a renewed scholarly interest in the subject of clientelism. In contrast to some classic studies of clientelism (Banfield 1958; Shefter 1977), Kitschelt, Wilkinson, and most of their contributors employ a rational choice approach to the subject. Politicians are seen as the agents of voters (the principals). Each actor, whether politician or voter, explicitly weighs the costs and benefits of targeted, material exchange against the costs and benefits of general government programs, from which it is difficult to exclude people who did not vote for the politicians (or parties) who arranged the program (p. 185). Politicians and the people who vote for them are accountable to each other. Hence, Kitschelt and Wilkinson give us, not an analysis of clientelism, but of “clientelistic accountability.” It “ represents a transaction, the direct exchange of a citizen's vote for direct payments or continuing access to employment, goods and services ” (p. 2, italics in the original). Ultimately, the rational choice approach leads to some controversial arguments, such as the claim that the clients in clientelist relations (the voters) freely and spontaneously choose to be in that relation with a particular patron. Patrons, Clients and Policies is dense, and readers may find it hard to figure out what, in the end, are the main points. Some chapters speak to each other; others do not, and sometimes the chapters contradict each other. Complicating the volume is the fact that the contributors are not just exploring clientelism; they are attempting to develop a theory of “clientelist accountability” within an overarching theory of democratic accountability. Yet, accountability, as they note, is a notoriously difficult concept to measure. Thus, many chapters discuss, as examples of clientelism, programs that others …

Valence Voters: Images, Issues, and Citizen Vote Choice in U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial Elections

Valence Voters: Images, Issues, and Citizen Vote Choice in U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial Elections

Avoiding the Vote: A Theory and Field Experiment of the Social Costs of Public Political Participation

Citizen vote choice in modern democracies is almost always a private act, yet the act of turning out to vote is a social and public activity. Does voting in public increase or depress turnout? We present a theory of the effect of social pressure and ostracism on political participation, arguing that both social costs and social benefits can affect individual behavior. No theoretical work on voter turnout has argued that social costs deter participation, but it is a fundamental explanation of the decision not to participate. We test our theory by conducting a randomized field experiment during the 2008 Iowa Democratic presidential caucus, sending mailers to registered Democrats suggesting different reasons for voting. We include three treatments: (1) one telling citizens of the date, time, and location of the caucus; (2) one telling citizens the caucus is a public meeting where neighbors and friends will be attending; and (3) one telling citizens that the caucus does not have a secret ballot and that their neighbors and friends will be attending. We find that citizens are more likely to vote when information costs are reduced and when they are told the caucus is a public meeting. However, we find that turnout is reduced when citizens are told their vote choices must be revealed to their neighbors, thus increasing social costs. Unlike nearly all other field experiments of voter turnout, our experiment is one of the only to find a suppression of the vote as a result of a treatment. These findings provide insights into individual behavior in a social context, a rejection of one explanation for heavy voter turnout in 19th century America, and practical insights for campaigns interested in mobilizing voters to presidential caucuses.

Vote-buying: Is it at Threat to Democratic Policy Representation?

Do “vote-buying” activities of locally elected legislators in developing countries crowd out the representation of mass policy preferences? If a legislator can buy a citizen's vote with a material benefit, does he really have an incentive to represent the interests of his constituents in legislative decision-making? Imagine the following setting: A slum neighborhood near Bangalore city center in Southern India. A group of women in worn-out sari-s, domestic servants who clean houses for a living, sit chatting outside their one-room concrete shacks with tin roofs. They have no bathing or cooking facilities in their shacks. They share the same water tap with hundreds of neighbors. Their toilet is the nearby railroad track. A well-dressed man exits a car and approaches.

TheOprahEffect: How Soft News Helps Inattentive Citizens Vote Consistently

Do the news media provide voters with sufficient information to function as competent democratic citizens? Many have answered “no,” citing as evidence the proliferation of entertainment-oriented “soft news.” Yet, public affairs-oriented “hard” news is often unappealing to politically inattentive individuals. We argue that news “quality” depends upon how well it enables citizens to determine which candidate best fits their own preferences. In this regard, for politically inattentive citizens, we argue that soft news is more efficient than traditional hard news. Drawing on the logic of low-information rationality, we derive a series of hypotheses, which we test using the 2000 National Election Study. We find that politically inattentive individuals who consumed daytime talk shows (a popular form of soft news) were more likely than their nonconsuming, inattentive counterparts to vote for the candidate who best represented their self-described preferences. This suggests soft news can facilitate voting “competence” among at least some citizens.

Ukrainian political parties and foreign policy in election campaigns: Parliamentary elections of 1998 and 2002

The foreign policy agendas of Ukrainian political parties participating in parliamentary elections are among the important factors of influence on Ukrainians voting in favor or against. There is a positive correlation between the preferences of Ukrainian voters and the foreign policy orientations of the political parties as expressed in their electoral platforms. Even if it is not likely that in general foreign policy plays a dominant role in the average citizen's voting decisions, it is, nevertheless, very relevant in the context of Ukrainian politics. In this article it is demonstrated that the use of foreign policy issues is a part of the overall electoral strategy of Ukrainian political parties.

Do Citizens Vote Sincerely (If They Vote at All)? Theory and Evidence from U.S. National Elections

Understanding citizens’ electoral behavior (e.g., selective abstention and splitticket voting), represents a fundamental step in the analysis of democratic institutions. In this paper, we assess the extent to which sincere voting can explain observed patterns of participation and voting in U.S. national elections. We propose a unified model of turnout and voting in presidential and congressional elections with heterogenous voters. We estimate the model using individuallevel data for eight presidential election years (1972-2000). Our main findings can be summarized as follows. First, a non-negligible fraction of the American electorate does not vote sincerely, and only a relatively small fraction of observed split-ticket voting can be explained by sincere voting. Second, there is a systematic, positive relationship between information and turnout. Third, the American electorate has become relatively more polarized over time.

Voter Participation in the 1998 Bundestag Elections: A Theoretical Modification and Empirical Application of Downs' Theory of Voter Participation

This article seeks to contribute to the illumination of the so-called 'paradox of voting' using the German Bundestag elections of 1998 as an empirical case. Downs' model of voter participation will be extended to include elements of the theory of subjective expected utility (SEU). This will allow a theoretical and empirical exploration of the crucial mechanisms of individual voters' decisions to participate, or abstain from voting, in the German general election of 1998. It will be argued that the infinitely low probability of an individual citizen's vote to decide the election outcome will not necessarily reduce the probability of electoral participation. The empirical analysis is largely based on data from the ALLBUS 1998. It confirms the predictions derived from SEU theory. The voters' expected benefits and their subjective expectation to be able to influence government policy by voting are the crucial mechanisms to explain participation. By contrast, the explanatory contribution of perceived information and opportunity costs is low.

Public Choice Economics and Public Pension Plan Funding

Public choice theory (PCT) assumes that elected officials and public administrators act in their self-interest, not in the public interest. This article tests the theory regarding the effects of public governance on U.S. public pension plans, which are increasingly important socioeconomic institutions. The authors develop several PCT-based hypotheses regarding the dependent variable of plan funding, a measure of plan performance. Data sources include biennial PENDAT survey data for 1992-1996. The results indicate limited support for PCT. A positive relationship between the presence of boards of trustees and plan funding is found, but no relationship between citizen voting and plan funding.

Abstention and political competition

The classical literature on spatial majority voting postulates that all citizens vote. The Median Voter Theorem (MVT) then obtains when parties have perfect information on voter behavior and are either office-seekers (“Downsian”) or ideological. This paper introduces abstention, a simple yet realistic modification. We show that the main features of the MVT survive to a large extent but subject to some qualifications. First, the winning policy does not bear any necessary relation to the median voter. Second, there exist examples in which the candidates choose different positions at equilibrium. Third, equilibrium may fail to exist or be unique. Finally, the equilibria of the model with office-motivated parties may differ from the ones where parties are ideological.