Casting Ballots When Knowing Results

Access to information about candidates' performance has long stood as a key factor shaping voter behaviour, but establishing how it impacts behaviour in real-world settings has remained challenging. In the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, unpredictable technical glitches caused by the implementation of biometrics as a form of identification led some voters to cast ballots after official tallies started being announced. In addition to providing a source of exogenous variation of information exposure, run-off elections also enable us to distinguish between different mechanisms underlying the impact of information exposure. We find strong support for a vote-switching bandwagon effect: information exposure motivates voters to abandon losing candidates and switch support for the frontrunner – a finding that stands in the second round, when only two candidates compete against each other. These findings provide theoretical nuance and stronger empirical support for the mechanisms underpinning the impact of information exposure on voter behaviour

Gendering Coalitional Presidentialism in Brazil

Coalitional presidentialism is a power-sharing strategy deployed in multiparty presidentialist democracies that entails the distribution of cabinet positions to coalition partners to facilitate governability. This model of governance is increasingly common worldwide, gaining growing scholarly interest. The consequences of coalitional presidentialism for women’s cabinet representation, however, have received scant attention. In this article, we provide a gendered analysis of the Brazilian experience with coalitional presidentialism. Through the quantitative analysis of an original dataset of all ministerial appointments (N = 597) under eight Brazilian presidents (1985–2019) and a descriptive assessment of the coalitional dynamics during that period, we evaluate the Brazilian experience with coalitional presidentialism through the lens of Feminist Institutionalism. We show that coalitional presidentialism restricts women\u27s access to cabinet seats, with the demands of multiparty coalition formation and management often overriding presidential considerations about descriptive representation, and coalition parties rarely advancing women to fill portfolios allocated to them by the president

Invisible interpretations: reflections on the digital humanities and intellectual history

Much has been made of the digital humanities, yet it remains an underexplored field in relation to intellectual history. This paper aims to add to the little literature which does exist by offering a survey of the ideas and issues facing would-be practitioners. This includes: an overview of what the digital humanities are; reflections on what they offer intellectual history and how they may be problematic in regard to, first, accessing texts, and second, analysing source material; a conclusion with three reflections on future best practices – to be sceptical of digital sources, to be reflective of methodologies and how they may need to be modified when engaging with the digital humanities, and to embrace more directly the methodological, statistical, and technical aspects behind digital humanities. The aim is not to provide all the answers – at this stage that is impossible – but to be part of an emerging and ongoing discussion

Making research useful : current challenges and good practices in data visualisation

This report advocates for the increased use of data visualisation techniques to illuminate research findings and provides suggestions to overcome some of the challenges academics currently face in using them

Can conservatism make women more vulnerable to violence?

Violence against women (VAW) affects at least 35% of women worldwide. The need to combat VAW is seemingly noncontroversial: As existing work shows, ideology does not explain governments’ propensity to adopt anti-VAW legislation. Yet, effectively implementing anti-VAW legislation requires complex policy frameworks at odds with conservative values. Voters’ preferences can meaningfully influence policy outputs, so can electoral conservatism make women more vulnerable to violence? Employing data from 5570 Brazilian municipalities, we find that conservatism in the electorate is associated with the adoption of fewer anti-VAW policies. With data from a nationally representative survey of Brazilian respondents ( N = 2086), we then show that conservative voters are less likely to prioritize the need for tackling VAW. That is, the adoption of fewer anti-VAW policies in conservative municipalities reflects conservative voters’ policy preferences. Critically, our results suggest that in contexts where the electorate holds conservative preferences, policy responsiveness may incur costs to women’s lives

Postmaterialism and Political Elites: The Value Priorities of Brazilian Federal Legislators

We examine the distribution and consequences of postmaterialist value orientations among national legislators in Brazil. Using data collected in the Brazilian Legislative Survey in 2013, we undertake the first systematic study of postmaterialism within the National Congress and the party system and map the materialist/postmaterialist scale onto other salient divisions within the political class. We present five main findings. First, political elites evince vastly higher commitment to postmaterialism than the mass public. Second, Brazilian political elites drawn from constituencies with higher human development are more postmaterialist than their counterparts in other constituencies. Third, within the political class, the materialist/postmaterialist cleavage overlaps in important ways with the left–right cleavage. Fourth, although postmaterialism successfully predicts elite attitudes on a number of “new politics” issues that are unrelated to the construction of the postmaterialist scale itself, postmaterialism is a poor predictor of voting behavior on the Congressional floor. Fifth, as others before us, we find institutional factors to be better predictors of legislative voting behavior in the Brazilian context. (author's abstract

Pós-materialismo e Elites Políticas: As Prioridades de Valores entre os Parlamentares Federais Brasileiros

We examine the distribution and consequences of postmaterialist value orientations among national legislators in Brazil. Using data collected in the Brazilian Legislative Survey in 2013, we undertake the first systematic study of postmaterialism within the National Congress and the party system and map the materialist/postmaterialist scale onto other salient divisions within the political class. We present five main findings. First, political elites evince vastly higher commitment to postmaterialism than the mass public. Second, Brazilian political elites drawn from constituencies with higher human development are more postmaterialist than their counterparts in other constituencies. Third, within the political class, the materialist/post¬materialist cleavage overlaps in important ways with the left–right cleavage. Fourth, although postmaterialism successfully predicts elite attitudes on a number of “new politics” issues that are unrelated to the construction of the postmaterialist scale itself, postmaterialism is a poor predictor of voting behavior on the Congressional floor. Fifth, as others before us, we find institutional factors to be better predictors of legislative voting behavior in the Brazilian context.No atual artigo, examinamos a distribuição e as consequências das orientações pós-materialistas entre os parlamentares federais no Brasil. Usando dados coletados pela Pesquisa Legislativa Brasileira (Brazilian Legislative Survey) em 2013, realizamos o primeiro estudo sistemático das preferências pós-materialistas dentro do Congresso Nacional e do sistema partidário, e mapeamos a escala materialista/pós-materialista considerando outras condições salientes dentro da classe política. Apre-sentamos cinco conclusões principais. Em primeiro lugar, as elites políti-cas evidenciam compromisso muito maior com valores pós-materialistas do que o público em massa. Em segundo lugar, as elites políticas brasileiras oriundas de eleitorados com desenvolvimento humano elevado são mais pós-materialistas do que os seus homólogos de outros distritos eleitorais. Em terceiro lugar, entre a classe política, a clivagem materialista/pós-materialista mostra certa congruência com relação à clivagem esquerda-direita. Em quarto lugar, embora preferências pós-materialistas consigam prever o posicionamento de parlamentares em uma série de questões da “nova política” alheias à construção da própria escala materialista/pós-materialista, o pós-materialismo é um pobre preditor do comportamento dos parlamentares em relacão à votação no plenário. Por último, assim como outros autores anteriores, mostramos que fatores institucionais são melhores preditores das votações nominais no contexto brasileiro

Selecting in or Selecting Out? Gender Gaps and Political Methodology in Europe

Studies investigating gender gaps in the doctoral training of political science students have focused so far overwhelmingly on the US context. Although important research within this context has made strides in identifying the persistent challenges to women’s incorporation in political methodology, much remains unknown about whether women and men have different experiences in methods training during their PhD programs. We contribute to this debate by analyzing data from an original survey on the methods-training experiences of political science PhD students at different European universities. We assess whether gender gaps exist with respect to PhD students’ methods training and confidence in employing methods skills. Our findings show that women cover significantly fewer methods courses in their doctoral training. When women do participate in methods training, they show levels of method employment similar to their male colleagues. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of European doctoral training