Exit, Voice, and Cyclicality: A Micro-Logic of Voting Behaviour in European Parliament Elections

Unlike other classics of political economy, “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty” (EVL) has not sparked many innovations in the field of electoral studies. This paper aims to demonstrate that scholars miss out on a powerful theory of political behaviour by leaving Hirschman’s ideas to other disciplines. To change this, I resolve several theoretical complications that have hampered the application of EVL to democratic elections. On this basis, I construct a model of voting behaviour through the electoral cycle to explain typical “second-order” effects in elections to the European Parliament (EP). Building on the parameters of EVL allows to unite such diverse phenomena as anti-government swings, declining turnout, protest voting, conversion and alienation in one theoretical framework. Testing the model with survey data from the European Election Studies of 1999 and 2004 reveals novel insights into the dynamics at work in EP elections. The role of strategic voting in the form of voice appears to be limited. Instead, processes of de- and realignment in the form of exit dominate a picture of EP elections that undermines the widespread conception of second-order irrelevance

Small-amplitude perturbations of shape for a nearly spherical bubble in an inviscid straining flow (steady shapes and oscillatory motion)

The method of domain perturbations is used to study the problem of a nearly spherical bubble in an inviscid, axisymmetric straining flow. Steady-state shapes and axisymmetric oscillatory motions are considered. The steady-state solutions suggest the existence of a limit point at a critical Weber number, beyond which no solution exists on the steady-state solution branch which includes the spherical equilibrium state in the absence of flow (e.g. the critical value of 1.73 is estimated from the third-order solution). In addition, the first-order steady-state shape exhibits a maximum radius at θ = 1/6π which clearly indicates the barrel-like shape that was found earlier via numerical finite-deformation theories for higher Weber numbers. The oscillatory motion of a nearly spherical bubble is considered in two different ways. First, a small perturbation to a spherical base state is studied with the ad hoc assumption that the steady-state shape is spherical for the complete Weber-number range of interest. This analysis shows that the frequency of oscillation decreases as Weber number increases, and that a spherical bubble shape is unstable if Weber number is larger than 4.62. Secondly, the correct steady-state shape up to O(W) is included to obtain a rigorous asymptotic formula for the frequency change at small Weber number. This asymptotic analysis also shows that the frequency decreases as Weber number increases; for example, in the case of the principal mode (n = 2), ω^2 = ω_0^0(1−0.31W), where ω_0 is the oscillation frequency of a bubble in a quiescent fluid

Effect of throttling on interface behavior and liquid residuals in weightlessness

An experimental investigation was conducted to study liquid-vapor interface behavior and subsequent vapor ingestion in a flat-bottomed cylindrical tank following a single-step throttling in outflow rate in a weightless environment. A throttling process in which the final Weber number was one-tenth of the initial Weber number tended to excite large-amplitude symmetric slosh, with the amplitude generally increasing as initial Weber number increased. As expected, liquid residuals were lower than those obtained without throttling and, for moderate values of initial Weber number, could be adequately predicted by assuming that all draining took place at the final Weber number. At large values of Weber number, residuals tended to be lower than this predicted value

Weber-like interactions and energy conservation

Velocity dependent forces varying as $k(\hat{r}/r)(1 - \mu \dot{r}^2 + \gamma r \ddot{r})$ (such as Weber force), here called Weber-like forces, are examined from the point of view of energy conservation and it is proved that they are conservative if and only if $\gamma=2\mu$. As a consequence, it is shown that gravitational theories employing Weber-like forces cannot be conservative and also yield both the precession of the perihelion of Mercury as well as the gravitational deflection of light.Comment: latex, 11 pages, no figure