Exit, Voice, and Cyclicality: A Micro-Logic of Voting Behaviour in European Parliament Elections

Unlike other classics of political economy, “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” (EVL) has not sparked many innovations in the field of electoral studies. This paper aims to demonstrate that scholars miss out on a powerful theory of political behaviour by leaving Hirschman’s ideas to other disciplines. To change this, I resolve several theoretical complications that have hampered the application of EVL to democratic elections. On this basis, I construct a model of voting behaviour through the electoral cycle to explain typical “second-order” effects in elections to the European Parliament (EP). Building on the parameters of EVL allows to unite such diverse phenomena as anti-government swings, declining turnout, protest voting, conversion and alienation in one theoretical framework. Testing the model with survey data from the European Election Studies of 1999 and 2004 reveals novel insights into the dynamics at work in EP elections. The role of strategic voting in the form of voice appears to be limited. Instead, processes of de- and realignment in the form of exit dominate a picture of EP elections that undermines the widespread conception of second-order irrelevance

Mean-Variance Cointegration and the Expectations Hypothesis

The present work provides an economic explanation of a well-known (seeming) violation of the expectations hypothesis of the term structure (EHT) - the frequent finding of unit roots in interest rate spreads. We derive from EHT that the nonstationarity stems from the holding premium, which is hence cointegrated with the spread. We model the premium as being proportional to the integrated variance of excess returns and further propose a cointegration test. Simulating the distribution of the test statistic we actually find cointegration relations between premia and spreads in US data. The EHT appears to perform better than previously thought.Expectations Hypothesis; Holding Premium; Persistence; Cointegration; GARCH

Mean-Variance Cointegration and the Expectations Hypothesis

The present paper sheds further light on a well-known (alleged) violation of the expec- tations hypothesis of the term structure (EHT) - the frequent finding of unit roots in interest rate spreads. We show that the EHT implies (i) that the nonstationarity stems from the holding premium, which is hence (ii) cointegrated with the spread. In a stochas- tic discount factor framework we model the premium as being driven by the integrated variance of excess returns. Introducing the concept of mean-variance cointegration we actually find cointegration relations between spreads and premia in US data.Expectations Hypothesis, Holding Premium, Persistence, Cointegration, GARCH

How centrist voters pull the president’s party back towards moderation at midterm elections

Elections in between US presidential contests – midterms – often attract lower voter turnout but can have important implications for which party controls Congress. In new research, Till Weber finds that about 10 percent of moderate partisans who had previously voted for the incumbent president’s party are likely to vote for the opposing party at a midterm election. He argues that these voters turn away from the president’s party as a way of reminding the White House that the next presidential election will be won at the center, and that they should pursue more moderate policies

Campaign Effects and Second-Order Cycles: A Top-Down Approach to European Parliament Elections

Second-order elections theory explains cyclical losses by national government parties in elections to the European Parliament (EP) through strategic protest voting owing to performance deficits in policy-making. This paper confronts the conventional bottom-up view with a top-down approach to second-order elections. Ultimately, the electoral cycle is driven not by instrumental voting behaviour but by party strategies oriented towards governmental power in the member states of the European Union. Based on survey data from the European Election Studies of 1999 and 2004, firstorder campaign mobilization is shown to determine the prospects of government parties in second-order elections. Mobilization itself depends on the quality of spatial representation in terms of distinct programmatic alternatives, which governments are unable to provide during the midterm. Although this process can be traced on the left—right dimension, parties prevent it with regard to integration issues by systematic demobilization. After all, EP elections are still second order, but first-order politics exert their influence through cyclical campaign mobilization and not through strategic protest voting

New theory-based concepts for PDM and PLM

The objective of this paper is to discuss future developments and potentials for Product Data Management (PDM) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems, based on a new theory-based approach to modelling products and product development processes (\u27Property-Driven Development/Design\u27, PDD). A special focus is placed on the management and control of the product development process

Requirement- and cost-driven product development process

This paper presents an approach, which enables a cost and requirement driven control of the design process. It is based on the concept of Property-Driven Development (PDD) [WeWD-03]. Integrated in the approach are well established tools like Target Costing and Value Analysis as well as methods of design for requirements. In the authors\u27 approach, the product development process is controlled by an ongoing target/actual (\u27Soll/Ist\u27) comparison between target properties and the state of properties currently achieved. For each property, depending on the fulfilment, quality ratings from the customer\u27s point of view are assigned. The aim of the product development process is the maximisation of the sum of these quality ratings. This aim can be realised based on the PDD approach, because it supports the engineer/designer by explicitly representing the interdependencies between the properties (that have to be optimized) and the characteristics that influence these properties

A different view on PDM and its future potentials

The objective of this paper is to re-conceive the nature and development potentials of PDM-systems based on a new approach to design theory called \u27Property-Driven Development/Design\u27 (PDD) which has been presented in [WeWe-00, WeWe-01]. Property-Driven Development/Design (PDD) is a new modelling approach for products and product development processes which is intended to give a theoretical description of design and designing which is closer to practice as conventional design theories and methodologies such as [VDI-2221]. The distinctive feature of the PDD approach is that it considers functional and other properties on equal terms and offers a seamless description of all phases of the development/design process. Due to its formal consistency and flexibility it can serve as a theoretical basis for the concept of future PDM systems1. Today\u27s PDM-systems suffer from a lack of formalised representation of products: They handle data, not knowledge. The information is usually buried within various documents and being processed by different software-tools which have no common \u27language\u27. This paper proposes a way to improve the design process by means of an advanced kind of PDM system based on a comprehensive product model

Modelling and manufacturing of a dragonfly wing as basis for bionic research

Working principles in nature have been optimised by evolution for millions of years. Today we try to understand how these principles work and how they could be used in technical applications. Prominent examples for solutions which are inspired by bionic research are the Velcro fastener (inspired by the plant \u27Arcticum lappa\u27) [Pahl et al., 2003], swim suits (inspired by shark skin) [Thilmany, 2004] and self-cleaning surfaces using the lotus effect [von Baeyer, 2000]. The topic of aerodynamics is another large area for research and innovation in which we still hope to be able to learn from nature. The dragonfly combines very light wing structures with amazing flying abilities [Okamoto, 1996]. In order to study the exact properties of the dragonfly wing and to understand how this properties can be achieved, it is necessary to reproduce the geometry of the wing at a larger scale. This large scale model can be used to conduct further aerodynamic tests in a wind tunnel. The results of such investigations can lead to new impulses for the development of aircraft and micro air vehicles. In this paper the authors will describe the modelling and building of an enlarged model of a dragonfly wing as base for further bionic research