Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Kathleen Bawn e Zeynep Somer-Topcu American Journal of Political Science, Volume 56, Number 2, 1 April 2012 , pp. 433-446(14) Abstract We argue that governing status affects how voters react to extreme versus moderate policy positions. Being in government forces parties to compromise and to accept ideologically unappealing choices as the best among available alternatives. Steady exposure to government parties in this role and frequent policy compromise by governing parties lead voters to discount the positions of parties when they are in government. Hence, government parties do better in elections when they offset this discounting by taking relatively extreme positions. The...

While Carmines and Stimson's work on issue evolutions has prompted research showing the dynamics and effects of new party alignments on abortion, religion, gender and cultural issues, this research has all centred on the United States. This article examines issue evolution in Britain. Using evidence on the timing of changes in elite positions from Comparative Manifestos Group data, and survey data on public attitudes to the European Union with a longer historical sweep than heretofore, the article finds strong evidence that the European issue has followed an issue evolution path, though with distinct dynamics contingent on the pace of elite re-positioning. Thus, this article extends the theory of issue evolution to a parliamentary political system and demonstrates the responsiveness of the public to elite cues, while also providing additional insights from a unique case in which elites have staked out distinct positions not once, but twice.

Segnalazione bibliografica. West European Politics (March 2011), Vol. 34, N. 2, pp. 362-383 Autore: Ross Campbell Abstract: One of the defining features of post-reunified East German political culture has been an enduring affinity for socialism. Although firmly opposed to the pre-1989 one-party state, a sizeable majority of East Germans nevertheless continue to value socialism. Whilst much scholarly research has investigated the strength and depth of socialist values, as well as their sources, comparatively little is known about their consequences, about if and how socialist values matter. This article seeks to redress this by examining linkages between socialist values and political participation, asking whether...

Empirical election studies conclude that party elites' images with respect to competence, integrity and party unity – attributes that we label character-based valence – affect their electoral support (Stone and Simas, 2010). We compile observations of media reports pertaining to governing party elites' character-based valence attributes, and we relate the content of these reports to mass support for the governing parties. We present pooled, time-series, analyses of party support and valence-related media reports in six European polities which suggest that these reports exert powerful electoral effects during election campaigns but little effect during off-election periods. This finding, which we label the Election Period Valence Effect, is consistent with previous work concluding that citizens are also more attentive to policy-based considerations and to national economic conditions around the time of elections. These findings have implications for political representation and for understanding election outcomes.

Segnalazione bibliografica. American Political Science Review 01 August 2011 105: 552-566 Autori: Timothy Besley; Marta Reynal-Querol Abstract This paper uses a unique data set on over 1,400 world leaders between 1848 and 2004 to investigate differences in educational qualifications between leaders who are selected in democracies and autocracies. After including country and year fixed effects, we find that democracies are around 20% more likely to select highly educated leaders. This finding is robust to a wide range of specifications, choices of subsamples, controls, and ways of measuring education and democracy. Full Text: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8368204