Immigració i desafecció política a l'espai local: la instrumentalització política de la immigració a Catalunya i Gran Bretanya

El projecte ha tingut com a objectiu principal abordar la instrumentalització política de la immigració per part de partits polítics de nova extrema dreta. Aquest fenomen, que ha adquirit una gran rellevància a gran part dels països europeus, està adquirint una creixent rellevància en els casos britànic i català a partir de, entre altres coses, l'emergència electoral dels partits Plataforma per Catalunya i British National Party. En aquest sentit, el projecte ha tractat de desenvolupar una recerca que produís un conjunt de dades i coneixements que permetessin abordar de forma fonamentada un fenomen “nou” en el context català i que, fins al moment, ha rebut escassa atenció per part del món acadèmic. Dins d’aquest objectiu cal destacar el fet que la àmplia experiència de l’equip investigador britànic en l’anàlisi de la nova extrema dreta ha permès que els investigadors catalans poguessin desenvolupar la seva recerca recolzant-se i dialogant en la seva contrapart britànica. Els resultats de la recerca són certament novedosos i representaran una important contribució al coneixement d’aquest fenomen. Així, en el marc de la recerca s’han desenvolupat una sèrie d’entrevistes a membres i a votants de PxC, així com una enquesta a votants i una anàlisi agregada sobre el vot al partit. En aquest sentit, cal destacar que és la primera vegada que s’aconsegueixen aquest tipus de dades. Un fet que està fent, i farà, que la seva explotació i divulgació adquireixi una gran rellevància tant en el món acadèmic com en el de les administracions públiques. Finalment, convé ressaltar que el projecte també ha servit per consolidar la relació entre els equips d’investigació britànic i català i per impulsar la inserció de l’equip català en les xarxes europees d’investigació sobre aquesta matèria.

Contextual effects on political behavior

In her post-doctoral research stay, Aina Gallego has conducted several research projects with the overarching theme of identifying the effects of contexts on political behavior. She has examined the effects of institutions, the economic situation, or local contexts on outcomes such as voter turnout, vote choice, and positions on salient issues. As detailed below, this work has been published in several journal articles in leading Political Science journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Political Behavior, and Electoral Studies (see attached documents). She has a forthcoming book with Cambridge University Press, the most prestigious book press in Political Science.She has also published book chapters and has several working papers. In addition to conducting her research, Aina has received extensive training in both substantive areas and research methods. She has participated fully in the Department’s academic life by attending seminars and engaging in research projects with other members of the Department.

La manifestation

La manifestation est sans doute la forme la plus commune d'expression politique, tant dans les pays démocratiques, où sa légitimité le dispute avec plus ou moins de bonheur aux formes plus conventionnelles de participation comme le vote, que dans les pays non démocratiques, où elle accompagne les tentatives de révolte et de renversement.Dans cet ouvrage de synthèse, les auteurs proposent une analyse sociologique et historique de ce mode d'action politique, avec ses normes et ses règles, ses légendes et ses mythes, ses épisodes glorieux et ses heures sombres.Mais surtout, au-delà de l'interrogation classique sur la place de la manifestation dans le répertoire d'action contemporain et dans les luttes politiques, c'est aussi à une analyse au plus près des manifestants eux-mêmes et de «ce qui les fait courir» que cet ouvrage nous invite.

Corruption in representative democracy

A parliament with n members, distributed among two parties, decides whether to accept or reject a certain proposal. Each member of the parliament votes in favour or against. If there are at least t members in favour, the proposal is accepted; otherwise it is rejected. A non-member of the parliament, the briber, is interested in having the proposal accepted. To this end, he is willing to bribe members to induce them to vote in favour. It is compared a parliament with party discipline, where members vote according to the party line, and a parliament without party discipline, where members vote according to their own opinion. The paper determines, for given values of n and t , the average number of members that the briber has to bribe in each case (with the average taken with respect to all the possible allocations of members between parties and their votes, and also with respect to those allocations inducing the briber to bribe). The results show that a parliament with parties with party discipline is more costly for the briber to be bribed.

Le soutien aux autorités lors des votations fédérales de 1971 à 1999 dans les cantons suisses

Cet article vise à expliquer les variations inter-cantonales du succès des autorités ainsi que du soutien populaire qui leur est accordé en votation fédérale entre 1971 et 1999. A cette fin, l'auteur cherche à intégrer deux courants de recherches dans un cadre d'analyse unique en déterminant l'impact respectif des mots d'ordre des partis politiques et des facteurs socio-structurels sur le résultat de vote ainsi que leur effet conjugué. L'analyse empirique, qui est situé au niveau cantonal, est réalisée à l'aide d'une régression logistique et d'un modèle d'équations structurelles. Les résultats obtenus montrent que le caractère alémanique, catholique et agraire d'un canton se traduit par une réticence face à la politique des autorités, qui peut s'amplifier selon le type juridique de la votation et l'enjeu politique soumis au vote. Plus qu'ailleurs, les partis politiques de ces cantons s'alignent cependant fermement derrière la recommandation de vote des autorités et exercent, de ce fait, un effet atténuateur qui contribue au nivellement des disparités inter-cantonales. Ces résultats suggèrent ainsi que les partis politiques cantonaux réussissent, dans une certaine mesure, à contrôler le résultat de vote par le biais d'une concertation accrue durant la phase référendaire.

Médecines complémentaires: vers un consensus "evidence-based" à l'hôpital universitaire. [Complementary and alternative medicines (CAM): towards an "evidence-based" consensus in the University hospital]

Après la votation fédérale demandant de prendre en compte les médecines complémentaires, un consensus a été recherché dans quatorze services et unités du Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV). Confrontés aux données de la littérature (Plus de 2000 publications en "Evidence-based complementary medicine" depuis 1998), les soignants étaient tous surpris par l'ampleur des résultats cliniques disponibles actuellement. Tous identifiaient un besoin en formation et en informations sur le sujet. Une prise de position officielle de l'institution était aussi souhaitée, instituant l'enseignement et la recherche sur les médecines complémentaires et assurant la production d'informations rigoureuses et pertinentes pour la clinique. [Abstract] While a popular vote supported a new article on complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) in the Swiss Constitution, this assessment in 14 wards of the University Hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland, attempted at answering the question: How can CAM use be better taken into account and patients informed with more rigor and respect for their choices? Confronted with a review of the literature (> 2000 publications in "Evidence-based cornplementary medicine" since 1998), respondents declared their ignorance of the clinical data presently available on CAM. All were in favour of more teaching and information on the subject, plus an official statement from the Hospital direction, ensuring production and diffusion of rigorous and cJinically significant information on CAM.

Predictors of political orientation among US-born Mexican Americans: cultural identification, acculturation attitudes and socioeconomic status

With each passing election, U.S. political campaigns have renewed their efforts in courting the “Latino vote,” yet the Latino population is not a culturally homogenous voting bloc. This study examined how cultural identifications and acculturation attitudes in U.S. born Mexican Americans interacted with socioeconomic status (SES) to predict political orientation. Individuals who held stronger Mexican identity and supported biculturalism as an acculturation strategy had a more liberal orientation, while belonging to a higher SES group and holding stronger assimilation attitudes predicted a less liberal orientation. Mexican cultural identification interacted with SES such that those who held a weaker Mexican identity, but came from a higher social class were less liberal and more moderate in their political orientation. Weak Mexican identification and higher SES also predicted weaker endorsement of bicultural acculturation attitudes, which in turn, mediated the differences in political orientation. The acceptance of one’s ethnic identity and endorsement of bicultural attitudes predicted a more liberal political orientation. In light of these findings, political candidates should be cautious in how they pander to Latino constituents—referencing the groups’ ethnic culture or customs may distance constituents who are not strongly identified with their ethnic culture.

Wer gewinnt die Nationalratswahlen 2007 ? : Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von Wahlvorhersagen auf der Basis von kantonalen Parlamentswahlen

Au centre de cette contribution se pose la question de la mesure dans laquelle des résultats issus des élections cantonales peuvent servir d'instrument de pronostic pour les scores électoraux au niveau du Conseil national. L'analyse des résultats des élections tenues au cours des trente dernières années montre que les données cantonales (pondérées avec le nombre d'électeurs potentiels et la participation au vote) prédisent, dans environ neuf cas sur dix, la tendance réelle au niveau national. Si cela se vérifiait encore aux prochaines élections, alors les Verts peuvent s'attendre à des gains importants en termes de nouveaux électeurs et électrices. De même, mais dans une moindre mesure, l'UDC peux compter sur une augmentation de ses votants. Par contre, tant le PRD que le PS seront perdants et le PDC ne s'en sortira pas beaucoup mieux. En ce qui concerne la marge d'erreur de ces pronostics, elle se trouve au-dessous des 1 pourcents dans 73% des cas et pour 91% des cas elle ne dépasse pas les 2 pourcents.

Electoral Platforms, Implemented Policies, and Abstention

Recent studies of American politics evidence that political polarization of both the electorate and the political elite have moved 'almost in tandem for the past half century' (McCarty et al., 2003, p.2), and that party polarization has steadily increased since the 1970s. On the other hand, the empirical literature on party platforms and implemented policies has consistently found an imperfect but nonnegligible correlation between electoral platforms and governmental policies: while platforms tend to be polarized, policies are moderate or centrist. However, existing theoretical models of political competition are not manifestly compatible with these observations. In this paper, we distinguish between electoral platforms and implemented policies by incorporating a non-trivial policy-setting process. It follows that voters may care not only about the implemented policy but also about the platform they support with their vote. We find that while parties tend to polarize their positions, the risk of alienating their constituency prevents them from radicalizing. The analysis evidences that the distribution of the electorate, and not only the (expected) location of a pivotal voter, matters in determining policies. Our results are consistent with the observation of polarized platforms and moderate policies, and the alienation and indifference components of abstention.

Campaign effects in direct-democratic votes in Switzerland

The purpose of this article is to analyse the conditions under which referendum campaigns have an impact on voting choices. Based on a model of opinion formation that integrates both campaign effects and partisan effects, we argue that campaign effects vary according to the context of the popular vote (size and type of conflict among the party elite and intensity and direction of the referendum campaign). We test our hypotheses with two-step estimations for hierarchical models on data covering 25 popular votes on foreign, European and immigration policy in Switzerland. Our results show strong campaign effects and they suggest that their strength and nature are indeed highly conditional on the context of the vote: the type of party coalition pre-structures the patterns of individual voting choices, campaign effects are higher when the campaign is highly intense and they are more symmetric when it is balanced.

Are rules-based government programs shielded from special-interest politics? Evidence from revenue-sharing transfers in Brazil

Manipulation of government finances for the benefit of narrowly defined groups is usuallythought to be limited to the part of the budget over which politicians exercise discretion inthe short run, such as earmarks. Analyzing a revenue-sharing program between the centraland local governments in Brazil that uses an allocation formula based on local population estimates,I document two main results: first, that the population estimates entering the formulawere manipulated and second, that this manipulation was political in nature. Consistent withswing-voter targeting by the right-wing central government, I find that municipalities withroughly equal right-wing and non-right-wing vote shares benefited relative to opposition orconservative core support municipalities. These findings suggest that the exclusive focus ondiscretionary transfers in the extant empirical literature on special-interest politics may understatethe true scope of tactical redistribution that is going on under programmatic disguise.

Are Voting Advice Applications (VVAs) more than Toys ? : First findings on Impact and Accountability of VAAs

To what extent do Voting Advice Applications (VAA) have an influence on voting behaviour and to what extent should providers be hold accountable for such tools? This paper puts forward some empirical evidence from the Swiss VAA smartvote. The enormous popularity of smartvote in the last national elections in 2007 and the feedback of users and candidates let us come to the conclusion that smartvote is more than a toy and likely to have an influence on the voting decisions. Since Swiss citizens not only vote for parties but also for candidates, and the voting recommendation of smartvote is based on the political positions of the candidates, smartvote turns out to be particularly helpful. Political scientists must not keep their hands off such tools. Scientific research is needed to understand their functioning and possibilities to manipulate elections. On the bases of a legal study we come to the conclusion, that a science driven way of setting up such tools is essential for their legitimacy. However, we do not believe that there is a single best way of setting up such a tool and rather support a market like solution with different competing tools, provided they meet minimal standards like transparency and equal access for all parties and candidates. Once the process of selecting candidates and parties are directly linked to the act of voting, all these questions will become even more salient.

What do outside experts bring to a committee? Evidence from the Bank of England

We test whether outside experts have information not available to insiders by usingthe voting record of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. Memberswith more private information should vote more often against conventional wisdom,which we measure as the average belief of market economists about future interest rates. We find evidence that external members indeed have information notavailable to internals, but also use a quasi-natural experiment to show they mayexaggerate their expertise to obtain reappointment. This implies that an optimalcommittee, even outside monetary policy, should potentially include outsiders, butneeds to manage career concerns.

Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Perú

Electoral institutions that encourage citizens to vote are widely used around the world. Yet littleis known about the effects of such institutions on voter participation and the composition of the electorate.In this paper, I combine a field experiment with a change in Peruvian voting laws to identify theeffect of monetary (dis-)incentives on voting. Using the random variation in the fine for abstention andan objective measure of turnout at the individual level, I estimate the elasticity of voting with respectto cost to be -0.21. Consistent with the theoretical model presented, the reduction in turnout inducedby the reduction in the fine is driven by voters who (i) are in the center of the political spectrum, (ii)are less interested in politics, and (iii) hold less political information. However, voters who respondto changes in the cost of abstention do not have different preferences for policies than those who voteregardless of the cost. Further, involvement in politics, as measured by the decision to acquire politicalinformation, seems to be independent of the level of the fine. Additional results indicate that thereduction in the fine does not affect the incidence of vote buying, but increases the price paid for avote.

Voting after the bombing: Can terrorist attacks change the outcome of democratic elections?

Economists have recently turned their attention to the effects of terrorism. One much debated effect of terrorist attacks is its impact on the results of democratic elections. We use the electoral consequences of the terrorist attacks of the 11-M in Madrid to analyze this issue. We consider this particular experiment since the attack took place only three days before the 2004 Congressional Election, which allows the use of credible identification criteria. In particular, we use the advance voting by Spanish residents abroad, who cast their vote before the terrorist attack, to identify the effect of the bombing. We exploit this macabre natural experiment to run a difference-in-differences estimation using data on three consecutive Congressional elections. Our empirical results indicate that a terrorist attack can have a large impact on the outcome of democratic elections.