Abstract This paper argues that there is a strong relationship between geographical patterns of political parties' electoral performance and the composition of central government expenditures. When party system nationalization is high, the composition of spending will focus more on non-targetable expenditures, while targetable expenditures increase as the party system distribution of votes across different districts becomes less homogenous. However, the effect of party nationalization on spending type is conditioned by the size of the presidential coalition; targeted transfers will increase if the coalition size decreases, even if party nationalization is high. I find support for these hypotheses with an empirical analysis of district-level electoral and government expenditure data for several countries in Latin America between 1990 and 2006.

Segnalazione bibliografica. National Bureau of Economic Research (2009), working paper n. 15365 Autori: Alan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Ebonya Washington Abstract Political partisanship is strongly correlated with attitudes and behavior, but it is unclear from this pattern whether partisan identity has a causal effect on political behavior and attitudes. We report the results of a field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of party identification. Prior to the February 2008 Connecticut presidential primary, researchers sent a mailing to a random sample of unaffiliated registered voters informing them of the need to register in order to participate in the upcoming primary. Comparing post-treatment survey...

A large literature examines the composition of cabinets in parliamentary systems, but very little attention has been paid to the size of those cabinets. Yet not only is the size of the cabinet related to the division of portfolios that may take place, cabinet size is also related to policy outcomes. In this article, a theory of party size is considered which examines how coalition bargaining considerations, intra-party politics and efficiency concerns affect the size of cabinets. Hypotheses derived from the theory are examined using an extensive cross-national dataset on coalition governments which allows us to track changes in cabinet size and membership both across and within cabinets.

Although many studies of clientelism focus exclusively on vote buying, political machines often employ diverse portfolios of strategies. We provide a theoretical framework and formal model to explain how and why machines mix four clientelist strategies during elections: vote buying, turnout buying, abstention buying, and double persuasion. Machines tailor their portfolios to the political preferences and voting costs of the electorate. They also adapt their mix to at least five contextual factors: compulsory voting, ballot secrecy, political salience, machine support, and political polarization. Our analysis yields numerous insights, such as why the introduction of compulsory voting may increase vote buying, and why enhanced ballot secrecy may increase turnout buying and abstention buying. Evidence from various countries is consistent with our predictions and suggests the need for empirical studies to pay closer attention to the ways in which machines combine clientelist strategies.

Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Jane Green e Will Jennings British Journal of Political Science 42, 311-343 (April 2012) Abstract There is a discernable mood in macro-level public evaluations of party issue competence. This paper argues that voters use heuristics to transfer issue competence ratings of parties between issues, therefore issue competence ratings move in common. Events, economic shocks and the costs of governing reinforce these shared dynamics. These expectations are analysed using issue competence data in Britain 1950–2008, and using Stimson's dyad ratios algorithm to estimate ‘macro-competence’. Effects on macro-competence are found for events and economic shocks, time in government, leader ratings, economic evaluations and...