Segnalazione bibliografica. West European Politics (March 2011), Vol. 34, N. 2, pp. 181-207 Autori: Andreas Schuck, Claes De Vreese Abstract Previous research is unclear about which citizens support the use of referendums and how a referendum campaign can affect support for direct democracy. This study investigates, first, the factors that determine support for referendums and, second, the role of the campaign in changing support. This is done in the context of the 2005 Dutch EU Constitution referendum. A media content analysis of national media (N = 6,370) is combined with panel survey data (N = 1,008). The results suggest that those who felt more politically...

Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: James Adams, Catherine E. De Vries, Debra Leiter British Journal of Political Science January 2012 42 : pp 81-105 Abstract During the 1980s and the 1990s, the elites of the two largest Dutch parties converged dramatically in debates on income redistribution, nuclear power and the overall Left–Right dimension, paving the way for the Dutch party system's polarization on immigration and cultural issues. Did the Dutch mass public depolarize along with party elites, and, if so, was this mass-level depolarization confined to affluent, educated, politically engaged citizens? Analysis of Dutch Parliamentary Election Study respondents’ policy beliefs and partisan loyalties in 1986–98...

Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Geoffrey Evans, James Tilley British Journal of Political Science January 2012 42 : pp 137-161 Abstract Why has the association between class and party declined over time? Contrary to conventional wisdom that emphasizes the fracturing of social structures and blurring of class boundaries in post-industrial society, it is argued here that class divisions in party preferences are conditioned by the changing shape of the class structure and the effect of parties’ strategic ideological responses to this transformation on the choices facing voters. This thesis is tested using British survey data from 1959 to 2006. We demonstrate that increasing class heterogeneity...

Segnalazione bibliografica. American Political Science Review 01 August 2011 105: 631-641 Autore: Andrew Rehfeld Abstract In this reply to Jane Mansbridge's “Clarifying the Concept of Representation” in this issue (American Political Science Review 2011). I argue that our main disagreements are conceptual, and are traceable to the attempt to treat the concept of representation as a “single highly complex concept” as Hanna Pitkin once put it. Instead, I argue, it would be more useful to develop the various concepts that emphasize the underlying forms of representation. Against the view that empirical regularity should guide concept formation, I suggest that the failure to find...

Segnalazione bibliografica. Autori: Brian Greenhill; Michael D. Ward; Audrey Sacks American Journal of Political Science, Volume 55, Number 4, 1 October 2011 , pp. 991-1002(12) Abstract We present a visual method for assessing the predictive power of models with binary outcomes. This technique allows the analyst to evaluate model fit based upon the models' ability to consistently match high-probability predictions to actual occurrences of the event of interest, and low-probability predictions to nonoccurrences of the event of interest. Unlike existing methods for assessing predictive power for logit...