Beliefs and Voting Decisions: A Test of the Pivotal Voter Model

We report results from a laboratory experiment that provides the first direct test of the pivotal voter model. This model predicts that voters will rationally choose to vote only if their expected benefit from voting outweighs the cost. The expected benefit calculation involves the use of the voter’s subjective probability that s/he will be pivotal to the election outcome; this probability is typically unobservable. In one of our experimental treatments we elicit these subjective probabilities using a proper scoring rule that induces truthful revelation of beliefs. The cost of voting and the payoff to the election winner are known constants, so the subjective probabilities allow us to directly test the pivotal voter model. We find some support for the model: While a higher subjective probability of being pivotal does increase the likelihood that an individual chooses to vote, the decisiveness probability thresholds used by subjects are not as crisp as the theory would predict. We find some evidence that individuals learn over time to adjust their probabilities of being pivotal so that they are more consistent with the historical frequency of decisiveness, although such learning appears slow; many subjects\' assessments of their pivotalness remain substantially higher than is warranted by the electoral history.

INSTITUTIONS OR CULTURE? A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE

The study examines competing institutional and cultural explanations of government performance. I use within country comparison of 125 sub-national governments in Germany and the U.S. and cross-regional comparison of these two countries. Government performance is conceptualized and measured on two dimensions - policy responsiveness and administrative effectiveness. I show that social capital is associated with the former but is unrelated to the level of administrative effectiveness. The latter is explained by the institutional factor of bureaucratic power concentration

Leftist and rightist parties talk to voters in different ways when inequality is high, but not when inequality is low

The aftermath of the Great Recessions has seen inequality in the U.S. and other developed nations increase to unprecedented levels. But how do parties on each side of the ideological spectrum react to inequality? In new research which examines political parties’ election messages across 40 democracies, Joshua D. Potter and Margit Tavits find that parties on the left push economic messages during times of higher inequality, while those on the right tend to focus on values-based social issues when voters are especially religious or there is significant societal concern about immigration or ethnic fractionalization

Fixed effects and post-treatment bias in legacy studies

Pepinsky, Goodman, and Ziller (PGZ 2023) reassess a recent study on the long-term consequences of concentration camps in Germany (Homola, Pereira, and Tavits 2020). The authors conclude that accounting for contemporary (i.e., post-treatment) state heterogeneity in the models provides unbiased estimates of the effects of camps on current-day outgroup intolerance. In this note we show that PGZ’s empirical strategy rests on (a) a mischaracterization of what regional fixed effects capture and (b) two unrealistic assumptions that can be avoided with pre-treatment state fixed effects. We further demonstrate that results from the original article remain substantively the same when we incorporate regional fixed effects correctly. Finally, simulations reveal that camp proximity consistently outperforms spatially correlated noise in this specific study. The note contributes to the growing literature on legacy studies by advancing the discussion about the correct modeling choices in this challenging field

When Extremism Pays: Policy Positions, Voter Certainty, and Party Support in Postcommunist Europe

We argue that extreme positioning benefits parties in new democracies, because—given the lack of other reliable cues such as party histories—the distinctiveness of their left-right policy positions increases voter certainty about parties’ identities and intentions in office. Cross-sectional analyses provide evidence that, in the new democracies of postcommunist Europe, parties that are farther away from the mean voter position gain more popular support than those moderately positioned along a policy continuum. In established democracies, by contrast, policy moderation increases popular support. We also find empirical support for the proposed causal mechanism that links policy positions to popular support via voter certainty. These findings have implications for party strategies, spatial theories, and our understanding of political representation in new democracies

Duverger, semi-presidentialism and the supposed French archetype

The concept of semi-presidentialism was first operationalised by Maurice Duverger. There are now 17 countries with semi-presidential constitutions in Europe. Within this set of countries France is usually considered to be the archetypal example of semi-presidentialism. This article maps the main institutional and political features of European semi-presidentialism on the basis of Duverger’s original three-fold schema. The most striking feature is the diversity of practice within this set of countries. This means that semi-presidentialism should not be operationalised as a discrete explanatory variable. However, there are ways of systematically capturing the variation within semi-presidentialism to allow cross-national comparisons. This diversity also means that France should not be considered as the archetypal semi-presidential country. At best, France is an archetypal example of a particular type of semi-presidentialism. Overall, Duverger’s main contribution to the study of semi-presidentialism was the original identification of the concept and his implicit insight that there are different types of semi-presidentialism. In the future, the study of semi-presidentialism would benefit from the development of theory-driven comparative work that avoids a reliance on France as the supposed semi-presidential archetype

Three waves of semi-presidential studies

This article reviews the scholarship on semi-presidentialism since the early 1990s. We identify three waves of semi-presidential studies. The first wave focused on the concept of semi-presidentialism, how it should be defined, and what countries should be classified as semi-presidential. The second wave examined the effect of semi-presidential institutions on newly democratized countries. Does semi-presidentialism help or hinder the process of democratic consolidation? The third wave examines the effect of semi-presidential institutions on both recent and consolidated democracies. Third-wave studies have been characterized by three questions: to what extent does the direct election of the president make a difference to outcomes; to what extent does variation in presidential power make a difference; and what other factors interact with presidential power to help to bring about differential outcomes? The article argues that the concept of semi-presidentialism remains taxonomically valid, but that the empirical scholarship on countries with semi-presidential institutions needs to respond to broader developments within the discipline if it is to remain relevant