Estimating the Conflict Dimensionality in the German Länder from Vote Advice Applications, 2014–2017

Building on the spatial model of party competition, we investigate the structure of political conflict in German subnational politics. Little research has examined the conflict dimensionality at the Länder level. Moreover, the few studies which have done so predominantly rely on a deductive approach that pre-structures the conflict space using presumed conflict dimensions. In this paper, we put these dimensionality assumptions to the test with an inductive approach that capitalizes on parties’ preference expressions in vote advice applications. We circumvent the common concern that data from vote advice applications is too sparse for assessing political conflict structures by estimating a space that bridges multiple elections. Unlike previous research, we find that political conflict is defined by a comprehensive left-right dimension and a secondary dimension separating mainstream parties from fringe competitors. This anti-establishment dimension is characterized by diverging preferences over democratic institutions and policies considered consensual among the political mainstream.

The 2015 Qualitative Election Study of Britain

The Qualitative Election Study of Britain (qesb) is the first (and only) qualitative longitudinal dataset to investigate political attitudes and voting behaviour over multiple elections and referendums in the United Kingdom. During the 2015 uk general election over 90 voters participated in 23 focus groups across England, Scotland, and Wales before and after polling day. These participants represented a range of political party supporters and independent voters, age groups, and economic backgrounds. They discussed a range of political issues including their vote choice in the election, their impressions of the major party leaders, why they would consider voting (or never voting) for a political party, and their expectations for the country moving forward. Special focus groups were also held around the three leaders’ debates. The 2015 qesb also brought back participants who had participated in the 2010 qesb focus groups and the 2014 Scottish referendum focus groups. The 2015 qesb has created a unique panel of participants whose political opinions can be tracked across multiple elections. The project also includes questions that were asked in prior election focus groups and has replicated, with some modifications, the research design of the previous wave of the study.

Reform and Representation: A New Method Applied to Recent Electoral Changes

Can electoral reforms such as an independent redistricting commission and the top-two primary create conditions that lead to better legislative representation? We explore this question by presenting a new method for measuring a key indicator of representation—the congruence between a legislator’s ideological position and the average position of her district’s voters. Our novel approach combines two methods: the joint classification of voters and political candidates on the same ideological scale, along with multilevel regression and post-stratification to estimate the position of the average voter across many districts in multiple elections. After validating our approach, we use it to study the recent impact of reforms in California, showing that they did not bring their hoped-for effects.

College football, elections, and false-positive results in observational research

A recent, widely cited study [Healy AJ, Malhotra N, Mo CH (2010) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(29):12804–12809] finds that college football games influence voting behavior. Victories within 2 weeks of an election reportedly increase the success of the incumbent party in presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections in the home county of the team. We reassess the evidence and conclude that there is likely no such effect, despite the fact that Healy et al. followed the best practices in social science and used a credible research design. Multiple independent sources of evidence suggest that the original finding was spurious—reflecting bad luck for researchers rather than a shortcoming of American voters. We fail to estimate the same effect when we leverage situations where multiple elections with differing incumbent parties occur in the same county and year. We also find that the purported effect of college football games is stronger in counties where people are less interested in college football, just as strong when the incumbent candidate does not run for reelection, and just as strong in other parts of the state outside the home county of the team. Lastly, we detect no effect of National Football League games on elections, despite their greater popularity. We conclude with recommendations for evaluating surprising research findings and avoiding similar false-positive results.

Parties hold key to Africa stability, reform prospects

Subject Effect of political parties on reform and stability in Africa. Significance Despite Nigeria's historic election, the broad continental trend is that the future of many sub-Saharan African (SSA) states lies with ruling parties, not opposition politics. The convergence of multiple elections in 2015-16 along with commodity price shocks are bringing many ruling party regimes to a critical juncture. The structure of these regimes are an important indicator for the prospects for reforms and stability. Impacts Narrow-based ruling parties in oil rich states are being forced to rationalise patronage networks to deal with the price shock. The broad character of Ghana's ruling and opposition parties means that both would face obstacles implementing IMF reforms. South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance finds it hard to set clear policies while growing its base and attracting coalition partners.