Search

This article evaluates the political gender gap between men and women; traditionally women have been more conservative than men and less likely to participate in politics; however, modern gender gaps consist of women being more left wing. The authors use data from the World Values Survey from the early-1980s through the mid-1990s to find if there is any cleavage between these two positions; results reveal that women are moving to the left of men politically, except in post-communist and developing countries, mainly due to cultural and structural factors.

Helmut Norpoth's 'Presidents and the Prospective Voter' presents the idea that the president's approval rating is based on retrospection. This challenges the idea presented in the article, 'Peasants or Bankers? The American Electorate and the US Economy,' which claims that presidents are rated according to economic expectation. Norpoth claims that the public does not exhibit such behavior which manifests prospective economic reasoning. However, standard multivariate analysis shows otherwise.

Public officials are not passive bystanders in the electoral process. Rather, they actively try to shape or manage citizens' perceptions of events (particularly those involving negative outcomes) through explanations or accounts. I argue that consideration of citizens' understandings of political accountability and how these are shaped by public officials represent critical missing components of models of electoral behavior. The distinction between excuses and justifications provides a valuable conceptual framework for understanding the impact of political accounts on a variety of judgments and psychological processes. I examine satisfaction with various excuses and justifications and their impact on subsequent evaluations of the official.