Distinguishing Occasional Abstention from Routine Indifference in Models of Vote Choice

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin E. Bagozzi ◽  
Kathleen Marchetti

Researchers commonly employ multinomial logit (MNL) models to explain individual-level vote choice while treating “abstention” as the baseline category. Though many view abstainers as a homogeneous group, we argue that these respondents emerge from two distinct sources. Some nonvoters are likely to be “occasional voters” who abstained from a given election owing to temporary factors, such as a distaste for all candidates running in a particular election, poor weather conditions, or other temporary circumstances. On the other hand, many nonvoters are unlikely to vote regardless of the current political climate. This latter population of “routine nonvoters” is consistently disengaged from the political process in a way that is distinct from that of occasional voters. Including both sets of nonvoters within an MNL model can lead to faulty inferences. As a solution, we propose a baseline-inflated MNL estimator that models heterogeneous populations of nonvoters probabilistically, thus accounting for the presence of routine nonvoters within models of vote choice. We demonstrate the utility of this model using replications of existing political behavior research.

2004 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
JANET M. BOX-STEFFENSMEIER ◽  
SUZANNA DE BOEF ◽  
TSE-MIN LIN

Gender differences in vote choice, opinion, and party identification have become a common feature of the American political landscape. We examine the nature and causes of gender differences in partisanship using a time series approach. We show that gender differences are pervasive—existing outside of the context of specific elections or issues—and that they are a product of the interaction of societal conditions and politics. We find that from 1979 to 2000, the partisan gender gap has grown when the political climate moved in a conservative direction, the economy deteriorated, and the percentage of economically vulnerable, single women increased. The gender gap is likely to be a continual feature of the American political landscape: one that shapes everything from elite political behavior to election outcomes.


2021 ◽  

Politics in the United States has become increasingly polarized in recent decades. Both political elites and everyday citizens are divided into rival and mutually antagonistic partisan camps, with each camp questioning the political legitimacy and democratic commitments of the other side. Does this polarization pose threats to democracy itself? What can make some democratic institutions resilient in the face of such challenges? Democratic Resilience brings together a distinguished group of specialists to examine how polarization affects the performance of institutional checks and balances as well as the political behavior of voters, civil society actors, and political elites. The volume bridges the conventional divide between institutional and behavioral approaches to the study of American politics and incorporates historical and comparative insights to explain the nature of contemporary challenges to democracy. It also breaks new ground to identify the institutional and societal sources of democratic resilience.


Author(s):  
Stephen H. Lehman

Beginning in the 1970s, the French jazz press became the first community of critics seriously to consider the new African-American experimental music being put forth by musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton and other members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). More than any other aspect of their music, the incorporation of instrumentations, concepts, and musical forms normally associated with Western art music challenged assumptions within both the European and the American jazz communities. The response to these musicians in publications like Jazz Magazine and Jazz Hot was complex and multi-dimensional. A genuine fascination with this new music was nevertheless tempered by received notions about race and musical idiom. The political climate in France after the student demonstrations of 1968 provided a context which also may have been important for at least some French jazz critics. The impact of the French jazz press on the field of improvised music in France in the 1970s was only one component of a transactional process of resistance by critics and conscious counter-resistance by key musicians/composers who wanted to expand notions of what jazz could encompass. Based on archival research and interviews with both musicians and French critics and scholars I intend to examine this dialogue between the French jazz press and the musicians themselves, in an effort to better understand how each community affected the other in France from 1970 to 1980.


1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 1219-1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Woods

The author explores the place of animals in rural politics. Recognising that rurality is socially constructed by its participants, he examines how animals are represented in constructs of the rural and in political debates arising from contests between conflicting constructs. In particular, two case studies are discussed—one concerning an attempt to ban staghunting on public-owned land in Somerset; the other concerning the so-called ‘BSE crisis' in Britain in 1996. In both cases representations of animals are mobilised in support of discourses of rurality and nature and particular political objectives. Yet, although animals are central to these debates, they are also voiceless and powerless and remain marginalised from the political process.


Significance A range of parties, old and new, are battling for the attention of two broad electoral constituencies, one inclined towards Europe, and the other looking east to Russia. Moscow has a clear interest in its Socialist allies winning, but that outcome is uncertain. Impacts Perceptions that the political process (regardless of victors) is controlled by oligarchs will dampen investor interest. The EU is already concerned about some of its notional allies in government but would prefer a pro-Western to a pro-Moscow government. The longer-term drift, economic and ultimately political, is towards the EU.


2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane P. Singh ◽  
Jaroslav Tir

Comparative politics scholarship often neglects to consider how militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) shape political behavior. In this project, we advance an argument that considers voter responses to international conflict at the individual level. In particular, we consider how the well-known conditioning effects of partisanship manifest in relation to militarized international conflict. Examining individual- and macro-level data across ninety-seven elections in forty-two countries over the 1996–2011 period, we find consistent evidence of militarized conflict impacting vote choice. This relationship is, however, moderated by partisanship, conflict side (initiator or target), and conflict hostility level. Among non-copartisan voters, the incumbent benefits the most electorally from initiating low-hostility MIDs or when the country is a target of a high-hostility MID; the opposite scenarios (initiator of a high-hostility MID or target of a low-hostility MID) lead to punishment among this voter group. Copartisans, meanwhile, tend to either maintain or intensify their support in most scenarios we examine; when a country is targeted in a low-hostility MID, copartisan support erodes mildly.


2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabiana Machado ◽  
Carlos Scartascini ◽  
Mariano Tommasi

In this article, the authors argue that where institutions are strong, actors are more likely to participate in the political process through institutionalized arenas, while where they are weak, protests and other unconventional means of participation become more appealing. The authors explore this relationship empirically by combining country-level measures of institutional strength with individual-level information on protest participation in seventeen Latin American countries. The authors find evidence that weaker political institutions are associated with a higher propensity to use alternative means for expressing preferences, that is, to protest.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 5-10
Author(s):  
А. Y. Kravets

The main aim of the article is the conceptualization of the categorical apparatus of biopolitics. The focus is on biocentrism as one of the main categories of modern biopolitical discourse. It is stated that biopolitics today offers a variety of research directions and a specific categorical apparatus, while fluctuations in the interpretations of the main terms and categories should be noted. The main terms are considered: «biopolitics», «political man», biopower and biocentrism. The definition of the above terms in the biopolitics is systematized and proposed author’s definitions. «Homo Politicus» as a phenomenon was a complicated and problematic subject of scientific conceptualization. Proposed particulars of the biopolitical view on «Homo Politicus»: «Homo Politicus» is genetically related with another biological species and this definitely has influence to his behaviour in social and political sphere. For instance, any human being as any social primates has genetic inclination to adaptation, domination, subjugation. In case with «Homo Sapiens» this has a form of genetic and social adaptation, political domination and subjugation. The inclination to the domination from one side to the subjugation to another side is genetically «imprinted» in to the nature of the «Homo Politicus». However it is important to be mentioned that nevertheless the «Homo Sapiens» shares inclination of social primates for hierarchical social organization, at the same time he developed capabilities which are unique in animal world, such as: language, culture and morale. Thus, ideas and values created by the human being commenced changing of his behavior in social and political sphere. Author’s definitions: «Political man» as an individual with innate properties of the brain and the psyche that affects his social and political behavior can be adjusted in the process of socialization and education and change in accordance with the challenges of the twenty-first century. Biopolitics as a new evolutionary paradigm of contemporary political science that explores the «political man» as a biological species with an emphasis on psycho-physiological mechanisms of political behavior and their influence on the political process. Biopower as a new model of power relations, enshrined at the legislative level, designed to protect life in all its forms and manifestations. Biocentrism is aimed at protecting life in all spheres, understanding that a person is only part of the overall biodiversity, and therefore has no right to destroy the biosphere guided by economic benefits.


2004 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Czajka

O golpe militar de abril de 1964 determinou-se como um marco decisivo na história política e cultural da sociedade brasileira. A proposição tem sido aceita não somente pela forma como ficou conhecida a estrutura do Estado após o advento das forças militares na cena política, mas pela intensa atividade cultural e artística por parte de intelectuais e artistas na década de 1960. Em geral, essa condição procura incutir uma certa unidade referencial nos movimentos artístico-culturais, que tinham como espelho a conduta política do Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) – partido proeminente no período em questão. Embora o PCB tivesse adesão de inúmeros artistas e intelectuais, que procuravam firmar oposição ao regime e à política exercida pelos militares. Havia, por outro lado, um contingente de professores, escritores, jornalistas, poetas, diretores, atores e atrizes, entre outros, que faziam resistência sem efetivamente vincularem-se ao PCB. O chamado “pecebismo” era um elemento presente entre esse grupos, mas nunca respondeu necessariamente pela unidade (como numa “frente única”) ou articulação dos mesmos. Assim pode ser caracterizada, por exemplo, a ação do Comando dos Trabalhadores Intelectuais e da Revista Civilização Brasileira entre 1963-1968, nos quais constata-se a formação de um campo heterogêneo com disputas de projetos e debate de idéias que favoreceram a formação de uma esfera cultural crítica e abrangente. Redesigning ideologies: culture and politics at the time of a coup Abstract The military blow of April of 1964 was determined as a decisive landmark in the political and cultural history of the Brazilian society. The proposal has been accepted not only for the form as the advent of the military forces in the scene was known the structures of the State after politics, but for the intense cultural and artistic activity on the part of intellectuals and artists in the decade of 1960. In general, this condition looks for to infuse a certain referencial unit in the artistic-cultural movements, that had as mirror the political behavior of Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) – broken prominent in the period in question. Although the PCB had adhesion of innumerable artists and intellectuals, who worked to firm opposition to the regimen and the politics exerted for the military. There was, on the other hand, a contingent of professors, writers, journalists, poets, directors, actors and actresses, among others, that made resistance without associating the PCB effectively to it. The called “pecebismo” was a present element among these groups, but it never answered necessarily for the union (as in a “frente única”) or joint of the same ones. Thus it can be characterized, for example, the action of the Comando dos Trabalhadores Intelectuais and the Revista Civilização Brasileira between 1963-1968, in which the formation of a heterogeneous field with disputes of projects is established, with debate of ideas that had favored the formation of a critical and including cultural sphere.


2020 ◽  
pp. 283-295
Author(s):  
Ann Jefferson

This chapter discusses the new dimension that was added to Nathalie Sarraute's life when she renewed contact with Russia after the political climate in the Soviet Union has eased. It details her visit to Russia as a tourist to visit friends and reconnect links with surviving relatives whom she had not seen for twenty years. It also mentions that Nathalie's brief stay in Russia left her with two very different visions of her native country. The first was of a Soviet Russia bearing few signs of any relaxation despite Joseph Stallin's death, while the other vision was of a traditional and timeless Russia, which was vividly captured in a scene that she described to Claude Mauriac. The chapter concludes with a description of the Russian dimension of Nathalie's life that was once again a world of exiles and émigrés after her last visit to the Soviet Union in 1967.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document