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In light of America’s increasing diversity, research into the impact of community heterogeneity on civic and political participation has burgeoned in recent years. To date, the literature on the subject has revealed an intriguing inconsistency about the participatory consequences of heterogeneity In his recent book Democracy in Suburbia, Oliver finds that people who live in communities with greater economic diversity have higher levels of engagement in localized political action, like voting in local elections and contacting local elected officials. Likewise, a forthcoming book by Gimpel et al argues that heterogeneity leads to greater political engagement. In contrast, a number of economists have found that economic, racial, and ethnic heterogeneity all lead to a decrease in participation. However, in a recent review essay surveying this literature, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn note that fifteen recent papers by economists on the subject of community heterogeneity all conclude that heterogeneity reduces civic engagement. While at first glance the economic and political science literatures appear to be empirically incompatible, a closer look reveals that they are actually theoretically consistent with one another. It is important to note that these apparently divergent studies have examined different forms of participation. Mistakenly, the literature on participation often indiscriminately groups disparate activities together, notwithstanding considerable evidence that various forms of participation are qualitatively different from one another. Recently, Scott Keeter and his colleagues have conducted a massive study of participation in the United States, and upon analyzing an array of different activitiesconcluded that there are essentially three participatory dimensions (Jenkins et al. 2003). “Civic” activity, by which they mean non-political efforts like volunteering in the community, is a different dimension of participation than activity that communicates political preferences. This paper reconciles the seeming contradiction regarding the effect of heterogeneity on participation. It shows that civic activity, like volunteering, is facilitated in homogeneous places, while people are more likely to express political voice in communities that are heterogeneous. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the most theoretically coherent and analytically consistent type of heterogeneity is not racial or economic (the focus of the current literature). Instead, it is ideological heterogeneity. The analysis employs the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, which consists of representative samples drawn in 40 communities across the U.S. Because of the study’s hierarchical design, it is possible to construct aggregate measures of heterogeneity for each community in the sample, including the dispersion of political ideology (operationalized simply as the standard deviation of political ideology within the community). These data, however, also require attention to the statistical complexities of hierarchical data, and are thus modeled using hierarchical linear modeling. This method of estimation simultaneously accounts for individual- and contextual-level variables, ensuring that each of the model’s parameters is measured with the appropriate standard errors. In sum, this paper offers a theoretically-grounded explanation for an apparent contradiction in the literature on community heterogeneity and participation, thus helping to illuminate the impact of diversity on America’s civic landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the role of public funding in party competition is currently debated in the literature that focuses on more established democracies the debate is rarely extended to new democracies, theoretically or empirically. The argument developed in this paper is that public funding limits new party entry, which in turn limits voter options with the effect of stabilizing relationships between parties and voters. The paper then tests this argument on a sample of all contemporary democracies and a sub-sample of established democracies. Contrary to Kitshelt’s proposition (2000) that public effect has little effect on party competition, I find strong support for the argument that public funding for political parties limits new party entry everywhere. Where party systems have stabilized prior to the advent of funding, public monies do not significantly affect the relationship between parties and voters. In new democracies, however, public funding strengthens the ties between parties and voters. Both findings run contrary to implications of the Cartel Party argument about party and voter relationships advanced by Katz and Mair (1995). Moreover, both findings have significant policy implications. If public funding stabilizes new party systems it can be used to mediate some of the expected political turbulence associated with transition to democracy. Furthermore, if funding does not affect the relationship between voters and parties in established democracies the idea of equality of opportunity as a reason for funding may need reconsideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political participation is a key ingredient for a solid democratic system. Politicians respond consistently to their constituencies, thus it is important to understand who votes in order to assess the responsiveness of a particular democratic system. The analysis of the socio-economic composition of the electorate can help us elucidate the mechanics of prevailing political biases in societies. Scholars studying consolidated democracies in the industrialized world have long concluded that there exists a significant bias in favor of the more privileged citizens. In those democracies, higher electoral turnout is positively correlated with higher socio-economic status. Patterns of electoral participation in the United States and Western Europe have extensively been examined, but they appear to be less understood in emerging democracies such as Mexico. The aim of this paper is to show that, in Mexico, as electoral competition became more acute, the poorest groups in society started voting more in comparison to other socioeconomic groups. Since the late seventies, opposition parties in Mexico started gaining power at the local and national level. The climax of such liberalization process came in the 2000 presidential election when the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) lead by Vicente Fox, defeated for the first time after seven decades, the Partido Revolucionario Institutional (PRI). The profile of the electorate drastically changed during the nineties. For instance, in the 2000 election, the electoral participation fell at the national level and in particular for the richer municipalities. Yet, the electoral participation of the poorest municipalities increased substantially. The relationship between higher socio-economic status and electoral turnout at the municipality level seems quite clear for the 1994 election. Interestingly, once electoral competition increased, this pattern changed. In the 2000 election, the turnout of the richest municipalities decreased while the poorest municipalities registered the highest level of electoral participation. On average, participation fell more than 10 percent in 39 percent of the municipalities when comparing the 2000 presidential election to the previous one. Yet participation fell more than 10 percent in almost 60 percent of the richest municipalities while only 29 percent of the poorest municipalities experienced such a drop. Similarly, turnout increased by more than 10 percent in 27 percent of the poorest municipalities while only 8 percent of the richest municipalities experienced an increase in turnout of this magnitude. These results clearly reveal that between 1994 and 2000, the socioeconomic composition of the Mexican electorate experienced a drastic change. The findings of this paper challenge the common idea that poor constituencies are less active in electoral terms than rich constituencies. A detailed analysis of the socioeconomic composition of the Mexican electorate in the two past presidential elections clearly reveals that marginalized municipalities are increasingly decisive. This change will have a profound implication on the representative nature of the democratic system in Mexico, by creating a bias in favor of the unprivileged groups. This paper will contribute to our understanding of the public policy implications of this electoral dynamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three types of political participation could currently be distinguished, representative, consumer, and direct participation, and it has been argued that there is considerable variation in the levels of these different forms of participation in different countries. Within this paper, it is aimed to (partly) explain variance in levels of different forms of participation through one institutional character of a system: public administration. The past decades, a wave of administrative reforms has occurred which was aimed to increase access, accountability and transparency through representation or direct participation in administrative affairs. This aim would lead to the expectation that (certain forms of) participation has increased. These administrative reforms, or New Public Management (NPM), imply generally a liberalization of the public sphere. However, these reforms have been implemented to different degrees in different countries. The questions that guide this paper are: Does more liberalization of the public sector lead to higher levels of political participation, and, if so, which form of participation is affected most? Cases that will be included are established democracies, and the analyses are at the country-level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the sweeping (re) introduction of multiparty systems in the early 1990s almost all sub-Saharan countries have introduced legal provisions to ban ethnic or other identity-based particularistic parties. Altogether 11 countries have actually banned political parties on these grounds. Given widespread fears that identity-based party politics increase the risk of inter-communal conflict, these bans may work for peace. However, up to now this link has remained almost ignored by research, and this paper engages in a first systematic analysis whether or not ethnic and other identity-related party bans do facilitate peace and how they influence the development of democracy. The paper draws on data from various sources as well as on our own survey, a unique inventory on ethnic party bans in Africa, and uses both quantitative and macro-qualitative methodologies. ..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]

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]

The role of deliberation in democracy has been a central interest for recent political theorizing. An important concern that is raised about deliberation is the potential for deliberation to replicate existing social inequality. The ideal for deliberation is that all participants would be treated with respect, and that all ideas and arguments would be given appropriate consideration. However, there are clearly reasons to fear that the actual dynamics are likely to differ significantly from this ideal. While proponents of increasing the role of citizens in political deliberation have outlined the principles required to guide deliberation, critics - including some who are sympathetic to the ideals of deliberative democracy - have pointed out a need for better accounts for how those principles may be undermined by problems of power. This paper builds from contemporary social theory, particularly the work of Anthony Giddens, to suggest a theory of power and structuration that can be used to characterize the dynamics of deliberation. By viewing any deliberative setting as an intersection of different structuring forces that are only partially realized, we can see how different dimensions of social power shape a deliberative situation without fully determining it. This also provides insight into how the dynamics of deliberation can be reshaped more fully in accord with principles of social equality and democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can critical theory sensibly address the problems and perils of democratic politics in the XXIst century? On what basis? Rather, based on which model of democracy? In order to assess democracy today, the tools and conceptual framework of critical theory must undergo some changes and develop conceptual clarifications that allow it to grasp (and contest) the inegalitarian dynamics of democratic politics. In this brief paper I want to take issue with the proceduralist model of deliberative democracy espoused by Habermas and point the way to a new understanding of political interaction in contemporary democracies. I will base my critical appraisal on the critique of Thomas McCarthy to Habermas’ reliance on systems theory, on Seyla Benhabib’s understanding of the normative basis of a discourse theoretic framework and Nancy Fraser’s developments concerning the character and dynamic of political interaction in contemporary (‘real existing’) democracies. In order to present my case I will 1) Identify how the systems theoretic dimension impinges on Habermas development of the concept of power, before and after the turn to communicative power based on Arendt’s notion of political action. I will map and develop the dimensions of power identified by Habermas, paying particular attention to the differences between power as steering media and power as social potential. 2. Track the implications of a limited notion of power on understanding democratic politics, based on Nancy Fraser’s (and others) development preconditions to political interaction. 3. Present the idea that egalitarian reciprocity is not a fact (nor is equality of conditions), and point to a series of issues that have to be addressed in order to develop a model capable of dealing with the challenges of inequality and domination. I want to claim that these asymmetries are not restricted to availability of resources, information or ‘natural’ abilities. They are directly created by a dynamic of exclusion and a ‘subverted’ public sphere that have to be accounted for. And the key to understanding them is a modified notion of power. 4. Explore the possibilities for a deliberative democratic model that does not hinge on the notion of a separate systems action context. I want to claim, along the lines developed by Fraser but going beyond, that the forced differentiation created by systems theory necessarily hinders the capacity to appreciate the ways in which ‘the subversion of the public sphere’ has taken, and is taking, place. I do not intend to dispense or supplant the procedural deliberative model espoused by Habermas and Benhabib. I do claim, however, that a new conceptual framework can help us better understand the perilous reality of democratic politcs and develop alternatives for action. [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]

The involvement of citizens in public issues plays an important role during and after transitions to democracy, as it leads to contacts of citizens with political institutions that may or may not be responsive to their demands. In this paper, I look at the paradoxical relation between citizens political activism, intense distrust in institutions, and relatively stable evaluations of democracy in eight Latin American countries (Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Peru). Using data from the World Values Survey 95/97, I use simultaneous equation modeling to uncover the nature and extent of the relationship between the three variables. The findings show that participation engenders more institutional distrust and less belief in democracy’s effectiveness, yet higher levels of distrust and democratic effectiveness generate higher participation. This suggests that the greater trust and confidence in democracy that should be the result of higher participation is not occuring. At some point in the connection between participation and institutions, the expected relationship fails to materialize. This study examines explanations for this result and for subtle country differences in the three variables examined [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most scholars agree that an independent judiciary is indispensable for the functioning of democratic regimes and for establishing the accountability of executive and legislative branches, most students of democratization have shied away from studying the courts. In many new democracies, however, courts are among the most prominent political actors. In this paper, I argue that this judicial activism is not always in the service of democracy and the protection of civil liberties and can prevent the consolidation of the democratic regime. I focus on the structure and political functions of the Turkish Constitutional Court in comparison to its European counterparts. I argue that compared to constitutional tribunals in other democracies, the Turkish Constitutional court is democratically unaccountable. I also argue that the courts record suggests that it should be perceived as the guardian of the values of the state elite against the encroachments of the democratically elected institutions. The Constitutional Court was established in the aftermath of the 1960 military coup and was modeled after the German Constitutional Court. The powers of the court and its functions were further modified after the 1980 coup. Since Turkey’s last return to civilian rule in 1983, the court has annulled more than 300 laws and governmental decrees and has closed 18 political parties, including two of the largest political parties in the country. Despite this willingness to act against the parliament and the political parties, however, the court has failed to emerge as a guardian of civil liberties and democratic freedoms. The courts record shows that it has been willing to act against the political class, while it has been more reluctant to act against the state, particularly against the security forces and the military. When the constitutionality of an act of parliament or a cabinet decree is challenged and the case is referred to the Court for abstract review, the challenger can expect a favorable outcome in 72 percent of the cases. Not surprisingly the opposition has found referrals to the Constitutional Court an effective way for frustrating the policies of the government in power. Chances of success are less than 15 percent when a case is brought before the court for concrete review, where most questions concerning civil liberties and democratic are likely to arise. I argue that in unconsolidated democracies like Turkey, the courts, particularly constitutional tribunals, should be seen as “guardians of the state” In unconsolidated democracies democratically elected institutions have to share power with unelected guardians, often the military. The political empowerment of the courts in these countries is part of an attempt by the guardians to protect their interest after turning power over to the democratically elected officials. Although this encourages judicial activism, the activism is to protect the interest of the guardians and to ensure their continued privileges in the political structure at the expense of democratic consolidation and the protection of constitutional freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the success of California’s black, Latino, and Asian voters in ballot proposition elections. Hajnal, Gerber, and Louch (2002) argue that across all propositions blacks and Asians are on the winning side as often as whites. Using multiple imputation to recover 40 percent of their dataset, we demonstrate that all three minority groups fare worse than whites. We show differences of 2 to 3 percentage points between whites’ and minorities’ probabilities of being on the winning side. Moreover, differences persist even after excluding racially targeted propositions. Lastly, the success of different groups in direct democracy is highly conditional upon the issue in contention. Minorities are more likely than whites to lose on a broad range of issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indices of democracy typically identify democracy with the set of institutions of government which have evolved in ?Western? representative political systems. But on the basis of this specific democratic model these indices produce an ?institutional fallacy? in measuring ?democratic quality?, because they fail to take into account the respective (societal, institutional) context. In this paper we propose a new concept and a new index based on this argument. We apply a minimal definition of democracy, which is based on the logic of individuals? self-determination. Our index takes into account the context and the degree of effective participation. We define the contextual attributes and the different possible institutional opportunity structures to ensure effective participation. We deduce assumptions about the causal relationship between context their effect on the optimal mixture of opportunity structures. We conclude with first considerations regarding the concrete operationalization and measurement of the respective elements of our model. We end with a short qualitative illustration (in German language) of the democratic quality of three European countries to exemplify our concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines the level of a country's military expenditures?Numerous empirical investigations have addressed this question, butmost of them have failed to provide unbiased results due to problemsof simultaneity or omitted variables. This paper solves theseproblems by estimating a spatial interdependence model of themilitary expenditures of neighboring countries that also incorporatesvariables such as attitude toward risk, participation in amilitarized interstate dispute, potential costs of war, and the roleof democracy. The evidence not only shows that spatialinterdependence is a major determinant of military expenditures, butalso that there is positive feedback between countries. In otherwords, the military allocations of countries are positively relatedto the military expenditures of their neighbors. In addition, thedemocratic nature of countries plays a significant role in thereduction of military arsenals. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The population ecology theory of interest organizations has moved the subfield of interest groups beyond studies of why individuals join interest groups to a larger understanding of how interest groups interact within government systems in the production of representation. To an extent, interest group studies from an ecological perspective have pursued esoteric outcomes somewhat far removed from democratic practice. In this paper, we seek to examine how the population ecology of organized interests in a state impacts the level of grassroots mobilization into politics. More specifically, we examine how the population density of Christian Right lobbying groups affects the degree of grassroots lobbying that Christian Right supporters conduct in each state. We connect 2006 lobbyist registration data collected from all 50 states and individual-level survey data concerning state-level political activity by Christian Right supporters to test a model of grassroots mobilization to help identify the degree of context dependence of grassroots activism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low marginal cost of internet socializing offers a potentially huge cost-benefit advantage over participation in more traditional types of civic associations. If net communities offer similar existential benefits (e.g. social contact, validation, etc.) as do traditional associations, then those more traditional communities have a competitive disadvantage in maintaining their status as loci of social, and therefore political, discussion. Given limited time to spend on socializing, internet societies alter the subject matter, scope and quality of personal interactions; it may be expected similarly to alter the scope of what is considered to be legitimate political action. The growth of communities based not upon geography and other traditional conceptions of shared-interest but upon selected interests and self-ascribed identity changes any imputed “common good.” Such a shift can be seen as an outgrowth of Madison’s use of republicanism to limit the purview of democratic politics. My paper examines how such changes in the forms and mechanisms civil association as seen on the internet can be expected to alter the political plausibility structures of what people consider to be the proper purview of political action. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of political party development in some postcommunist states but not in others is an important feature of their political development. Variability in party development explains the variability of successful democratization in these states. These outcomes have been influenced by the presence or absence of parties as institutional constraints upon rational political elites’ pursuit of their self-interest rather than the public interest. Parties develop where there are incentives for elites to create them, otherwise elites will not invest in collective action; the electoral system used provides this incentive. PR formulae provide incentives for party creation, whereas SMD formulae offer none. This paper empirically tests these theorized relationships between electoral systems, political parties, and democratization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Latin America is experiencing a region-wide violent crime epidemic, the political consequences of which are largely unknown. Many commentators imply that the crime wave bodes ill for democracy in the region, causing disillusionment with government, reducing mass political participation, and increasing popular support for authoritarianism. This paper questions the micro-foundations of that conventional wisdom. Analysis of survey data indicates that crime victimization may cause increased political participation at the individual level. Rather than becoming cynical, disenchanted, or disempowered, Latin American crime victims are actually more politically active than their non-victimized peers. Crime victimization has an ambiguous impact on opinions about democracy and dictatorship; further research will be needed before firm conclusions about this relationship can be drawn. The results are robust to specification checks and multiple different quantitative methods, and they are based on data from multiple years of the LAPOP and Latinobaómetro surveys. ..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 seeks to develop and test hypotheses about how nations compare in their use across e-government and e-democracy dimensions, and assess the factors that lead to high use of various aspects of these broad initiatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impacts of participation in a deliberative democracy process on minorities’ perceptions of internal and external political efficacy, and examines the impacts of diversity and social inclusion on external political efficacy. ..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 examines the theory and practice of participatory democracy in recent, current, and future contexts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the place of youth in the public sphere, and expands the Habermasian conception beyond the bourgeois. It explores the obstacles to youth participation and the resources available for negotiating their place in a democracy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the traditional approaches that political theory has taken towards questions of loss. It then presents a critique of these approaches, and suggests an alternative understanding of loss informed by the concept of sacrifice. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses upon the development of types of political involvement in a number of post-industrial societies, the effects of individual modernization on types of involvement and the possible implications for the future of democracy. ..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]

How can we model the effects of democracy and political irrelevance on conflict? Both are in principle sufficient, or nearly so, for peace; but garden-variety additive models fail to capture this relationship. This paper offers an alternative. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralization, Political Participation, and Democratic Consolidation in Indonesia By Anies Baswedan In this paper I will investigate the interrelationships between decentralization, political participation, and democracy. It will focus on two central questions: First, how do decentralization, electoral system, and local democracy effect local political participation? Second, how do participation, decentralization and electoral system deepen and consolidate democracy? In the wake of a deep and prolonged economic crisis that swept Indonesia, rapid horizontal and vertical political reforms took place. These reforms intended to democratize the political system and focused on both the national politics as well as the sub-national politics. At the national level, reforms took place on the institutional design regarding party system, electoral system, and relationship between branches of government. At the sub-national levels, reforms were undertaken on the institutional design of local politics and governance, as well as their relationships with the national government. These reforms represent significant changes from an authoritarian style of political system into a more democratic system. However, the claim that Indonesia is moving toward democratic consolidation deserve further investigation. This paper intend to assess this claim. An assessment would be helpful to understand and to enrich comparative politics literature on how the early stages of reforms effects democratic consolidation and also to make sure that these reforms are in the direction of democratic consolidation for the world’s largest Muslim country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politicians desire to ensure reelection can undercut democracy when they bias the system in their favor. A game theoretic model, statistical tests, and narrative evidence are used to explore this tendency toward monopoly and biasing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents results on voting for endogenous agendas in an experimental setting. Game theory predicts that all individuals will vote strategically for policies and will also choose agendas that lead to their preferred outcome given the strategic behavior of others. Decision theoretic approach predicts that individuals will vote for the strategic agendas only if they believe that others are strategic. The results have important implications for the theory of democracy and agenda setting.

Why are some political party members more active than others? Employing member surveys from 29 political parties in 5 advanced democracies, the multi-level analysis examines the individual and contextual roots of member activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While relegated by many to the dustbin of history, engaging Marx provides valuable insights into a democratic politics of freedom, both in wrestling with his problems & in trying to find what of value can be rescued from his thinking about freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our relatively new knowledge-based society, technology in the classroom has been equated with offering more opportunities for engagement in civic society and overall, promoting a more democratic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this project is twofold: first, to evaluate empirically trends in participation levels between 1991 and 2003 and to explore variations in these trends cross-nationally and, second, to discuss the theoretical implications of these trends for democratic consolidation in post-Soviet societies. The analysis is primarily based on repeated surveys conducted in Ukraine. We start with the Verba and Nie (1972, 2) definition of “democratic participation” as “those activities by private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they take.” Given that participation levels were remarkably high during the late 1980s and very early 1990s, one wonders whether the decline in interest and activity aimed at influencing government action characteristic of the later 1990s through 2003 is important from the perspective of maintaining the momentum of the democratic transitions taking place in post-Soviet societies. To answer this question, we study several distinct modes of political participation (for example, voting, campaign activity, communal activity, contacting officials on personal matters, joining demonstrations, strikes or boycotts, or occupying a public building) and study the differences in the requirements they pose to participants. We also evaluate the standard predictors of voting and conventional participation (personal characteristics, group effects, political attitudes and economic motivations) in order to better understand the changing meaning of this participation over time. Finally, we determine the degree to which patterns observed in post-Soviet societies conform to the western patterns or rather represent some specific form characteristic of particular stages in a democratic transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I challenge the conclusion that disagreement in social networks makes participation less likely. Drawing on sociological perspectives on human behavior, I analyze two hypotheses about how social networks prevent disagreement with discussion partners from discouraging political participation. More specifically, I investigate how network density and overall agreement in the network mute the damaging effects of dyadic disagreement. The analysis is based on data gathered during the 1996 presidential election and demonstrate that individuals who are in relatively cohesive networks that are on balance supportive are more likely to participate, even when they experience some disagreement from elements of their social network. These results help reconcile the idea of a democracy ground in both deliberation and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although existing research has identified important system-level explanations of cross-national differences in the levels of political support, a lot of unexplained variation remains within countries across similarly situated citizens. This study is designed to show that the role political parties play in shaping people?s views about the political system is a missing reality in the research on political trust. We argue that political parties shape people?s views about the democratic governance by generating party identification, and that partisanship operates on system support in two important ways. First, it stimulates citizen attachment to a political system; and second, it provides an important link between parties and citizens that facilitates a more effective channeling of party views to their supporters. Drawing on the survey data collected as part of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) project together with the Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP) data and Laver and Hunt (1992) expert surveys in eight established democracies, we find that party identifiers have more positive views about their political regime than unaligned citizens. What is more, the results of non-recursive two-stage least-squares model indicate that parties with more optimistic outlook towards the system produce higher levels of satisfaction with democracy and external efficacy among their supporters than parties with more dim views. We also find that office-seeking parties express more satisfaction with the status quo of the political regime and thus produce more positive attitudes among their supporters. This suggests that office-seeking party behavior appears to play a more favorable role for the democratic governance than has often been assumed by students of democratic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores whether declining political engagement in American politics is the result of low civic engagement (social capital) or conversely high (and growing) racial and ethnic diversity. Claims that rich and dense networks of social interaction, social capital, are and have been central to U.S. democracy are echoed and strongly restated in major recent works (Putnam 2000). At the same time, American society has become more racially and ethnic diverse, and this diversity is argued to be a benefit as well. Many of the evils that have been attributed to America’s decline in social capital could very well instead be the inevitable result of our growing ethnic diversity. This research tests this hypothesis, by accounting for racial and ethnic diversity in modeling the relationship between social capital and political participation. The implications of this analysis are far reaching, questioning the beneficial effects of social capital on civic and political participation in America (Putnam 2000). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Split ticket voting has long been of interest to students of voting behavior. Understanding these voters is particularly challenging because they appear to be ideologically inconsistent and to be casting their votes based on a variety of other factors. The study of split ticket voting, to date, has focused on candidate elections. However, ballot issues also allow voters to make ideologically inconsistent choices that could be described as split ticket voting. Understanding split ticket ballot issue voting is useful in several ways. First, a significant body of research has developed around ballot issues and this research will add to that literature. Second, this research adds another piece to the puzzle of ideologically inconsistent voters. Third, there is a growing profession among campaign consults who focus on ballot issue campaigns. This research will add to their knowledge of how voters react when multiple issues are on the ballot. To better understand the dynamics of split ticket voting on ballot issues this research uses a unique methodology (one that may no longer be available once electronic voting becomes the norm). It examines actual ballots of voters to identify split ticket voting. These data were combined with probability voting models to examine the variation is split ticket ballot issue voting in three communities. The research will compare an ideological model with an information processing model to determine which provides the better fit. Data for this project have been collected and the analysis is underway. The results should provide a clearer picture of issue election voting and suggest implications for candidate based split ticket theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study critically evaluates different conceptual approaches to the operationalization of political institutionalization which have been offered in the literature on the subject. The author develops a detailed theoretical framework and operational indicators which help to measure the degree of institutionalization of a party system in a democratic country. The analysis focuses on two broad dimensions of political institutionalization, autonomy and stability, and proposes several feasible and precise indicators which allow the criteria of institutionalization to be operationalized. On the basis of this conceptual framework, the study measures levels of political institutionalization of the party systems in the five post-Soviet transitional countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has suggested that when news is driven by conflicts, this leads to an apathetic and negative public. In the context of multi-level governance, it remains, however, unclear whether conflict in news about the European Union negatively influences citizens’ attitudes towards democratic processes in the EU and their participation in EU politics as related research would suggest. We therefore investigated whether the level of conflict displayed in TV news coverage of the EU affects citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in the EU and their engagement in EU politics. The study draws on a content analysis of the television coverage of the 1999 European election campaign in 13 EU countries and nationally representative, identical surveys carried out in each country after the elections. Linking content analysis and survey data at the individual level, we found that higher levels of conflict in EU coverage affected citizens’ satisfaction with EU democracy and their engagement in EU politics. However, these effects were contingent upon the nature of elite opinion about European integration. When elite opinion was consensual, higher level of conflict increased both people’s satisfaction with EU democracy and their engagement in EU politics. When elite opinion was polarized, conflict in the news enhanced citizens’ satisfaction with EU democracy, but decreased people’s engagement in EU politics. Our findings suggest that citizens may be more content with the functioning of supra-national level democracy and more engaged in politics if receiving cues that politics at this level results from the core of democratic decision-making – healthy disagreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the lack of previous democratic experience in China’s recent history hinder the current attempts at democratic reforms at the local level? Many researchers have pointed to prior democratic experience and “political memory” to explain the relatively smooth democratic transitions in Eastern Europe and Latin America. The People’s Republic of China lacks political memory of any democratic experience at the national level; however, in northern Shaanxi province, democratic elections did occur at the local level throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In fact, historians have demonstrated that these were indeed free and fair elections. Given the previous democratic elections at the local level in Shaanxi, we ask: Are current village elections in the Northern Shaanxi region more democratic than those areas without any history of free and fair elections? In the year 2000, we conducted a six county survey of Shaanxi province. In our sample, two counties had a history of local elections in the 1930s and 1940s, while the other four counties in southern Shaanxi did not. Using local historical records and the 2000 survey, we show that previous democratic experience in northern Shaanxi has no significant influence on current democratization efforts at the village level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women’s political citizenship defined as elective office-holding is a core dimension of what it means for a country to be a democracy. .x000d.The policy feedback model argues that what promotes women’s political citizenship is a political context defined by a hybrid state that adopts public policies representing both women’s equality with men and public policies representing the maternal group difference voters attribute to women. In such a hybrid context, public attitudes about the suitable of women as political leaders improve and the election of women to political office increases. This paper establishes the power of a hybrid state to influence public opinion and political behavior both within and between countries. The paper focuses on the 50 states within the United States and on contemporary democracies world-wide, showing that women’s political representation increases when the government represents in its public policies both women’s sameness with men and the maternal group difference voters attribute to women. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the fundamental tensions in between deliberative and participatory democracy via the philosophy of John Dewey. Some of the major distinctions between deliberative and participatory models of democracy are well documented. Broadly speaking, participatory democracy privileges participation as an end in itself, presents a normative appeal to widespread citizen participation in building political communities, and posits that individuals are transformed through political engagement (e.g. Barber 1984). In contrast, deliberative models privilege the procedures of rational discourse to ensure democratic legitimacy (e.g. Habermas 1996). Perhaps most simply, participatory democracy privileges action, while deliberative democracy privileges (specific forms of) speech. .x000d..x000d.In this paper, I argue that the project to integrate participatory and deliberative democracy demands re-thinking the distinction between speech and action. To this end, I turn to John Dewey’s concept of cooperative experimental inquiry as an alternative means to understand this relationship. This reconstruction of Dewey will hopefully enable democratic theorists to move beyond the limits of both participatory and deliberative models. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan's national identity is unique, diverse, important, and an urgent task for the people in Taiwan. In this paper, national identity is treated as a latent variable and used self-identity and attitudes toward China to measure this vague concept. Besides, rational choice theory is used for people in Taiwan to "choose" their shallow national identity. Also, this paper is testing the relationship between economic confidence and consolidated democracy to national identity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how our collective choices about local political boundaries affect the quality of deliberation at local public meetings. How the characteristics of our polities - such as their size or their level of diversity - affect democratic life has been an important issue for Americans at least since the debate between the Federalist and Anti-Federalists. The key insight of this paper is that the characteristics of the metropolitan areas where most Americans live are the result of our own collective political decisions. Size and diversity are not exogenous shocks to our political system; they are, instead, determined by citizens and politicians making decisions about their political communities. In other words, the political boundaries that determine the borders of our communities are functions of the democratic system itself. I contend that the way we draw our political boundaries - and especially the ways in which we attempt to carve out and preserve small places in the midst of growing metropolitan regions - has meaningful effects for the nature of the deliberation that occurs in public meetings across the United States. Though they may reflect some of the genius of federalism, fragmented metropolitan regions composed of many smaller localities create a deep challenge for civic participation at institutions like town council meetings. Smaller jurisdictions may mean higher rates of participation, but they may also frustrate key democratic aims, such as allowing citizens to fully confront and contest the differing interests and perspectives across the metropolitan region. Town council meetings in small, fragmented places may have an increased quantity of participation, but the quality of their democracy may be lower, especially from the perspective of deliberative goals. To explore these hypotheses, I employ survey data from a variety of different sources, including both national-level surveys merged with place-level data as well as surveys collected systematically in cities and towns across the country. These data include self-reports of attendance at public meetings along with respondents' attitudes about the issues under consideration. With the help of these data, I find that the challenge for effective deliberation at local public meetings is not the citizens who do show up, but the political boundaries that separate citizens from each other. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the field of political socialization has experienced a rebirth in recent years (Niemi & Hepburn 1995, Sapiro 2004), much of the scholarship to emerge has failed to acknowledge and resolve pertinent critiques, many of which were levied against the research program more than thirty years ago (Dennis 1968). One such critique is that socialization scholars have routinely failed to assess which aspects of the school environment and curriculum directly impact the development of democratic norms, attitudes, and behaviors in adolescents (Torney-Purta 1997). Moreover, this problem has been augmented by the lack of comparative cross-national studies, which remains a major lacuna in all aspects of political socialization research. Using the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s (IEA) survey of students, teachers, and principals in twenty eight nations, this paper addresses this shortcoming in political socialization research. It does so by analyzing how specific aspects of a student’s educational environment affect their understanding, attitudes, and behavior in regards to democracy and participation. More specifically, we examine which struc- tures, context, and content are most appropriate for facilitating a well rounded and participatory civic education. We utilize methods from Item Response Theory (IRT) to develop a measure of civic knowledge across the countries in the IEA data set. This measure allows us to assess the relationship between civic knowledge and political par- ticipation and further to understand what aspects of a curriculum contribute to levels of civic knowledge. The findings address some questions in the relationship between civic education and political participation, such as the direction of the causal arrow between these two variables. Overall, this paper points to the relative importance of a number of factors across a group of countries with remarkably different cultural, institutional, and educational settings. Such an examination is of considerable importance for edu- cators and policy makers who are concerned with engendering a democratic spirit in the future leaders of new democracies and improving participation in established ones. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from feminist scholarship, this paper explores a transition from extended ethnic conflict, Northern Ireland, to assess the springboard hypothesis that women can parlay community activism into formal politics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates that participation in spontaneous mass action is much more closely linked with democracy and other positive effects, at both the individual level and the system level, than is membership in voluntary associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]