Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Brad Verhulst, Lindon J. Eaves, Peter K. Hatemi American Journal of Political Science 56(1), 34-51 (January 2012) Abstract The assumption in the personality and politics literature is that a person's personality motivates them to develop certain political attitudes later in life. This assumption is founded on the simple correlation between the two constructs and the observation that personality traits are genetically influenced and develop in infancy, whereas political preferences develop later in life. Work in psychology, behavioral genetics, and recently political science, however, has demonstrated that political preferences also develop in childhood and are equally influenced by genetic factors. These findings cast...

Ladrech, R. (2013). James Cronin, George Ross and James Shoch (eds), What’s left of the left: Democrats and social democrats in challenging times, reviewed by Robert Ladrech. Party Politics, 19(4), 687–688. http://doi.org/10.1177/1354068813485792 ...

Segnalazione bibliografica. Journal of Political Research (May 2011), Vol. 50: pp. 395–417 Autori: Andrè Blais, Simon Labbè St-Vincent Abstract This article examines the link between personality traits, political attitudes and the propensity to vote in elections, using an Internet panel survey conducted in two Canadian provinces at the time of the 2008 federal election and the subsequent provincial elections. It first establishes that the two most proximate attitudes that shape one's propensity to vote are political interest and sense of civic duty. The article then look at specific personality traits (altruism, shyness, efficacy and conflict avoidance) that could affect level of political interest, civic...

This study suggests that performance voting is characterised by extensive individual heterogeneity. Most economic voting studies to date treat voters as rather homogeneous in their reactions to economic performance of incumbents. Yet, a large and well-established line of research from the American context demonstrates the conditional impact of political sophistication and salience on voters' political attitudes and behaviour. Building on this work, this article explores individual-level variation in performance voting due to political sophistication and salience. Utilising cross-national data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) including 25 democracies, performance voting is examined across an array of policy areas including the economy, social welfare, immigration and national security, and it is shown that political sophistication and salience are key moderators of performance voting. The findings suggest that holding governments to account for past performance is mainly the prerogative of the highly sophisticated and thus may be more laborious than previously assumed. At the same time, the results indicate that the sophistication gap in performance voting narrows when voters attach a higher degree of salience to a policy area. As long as voters care enough about government activities in a particular policy area, incumbents can expect credit or blame for policy outcomes. This should provide at least some impetus for responsive policy making.

Segnalazione bibliografica. American Journal of Political Science (April 2011), Vol. 55, N. 2, pp. 417-435 Autori: Steven E. Finkel, Amy Erica Smith Abstract: How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique three-wave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two-step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic Education Programme (NCEP). These individuals became opinion leaders, communicating these new orientations to others within their social...