There is a contradiction between theory and empirics with respect to portfolio allocation in parliamentary democracies. While the canonical model of legislative bargaining predicts the existence of a ‘formateur bonus’, empirical studies show that portfolios are allocated in a manner that favours smaller parties. This article argues that the difference between the empirical pattern and the theoretical predictions can be explained by the vote of no confidence, which provides an incentive for large formateur parties to overcompensate smaller coalition partners in exchange for their sustained support over time. This argument is tested by exploiting variations in the presence of no confidence votes across national and regional levels in France. As predicted, we find that larger formateur parties receive a greater share of portfolios if the vote of no confidence is absent than if it is present.

Segnalazione bibliografica. American Political Science Review 01 August 2011 105: 567-585 Autori: Olle Folke; Shigeo Hirano; James M. Snyder Jr Abstract Does control of patronage jobs significantly increase a political party's chances of winning elections in U.S. states? We employ a differences-in-differences design, exploiting the considerable variation in the dates that different states adopted civil service reforms. Our evidence suggests that political parties in U.S. states were able to use state-level patronage to increase the probability of maintaining control of state legislatures and statewide elective offices. We also find that an “entrenched” party, in power for a longer time, can use patronage more effectively. We...

Segnalazione bibliografica. Autrice: Yanna Krupnikov American Journal of Political Science, Volume 55, Number 4, 1 October 2011 , pp. 797-813(17) Abstract Do negative campaign advertisements affect voter turnout? Existing literature on this topic has produced conflicting empirical results. Some scholars show that negativity is demobilizing. Others show that negativity is mobilizing. Still others show that negativity has no effect on turnout. Relying on the psychology of decision making, this research argues and shows that this empirical stalemate is due to the fact that existing work ignores a crucial...

Segnalazione bibliografica. American Political Science Review (2010), vol.104, n.4: 625-643 Autore: David Stasavage Abstract Scholars investigating European state development have long placed a heavy emphasis on the role played by representative institutions. The presence of an active representative assembly, it is argued, allowed citizens and rulers to contract over raising revenue and accessing credit. It may also have had implications for economic growth. These arguments have in turn been used to draw broad implications about the causal effect of analogous institutions in other places and during other time periods. But if assemblies had such clear efficiency benefits, why did they not become a universal phenomenon in Europe prior...

Contrary to the view that linguistic homogeneity is required to create a viable demos, this article argues that linguistic diversity can be a permanent feature of any democratic community, so long as there is a unified and robust voting space that provides a common intentional object, around which distinct public spheres can aesthetically organize their political discourse. An attempt to explain how such a voting space operates in Switzerland, the finest existing exemplar of a multilingual demos, is given. Following the Swiss example, the author proposes, would go a long way to constituting the European Union as a democratically legitimate trans-national demos, despite its formidable linguistic diversity.