Showing papers in "American Political Science Review in 2011"
TL;DR: This work presents a minimum set of assumptions required under standard designs of experimental and observational studies and develops a general algorithm for estimating causal mediation effects and provides a method for assessing the sensitivity of conclusions to potential violations of a key assumption.
Abstract: Identifying causal mechanisms is a fundamental goal of social science. Researchers seek to study not only whether one variable affects another but also how such a causal relationship arises. Yet commonly used statistical methods for identifying causal mechanisms rely upon untestable assumptions and are often inappropriate even under those assumptions. Randomizing treatment and intermediate variables is also insufficient. Despite these difficulties, the study of causal mechanisms is too important to abandon. We make three contributions to improve research on causal mechanisms. First, we present a minimum set of assumptions required under standard designs of experimental and observational studies and develop a general algorithm for estimating causal mediation effects. Second, we provide a method for assessing the sensitivity of conclusions to potential violations of a key assumption. Third, we offer alternative research designs for identifying causal mechanisms under weaker assumptions. The proposed approach is illustrated using media framing experiments and incumbency advantage studies.
1,133 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that horizontal inequalities between politically relevant ethnic groups and states at large can promote ethnonationalist conflict, and they introduce a new spatial method that combines their newly geocoded data on ethnic groups' settlement areas with spatial wealth estimates.
Abstract: Contemporary research on civil war has largely dismissed the role of political and economic grievances, focusing instead on opportunities for conflict. However, these strong claims rest on questionable theoretical and empirical grounds. Whereas scholars have examined primarily the relationship between individual inequality and conflict, we argue that horizontal inequalities between politically relevant ethnic groups and states at large can promote ethnonationalist conflict. Extending the empirical scope to the entire world, this article introduces a new spatial method that combines our newly geocoded data on ethnic groups’ settlement areas with spatial wealth estimates. Based on these methodological advances, we find that, in highly unequal societies, both rich and poor groups fight more often than those groups whose wealth lies closer to the country average. Our results remain robust to a number of alternative sample definitions and specifications.
686 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a long-run relationship between resource reliance and regime type within countries over time, both on a country-by-country basis and across several different panels, is investigated.
Abstract: A large body of scholarship finds a negative relationship between natural resources and democracy. Extant cross-country regressions, however, assume random effects and are run on panel datasets with relatively short time dimensions. Because natural resource reliance is not an exogenous variable, this is not an effective strategy for uncovering causal relationships. Numerous sources of bias may be driving the results, the most serious of which is omitted variable bias induced by unobserved country-specific and time-invariant heterogeneity. To address these problems, we develop unique historical datasets, employ time-series centric techniques, and operationalize explicitly specified counterfactuals. We test to see if there is a long-run relationship between resource reliance and regime type within countries over time, both on a country-by-country basis and across several different panels. We find that increases in resource reliance are not associated with authoritarianism. In fact, in many specifications we generate results that suggest a resource blessing.
594 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the roll call voting data for all state legislatures from the mid-1990s onward is used to compare the U.S. Congress with the states of the United States.
Abstract: The development and elaboration of the spatial theory of voting has contributed greatly to the study of legislative decision making and elections. Statistical models that estimate the spatial locations of individual legislators have been a key contributor to this success (Poole and Rosenthal 1997; Clinton, Jackman and Rivers 2004). In addition to applications to the U.S. Congress, spatial models have been estimated for the Supreme Court, U.S. presidents, a large number of non-U.S. legislatures, and supranational organizations. But, unfortunately, a potentially fruitful laboratory for testing spatial theories of policymaking and elections, the American states, has remained relatively unexploited. Two problems have limited the empirical application of spatial theory to the states. The rst is that state legislative roll call data has not yet been systematically collected for all states over time. Second, because ideal point models are based on latent scales, comparisons of ideal points across states or chambers within a state are dicult. This paper reports substantial progress on both fronts. First, we have obtained the roll call voting data for all state legislatures from the mid-1990s onward. Second, we exploit a recurring survey of state legislative candidates to enable comparisons across time, chambers, and states as well as with the U.S. Congress. The resulting mapping of America’s state legislatures has tremendous potential to address numerous questions not only about state politics and policymaking, but legislative politics in general.
447 citations
TL;DR: This article found that people rarely possess even a modicum of information about policies; but when they do, their attitudes seem to be affected at least as much by that information as by cues from party elites.
Abstract: An enduring concern about democracies is that citizens conform too readily to the policy views of elites in their own parties, even to the point of ignoring other information about the policies in question. This article presents two experiments that undermine this concern, at least under one important condition. People rarely possess even a modicum of information about policies; but when they do, their attitudes seem to be affected at least as much by that information as by cues from party elites. The experiments also measure the extent to which people think about policy. Contrary to many accounts, they suggest that party cues do not inhibit such thinking. This is not cause for unbridled optimism about citizens' ability to make good decisions, but it is reason to be more sanguine about their ability to use information about policy when they have it.
428 citations
TL;DR: The results of the first large-scale experiment involving paid political advertising were reported in this paper. But the experiment was conducted during the 2006 Florida gubernatorial election, where approximately $2 million of television and radio advertising on behalf of the incumbent candidate was deployed experimentally.
Abstract: We report the results of the first large-scale experiment involving paid political advertising. During the opening months of a 2006 gubernatorial campaign, approximately $2 million of television and radio advertising on behalf of the incumbent candidate was deployed experimentally. In each experimental media market, the launch date and volume of television advertising were randomly assigned. In order to gauge movement in public opinion, a tracking poll conducted brief telephone interviews with approximately 1,000 registered voters each day and a brief follow-up one month after the conclusion of the television campaign. Results indicate that televised ads have strong but short-lived effects on voting preferences. The ephemeral nature of these effects is more consistent with psychological models of priming than with models of on-line processing.
426 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that inequality matters for redistributive politics in advanced capitalist societies, but it is the structure of inequality, not the level of inequality that matters, and they test this proposition with data from 15 to 18 advanced democracies and find that both redistribution and none-lderly social spending increase as the dispersion of earnings in the upper half of the distribution increases relative to the distribution in the lower half.
Abstract: Against the current consensus among comparative political economists, we argue that inequality matters for redistributive politics in advanced capitalist societies, but it is the structure of inequality, not the level of inequality, that matters. Our theory posits that middle-income voters will be inclined to ally with low-income voters and support redistributive policies when the distance between the middle and the poor is small relative to the distance between the middle and the rich. We test this proposition with data from 15 to 18 advanced democracies and find that both redistribution and nonelderly social spending increase as the dispersion of earnings in the upper half of the distribution increases relative to the dispersion of earnings in the lower half of the distribution. In addition, we present survey evidence on preferences for redistribution among middle-income voters that is consistent with our theory and regression results indicating that the left parties are more likely to participate in government when the structure of inequality is characterized by skew.
384 citations
TL;DR: The authors showed that the distribution of democracies remains highly skewed by the level of per capita income in the countries with the highest and lowest per capita incomes, and that the relationship between income and democracy was even tighter earlier in history.
Abstract: As noted by Seymour M. Lipset over 50 years ago, development and democracy have been strongly correlated in the contemporary world. Today, even after the prolonged democratization wave that started in the 1970s and accelerated in the 1990s, the distribution of democracies remains highly skewed by level of per capita income. Whereas 94% of the countries with a per capita income above $10,000 (in constant $ of 1996) held free and competitive elections in 1999, only 18% with a per capita income below $2,000 did so. This empirical relationship between income and democracy was even tighter earlier in history. Just looking at per capita income, we can successfully predict 76% of the annual observations of political regimes in sovereign countries after World War Two. The proportion of cases that are predicted correctly is 85% for the interwar period and 91% before World War One. 1
313 citations
TL;DR: The dilemma of democratic competence as discussed by the authors, which emerges when researchers find their expectations regarding democratic responsiveness to be in conflict with their findings regarding the context dependency of individual preferences, is attributed to scholars' normative expectations rather than to deficiencies of mass democratic politics.
Abstract: This article analyzes what I term “the dilemma of democratic competence,” which emerges when researchers find their expectations regarding democratic responsiveness to be in conflict with their findings regarding the context dependency of individual preferences. I attribute this dilemma to scholars' normative expectations, rather than to deficiencies of mass democratic politics. I propose a mobilization conception of political representation and develop a systemic understanding of reflexivity as the measure of its legitimacy. This article thus contributes to the emergent normative argument that political representation is intrinsic to democratic government, and links that claim to empirical research on political preference formation.
261 citations
TL;DR: The authors used a unique data set on over 1,400 world leaders between 1848 and 2004 to investigate differences in educational qualifications between leaders who are selected in democracies and autocracies.
Abstract: This paper uses a unique data set on over 1,400 world leaders between 1848 and 2004 to investigate differences in educational qualifications between leaders who are selected in democracies and autocracies. After including country and year fixed effects, we find that democracies are around 20% more likely to select highly educated leaders. This finding is robust to a wide range of specifications, choices of subsamples, controls, and ways of measuring education and democracy.
222 citations
TL;DR: The Mexican Mafia gang as mentioned in this paper can extort drug dealers on the street because they wield substantial control over inmates in the county jail system and because drug dealers anticipate future incarceration, which creates incentives for them to provide governance institutions that mitigate market failures among Hispanic drug-dealing street gangs, including enforcing deals, protecting property rights, and adjudicating disputes.
Abstract: How can people who lack access to effective government institutions establish property rights and facilitate exchange? The illegal narcotics trade in Los Angeles has flourished despite its inability to rely on state-based formal institutions of governance. An alternative system of governance has emerged from an unexpected source—behind bars. The Mexican Mafia prison gang can extort drug dealers on the street because they wield substantial control over inmates in the county jail system and because drug dealers anticipate future incarceration. The gang's ability to extract resources creates incentives for them to provide governance institutions that mitigate market failures among Hispanic drug-dealing street gangs, including enforcing deals, protecting property rights, and adjudicating disputes. Evidence collected from federal indictments and other legal documents related to the Mexican Mafia prison gang and numerous street gangs supports this claim.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify a quasiexperiment, a large-scale municipal reform in Denmark, which allows them to estimate a causal effect of jurisdiction size on internal political efficacy.
Abstract: Optimal jurisdiction size is a cornerstone of government design. A strong tradition in political thought argues that democracy thrives in smaller jurisdictions, but existing studies of the effects of jurisdiction size, mostly cross-sectional in nature, yield ambiguous results due to sorting effects and problems of endogeneity. We focus on internal political efficacy, a psychological condition that many see as necessary for high-quality participatory democracy. We identify a quasiexperiment, a large-scale municipal reform in Denmark, which allows us to estimate a causal effect of jurisdiction size on internal political efficacy. The reform, affecting some municipalities, but not all, was implemented by the central government, and resulted in exogenous, and substantial, changes in municipal population size. Based on survey data collected before and after the reform, we find, using various difference-in-difference and matching estimators, that jurisdiction size has a causal and sizeable detrimental effect on citizens' internal political efficacy.
TL;DR: This article found that domestic audiences care more about policy substance than about consistency between the leader's words and deeds, and that voters care about their country's reputation for resolve and national honor independent of whether the leader has issued an explicit threat.
Abstract: A large literature in political science takes for granted that democratic leaders would pay substantial domestic political costs for failing to carry out the public threats they make in international crises, and consequently that making threats substantially enhances their leverage in crisis bargaining. And yet proponents of this audience costs theory have presented very little evidence that this causal mechanism actually operates in real—as opposed to simulated—crises. We look for such evidence in post-1945 crises and find hardly any. Audience cost mechanisms are rare because (1) leaders see unambiguously committing threats as imprudent, (2) domestic audiences care more about policy substance than about consistency between the leader's words and deeds, (3) domestic audiences care about their country's reputation for resolve and national honor independent of whether the leader has issued an explicit threat, and (4) authoritarian targets of democratic threats do not perceive audience costs dynamics in the same way that audience costs theorists do. We found domestic audience costs as secondary mechanisms in a few cases where the public already had hawkish preferences before any threats were made.
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of gender and minority quotas on minority women's representation in national legislatures are analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. And they find that policies designed to promote the political representation of women and minority groups interact to produce diverse but predictable outcomes for minority women.
Abstract: The majority of the world's countries have implemented policies designed to advance the political representation of women and/or minority groups. Yet we do not yet understand how these disparate policies affect the election of minority women. In this article, I draw on theories of intersectionality to conduct the first worldwide analysis of the effects of gender and minority quotas on minority women's representation in national legislatures. Using hierarchical linear modeling, I analyze how quotas influence the election of women from more than 300 racial, ethnic, and religious groups across 81 countries. I find that policies designed to promote the political representation of women and minority groups interact to produce diverse but predictable outcomes for minority women. Although quotas are ostensibly designed to promote diversity and inclusiveness, the quota policies in effect today rarely challenge majority men's dominance of national legislatures.
TL;DR: In the case of the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, a substantial 1.85 percentage point drop in voter turnout was partially offset by an increase in absentee voting of 1.18 percentage points as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Could changing the locations of polling places affect the outcome of an election by increasing the costs of voting for some and decreasing them for others? The consolidation of voting precincts in Los Angeles County during California's 2003 gubernatorial recall election provides a natural experiment for studying how changing polling places influences voter turnout. Overall turnout decreased by a substantial 1.85 percentage points: A drop in polling place turnout of 3.03 percentage points was partially offset by an increase in absentee voting of 1.18 percentage points. Both transportation and search costs caused these changes. Although there is no evidence that the Los Angeles Registrar of Voters changed more polling locations for those registered with one party than for those registered with another, the changing of polling places still had a small partisan effect because those registered as Democrats were more sensitive to changes in costs than those registered as Republicans. The effects were small enough to allay worries about significant electoral consequences in this instance (e.g., the partisan effect might be decisive in only about one in two hundred contested House elections), but large enough to make it possible for someone to affect outcomes by more extensive manipulation of polling place locations.
TL;DR: This article found that voters were substantially more sensitive to the loss of local jobs when it resulted from foreign competition, particularly from offshoring, than to job losses caused by other factors, and the anti-incumbent effect of trade-related job losses was smaller in areas where the government certified more of the harmed workers to receive special job training and income assistance.
Abstract: Does globalization's impact on the labor market affect how people vote? I address this question using a new dataset based on plant-level data that measures the impact of foreign competition on the U.S. workforce over an 8-year period. Analyzing change in the president's vote share, I find that voters were substantially more sensitive to the loss of local jobs when it resulted from foreign competition, particularly from offshoring, than to job losses caused by other factors. Yet, I also find that between 2000 and 2004, the anti-incumbent effect of trade-related job losses was smaller in areas where the government certified more of the harmed workers to receive special job training and income assistance. The findings have implications for understanding the impact of international economic integration on voting behavior, as well as for assessing the electoral effect of government programs designed to compensate the losers from globalization.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce a theoretical model where ideological parties select and allocate high-valence (experts) and low-value (party loyalists) candidates into electoral districts.
Abstract: Is electoral competition good for political selection? To address this issue, we introduce a theoretical model where ideological parties select and allocate high-valence (experts) and lowvalence (party loyalists) candidates into electoral districts. Voters care about a national policy (e.g., party ideology) and the valence of their district’s candidates. High-valence candidates are more costly for the parties to recruit. We show that parties compete by selecting and allocating good politicians to the most contestable districts. Empirical evidence on Italian members of parliament confirms this prediction: politicians with higher ex-ante quality, measured by years of schooling, previous market income, and local government experience, are more likely to run in contestable districts. Indeed, despite being dierent on average, politicians belonging to opposite political coalitions converge to high-quality levels in close electoral races. Furthermore, politicians elected in contestable districts make fewer absences in parliament, due to a selection eect more than to reelection incentives.
TL;DR: In this article, a more relational and systematic approach to representation is proposed, which replaces the trustee concept of representation with a "selection model" based on the selection and replacement of "gyroscopic" representatives who are both relatively self-reliant in judgment and relatively nonresponsive to sanctions.
Abstract: This response to Andrew Rehfeld's “Representation Rethought” (American Political Science Review 2009) takes up his criticisms of my “Rethinking Representation” (American Political Science Review 2003) to advance a more relational and systematic approach to representation. To this end, it suggests replacing the “trustee” concept of representation with a “selection model” based on the selection and replacement of “gyroscopic” representatives who are both relatively self-reliant in judgment and relatively nonresponsive to sanctions. It explores as well the interaction between representatives’ (and constituents’) perceptions of reality and their normative views of what the representative ought to represent. Building from the concept of surrogate representation and other features of legislative representation, it argues for investigating, both normatively and empirically, not only the characteristics of individual representatives emphasized by Rehfeld's analysis but also the representative–constituent relationship and the larger representative system, including both elected and nonelected representatives, inside and outside the legislature.
TL;DR: The authors found that culpable leaders are more likely than nonculpable ones to achieve favorable war outcomes and that domestic audiences will be willing to punish culpably leaders who lose, yet spare non-culpability leaders who do the same.
Abstract: A leader's culpability for involving his state in a conflict affects both his war termination calculus and his domestic audience's willingness to punish him if he loses. I define a culpable leader as any leader who either presides over the beginning of a war, or comes to power midwar and shares a political connection with a culpable predecessor. Using a data set created specifically for this study, I find that culpable leaders are more likely than nonculpable ones to achieve favorable war outcomes. I also find that domestic audiences will be willing to punish culpable leaders who lose, yet spare nonculpable leaders who do the same. Taken together, my findings underscore the need to appreciate more fully the role individual leaders play in bringing their states to war.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the role of the internal characteristics of self-determination movements and demonstrate that their internal structures play a major role in determining which groups get concessions, which suggests that states use concessions not only as a tool to resolve disputes, but also as part of the bargaining process.
Abstract: Why do states make concessions to some self-determination movements but not others? This article explores the role of the internal characteristics of these movements, demonstrating that their internal structures play a major role in determining which groups get concessions. Using new data on the structure of self-determination movements and the concessions they receive, I evaluate whether states respond to internally divided movements by trying to “divide and conquer” or “divide and concede.” Consistent with the latter approach, I find that internally divided movements receive concessions at a much higher rate than unitary ones and that the more divided the movement is the more likely it is to receive concessions. Yet, concessions to unitary movements appear to work better to settle these disputes. This suggests that states use concessions not only as a tool to resolve disputes, but also as part of the bargaining process.
TL;DR: This paper found that political radicalism varied enormously across provinces in China's Great Leap Famine, and that such variations were patterned systematically on the political career incentives of Communist Party officials rather than the conventionally assumed ideology or personal idiosyncrasies.
Abstract: A salient feature of China's Great Leap Famine is that political radicalism varied enormously across provinces. Using excessive grain procurement as a pertinent measure, we find that such variations were patterned systematically on the political career incentives of Communist Party officials rather than the conventionally assumed ideology or personal idiosyncrasies. Political rank alone can explain 16.83% of the excess death rate: the excess procurement ratio of provinces governed by alternate members of the Central Committee was about 3% higher than in provinces governed by full members, or there was an approximate 1.11‰ increase in the excess death rate. The stronger career incentives of alternate members can be explained by the distinctly greater privileges, status, and power conferred only on the rank of full members of the Central Committee and the “entry barriers” to the Politburo that full members faced.
TL;DR: The 1969 Vietnam draft lottery assigned numbers to birth dates in order to determine which young men would be called to fight in Vietnam as discussed by the authors, and the results showed that men holding low lottery numbers became more antiwar, more liberal, and more Democratic in their voting compared to those whose high numbers protected them from the draft.
Abstract: The 1969 Vietnam draft lottery assigned numbers to birth dates in order to determine which young men would be called to fight in Vietnam. We exploit this natural experiment to examine how draft vulnerability influenced political attitudes. Data are from the Political Socialization Panel Study, which surveyed high school seniors from the class of 1965 before and after the national draft lottery was instituted. Males holding low lottery numbers became more antiwar, more liberal, and more Democratic in their voting compared to those whose high numbers protected them from the draft. They were also more likely than those with safe numbers to abandon the party identification that they had held as teenagers. Trace effects are found in reinterviews from the 1990s. Draft number effects exceed those for preadult party identification and are not mediated by military service. The results show how profoundly political attitudes can be transformed when public policies directly affect citizens' lives.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce a novel model of policymaking in complex environments and show that good policies are often but not always found and identify the possibility of policy-making getting stuck at outcomes that are arbitrarily bad.
Abstract: Policymaking is hard. Policymakers typically have imperfect information about which policies produce which outcomes, and they are left with little choice but to fumble their way through the policy space via a trial-and-error process. This raises a question at the heart of democracy: Do democratic systems identify good policies? To answer this question I introduce a novel model of policymaking in complex environments. I show that good policies are often but not always found and I identify the possibility of policymaking getting stuck at outcomes that are arbitrarily bad. Notably, policy stickiness occurs in the model even in the absence of institutional constraints. This raises the question of how institutions and the political environment impact experimentation and learning. I show how a simple political friction—uncertainty over voter preferences—interacts with political competition and policy uncertainty in a subtle way that, surprisingly, improves the quality of policymaking over time.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the two rent-seeking activities, namely bribery and lobbying, and show that bribery is a legal and regulated activity in many countries, whereas lobbying is not.
Abstract: paign contributions or influence-buying through other means, as an activity that is aimed at changing existing rules or policies. We view bribery, in contrast, as an attempt to bend or get around existing rules or policies. The analysis contrasts these two means of influencing politics. We use the labels "lobbying" and "bribery" for convenience and not because they are perfect defini- tions for the two rent-seeking activities we study. In reality, bribery and lobbying differ in several di- mensions. First, lobbying is a legal and regulated activ- ity in many countries, whereas bribery is not. Second, a change in the rules as a result of lobbying often af- fects an entire industry, whereas the return to bribery is more firm-specific. Third, a government that ponders a change in the rules might have quite different concerns than a bureaucrat considering a bribe. Our model cap- tures all these differences. Possibly the most important difference, however, and the driving assumption in the model, is that bending the rules is only temporary. Bu- reaucrats can seldom commit to not asking for bribes in the future, because corrupt deals are not enforceable in courts and because firms deal with different officials over time. A legislative change, on the other hand, al- ters the status quo and is therefore likely to last longer. Although policies (and politicians) also change over time, our key assumption is that changing the rules is long-lasting relative to bending them. 2
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employ a differences-in-differences design, exploiting the considerable variances between states in U.S. states, to find out whether control of patronage jobs significantly increase a political party's chances of winning elections in states.
Abstract: Does control of patronage jobs significantly increase a political party’s chances of winning elections in U.S. states? We employ a differences-in-differences design, exploiting the considerable var ...
TL;DR: For example, exit-based empowerments should be as central to the design and integrity of democracy as distributions of votes and voice, long considered its key structural features as mentioned in this paper. But because contemporary democratic theory often dismisses exit as appropriate only for economic markets, the democratic potentials of exit have rarely been theorized.
Abstract: Democracy is about including those who are potentially affected by collective decisions in making those decisions. For this reason, contemporary democratic theory primarily assumes membership combined with effective voice. An alternative to voice is exit: Dissatisfied members may choose to leave a group rather than voice their displeasure. Rights and capacities for exit can function as low-cost, effective empowerments, particularly for those without voice. But because contemporary democratic theory often dismisses exit as appropriate only for economic markets, the democratic potentials of exit have rarely been theorized. Exit-based empowerments should be as central to the design and integrity of democracy as distributions of votes and voice, long considered its key structural features. When they are integrated into other democratic devices, exit-based empowerments should generate and widely distribute usable powers for those who need them most, evoke responsiveness from elites, induce voice, discipline monopoly, and underwrite vibrant and pluralistic societies.
TL;DR: Partisanship is indispensable to the kind of political justification needed to make the exercise of collective authority responsive to normative concerns as mentioned in this paper, and partisanship can be seen as a necessary and sufficient precondition for a principled deliberative democracy.
Abstract: Political justification figures prominently in contemporary political theory, notably in models of deliberative democracy. This article articulates and defends the essential role of partisanship in this process. Four dimensions of justification are examined in detail: the constituency to which political justifications are offered, the circumstances in which they are developed, the ways in which they are made inclusive, and the ways in which they are made persuasive. In each case, the role of partisanship is probed and affirmed. Partisanship, we conclude, is indispensable to the kind of political justification needed to make the exercise of collective authority responsive to normative concerns.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the observed behavior is unlikely to be determined by preferences on any underlying issue dimension, and use a simple variant of the agenda-setting model to explain this phenomenon.
Abstract: Cohesive government-versus-opposition voting is a robust empirical regularity in Westminster democracies. Using new data from the modern Scottish Parliament, we show that this pattern cannot be explained by similarity of preferences within or between the government and opposition ranks. We look at differences in the way that parties operate in Westminster and Holyrood, and use roll call records to show that the observed behavior is unlikely to be determined by preferences on any underlying issue dimension. Using a simple variant of the agenda-setting model—in which members of parliament can commit to their voting strategies—we show that the procedural rules for reaching collective decisions in Westminster systems can explain this phenomenon: in the equilibrium, on some bills, members of the opposition vote against the government irrespective of the proposal. Such strategic opposition can reinforce government cohesiveness and have a moderating effect on policy outcomes. We introduce new data from the House of Lords, the Welsh Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly to distinguish our claims from competing accounts of the data.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors model a "calculus of protest" of individuals who must either submit to the status quo or support revolt based only on personal information about their payoffs.
Abstract: How can one analyze collective action in protests or revolutions when individuals are uncertain about the relative payoffs of the status quo and revolution? We model a “calculus of protest” of individuals who must either submit to the status quo or support revolt based only on personal information about their payoffs. In deciding whether to revolt, the citizen must infer both the benefit of successful revolution and the likely actions of other citizens. We characterize conditions under which payoff uncertainty overturns conventional wisdom: (a) when a citizen is too willing to revolt, he reduces the incentives of others to revolt; (b) less accurate information about the value of revolution can make revolt more likely; (c) public signals from other citizens can reduce the likelihood of revolt; (d) harsher punishment can increase the incidence of punishment; and (e) the incidence of protest can be positively correlated with that of repression.
TL;DR: The authors show that judges will defer to the decision of elected leaders unless posturing is sufficiently likely, and that the desirability of judicial review is affected by characteristics of the leaders and the judges.
Abstract: also discourage posturing by alerting voters to unjustified government action. We further find that judges will defer to the decision of elected leaders unless posturing is sufficiently likely. We then show how judicial review affects voter welfare, both through its effect on policy choice and through its effect on the efficacy of the electoral process in selecting leaders. We also analyze how the desirability of judicial review is affected by characteristics of the leaders and the judges. What central in a is democracy? the preoccupation appropriate This role of question American for judicial has constitu- been review a in a democracy? This question has been a central preoccupation of American constitutional theory (Friedman 2002), and has assumed increasing salience internationally as the power and influence of courts around the world has grown (Hirschl 2004). Many have defended judicial review as a way to reduce or correct systematic failures in legislative and executive decision making - thereby reducing the divergence between actual policy choices and those that would prevail in an ideally functioning representative democracy. Appropriately designed judicial review, on