scholarly journals Legislative Activity and Private Benefits: A Natural Experiment in New Zealand

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-570
Author(s):  
Massimo Morelli ◽  
Moritz Osnabrügge ◽  
Matia Vannoni
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Causal Relation ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Private Benefits ◽  
Legislative Studies ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Legislative Activity ◽  
Legislative Performance

AbstractWe examine the causal effect of legislative activity on private benefits, which have been largely neglected by previous research in legislative studies. By relying on a natural experiment in New Zealand, where randomly selected Members of Parliament (MPs) are given the opportunity to propose legislation, we find evidence for a causal relation between proposing a (successful) bill and the private benefits MPs receive, in terms of gifts and payments for services. We conclude that the allocation of private benefits depends on legislative performance.

The Causal Effect of Polls on Turnout Intention: A Local Randomization Regression Discontinuity Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Pablo Brugarolas ◽  
Luis Miller
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Causal Effect

Abstract This letter reports the results of a study that combined a unique natural experiment and a local randomization regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effect of polls on turnout intention. We found that the release of a poll increases turnout intention by 5%. This effect is robust to a number of falsification tests of predetermined covariates, placebo outcomes, and changes in the time window selected to estimate the effect. The letter discusses the advantages of the local randomization approach over the standard continuity-based design to study important cases in political science where the running variable is discrete; a method that may expand the range of empirical topics that can be analyzed using regression discontinuity methods.

Why Politicians Are More Tolerant: Selective Recruitment and Socialization Among Political Elites in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Sullivan ◽  
Pat Walsh ◽  
Michal Shamir ◽  
David G. Barnum ◽  
James L. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Members Of Parliament

In this article, we present data showing that national legislators are more tolerant than the public in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. Two explanations for this phenomenon are presented and assessed. The first is the selective recruitment of Members of Parliament, Knesset and Congress from among those in the electorate whose demographic, ideological and personality characteristics predispose them to be tolerant. Although this process does operate in all four countries, it is insufficient to explain all of the differences in tolerance between elites and the public in at least three countries. The second explanation relies on a process of explicitly political socialization, leading to differences in tolerance between elites and their public that transcend individual-level, personal characteristics. Relying on our analysis of political tolerance among legislators in the four countries, we suggest how this process of political socialization may be operating.

Parliamentary privilege and defamation

1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-499
Author(s):  
Nicholas Bamforth
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Wide Definition ◽  
The Times ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
Court Of Appeal

IN the past five years, the conceptual ambiguities of Parliamentary privilege have come to haunt the courts with a vengeance. Ancient constitutional questions such as what constitutes a “proceeding” in Parliament and what counts as “questioning” a proceeding–encapsulated in colourful nineteenth-century cases like Stockdale v. Hansard (1839) 9 Ad.&E. 1, the Case of the Sheriff of Middlesex (1840) 11 Ad.&E. 273, and Bradlaugh v. Gossett (1884) 12 Q.B.D. 271–have been at the forefront of a clutch of recent decisions. In Prebble v. Television New Zealand [1995] 1 A.C. 321, the Privy Council gave new bite to Parliamentary privilege by ruling (in relation to the New Zealand Parliament) that it would be an abuse of both Article 9 of the 1689 Bill of Rights–which prohibits courts from questioning the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament–and of a broader principle of mutuality of respect between Parliament and the judiciary, to allow any party to litigation to “bring into question anything said or done in the House by suggesting (whether by direct evidence, cross-examination, inference or submission) that the actions or words were inspired by improper motives or were untrue or misleading” (above, at 337). As a result, domestic courts stayed two libel actions brought by Members of Parliament, on the basis that the claims and defences involved raised issues whose investigation would infringe Parliamentary privilege (see, e.g., Allason v. Haines, The Times, 25 July 1995). Parliament responded by enacting section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996, allowing individual MPs to waive Parliamentary privilege in order to bring defamation actions. But in an apparent reassertion of the spirit of Prebble, the Court of Appeal expressly approved–albeit outside the context of defamation–the Privy Council's wide definition of privilege as a matter of domestic law (R. v. Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, ex p. Fayed [1998] 1 W.L.R. 669, noted [1998] C.L.J. 6).

scholarly journals Using a natural experiment to estimate the electoral consequences of terrorist attacks

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (42) ◽  
pp. 10624-10629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laia Balcells ◽  
Gerard Torrats-Espinosa
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Democratic Election ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
The Military

This study investigates the consequences of terrorist attacks for political behavior by leveraging a natural experiment in Spain. We study eight attacks against civilians, members of the military, and police officers perpetrated between 1989 and 1997 by Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), a Basque terrorist organization that was active between 1958 and 2011. We use nationally and regionally representative surveys that were being fielded when the attacks occurred to estimate the causal effect of terrorist violence on individuals’ intent to participate in democratic elections as well as on professed support for the incumbent party. We find that both lethal and nonlethal terrorist attacks significantly increase individuals’ intent to participate in a future democratic election. The magnitude of this impact is larger when attacks are directed against civilians than when directed against members of the military or the police. We find no evidence that the attacks change support for the incumbent party. These results suggest that terrorist attacks enhance political engagement of citizens.

scholarly journals Built environment changes and active transport to school among adolescents: BEATS Natural Experiment Study protocol

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. e034899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Mandic ◽  
Debbie Hopkins ◽  
Enrique García Bengoechea ◽  
Antoni Moore ◽  
Susan Sandretto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Active Transport ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
Randomised Controlled

IntroductionNatural experiments are considered a priority for examining causal associations between the built environment (BE) and physical activity (PA) because the randomised controlled trial design is rarely feasible. Few natural experiments have examined the effects of walking and cycling infrastructure on PA and active transport in adults, and none have examined the effects of such changes on PA and active transport to school among adolescents. We conducted the Built Environment and Active Transport to School (BEATS) Study in Dunedin city, New Zealand, in 2014–2017. Since 2014, on-road and off-road cycling infrastructure construction has occurred in some Dunedin neighbourhoods, including the neighbourhoods of 6 out of 12 secondary schools. Pedestrian-related infrastructure changes began in 2018. As an extension of the BEATS Study, the BEATS Natural Experiment (BEATS-NE) (2019–2022) will examine the effects of BE changes on adolescents’ active transport to school in Dunedin, New Zealand.Methods and analysisThe BEATS-NE Study will employ contemporary ecological models for active transport that account for individual, social, environmental and policy factors. The published BEATS Study methodology (surveys, accelerometers, mapping, Geographic Information Science analysis and focus groups) and novel methods (environmental scan of school neighbourhoods and participatory mapping) will be used. A core component continues to be the community-based participatory approach with the sustained involvement of key stakeholders to generate locally relevant data, and facilitate knowledge translation into evidence-based policy and planning.Ethics and disseminationThe BEATS-NE Study has been approved by the University of Otago Ethics Committee (reference: 17/188). The results will be disseminated through scientific publications and symposia, and reports and presentations to stakeholders.Trial registration numberACTRN12619001335189.

The Janus-Face of Digitalization: The Relation Between Internet Use and Civic Engagement Reconsidered

2019 ◽  
pp. 089443931986196
Author(s):  
Julian Erhardt ◽  
Markus Freitag
Keyword(s):  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Internet Use ◽  
Causal Relation ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Internet Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Robust Evidence

Research on the influence of digital technology on civic engagement debates whether Internet use leads to the decline of civic engagement or enables new social contacts and exchanges. We argue that whether Internet use has positive or negative effects on our civic engagement depends on how we use the Internet: Social Internet use and Internet use for information strengthen civic engagement, while private Internet use and Internet use for entertainment erode civic engagement. Data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social sciences (LISS) Panel and the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) allow us to employ differentiated measures of Internet use. In particular, their panel structure helps diminish the endogeneity problems of cross-sectional studies. By employing an autoregressive cross-lagged panel design, we are able to disentangle the relation between Internet use and associational participation and estimate the causal effect between the two variables in both directions. Analyzing associational participation as a pivotal pillar of the civil society, we show that social Internet use for information, in particular exchanging e-mails, but also being active on social network sites in the SHP, increases the likelihood of becoming or remaining active in an organization. At the same time, we fail to find consistent and robust evidence for the negative effects of Internet use. However, the causal relation also works the other way round: Associational participation was shown to increase the time respondents spend with writing e-mails, leading to a virtuous circle, whereby online and off-line forms of social engagement complement and enhance each other.

Public Support for Increasing Women and Minority MPs

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Catherine Bolzendahl ◽  
Hilde Coffé
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Income Differences ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi ◽  
Using Data

AbstractMost democracies fail to provide equal representation and tend to have an overrepresentation of men from the upper class and the majority racial or ethnic group. We investigate public support for increasing the number of women and indigenous Māori members of parliament (MPs) in the New Zealand Parliament, both in general and through specific mechanisms such as quotas and reserved seats. We offer three explanations: descriptive (group identity), substantive (issue alignment), and symbolic (socioeconomic and political equity concerns). Using data from the 2014 New Zealand Election Study, we found that shared identity (descriptive) matters for all measures of increased representation, but especially for Māori respondent support of increased Māori MPs. Support for increasing the proportion of Māori MPs is also strongly driven by substantive concerns, as measured by support for keeping the Treaty of Waitangi in law. Support for increasing the number of women MPs is driven most strongly by symbolic concerns (measured as increased government social spending and efforts to reduce income differences). Overall, respondents favor retaining the current number of reserved seats for Māori MP representation, whereas informal efforts (rather than quotas) are strongly preferred for increasing the number of women MPs.

The Parliament (FOLKETINGET)

2020 ◽  
pp. 87-106
Author(s):  
Helene Helboe Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Legislative Studies ◽  
Institutional Approach ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
Committee Membership ◽  
The Government

This chapter asks how powerful, professional, and trusted the Danish Parliament, Folketinget, is. Based on a rational institutional approach, the chapter analyses existing and newly collected data on parliamentary institutions, parliamentary activity, members of Parliament, and voters’ perception of Parliament. The analyses show that the Folketing is especially strong and active when it comes to controlling the government, whereas its elective power is limited. The professionalization is increasing in terms of resources and well-educated members, but the degree of sectorization in committee membership is decreasing, possibly lowering specialization within Parliament and parliamentary party groups. Generally, Danish citizens still trust the Folketing, but trust is decreasing to an extent where it is no longer evident that most citizens see the Folketing as a democratic legitimizing institution. The chapter concludes that the Folketing is relatively powerful, professional, and trusted compared to other parliaments, but it also highlights where the Folketing as well as Danish legislative studies face challenges.

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