The "Daily Grind": Work, Commuting, and Their Impact on Political Participation

Past research demonstrates that free time is an important resource for political participation. We investigate whether two central drains on citizens? daily time?working and commuting?impact their level of political participation. The prevailing ?resources? model offers a quantity-focused view where additional time spent working or commuting reduces free time and should each separately decrease participation. We contrast this view to a ?commuter?s strain? hypothesis, which emphasizes time spent in transit as a psychologically onerous burden over and above the workday. Using national survey data, we find that time spent working has no effect on participation, while commuting significantly decreases participation. We incorporate this finding into a comprehensive model of the ?daily grind,? which factors in both socioeconomic status and political interest. Our analysis demonstrates that commuting leads to the greatest loss in political interest for low-income Americans, and that this loss serves as a main mechanism through which commuting erodes political participation

Third-Party Strategy under Plurality Rule: The British Liberal Democrats and the New Zealand Social Credit Party

This paper examines the strategic options facing small centrist third parties in two-party parliamentary systems operating under the single-member district plurality (SMDP) electoral system. It uses a spatial model to show that centrist third parties are better off targeting the 'safe' districts of a major party rather than marginal districts. Furthermore, it is optimal to target one party's districts, not both, to benefit from tactical and protest voting. The paper also questions the implicit conclusion of the median-legislator theorem that pivotality-seeking is the best strategy for a third party, at least under SMDP, because that would usurp voters' ability to select the executive directly, a key feature of two-partism. Finally, the paper shows that third parties can damage themselves if they 'flip' from opposition to one major party to support for it. Evidence is provided for the British Liberal Democrats and New Zealand?s historic Social Credit Party

One moment, please: can the speed and quality of political contact affect democratic health

Contact between politicians and their constituents is the cornerstone of democracies globally but an area of scholarship that remains relatively underdeveloped. Political contact can help convey authority, provide legitimacy and facilitate governance. This article goes beyond the assumption that representatives need to communicate more with the public and suggests, instead, that the quality of contact matters. Focusing on four processes by which citizens can contact their representatives (face-to-face, by letter, email or social media), we employ an experimental vignette methodology to test whether the character and timeliness of politicians’ responses to citizen communication affects two indicators of democratic health: (a) the latter’s satisfaction with political contact and (b) their likelihood to re-contact representatives. Our findings provide evidence that personalised communication and to a smaller extent, speed of response, can influence citizen satisfaction and their likelihood of re-engagement. This suggests politicians can improve these indicators of democratic health by adjusting the style of political contact and communication

Autobiography as unconventional history: Constructing the author

The experience of historians as autobiographers has led them to reconsider the nature of historical knowledge and the function of the historian as an intermediary between the past and present. In the new theoretical context of the social sciences and historiography, we can take this proposal further and consider autobiography as a valid form of history—or, at least, as ‘unconventional history’, understood as negotiations with history that transcend or subvert traditional chronological monographs, posit the ‘subjective’ as a useful form of knowledge, and engage the constructed nature of the text. Taking this hypothesis as a starting point, this article reads historians' autobiographical texts to explore if we can/should continue to defend the classic distinction between subject and object, historian scientist and historian author. In this article I compare the work of several historian autobiographers that permit us to identify different methodologies in approaching the story of the self that also reflects different theoretical conceptions of history. I argue that historians that may be considered ‘constructionist’, such as Fernand Braudel, Annie Kriegel, George Duby, and Eric Hobsbawm, design their autobiographies in the same way they articulate their historical texts: by foregrounding objectivity and establishing critical distance between the subject—the historian who narrates the story—and the object—one's own life. Unconventional or experimental approaches, such as those espoused by Robert Rosenstone, Dominick LaCapra, or Clifford Geertz, result in more self-conscious autobiographies, which are, paradoxically, often more realistic and more revealing of the epistemological nature of life writing. ----------------- La experiencia de los historiadores como autobiógrafos les ha llevado a reconsiderar la naturaleza del conocimiento histórico y la función del historiador como un intermediario entre el pasado y el presente. En el nuevo contexto teórico de las ciencias sociales y la historiografía podemos tomar esta propuesta más allá y considerar la autobiografía como una forma válida de historia-o, al menos, de historia ‘poco convencional’-, entendida como negociaciones con la historia que trascienden o subvierten las tradicionales monografías cronológicas, plantean lo "subjetivo" como una forma útil de conocimiento y participan de la naturaleza construida del texto. Tomando esta hipótesis como punto de partida, este artículo lee los textos autobiográficos de los historiadores para explorar si se puede / debe seguir defendiendo la clásica distinción entre sujeto y objeto, historiador científico e historiador escritor. En este artículo comparo el trabajo de varios historiadores autobiógrafos que nos permiten identificar las diferentes metodologías para acercarse a la historia del yo y que también reflejan las diferentes concepciones teóricas de la historia. Sostengo que los historiadores que pueden considerarse "constructivistas", como Fernand Braudel, Annie Kriegel, George Duby y Eric Hobsbawm, diseñan sus autobiografías de la misma forma que articulan sus textos históricos: poniendo en primer plano la objetividad y estableciendo una distancia crítica entre el sujeto -el historiador que narra la historia-y el objeto- la vida de cada uno. Enfoques no convencionales o experimentales, como los expuestos por Robert Rosenstone, Dominick LaCapra, o Clifford Geertz, resultan autobiografías más autoconscientes, que son, paradójicamente, a menudo más realistas y más reveladoras de la naturaleza epistemológica de la escritura de la vida

Health Education and Community Empowerment: Conceptualizing and Measuring Perceptions of Individual, Organizational and Community Control

Also PCMA Working Paper #38.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51259/1/493.pd

It’s Not the Left: Ideology and Protest Participation in Old and New Democracies

Multiple studies in political science consistently hold that left-wing ideology renders individuals more prone to protest behavior. However, the familiar association between left-wing ideology and protesting is not empirically corroborated in all democratic nations. Building on existing theoretical principles and applying them to diverse political contexts, this paper sheds light on puzzling variation in protest behavior across new and old democracies. It argues that it is not the left that engenders protest. Instead, we demonstrate that which political camp engages in protest behavior depends on its historical legacies and cultural liberalism. Historical legacies reflect the ideological configuration at democratization. Protesting tends to be more common in the ideological camp that opposed the pre-democratic political order. Simultaneously, it is culturally liberal individuals that more likely embrace protest participation, independent of their left-right identification. These theoretical expectations are supported through survey data analyses, explaining contrasting inter- and intra-regional variation in European democracies