Portfolio saliency and ministerial turnover: Dynamics in Scandinavian postwar cabinets

© 2013 The Author(s) Scandinavian Political Studies © 2013 Nordic Political Science Association. This is the accepted version of the following article: Hansen, M. E., Klemmensen, R., Hobolt, S. B. and Bäck, H. (2013), Portfolio Saliency and Ministerial Turnover: Dynamics in Scandinavian Postwar Cabinets. Scandinavian Political Studies, 36: 227–248, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9477.12004/abstract.Why do certain ministers remain in their post for years while others have their time in office cut short? Drawing on the broader literature on portfolio allocation, this article argues that the saliency of individual portfolios shapes ministerial turnover. The main argument is that ministerial dismissals are less likely to occur the higher the saliency attributed to the ministerial portfolio since ministers appointed to important posts are more likely to have been through extensive screening before appointment. Importantly, it is also posited in the article that the effect of portfolio salience is conditioned by government approval ratings: when government ratings are on the decline, prime ministers are less likely to reshuffle or fire important ministers than when approval ratings are improving. To test these claims, Cox proportional hazards models are applied to a new dataset on ministerial turnover in Scandinavia during the postwar period. The results strongly support the proposition that portfolio saliency matters for ministerial survival, and that this effect is moderated by government popularity

Contestation and Responsiveness in EU Council Deliberations

Decision-making in the Council of the European Union appears highly consensual at the voting stage. However, we focus on Council deliberations, where we find higher levels of contestation. What drives government opposition in the Council? Using a novel approach of studying the Council through video footage of its public deliberations (DICEU – Debates in the Council of the European Union), we demonstrate that contestation between governments is, at least in part, driven by their responsiveness to domestic public opinion. Analysing deliberations on legislative packages in the Economic and Financial Affairs Council between 2010 and 2015, we show that governments are responsive to public opinion when setting out their policy positions, but primarily when the policy issues are salient domestically. Our study thus contributes to our understanding of government responsiveness in the EU

Facing up to the facts: What causes economic perceptions?

The link between individual perceptions of the economy and vote choice is fundamental to electoral accountability. Yet, while it is well-established that economic perceptions are correlated with voting behaviour, it is unclear whether these perceptions are rooted in the real economy or whether they simply reflect voters’ partisan biases. This study uses time-series data, survey data and unique experimental evidence to shed new light on how British voters update their economic perceptions in response to economic change. Our findings demonstrate that while partisanship influences levels of economic optimism, people respond to information about real economic changes by adjusting their economic perceptions

Computers, Coders, and Voters: Comparing Automated Methods for Estimating Party Positions

Assigning political actors positions in ideological space is a task of key importance to political scientists. In this paper we compare estimates obtained using the automated Wordscores and Wordfish techniques, along with estimates from voters and the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), against expert placements. We estimate the positions of 254 manifestos across 33 elections in Germany and Denmark, two cases with very different textual data available. We find that Wordscores approximately replicates the CMP, voter, and expert assessments of party positions in both cases, whereas Wordfish replicates the positions in the German manifestos only. The results demonstrate that automated methods can produce valid estimates of party positions, but also that the appropriateness of each method hinges on the quality of the textual data. Additional analyses suggest that Wordfish requires both longer texts and a more ideologically charged vocabulary in order to produce estimates comparable to Wordscores. The paper contributes to the literature on automated content analysis by providing a comprehensive test of convergent validation, in terms of both number of cases analyzed and number of validation measures

Computers, Coders, and Voters: Comparing Automated Methods for Estimating Party Positions

Assigning political actors positions in ideological space is a task of key importance to political scientists. In this paper we compare estimates obtained using the automated Wordscores and Wordfish techniques, along with estimates from voters and the Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP), against expert placements. We estimate the positions of 254 manifestos across 33 elections in Germany and Denmark, two cases with very different textual data available. We find that Wordscores approximately replicates the CMP, voter, and expert assessments of party positions in both cases, whereas Wordfish replicates the positions in the German manifestos only. The results demonstrate that automated methods can produce valid estimates of party positions, but also that the appropriateness of each method hinges on the quality of the textual data. Additional analyses suggest that Wordfish requires both longer texts and a more ideologically charged vocabulary in order to produce estimates comparable to Wordscores. The paper contributes to the literature on automated content analysis by providing a comprehensive test of convergent validation, in terms of both number of cases analyzed and number of validation measures

Brexit and the everyday politics of emotion: methodological lessons from history

The 2016 European Union referendum campaign has been depicted as a battle between ‘heads’ and ‘hearts’, reason and emotion. Voters’ propensity to trust their feelings over expert knowledge has sparked debate about the future of democratic politics in what is increasingly believed to be an ‘age of emotion’. In this article, we argue that we can learn from the ways that historians have approached the study of emotions and everyday politics to help us make sense of this present moment. Drawing on William Reddy’s concept of ‘emotional regimes’, we analyse the position of emotion in qualitative, ‘everyday narratives’ about the 2016 European Union referendum. Using new evidence from the Mass Observation Archive, we argue that while reason and emotion are inextricable facets of political decision-making, citizens themselves understand the two processes as distinct and competing

The effect of Brexit on the UK Economy (so far)

The political turmoil in the UK following the referendum on future membership of the European Union in 2016 provides a natural experiment for studying the effects of political uncertainty (in the Knightian sense) on the economy. We find that the subsequent confusion and infighting in British politics has not affected the real economy much – employment is at a historical high and output growth is positive – but there are some signs of slowing investment and house price increases. The stock market has also not been much affected although it did fall after the referendum of 2016. The main effect of the Brexit vote and the subsequent political developments is found in the currency market where news that make a hard Brexit more likely cause the currency to depreciate. We conclude that leaving the European Union without an agreement is likely to make the currency depreciate and the stock market fall while output declines. In contrast, leaving with an agreement that gives continued access to the Single Market would likely make the currency appreciate, the stock market rise and employment and output increase further