Noncompliance and the limits of coercion: the problematic enforcement of unpopular laws

Die Studie untersucht die Beziehung zwischen Gewalt und Gesetzesbefolgung im politischen System. Dabei geht es um sogenannte 'unbeliebte' (unpopular) Gesetze und um die Tatsache, daß ein jedes politisches System gelegentlich an die Grenzen seiner Fähigkeit gerät, in der Bevölkerung unpopuläre Gesetze mit Gewalt durchzusetzen. Mit Hilfe eines mathematischen Modells soll hier die Dynamik und Logik im Verhältnis zwischen 'coercion' und 'noncompliance' innerhalb eines politischen Systems dargestellt werden. Folgende Fragenkomplexe werden angesprochen: Welche dynamischen Konsequenzen folgen aus der Rechtmäßigkeit des Systems und seiner von ihm institutionalisierten Mittel zur Gewaltausübung? Welche Konsequenzen ergeben sich aus der kurzfristigen Gewaltanwendung bei Nichtbefolgung von Gesetzen? Wie wird die Nichtbefolgung eliminiert bzw. kontrolliert, und wann ist das politische System überfordert? Nach Ansicht des Autors erweisen sich kurzfristige aggressive Reaktionen des Systems auf die Nichtbefolgung von Gesetzen als wenig wirkungsvoll, sondern verstärken lediglich die Anfälligkeit des politischen Systems für die allgemeine Nichtbefolgung von Gesetzen. (ML1)'This paper constructs a mathematical representation of the dynamic logic tying together coercion and noncompliance within political systems. Several concepts are central to the effort: system legitimacy, the long-term institutionalized investment of the political system in coercive resources, the vulnerability of political systems to mass noncompliance, and the short-term response of the political system to noncompliance. The analysis addresses a number of issues. What are the dynamic consequences of system legitimacy and of the political system's institutionalized investment in coercive resources? What are the consequences of its short-term coercive response to noncompliance? Under what circumstances will noncompliance be eliminated? Under what circumstances will it be controlled? Under what circumstances will political systems become overwhelmed by noncompliance? A central argument of this paper is that aggressive short-term responses to noncompliance are likely to be ineffective in controlling noncompliance, and they are likely to aggravate the vulnerability of political systems to mass noncompliance.' (author's abstract

Politics, Influence, and the Small Scale Organization of Political Communication Networks

This paper addresses the factors that give rise to both heterogeneous and homogeneous opinion distributions within political communication networks. We argue that the factors sustaining homogeneity and heterogeneity are not entirely symmetrical – heterogeneity is not necessarily explained by treating it as the flip side of homogeneity. Two primary questions guide the effort. If influence within a dyad depends on the distribution of opinions beyond the dyad, is dyadic influence contingent on the construction of the network within which the dyad is located? In particular, how does the micro-structure of the larger network affect the persuasiveness of communication within the dyad? We pursue an analysis based on agent based models of the communication process. The analysis points toward the importance of particular forms of small scale organization in preserving homogeneous opinion distributions. Homogeneity is more likely when network density is particularly high – when direct connections are more frequent among more agents. Correspondingly, when we observe homogeneity within communication networks in the natural world, the organization and reach of small scale social organization is likely to be key

Opinion formation and the resilience of diversity

This project explores agent-based models of the formation of individual opinions and collective judgments. The goal is to understand the effect of political communication on opinion formation and collective decision making

Expertise and Bias in Political Communication

Citizens minimize information costs by obtaining political information and guidance from other individuals who have assumed the costs of acquiring and processing political information. A problem occurs because ideal informants, characterized by the joint presence of political expertise and shared viewpoints, are often unavailable or rare within the groups where individuals are located. Hence, individuals must often look beyond their own group boundaries to find such individuals, but obtaining information from individuals located beyond their own groups produces additional information costs. Moreover, the availability of ideal informants varies across groups and settings, with the potential to produce (1) biases in favor of some groups at the expense of others, (2) varying levels of polarization among groups, and (3) context dependent patterns of informant centrality. The paper’s analysis is based on a series of small group experiments, each of which involves two groups of seven subjects who communicate with one another via networked computers in order to obtain information on candidates. The aggregate implications of the experimental results are analyzed using an agent-based model

All in the family: partisan disagreement and electoral mobilization in intimate networks—a spillover experiment

We advance the debate about the impact of political disagreement in social networks on electoral participation by addressing issues of causal inference common in network studies, focusing on voters' most important context of interpersonal influence: the household. We leverage a randomly assigned spillover experiment conducted in the United Kingdom, combined with a detailed database of pretreatment party preferences and public turnout records, to identify social influence within heterogeneous and homogeneous partisan households. Our results show that intrahousehold mobilization effects are larger as a result of campaign contact in heterogeneous than in homogeneous partisan households, and larger still when the partisan intensity of the message is exogenously increased, suggesting discussion rather than behavioral contagion as a mechanism. Our results qualify findings from influential observational studies and suggest that within intimate social networks, negative correlations between political heterogeneity and electoral participation are unlikely to result from political disagreement

Erwartungsbildung über den Wahlausgang und ihr Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung

Erwartungen über den Wahlausgang haben einen festen Platz sowohl in Rational-Choice-Theorien des Wählerverhaltens als auch in stärker sozialpsychologisch orientierten Ansätzen. Die Bildung von Erwartungen und ihr Einfluss auf die Wahlentscheidung ist dabei jedoch ein noch relativ unerforschtes Gebiet. In diesem Beitrag werden anhand von Wahlstudien für Belgien, Österreich und Deutschland verschiedene Fragen der Erwartungsbildung und ihrer Auswirkungen untersucht. Zunächst wird die Qualität der Gesamterwartungen analysiert und verschiedene Faktoren identifiziert, die einen systematischen Einfluss auf die Erwartungsbildung haben. Im zweiten Schritt wenden wir uns den Einzelerwartungen über verschiedene Parteien und Koalitionen zu und finden eine moderate Verzerrung zugunsten der präferierten Parteien und Koalitionen. Dabei kann gezeigt werden, dass der Effekt des Wunschdenkens mit dem politischen Wissen und dem Bildungsgrad abnimmt. Schließlich werden in einem letzten Schritt zwei unterschiedliche Logiken für die Auswirkungen von Erwartungen getestet, das rationale Kalkül des koalitionsstrategischen Wählens zur Vermeidung der Stimmenvergeudung sowie der sozialpsychologisch begründete Bandwagon-Effekt. Das Ausmaß an politischem Wissen scheint dabei eine zentrale vermittelnde Variable zwischen den beiden Logiken zu sein

Voting as a Signaling Device

In this paper, citizens vote in order to influence the election outcome and in order to signal their unobserved characteristics to others. The model is one of rational voting and generates the following predictions: (i) The paradox of not voting does not arise, because the benefit of voting does not vanish with population size. (ii) Turnout in elections is positively related to the importance of social interactions. (iii) Voting may exhibit bandwagon effects and small changes in the electoral incentives may generate large changes in turnout due to signaling effects. (iv) Signaling incentives increase the sensitivity of turnout to voting incentives in communities with low opportunity cost of social interaction, while the opposite is true for communities with high cost of social interaction. Therefore, the model predicts less volatile turnout for the latter type of communities