Political Dynasties and the Selection of Cabinet Ministers

We investigate whether politicians whose family relatives previously served in parliament and cabinet enjoy a competitive "legacy advantage" in progressing from the backbenches to ministerial office. This advantage may stem from two potential mechanisms: a direct effect attributable to the informational advantages of legacies, or an indirect effect that operates through greater electoral strength. We evaluate the relative contribution of each mechanism using candidate-level data from Irish parliamentary elections and cabinets from 1944-2016. Our results reveal that politicians with a family history in cabinet do enjoy an advantage in cabinet selection, and that this advantage cannot be attributed simply to greater electoral popularity

Explaining Citizen Perceptions of Party Ideological Positions: The Mediating Role of Political Contexts

In this paper we examine how political contexts mediate citizens' ability to understand political parties' ideological positions, focusing on education level. Using cross-national data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), we explore how the effect of individual education level in influencing the supply and clarity of ‘left-right’ information in a party system is mediated by contextual factors. The results show that the effect of education levels in improving citizens' ability to perceive party ideological locations is conditional on political context. First, in cases where the supply of such information is limited due to less democratic experience and less programmatic party politics, the effect of education is weakened. However, the effect of education increases in contexts where we would expect less clarity of party position information—where parties are least polarized and where institutional factors add complexity to party competition

Dissolution Threats and Legislative Bargaining

Chief executives in many parliamentary democracies have the power to dissolve the legislature. Despite a well-developed literature on the endogenous timing of parliamentary elections, political scientists know remarkably little about the strategic use of dissolution power to influence policymaking. To address this gap, we propose and empirically evaluate a theoretical model of legislative bargaining in the shadow of executive dissolution power. The model implies that the chief executive's public support and legislative strength, as well as the time until the next constitutionally mandated election, are important determinants of the use and effectiveness of dissolution threats in policymaking. Analyzing an original time-series data set from a multiparty parliamentary democracy, we find evidence in line with key empirical implications of the model