Suppose UK voters accept the Alternative Vote in the May referendum… but then don’t use AV to signal multiple party preferences?

Most of the discussion of the AV referendum assumes that if UK voters endorse changing the voting system, they will be eager to vote 1, 2 3, 4 etc to express support for several or multiple parties. But Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have their doubts. Reviewing the evidence from Queensland, which uses the same system as the proposed UK alternative vote, they believe that many voters will treat an AV election as just like ‘first past the post’, and not cast (or perhaps over time stop casting) multiple preferences

Patterns of Ministry of clergy married to clergy in the Church of England

This is the author's manuscript of an article published in Journal of Anglican Studies.This article argues that for good practice, wellbeing and fruitful ministry, decisions by and about clergy married to clergy (CMC) in the Church of England require a clear quantitative picture of their ministry, and offers such a picture in early 2013 drawn primarily from published data, compared with national Church of England statistics. Over 26% more clergy dyads were found than previously thought, with many active in ministry. A wide variety of ministry patterns were identified, including a higher than normal percentage in non-parochial roles, supporting previous research noting high levels of boundary enmeshment and absorptiveness. Considerable gender inequality prevailed in shared parochial settings in spite of women having been ordained priest for nearly 20 years, with very few wives holding more senior positions than their husbands, while female CMC are more likely to be dignitaries than other ordained women

On the dynamics of mortality and the ephemeral nature of mammalian megafauna

Energy flow through consumer-resource interactions is largely determined by body size. Allometric relationships govern the dynamics of populations by impacting rates of reproduction, as well as alternative sources of mortality, which have differential impacts on smaller to larger organisms. Here we derive and investigate the timescales associated with four alternative sources of mortality for terrestrial mammals: mortality from starvation, mortality associated with aging, mortality from consumption by predators, and mortality introduced by anthropogenic subsidized harvest. The incorporation of these allometric relationships into a minimal consumer-resource model illuminates central constraints that may contribute to the structure of mammalian communities. Our framework reveals that while starvation largely impacts smaller-bodied species, the allometry of senescence is expected to be more difficult to observe. In contrast, external predation and subsidized harvest have greater impacts on the populations of larger-bodied species. Moreover, the inclusion of predation mortality reveals mass thresholds for mammalian herbivores, where dynamic instabilities may limit the feasibility of megafaunal populations. We show how these thresholds vary with alternative predator-prey mass relationships, which are not well understood within terrestrial systems. Finally, we use our framework to predict the harvest pressure required to induce mass-specific extinctions, which closely align with previous estimates of anthropogenic megafaunal exploitation in both paleontological and historical contexts. Together our results underscore the tenuous nature of megafaunal populations, and how different sources of mortality may contribute to their ephemeral nature over evolutionary time.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, 4 appendices, 8 supplementary figure

The scope of nutrition education by selected primigravidas with emphasis on the role of their obstetricians

It was the purpose of this study to determine the type and amount of nutrition education received by selected primigravidas from their obstetricians and from other sources, to investigate the attitudes of the pregnant women and their doctors toward nutrition, and to determine the knowledge of the women about selected aspects of maternal nutrition. The subjects were thirty women in the sixth to eighth month of their first pregnancies who were patients of seven obstetricians in two group practices in Greensboro, North Carolina. The obstetricians also participated in the study. One nurse from each obstetrical group selected the patients to participate in the study. The data were collected using four instruments devised by the researcher. These were: 1) Women's Attitude Scale, 2) Nutrition Knowledge Quiz, 3) Women's Interview Schedule, and 4) Obstetricians' Questionnaire. Results indicated that 56% of the women felt that the nutrition information they had received during pregnancy had caused them to improve their eating habits. Sixty percent of the women, however, felt that most pregnant women do not have a good knowledge of nutrition. Scores on the nutrition knowledge quiz were low

Candidate Ethnic Origins and Voter Preferences: Examining Name Discrimination in Local Elections in Britain

This article examines the relationship between candidate names as they appear on the ballot paper and voting patterns in British local elections. Specifically, it explores whether some voters favour candidates with British-sounding names over those whose names suggest either European or non-European ethnic origins. Name classification software identifies three categories of candidate: British, other European and non-European. Separate analyses of aggregate voting data are undertaken of multi-member and single-member electoral districts. Data cover the period 1973-2012, and votes for more than 400,000 candidates are examined. In multi-member districts, after comparing within-party slates and finishing order generally, candidates whose surnames suggest a British ethnic origin perform best, while non-Europeans attract fewer votes. The analysis of single-member districts focuses on a party's vote share after taking into account the pattern of candidate recruitment across electoral cycles. It shows that vote share is adversely affected when British candidates are replaced by those with European and non-European surnames, while the opposite pattern of succession is associated with a boost in votes. It is clear that the outcome of some elections has been determined by the parties' choice of candidates

Electoral bias at the 2015 general election: reducing Labour’s electoral advantage

Electoral bias results in an asymmetrical seat distribution between parties with similar vote shares. Over recent British general elections Labour held an advantage because it efficiently converted votes into seats. Following the 2015 election result this advantage has reduced considerably, principally because Labour’s vote distribution saw it accumulate more ineffective votes, particularly where electoral support was not converted into seats. By contrast, the vote distribution of the Conservative party is now superior to that of Labour because it acquired fewer wasted votes although Labour retains a modest advantage overall because it benefits from inequalities in electorate size and differences in voter turnout. Features of the 2015 election, however, raise general methodological challenges for decomposing electoral bias. The analysis, therefore, considers the effect of substituting the Liberal Democrats as the third party with the United Kingdom Independence Party. It also examines the outcome in Scotland separately from that in England and Wales. Following this analysis it becomes clear that the method for decomposing electoral bias requires clearer guidelines for its application in specific settings

The end of the beginning? Taking forward local democratic renewal in the post-referendum North East.

This article draws upon the author’s commissioned research on the nature of regional governance following the 2004 Referendum in the North East on elected regional assemblies. The article aimed to both capture these views and to assess how the ‘No vote in the referendum has impacted on subsequent developments in sub-national governance. The article provides both an empirical overview of recent developments and engages with the wider conceptual debates on democratic renewal. The arguments covered in this output are aimed at both academic and practitioner audiences, and have been also disseminated at regional and national conferences

Institutional, ideological and political influences on local government contracting: evidence from Englad.

Theories of contracting out offer contrasting perspectives on the noneconomic determinants of local government contracting. Some suggest that ideological motives predominate, with contracting decisions reflecting the ideology of ruling parties. Others emphasize political motives, with governments responding to local preferences. In this article, we draw on ideas about isomorphic pressures within organizational fields to examine whether institutional influences might also affect contracting behaviour. Using a spatial auto-regressive probit model, we evaluate whethermimetic pressures as well as ideological and political motives shape the decision to contract out service provision in English local governments. In addition, we analyse whether those factors also determine whether contracting local governments decide to contract with a commercial firm or a not-for-profit provider. The statistical results suggest that the decision to contract out is spatially dependent, and hence reflective of institutional forces. By contrast, political motives and market size considerations shape with whom local governments contract

Not all campaigns are created equal: Temporal and spatial variability in constituency campaign spending effects in Great Britain, 1997–2015

Existing research on constituency campaigning focuses heavily on studies of single national elections, and cross-temporal variability in campaign effects is rarely addressed. Similarly, campaign effects for a party at a given election are assumed to be uniform across the territory of the relevant polity. But both assumptions are questionable. In this paper, we analyse constituency campaign spending effects at British General Elections from 1997 to 2015 to explore their stability across time and space. In doing so, we also evaluate the empirical utility of some of the arguments theorised by Fisher et al. (2011) to explain campaign variability. Our results suggest parts of the theory, while attractive, do not adequately account for the observed variability

Ballot photographs as cues in low-information elections

© 2008 International Society of Political Psychology. Permission to post published version granted by editorial board.In low-information elections, voters are often faced with the task of choosing from a list of unknown candidates. By examining a set of low-information elections where candidate photographs were displayed on the ballot, we test how first impressions of candidates can influence election outcomes. We find that attractive candidates are more likely to be attributed the qualities associated with successful politicians and these trait inferences, based on facial appearances, influence the outcomes of elections. We also find that these trait inferences are based on physical characteristics of the candidates, such as age, race and ethnicity, evident from a photograph. Therefore, first impressions can be important determinants of election outcomes, especially in low-information elections