310 research outputs found
Behind the cube rule: implications of and evidence against a fractal electoral geography
An earlier version of this paper was issued as Discussion Papers in Economics, 01/03. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Environment and Planning A, August 2003 35(8) p. 1405-1414In 1909 Parker Smith showed that the ratio of seats won by the two major parties in Britain was close to the cube of the ratio of their votes. Taagepera and Shugart argue, wrongly, that a fractal electoral map implies this. In fact their premises imply that the seats’ ratio will be the votes’ ratio to the power of , not 3. However, in the six countries we examine, the figure is between 2 and 3. This implies that the electoral map is nonfractal, political allegiances becoming less ‘clustered’ as you move from a macro to a micro scale. Taking the U.K., we ask if this is due to the geographical pattern of income distribution, and find that this is even further away from fractality than is voting. This fits the well known ‘neighborhood effect’ whereby poor (rich) people in rich (poor) constituencies vote as if richer (poorer) than they really are
Alpha-decay Rates of Yb and Gd in Solar Neutrino Detectors
The -decay rates for the nuclides Yb
and Gd have been estimated from transmission probabilities
in a systematic -nucleus potential and from an improved fit to
-decay rates in the rare-earth mass region. Whereas -decay of
Gd in natural gadolinium is a severe obstacle for the use of gadolinium
as a low-energy solar-neutrino detector, we show that
-decay does not contribute significantly to the background in a
ytterbium detector. An extremely long -decay lifetime of Yb
is obtained from calculation, which may be close to the sensitivity limit in a
low-background solar neutrino detector.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure; An author name was correcte
Basic kinetic wealth-exchange models: common features and open problems
We review the basic kinetic wealth-exchange models of Angle [J. Angle, Social
Forces 65 (1986) 293; J. Math. Sociol. 26 (2002) 217], Bennati [E. Bennati,
Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali 35 (1988) 735],
Chakraborti and Chakrabarti [A. Chakraborti, B. K. Chakrabarti, Eur. Phys. J. B
17 (2000) 167], and of Dragulescu and Yakovenko [A. Dragulescu, V. M.
Yakovenko, Eur. Phys. J. B 17 (2000) 723]. Analytical fitting forms for the
equilibrium wealth distributions are proposed. The influence of heterogeneity
is investigated, the appearance of the fat tail in the wealth distribution and
the relaxation to equilibrium are discussed. A unified reformulation of the
models considered is suggested.Comment: Updated version; 9 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
The rise of the new generation pro-Islamists in Turkey: The justice and development party phenomenon in the November 2002 elections in Turkey
This analysis reviews the main characteristics of the Turkish party system, presents a historical evaluation of the context of the most recent November 2002 elections and analyses in depth the nature of the patterns that emerge from the provincial election returns. The account underlines the challenges awaiting the newly elected Justice and Development Party on the domestic social and economic fronts as well as potentially dangerous events in foreign relations with the EU and the Cyprus and the Iraqi conflicts
Electoral Thresholds and Political Outcomes: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Reform in Germany
The Death and Rebirth of a Party System, Peru 1978-2001
This article evaluates structural, institutional, and actor-centered explanations of the collapse of the Peruvian party system around 1990 and its surprising partial recovery in 2001. It begins by describing the changes in the dependent variable, the emergence, collapse, and partial resurrection of the 1980s Peruvian party system. The next section examines the argument that the large size and rapid growth of the informal sector undermined the party system and led to its collapse. The author shows that the evidence does not support this argument. The article then examines changes in the electoral system. The author demonstrates that, contrary to theoretical expectations, the changes in the electoral system do not correlate with the observed changes in the party system. The final section shows that performance failure by political elites, including corruption in government, was more important than social cleavages or electoral institutions in the collapse and partial recovery of the party system.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline
The Effects of Electoral Institutions in Rwanda: Why Proportional Representation Supports the Authoritarian Regime
Patterns of democracy: Coalition governance and majoritarian modification in the United Kingdom, 2010–2015
The UK is often regarded as the archetype of Westminster democracy and as the empirical
antithesis of the power-sharing coalitions of Western Europe. Yet, in recent years a different
account has emerged that focuses on the subtler institutional dynamics which limit the
executive. It is to this body of scholarship that this article responds, locating the recent
chapter of coalition government within the wider context of the UK’s democratic evolution.
To do so, the article draws Lijphart’s two-dimensional typology of democracies, developing a
refined framework that enables systematic comparison over time. The article demonstrates
that between over the course of the 2010-15 Parliament, the UK underwent another period of
majoritarian modification, driven by factors including the long-term influence of the
constitutional forces unleashed under Labour and the short-term impact of coalition
management. The article makes several important contributions, salient in the UK and
beyond. Theoretically, it offers a critical rejoinder to debates regarding the relationship
between institutional design and democratic performance. Methodologically, it demonstrates
that the tools of large-scale comparison can be effectively scaled-down to facilitate withincase
analysis. Empirically, it provides a series of conclusions regarding the tenability of the
UK’s extant democratic architecture under the weight of pressures to which it continues to be
subject
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