Das Referendum in Katalonien ist undemokratisch

Die politische Philosophie nennt drei Voraussetzungen, die erfüllt sein müssen, damit sich ein Landesteil abspalten kann. In Katalonien ist keine einzige davon gegeben

There have been three major shifts in German public opinion during the 2013 election campaign, including a late swing from the Greens to the Left Party.

Which events have long-term significance for party support in an election campaign? Oliver Strijbis outlines the findings of a research project into the German elections which attempts to address this issue by using prediction markets to assess party support. Using this method he identifies three major events which significantly altered German public opinion during the campaign: the creation of the anti-euro AfD party, the TV debate between Angela Merkel and Peer Steinbrück, and an as yet unexplained swing in support from the Greens to the Left Party during August

Discrepant Electorates: The Inclusiveness of Electorates and Its Impact on the Representation of Citizens

This article addresses the democratically fundamental question of the inclusiveness of electorates and of its impact on citizens' representation. While the literature has focussed on the congruence between voters and representatives, it has neglected congruence issues between citizens and representatives. The article investigates comparatively this source of newly disenfranchised citizens in a globalised society with increasing mobility. On the one hand, electoral laws vary in their inclusion or exclusion of emigrants and in the right to vote to non-national residents (immigrants). On the other hand, naturalisation laws vary in the maintenance of nationality for nationals abroad (emigrants) and in their inclusion of non-national residents. We illustrate levels of ‘discrepancy' between electorate and citizenship in 22 OECD countries qualitatively, by presenting differences of electoral and nationality laws, and quantitatively, by comparing the size of citizenship with that of the electorate, and the national and resident populations. We show that shifts between political and national communities are primarily due to naturalisation laws and that electoral laws have so far been unable to correct for the discrepanc

Negative Party Identification and the Use of Party Cues in the Direct Democratic Context

The use of party cues is a fundamental process of how voters adopt policy preferences. While research has shown that party identification is an important driver of political attitudes in general and policy positions in particular, we know little about how negative party identification (identifying as an opponent to a party) impacts voters’ political preferences. This article aims to fill this gap in the literature by combining an experimental and observational empirical analysis of the effect of negative party identification on voters’ issue preferences in the context of direct democratic decision‐making. First, we analyze a survey experiment conducted during a real‐world campaign on affordable housing for a popular ballot in Switzerland. Using continuous measures of party identification, we show a causal relationship between negative party identification and voters’ policy preferences. Second, we use longitudinal observational data of vote choice on direct democratic policy proposals and show that voters adopt policy preferences that contrast with the policy positions of parties they oppose. In sum, the two complementary designs show that voters tend to position themselves not only in alignment with their preferred parties but also in opposition to parties with which they negatively identify. Furthermore, the results indicate that, when adopting policy preferences, negative cues may carry as much weight as positive party cues. Our analysis has important implications for understanding voters’ adoption of policy preferences in general and specifically in the direct democratic context

Izquierda-derecha vs. centro-periferia: una aproximación al discurso de los partidos políticos vascos (1977-2009)

Euskadi es una comunidad autónoma donde el cleavage centro-periferia está presente junto al clásicoizquierda-derecha. Existe entre los analistas un debate sobre cuál de los dos cleavages es el predominanteen la política vasca. Sin embargo dicho debate se ha desarrollado mayoritariamente desde una perspectivaelectoral y no discursiva. En este artículo pretendemos comprobar, por medio de un análisis decontenido usando un diccionario de palabras, si a nivel de discurso las cuestiones relacionadas con loque se ha venido denominando “conflicto vasco” tienen más importancia que aquellas que entrarían dentrodel eje izquierda-derecha

El problema de la traducción en el análisis cuantitativo de textos. Aplicación de Wordscores y Wordfish a las mociones de censura contra el lehendakari Ibarretxe

Wordscores y Wordfish son dos métodos de análisis cuantitativo de textos que están ganando popularidadmuy rápidamente debido a que pueden ser utilizados para el análisis de posiciones ideológicas. Uno delos criterios principales para evaluar la utilidad de estos métodos es si son capaces de generar resultadoscomparables en diferentes idiomas. Los registros de los debates parlamentarios en el Parlamento vascoofrecen un banco único de datos para probar la comparabilidad a través de dos idiomas muy diferentes.Esta nota de investigación valida tanto Wordscores como Wordfish, al comparar las posiciones políticasestimadas por ambos métodos, tanto en español como en euskera, en el debate de moción de censura contrael lehendakari Ibarretxe en el Parlamento vasco en 2000

Discrepant Electorates: The Inclusiveness of Electorates and Its Impact on the Representation of Citizens

Abstract: This paper addresses the democratically fundamental question of the inclusiveness of electorates and of its impact on citizens' representation. While the literature has focussed on the congruence between voters and representatives, it has neglected congruence issues between citizens and representatives. The paper investigates comparatively this bias and source of newly disenfranchised citizens in a globalised society with increasing mobility. On the one hand, electoral laws vary in their inclusion or exclusion of expatriates (emigrants) and in the right to vote to non-national residents (immigrants). On the other hand, naturalisation laws vary in the maintenance of nationality for expatriates and in their inclusion of non-national residents . We illustrate levels of "discrepancy" between electorate and citizenship in 22 OECD countries qualitatively, by presenting differences of electoral and nationality laws, and quantitatively, by comparing the size of citizenship with that of the electorate, and the national and resident populations. We show that shifts between political and national communities are primarily due to naturalisation laws and that electoral laws have so far been unable to correct for the discrepancy.