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This paper examines the evolution and characteristics of the Polish party system in the period 1991-2007, using the framework of institutionalization. Key moments in the development of the party system are identified by analyzing the results of six consecutive parliamentary elections. At the onset of the development of democratic politics, the party system was characterized by instability and under-institutionalization. By the end of the second decade, it displayed strong signs of structural stabilization and some evidence of the stability of interparty competition and party institutionalization, implying that the Polish party system is quasi-institutionalized. Moreover, the paper attempts to explain the results by focusing on elite behaviour and institutions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a lot of interest in how party primaries affect the characteristics of candidates, most work has focused on U.S. presidential candidates, limiting scholars’ ability to compare the effects of primaries across large numbers of candidates. The gap is understandable, as it is rare for parties to use different selection methods simultaneously across districts. In new democracies, more experimentation takes place. One such case is Mexico, where the two largest parties used a variety of selection procedures to choose their 2006 candidates for plurality district seats, from open primaries to designation by the national leadership. Since re-election is prohibited, there were no unopposed incumbents. This paper looks at how selection methods affect the candidates chosen, drawing on two surveys, of congressional candidates prior to the 2006 election and of congressional deputies in March 2008. Since the decision to hold a primary is separate from who wins the primary election, I use a Heckman two-stage model to control for selection sample bias. The paper analyzes whether candidates selected in primaries are systematically more moderate or more extreme than the median candidate for each party. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper traces the journey of political parties in Nigeria so far through the murky and turbulent waters of politics. In doing this,the paper seeks to examine the impact of the party system,as practised in Nigeria, on the current political engineering taking place in the country. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral institutions in democratic states produce incentives for politicians to manipulate economic policy for electoral gain. A growing literature on political institutions in non-democratic states has begun to focus on the effects of these institutions on political and economic systems. Recently, Gandhi and Przeworski (2001) have argued that democratic institutions function by giving support to the autocratic regimes in which they are embedded. If non-democratic institutions are functional, the natural question is whether or not they are consequential. Do democratic institutions have political and economic consequences in non-democratic states that are analogous to those of democratic institutions in democratic states? I argue that the answer to this question is yes, and build on the literature on political business cycles (PBCs) to explain how. Elections in non-democratic regimes bestow legitimacy on the ruling government by purportedly demonstrating its widespread popular support. Ruling parties in non-democratic regimes are interested in maximizing their perceived legitimacy among the population, as such legitimacy gives them free reign to pursue their policy objectives with a minimal amount of domestic opposition. Whereas some authoritarian regimes with a tight control over the press and the exchange of information can create the illusion of a wide popular mandate, other non-democratic regimes must resort to more subtle political means to garner high levels of popular support. I focus on the latter group, which Levitsky and Way (2002:53) refer to as “competitive authoritarian regimes,” where conditions are ideal for the manipulation of economic policy for electoral gain. With the significant informational asymmetry regarding macroeconomic policy in the government’s favor, I predict that non-democratic regimes manipulate fiscal policy to create popular support for the incumbent regime. I demonstrate the applicability of this reasoning with a study of fiscal decision-making accompanying the 1982 presidential elections in Mexico. Turning to a longitudinal study, I develop a more rigorous test of the hypothesis through a time-series analyses of the political and economic correlates of national account balances in Malaysia. Employing an autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model and adjusting for seasonal effects, I find a robust association between elections and lower quarterly budgetary surpluses from the years 1967 to 1997. At least in Malaysia, non-democratic regimes are characterized not simply by an unresponsive government, but rather by a dynamic political process. This paper contributes to comparative politics in two ways. By focusing on some of the more observable implications of economic policy manipulation in a well-defined population of states, this model lends itself to empirical verification, often difficult in the study of non-democratic states. My study also demonstrates ways in which researchers might conceive of the relationship between authoritarian regimes and the populations that they govern, illuminating directions in which the study of non-democratic governance might proceed in the future. References Gandhi, Jennifer, and Adam Przeworski. 2001. “Dictatorial Institutions and the Survival of Dictators.” Paper presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way. 2002. “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism.” Journal of Democracy 13(2). pp. 51-65. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What induces sitting legislators to change party affiliation, and what deters them from doing so? This paper explores the electoral constraints on switching in place despite incentives to defect from parties. We develop hypotheses about variation over time in switching, positing a peak in switching near the midterm, and use evidence from established and new democracies to appraise hypotheses. We contend that the force that works to hold the party system together between elections is the importance of the candidate’s electoral recognizability when running for office. In highlighting the party label, we echo a recurring theme in research on legislatures, parties, and party systems. Yet to our knowledge, no other scholars have tied the need for the party label to patterns in the timing of changes in party affiliation. That is what we do here. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will investigate whether treaties between democracies are more likely to be signed (not necessarily ratified) when states are closer to the beginning of their electoral cycle rather than later in the electoral cycle. It is expected that the frequency of treaty signings will fall as the average electoral cycle increases. This hypothesis contends that new governments will be eager to demonstrate foreign policy success. A variant of this hypothesis will also be tested. It predicts that the decisive variable is the amount of time before the next election. The logic here is similar, in that political leaders seeking re-election will have strong impulses to reach an international agreement. A contrary expectation would be that leaders would be fearful of “giving away the house” and see more political advantage in showing strength in foreign affairs. .x000d..x000d.The dependent variable is the agreement (treaty or other significant binding agreement). The independent variable will be measured two ways:1) average length of time since the government was elected; 2) average length of time until the next executive election is held. The units of analysis will be pairs of democratic states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the voting behavior of Africans in seven countries currently ranked as "free" by Freedom House International. Thus, we are examining a select set of African countries, each of which hold regular elections at the national and local levels, support a free press and free speech and allow citizens to gather publicly to express their political views. Using the 2005 Round 3 Afrobarometer survey, we study why Africans in these seven free countries choose to support and vote for a particular political party. Studying the political choices of Africans who actually have the opportunity to make such choices tells us a great deal about the characteristics of democracy in these seven countries. What we find is surprising, interesting and encouraging. While ethnic ties affect vote choice in Africa, retrospective evaluations of economic performance are equally important. We find no evidence that patronage relations based on vote-buying have any effect on vote choice in any of the seven countries. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Borderline democracies are political systems in transition, which have made tremendous progress in their democratic development, experienced some reversals on the way, and have arrived at an important historical juncture that will determine the future path of democratization. A borderline stage of democracy means that a democratic regime is still fragile and vacillating. To maintain a steady democratic advancement, such regimes may benefit from political science theories and the practices of other democratic regimes. This paper builds upon the relevant Western literature on democracy and applies it to the case of Russia. Russia represents a nascent democracy with unique cultural attributes and an adequate legislature and democratic institutions (the constitution, elections, and the constituency base). These institutions and written laws, however, lack full practical implementation and need further strengthening by grassroots movements. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do political parties in some nominally democratic systems support militant wings? What effect does violence have on the distribution of voter preferences and consequent party platforms. In this paper I assume that parties care about policies. These parties can utilize violence to escape the median voter's preferred policy as well as effect their probability of winning an election. If parties are relatively immoderate, then supporting a militant wing will deter moderate voters, effectively changing the distribution of voters and allowing at least one of two parties to adopt policies closer to their ideal point. Asymmetric distributions of voters provide both ideological and electoral incentives to initiate violence. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses original survey data from national elections in Russia in 2000 and 2004 to explore the sources of electoral support for Putin, an example of a strong hybrid regime leader. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper exams levels of correct voting -- i.e., voting in accord with one's own preferences and values -- across 32 established and emerging democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Magnesian regime can appropriately be understood as a moderate regime that reconciles the rulers and the ruled. In the Magnesian regime agreement between rulers and ruled is achieved on account of a judicious mixture of election based on merit and the occasional reliance on a system of lot. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the role of presidential heads of state in the government termination process in European democracies. From the examination of the constitutional powers of the president over the dissolution of parliament in nine West European democracies, we have found that most presidents in these countries have constitutionally-endowed powers to call or not to call premature elections once the incumbent governments lose the confidence ofparliament. Based on these findings, we derive several hypotheses relating the configuration of preferences among the president, parliament, and government to the duration of the government and electoral performance. We find that a government is likely to terminate more quickly, the more ideologically distant it is from the median parliamentary party; that a government lasts longer, the more ideologically distant the president is from the medianparliamentary party; and that president's parties perform better in early elections than in regularly scheduled elections. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The organization of fair elections requires impartial and independent electoral management bodies. This paper analyses the impact of electoral competition on the independence of state level electoral institutions in Mexico, an emerging democracy. We posit a simple model where increased political competition in local elections leads to more independent electoral management bodies through various mechanisms at different stages of a democratization processâ??noting that competition in local, state assembly or gubernatorial elections do not produce the same incentives for electoral reform among all political parties. We develop an original index of the independence of electoral institutions for the Mexican states during the 1990 to 2004 period, and analyze a number of measures of political competition to assess some of the hypotheses derived from our model. Results indicate that increased competitiveness in governor and legislative races leads to more independent electoral institutions, whereas competition in municipal races does not. Increased competition from some political parties elicits larger increases in independence than others. We also find that, as the number of effective political parties increase, the pressure for further electoral reform eventually settles down. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has emerged challenging the conventional wisdom that competitive congressional districts are good for democracy. These theories are novel, counterintuitive and generally focused on aspects of representation and responsiveness. This paper critiques this literature on these grounds and develops an argument that competitive districts have numerous advantages that have been overlooked by this more recent scholarship. More specifically, competitive districts foster greater civic engagement by voters and media and serve to check corruption. Furthermore, non-competitive, homogenous districts rely on primary competition to ensure representation, when evidence suggests primary elections are hardly competitive and give strong advantages to incumbents. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use new data on coups to uncover a pronounced decline in thenon-constitutional seizure of executive power since the early 1990s. What explains thattrend? We focus on one possible explanation for the dwindling popularity of the coupd'etat. We argue that with the end of the Cold War, outside pressure has produceda development we characterize as the "electoral norm" - a requirement that bindssuccessful coup-entrepreneurs to hold reasonably prompt and competitive electionsupon gaining power. A coup-plotter who knows they have to hold elections expectsfuture policy to be set at the median voter's ideal point rather than at their mostfavored point. This reduces the expected value of the prize of seizing office. In linewith our explanation, we find recent coups tend to result in elections far more oftenthan similar events did in the past. Ironically, coups today have often been a steptoward rather than away from democracy. Our explanation also helps account for whycoups have declined not only against elected leaders but also against their authoritariancounterparts, and for why some of the most aid-dependent regimes in the world havebecome also some of most coup-free. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In some EU member states voters let their national vote choice be co-determined by their EU attitudes, while in others such an impact is absent. This paper addresses the consequences of these differences for the quality of democracy within the EU. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideological congruence between median voter and the government changes substantially from one decade to the next, especially in the SMD systems of Western democracies. These changes are closely linked to changing levels of party system polarization. When the large parties are close to the median voter, any outcome creates congruent governments. When they diverge, governments are usually much further away. In the PR systems, too, some depolarization of the party system contributes to greater ideological congruence, although the connections are more complex, and cross-system differences are more diverse than in the SMD systems. This paper describes the changing levels of party system polarization from 1946 through 2003, explicating the positions of political party families and tracing the implications for ideological congruence. Under conditions of relative ideological consensus, whether of leftist or center-right orientation, there is little difference in the congruence levels of SMD and PR electoral systems. The most recent decade seems to be such a period. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine differences in the electorates in the November 2002 general and October 2003 recall elections in California. The recall election provides a unique opportunity for scholars to examine the impact of direct democracy on participation, as well an election in which the increase in coverage of politics reduces the costs of gathering political information. Using data from the statewide voter file, we find that the recall brought younger, less experienced, less partisan, and less residentially stable voters to the polls. Yet these were not the youngest, least experienced, or least stable voters in the state. Instead, the recall engaged those at the middle levels of political interest and experience, particularly among occasional voters who move in and out of the electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although nowadays a large number of regimes are formally democratic, democracy doesn?t work equally well in every place. Often, those groups who wielded power under the old authoritarian regime manage to continue wielding it under democracy, thus bypassing democratic mechanisms for government responsiveness. This paper focuses on one of the most common tactics used to subvert democratic contestation, namely electoral corruption. Electoral corruption is a common phenomenon and it can have decisive consequences in the outcome of elections, yet we don?t currently have a clear theoretical account of its workings. The standard view, implicit in most of the existing literature, is that electoral corruption makes most sense in close elections, when altering the vote count at the margin is most likely to change the outcome. While this view is adequate in some cases, it nevertheless fails to account for some of the main stylized facts about electoral corruption. For one thing, corruption is common even when elections aren?t close. Second, while the literature argues that perpetrators of electoral corruption should try to keep it secret, it is often surprisingly public. I develop a simple theory of electoral corruption that challenges the standard view. I pay special attention to the role that expectations play on the behavior of voters, a critical issue that the standard view largely ignores. Using simple models I show that under certain conditions that are particularly relevant to developing countries, a powerful ruler or ruling group may have incentives to engage in more electoral corruption than merely winning would require, to engage in such actions not only during and after the election but also before it, and to publicize rather than hide its corrupt activities. These findings may at first seem counterintuitive, yet they square well with both historical and survey evidence for a variety of countries and time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses evidence from Mexico to test two competing visions about how democracy produces responsive government. Electoral theories of democracy, such as accountability theory, posit that democracies are responsive to the public interest because citizens are able to use elections as a means of controlling politicians. Participatory theories explain levels of responsiveness as a function of a citizenry?s ability to articulate demands and influence government through a wider range of political action. I test hypotheses derived from these two theories, using an original dataset that combines electoral, socioeconomic, public-financial, and demographic indicators for virtually all of Mexico?s 2400 municipalities, from 1980 to 2000. Although most recent research on Mexico has emphasized the importance of elections as instruments of democracy, my data show that electoral competition has little effect on municipal government performance. Non-electoral forms of participation, on the other hand, are closely and strongly correlated with government performance. Most surprisingly, the data show no evidence of an interactive effect: a competitive electoral environment does not appear to be a necessary condition for participation to be influential. I argue that Mexico?s institutional context is responsible for the failure of elections to influence government responsiveness in Mexican municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a vast literature on the possible causes of low and declining turnout in Western democracies. Most of these studies explicitly or implicitly argue that we should be concerned that fewer citizens go to the polls. The argument tends to be that low turnout is a problem because rich and better educated citizens are far more likely to vote than poor, less educated citizens and that this makes for unequal influence and representation. There are two related underlying assumptions here. The first is that rich and poor citizens in fact differ significantly in their policy preferences. The second is that if these non-voters were to turnout, election results would be significantly different from what they are at present. However, while the view that low turnout constitutes a democratic dilemma is widely held and oft stated (Piven and Cloward 1988; Verba et al. 1995; Lijphart 1997; Putnam 2000), few if any of these studies provide empirical evidence for the accuracy of these assumptions; even fewer examine the question outside the American context. We test these propositions using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study. Our analysis entails two steps. First, we analyze differences in opinion between voters and non-voters across a wide spectrum of policy areas covering economics, social policy, national unity and others in order to assess the extent of divergent views between voters and abstainers. Next, we test the hypothesis that the outcome of the 2000 Canadian Federal Election would have been appreciably different if all citizens were to have voted by simulating universal turnout. The paper will make a significant contribution by providing an empirical assessment of some widely held but seldom tested propositions and also by extending the analysis of the consequences of low turnout beyond the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International actors play a prominent role promoting democratization throughout the world. However, social scientists have not yet thoroughly explained why sovereign nations accept these intrusions into their domestic political processes, and what the consequences of various forms of external ?assistance? may be. This paper explores the causes of one increasingly popular method of promoting democratization: international monitoring of elections. I argue that international election monitoring first occurred because it allowed leaders of countries truly committed to democratization to signal their type to international and domestic audiences. By distinguishing themselves from ?pseudo-democrats?, they were able to gain additional benefits in terms of legitimacy and additional economic assistance from Western nations. In order to continue to be viewed as a leader of a democratizing country, pseudo-democrats also invited monitors to their elections, even when they risked the documentation and exposure of non-democratic practices. Western democracies and intergovernmental organizations funded and supplied monitors because of their two pronged goal of supporting the spread of democracy and gaining additional information about less transparent political regimes. These incentives eventually led to an international norm under which all leaders of democratizing countries invite international monitors to their elections. As more pseudo-democrats attempted to mimic the signal of inviting monitors, the strength of the signal decreased, and international democracy promoters and ?true democrats? found ways to make inviting more costly for pseudo-democrats. This produced increases in the sophistication of monitoring methods, the number of monitors, and the duration of the monitoring missions. The trend is documented and the explanation is tested with an original dataset of all elections from 1970-2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does democracy foster political corruption? It is commonly observed that countries adopting competitive elections and market liberalization (“democratization”) also experience a rise in corruption. On a more complete conception of democracy, however, such correlations should not be surprising. Incomplete democratization often puts into place incentives for corruption, while lacking those elements of democracy that might enable those harmed by corruption to fight back. If corruption involves harms caused by exclusion, a key means for fighting corruption should involve empowering those harmed to protect themselves by democratic means: with information, arguments, organization, and votes. I shall argue in this paper that political corruption in a democracy is a form of exclusion, and that reducing corruption involves expanding democratic inclusions. This theoretical connection between corruption and exclusion helps to explain why those countries with the highest levels of democracy also tend to be the least corrupt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most fundamental criticisms of any democracy is that it represents the interests of the privileged few instead of the broader concerns of the masses. This issue has become more and more pronounced in the American context as voter turnout declines to record levels and as research demonstrates the skewed nature of the electorate. In election after election, individuals with resources are significantly more like to participate in the political arena than are those with few resources. But does the skewed nature of the electorate matter in the end? Research up to this point has almost unanimously indicated that it makes little difference. Focusing almost exclusively on national elections, scholars have found that the interests of nonvoters do not differ dramatically from the interests of voters (e.g. Verba, Schlozman and Brady 1995, Wolfinger and Rosenstone1980). Nonvoters would have voted for essentially the same candidates and supported the same policies as voters. Thus, in the end, we need not be all that concerned about who bothers to vote. In this paper I challenge this finding by switching the focus of attention to local elections where turnout is considerably lower and thus where any bias that exists at the national level is likely to be much more pronounced. It is not uncommon to see turnout fall below one-quarter of the voting age population in local contests. Non-participation by such a large majority of eligible voters could clearly have consequences. Where participation is so low, the voice of the people may be biased and government outcomes may less equitable or responsive. Despite this possibility, no recent academic research has addressed this question. In this project, I assess the effects of voter turnout on perhaps the most important outcome in local democracy - the spending patterns of city governments. In short, does turnout affect local spending priorities. Are low turnout cities less apt to enact redistributive policies that help the disadvantaged and more likely to appropriate funds for development programs that tend to aid businesses and other members of the more consistently voting middle class? To do this, I have merged data on aggregate voter turnout and registration for a representative sample of all cities over 2000 in population (from surveys conducted by the International City/County Management Association) with data on the actual spending patterns of city governments (available from the Census of Governments). The analysis that I have undertaken to this point strongly suggests that changes in voter turnout are closely linked to policy outcomes at the local level. As turnout declines, cities are less and less likely to spend money on programs that might aid the poor. In contrast, as turnout declines spending on infrastructure, downtown development, and other key business interests substantially increases. In other words, when turnout goes down, those who vote less regularly appear to lose out in American democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘The third wave of democracy’ pushed political scientists to study transition to democracy. It led to democratization as a policy option for Western countries in the context of war against terror. The donor community came up with election assistance programmes on way to deepening democracy in various countries including Pakistan. This paper seeks to analyze the strategy, process and outcome of donors’ financial and technical input in the process of transition from military to civilian rule in Pakistan in 2008. Donors focused on empowerment of electoral management body following a technocratic approach to conducting free and fair elections. They failed to bring the ultimate stakeholders, political parties, on board, ensure the accuracy of electoral rolls and mobilize civil society to that end. International observer missions determined the fairness of elections, bypassing the pre-poll electoral malpractices. In the absence of legal and institutional reform, donor input from outside remained far from satisfactory. This paper argues that donor agenda for democratization is no substitute for internal mobilization based on empowerment of political parties cultivation of democratic ethos in the citizenry. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to explain why the European Union decides to intervene outside of its borders to support electoral processes in transitional and non-established democracies. EU’s support for elections takes the form of electoral assistance projects and election observation missions. Election assistance is the technical and material support given to the electoral process, and election observation is its political complement. The EU has been active in the area of election support since the early 1990s, and it has become one of the leading actors in the world in this domain. Although EU’s foreign policy has been studied widely, very little attention has been given to explaining why the EU has become such an important actor in the area of election support. In order to fill this gap, this paper answers the following question: what explains the EU’s decision to provide electoral support to transitional and non-established democracies? This paper will present an analysis of the EU decision-making process and the determinants of intervention in the area of election support since 1993. Preliminary research shows that criteria for interventions fall into four main categories: strategic, ideological, operational, and circumstantial. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a minimalist, procedural, multi-dimensional definition of democracy: limitations on government, individual rights, and competitive elections. The paper reviews some conceptual issues in defining democracy, and some prominent efforts to conceptualize and measure democracy and its alternatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the meaning attached to elections among ex-combatants in Liberia, in particular in relation to the historic elections of 2005. These elections were generally considered successful, and should therefore be instrumental in the consolidation of democracy; this paper investigates the extent of such consolidation that can be seen in their wake. In particular, the meaning attached to elections are described in terms of voting behavior and motivation, as well as the extent of application of the equality principle, and finally in relation to the perceived legitimacy of the elections, based on focus group discussions carried out in the spring of 2008 in Liberia with 99 participants. The conclusions presented in this paper point to problems vis-à-vis the legitimacy of the elections which may have long term implications for the consolidation of democracy in Liberia. However, other areas, in particular attitudes towards vote buying, show a more positive trend. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing scholarship has made the claim that while democracies do not go to war, democratizing states are much more war prone than their fully democratic or authoritarian counterparts. This claim has generated a large literature and a substantial controversy. It is surprising that no dataset identifies in an acceptable manner the set of democratizing states. Neither the Polity IV project nor Freedom House have adequate scoring criteria for the task. That means any findings on the particular issue of democratization and war are debatable as they hinge on less than defensible empirical measures. This paper exploits a unique new dataset of democratizing states to cast new light on the question of political transititions and war-proneness. The dataset identifies democratizing states by the number and quality of national -level elections held. Consolidated democracies, fully closed authoritarian regimes, and semi-democracies are best identified by their electoral practices. The paper's findings call into question some established findings while suggesting ways to further establish the causal logic through which political transitions may bear on belligerent foreign policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a significant flaw in democratic theory, which assumes that citizens can combat the abuse of executive power via standard mechanisms of oversight - elections, public opinion and deliberation. It examines how the institution of state secrecy can obstruct the functioning of these standard mechanisms and analyzes why alternative mechanisms of oversight proposed by contemporary democratic theorists - including transparency, mediation and retrospection - prove inadequate. The paper then identifies circumvention (or 'leaking' to the news media) as the mechanism that democracies actually rely on to combat the abuse of state secrecy and explains why the reliance of democratic oversight on this mechanism is problematic. In particular, it suggests that the efficacy of democratic oversight in this setting depends in a significant way on the role of private institutions and personal virtues. If correct, this assessment invites democratic theory to cultivate a relationship with theoretical approaches that can account for the importance of these institutions and virtues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how party experience and consistency shape party identification and vote choice. I find thatindividuals are more likely to be partisans of parties with electoral and governmental experience, but that they arenot more likely to vote for experienced parties, controlling for their party identification. Second, I find thatparties are more likely to attract individuals that are ideologically distant from them if they adopt ambiguouspositions. This is the case for both partisans and voters. Ambiguity does not have a robust effect on partisanship forindividuals ideologically close to a party, but it has a significantly negative effect on vote choice for individualsclose to a party. The paper draws on the retrospective notion of partisanship to form hypotheses about partyexperience and consistency. These are then tested using a multilevel model of survey respondents in 41 parties in 14advanced parliamentary democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that characteristics of elections, such as the level of competitiveness, affect satisfaction with democracy. This explanation is tested against the predominant explanation in the literature, emphasizing the receipt of desired outcomes such as having one's preferred party or candidate elected. In addition to testing the competing processes v. outcomes explanations, I also explore how competitiveness affects satisfaction. The level of competitiveness may only matter for those people not receiving their desired electoral outcome, or may depend upon the democratic context. The paper shows that in addition to having one's preferred party elected, the level of competition also matters. Additionally, the level of competition has a negative effect so that small margins of victory decrease satisfaction with democracy. Finally, the level of competitiveness has a more pronounced effect in semi-democracies than in established democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using ANES data from 1964 - 2000 we examine the impact of district-level competitiveness on political efficacy and trust in government. With an overwhelming number of the contests are uncompetitive, scholars have wondered what impact the lack of competition has had on voter attitudes. From a normative standpoint, many scholars have argued that competitive elections are essential to democracy because they make elected officials more responsive to the citizenry, raise awareness of important issues, engage voters in debates on issues of the day, and provide opportunities for turnover in representation, holding members of Congress accountable to the public. Theoretically, we should expect this to have a positive result on efficacy and trust.On the other hand, always being in a district where your co-partisan wins could increase satisfaction with your member of Congress while bitterly fought campaigns might become negative and turn voters off from the electoral process and both parties, resulting in lower levels of efficacy and trust. In this paper, we study the effects of electoral competition on citizen efficacy and trust in government by examining elections to the House of Representatives over the last 40 years. We find that competitive elections have both a positive and negative effect on efficacy, which has changed markedly over time. The time series data we employ and the different results by decade indicate that this issue is well worth re-examining. Although previous papers haven take up the relationship between competitiveness and efficacy or trust, few have asked whether the relationship has changed over time, let alone reversed. Our findings suggest this is the case. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to this literature and proposes an important yet previously unexplored source of popular support for democracy: the availability of referendum. This paper argues that referendum gives citizens a valuable opportunity to direct ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the electoral effects of issue salience of unemployment in new democracies. Analyzing survey data from the post-Communist countries, the paper finds dynamic electoral consequences of economic reforms in new democracies. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Turkey’s Islamist parties are under scrutiny of the secularist elite and the military, which regard Islam as a destabilizing and anti-modernist force, they have steadily increased their electoral appeal since the end of the Cold War. In the recent elections held on November 3, 2002, a brand new Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party (JDP), achieved a stunning success by capturing 34.31 percent of total votes. This paper argues that the JDP’s electoral victory offers a unique case to analyze (i) the reasons for the growing popularity of religious parties and (ii) how the inclusion of religious parties into a competitive electoral process promotes or hinders democracy. A review of the extant literature on religious parties’ expansion of their popular support in general and the JDP in particular reveals that their explanations can be assigned to three approaches: (i) religious parties emerge as a reaction to secularist values (conflict approach); (ii) religious parties’ popularity capitalizes on ongoing socio-economic crises (crisis approach); (iii) religious parties gain political power as anti-systemic parties (political alienation approach). Drawing upon the analysis of a national representative survey with 1000 Turkish citizens, conducted in October 2003 and a set of interviews with the JDP leadership, this paper tackles two interrelated questions: (i) to what extent the prevailing conflict, crisis and political alienation approaches to religious party support can be substantiated; and (ii) whether and how the growing religious party support translates into the consolidation of liberal democracy. Understanding the Turkey’s JDP enables us to address a set of broader questions: How does Islamist parties’ cooptation with or acceptance of the electoral rules transform the political views of Islamist partisans? Do we observe a unique interpretation of Islam by Islamist partisans when Islamist parties are accepted in electoral competition? Does the incorporation of Islamist parties into competitive electoral system moderate their political positions? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many democracies have faced the challenge of devising rules to effectively limit the influence of money in elections. Countries have chosen a variety of approaches to this problem, ranging from capping spending and/or donations to requiring both donors and recipients to disclose their financial links. This paper asks whether a country’s choice of regulatory emphasis seems to affect public perceptions of politics. Do some approaches seem to foster greater confidence that a country is being governed for the general benefit? To answer these questions the analysis employs data from both new and established democracies, including indices prepared by Transparency International, IDEA, and Freedom House, as well as data from the World Values surveys. NOTE: Although we were unable to put together a full panel, this paper would work well together on a panel with The Corruption of Campaign and Party Finance Laws, by Carolyn Warner, also being submitted to the same two sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of economic voting in post-communist countries is small but growing. To date, though, most analyses have examined but a single election or a single country (although there are a few important exceptions). As a result, most studies generally focus on the question, “How has the economy affected the vote for the parties that contested this particular election?” This is not to say that the authors do not have a priori expectations, but they are by and large couched in the particular circumstances of that country and tend to remain more implicit than explicit. The same holds for the role of the economy in other general studies of voting in post-communist countries. My paper moves beyond country-specific approaches to understanding the effect of economic conditions on election results by searching for broader, more general models that can be applied in any post-communist country. Moreover, I take the additional step of directly linking the models I propose to the existing literature on the effects of economic conditions on election results in established democracies, while at the same time modifying them to take account of the realities of the post-communist context. In this manner, I hope to make theoretical contributions both to our understanding of the interaction between economic factors and electoral outcomes in post-communist countries and the general economic voting literature. In the paper, I introduce and compare two such general models. The Referendum Model, which builds off the main strand of the economic voting literature, predicts that Incumbent parties will benefit from stronger economic conditions, while the Transition Model, derived from a secondary strand of the economic voting literature focusing on party type, predicts that New Regime parties will benefit from stronger economic conditions and Old Regime parties will benefit from weaker economic conditions. Using an original data set of regional-level economic, demographic, and electoral variables and a novel method of comparative analysis, I test these models across the 20 national presidential and parliamentary elections that took place between 1990-99 in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Across numerous empirical tests, consistently stronger evidence is found to support the Transition Model than the Referendum Model. These findings should be of interest to students of elections and voting in post-communist countries, those concerned with economic voting more generally, and scholars interested in the methodological challenges of conducting comparative analysis in new democracies. Moreover, they have interesting implications for current debates regarding the relationship between elections and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the quest for good governance in Africa has gained momentum among ordinary citizens. Democracy's "third wave" (Huntington, 1991) has engendered an encouraging mass participation in the equally significant number and frequency of multi-party democratic elections in recent years. Unfortunately however, elections often result in atrocious violence. Rather than enjoy peace and stability, civilians either contend with life-threatening post-electoral skirmishes between politicians or resort to a perpetual flight from the resulting turmoil. Where a government is formed, access to it is in most cases determined by party affiliation, which is largely ethnically-driven. This study examines the correlation between the institutionalization of competitive multi-party democracy and human rights in Africa and the implications for the process of democratization, the sustenance of good governance and socio-economic development within the continent. The discussion is premised on an assessment of the electioneering processes and post-electoral political state in a sample of African countries. The results indicate that due primarily to strong ethnic inclinations and other socio-economic factors, an ambitious institutionalization of competitive electoral democracy in Africa is not only problematic but also poses extensive human rights challenges. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much literature as of late has noted the growing frequency with which “Third Wave” African democracies operate under dominant party systems (Boggards 2004; Manning 2005; Mozaffar and Scarritt 2005; Mylonas and Roussias 2007). African democracies, thus, offer us a perfect “laboratory” to test how partisan competition, and more specifically partisan dominance, affects how individuals relate to governing regimes, opposition parties, and democratic institutions. I propose to examine district level data from Botswana to analyze the ways in which partisan competition affects public perceptions and attitudes toward government and democracy. More specifically, I will be examining constituency level election returns from the 1999 and 2004 elections and analyzing the way in which they are related to Afrobarometer responses from the 2003 and 2005 surveys. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more, elections around the world seem to be won or lost on the basis of the candidates’ personal qualities rather than their policies. Such candidate-centered voting has long characterized established democracies, and now it appears to be characterizing Third Wave democracies as well. This is a matter of both normative and practical concern, as I shall argue, to the quality of democratic governance. Yet we still know very little about what explains candidate-centered voting, particularly in new democracies. I argue that candidate-centered voting is primarily a function of voter ability to cognitively engage policy debates. I test this argument using individual-level panel survey data from the 2002 Brazilian presidential election. I employ two types of vote decision models; the first focuses on choice while the second focuses on utilities. In developing and estimating both models, I pay special attention to endogeneity issues, which I treat as both methodologically and substantively important to understanding vote decisions. My discussion focuses on evaluating my argument as well as the implications for broader political outcomes in new democracies like populism, delegative democracy, and party system structures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesian voters have experienced dozens of free and fair elections since the return of democracy in 1999. After successful general elections in 1999 and 2004, Indonesian voters elected directly president in 2004 and since June 2005, local elections for governor, mayor, and district head positions were introduced as the final part of decentralization policy. The 2009 general and presidential elections, however, will become an important test of how strong democracy has been institutionalized. After a decade of democracy, voters will elect representatives and national leaders that will bring Indonesia passing difficult times of global economic crisis and entering a new era of political leadership transition. With many changes in the electoral system and political setting, how will Indonesian voters respond to the coming election? Are Indonesian voters more politically savvy than before? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a representative democracy, electoral incentives are supposed to ensure political accountability. I examine whether constituents who oppose their legislators' positions are more likely to have an unfavorable opinion of the incumbent and are more likely to vote her out of office. To do so, I utilize multi-level modeling techniques with data that directly capture whether a citizen agrees with the position his representative has taken across a wide range of policy debates. I find that incumbents are sanctioned by voters who disagree with their positions, but that sanctioning is stronger when electoral competition is robust and varies by the type of policy at stake. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine how parties respond to different electoral subconstituencies by shifting their policy positions. I argue that parties tend to respond disproportionately to the policy preferences of their supporters, and also to subconstituencies composed of the religious, ethnic, and sociodemographic groups of voters that have traditionally supported the party. Basing my conclusions on analyses of the Comparative Manifesto Project data on party positions, and national election study data on voter preferences from several European democracies, I find evidence that supports my hypotheses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an original database on the global spread of elections from 1960-2004, we test hypotheses about how election observers affect international and domestic audiences. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using election data from various democracies (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, New Zealand), I demonstrate that voters in parliamentary democracies ideologically deviate from their own preferences when casting their vote. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ending nearly two centuries of dictatorship under the rule of Shah Kings, Nepal held democratic elections in 1991. Ever since, Nepal is slipping into perpetual chaos. In these sixteen years, why is there no liberal democracy in Nepal? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents democracy, elections and freedom as elements of a peace agreement signed under the threat of war. Two factions caught in a military confrontation must cope with an imminent war. Formally, the war emerges as a unique equilibrium outcome of a bargaining game of perfect information. To avoid war, they must sign a peace agreement. Democracy, elections and freedom emerge as elements of a peace agreement signed under the threat of war based on rational calculations of warfare and political survival. Such a peace agreement is an efficient way to share political power because it averts war. Obviously, the terms of the constitutional democracy must correspond to the military capabilities of the factions, a point Fearon (1995) and Powell (1996, 1999) make in the context of two states competing for territory.

This study of five European democracies finds that, in the context of PR and certain mixed electoral systems, individual citizens are more likely to possess political sophistication than their counterparts in countries with plurality systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]