The Timeline of Elections: A Comparative Perspective is now available on Early View, and the authors summarize the article here:

How do voters’ preferences come into focus in between elections?  Do they evolve in a patterned way?  Does the structure and evolution of preferences vary across countries?  In the paper we consider differences in political institutions.  We examine government institutions, especially differences between presidential and parliamentary systems, and electoral institutions, such as differences between proportional representation and single-member district plurality systems.

Polls and the Vote over the Election Timeline in 45 Countries

For this research, we amassed over 26,000 vote intention polls in 45 countries since 1942. This data covers 312 discrete electoral cycles in total.  Our analysis relates Election Day vote shares to the support for parties or candidates in the pre-election polls day-by-day over the election timeline.  Figure 1 below illustrates how the vote and the polls line up at various points during the election cycle.

Figure 1. Scatterplot of Party Vote Share by Party Poll Share for Selected Days of the Election Cycle—Pooling all Elections

In the upper left-hand panel, using all polls available 900 days before the election, there already is a discernible correspondence, though there also is a good amount of variation.  As we turn to polls later in the election cycle, moving horizontally and then vertically through the figure, a clearer pattern emerges; the poll share and final vote share line up.  It is not highly surprising, but it is as one would expect if voters’ preferences change and a nontrivial portion lasts.  But how much do preferences evolve?  And, how do political institutions matter?

To provide a definitive assessment, we estimate a series of equations predicting the vote share for parties or candidates in different elections across countries from vote intentions in the polls on each day of the timeline.  These allow us to show whether and how preferences come into focus over time.

Government Institutions

Our analyses reveal considerable differences between presidential and parliamentary elections.  This can be seen in Figure 2, which plots the root mean squared errors (RMSEs) from each of the daily vote-poll regressions over the final 200 days of the election cycle.   At the beginning, polls are much more informative in parliamentary elections, with an RMSE of 4 percentage points by comparison with 6 points for presidential elections.  The difference is statistically significant; as can be seen, the confidence intervals do not overlap.  The gap narrows over time, with preferences for presidential elections coming increasingly into focus, and the two are virtually indistinguishable on Election Day.  There thus are important differences in the structure and evolution of preferences in presidential and parliamentary elections.  Other analysis shows little difference in the pattern for legislative elections in presidential and parliamentary systems, however.  The main difference relating to government institutions is between presidential elections on the one hand and legislative elections on the other.

Figure 2. Root Mean Squared Errors for Presidential and Parliamentary Elections Taken Separately – Pooling Elections with Continuous Poll Readings

Electoral Institutions

We find less evidence of the influence of proportional and plurality systems on how electoral preferences evolve over the timeline.  Figure 3 plots the RMSEs for regressions relating the polls and the legislative vote in proportional and single member district plurality systems.  This suggests that polls are slightly more predictive in proportional systems.  The differences are very small, however, and only intermittently statistically significant.  If nothing else, the results indicate that preferences do not come into focus earlier and more completely in proportional systems, though additional analysis does suggest that party-centric electoral rules that are often associated with PR systems do matter.

Figure 3. Root Mean Squared Errors for Legislative Elections in Proportional and Plurality Systems

Conclusion and Implications

Voter preferences evolve in a systematic way over the election timeline in a wide range of representative democracies.  But the pattern is not precisely the same in all countries.  Political institutions structure the evolution of voters’ preferences, though especially the difference between presidential and legislative elections.  In this paper we only scratch the surface of the variation in context, however.  Political institutions differ in ways that we have not considered.  There are other differences in context that we have not even begun to explore.  Some of the differences relate to countries themselves.  Other differences relate not to political institutions or the countries themselves, but to characteristics of political parties.  Clearly, much research remains to be done, and our methodology can help guide the way.

A brief summary of the forthcoming article “Tracing the Flow of Policy Ideas in Legislatures: A Text Reuse Approach” by John Wilkerson, David Smith, and Nicholas Stramp:

HR 3590 of the 111th Congress (2009-10) proposed mortgage subsidies for service personnel and was just 7 pages long as introduced. As enacted, HR 3590 was titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and was over 900 pages long. How did this bill evolve? Who contributed to this evolution? In our article we describe a new approach to studying lawmaking that systematically traces the progress of policy ideas in legislation, rather than the progress of bills. This new approach allows us to paint a more complete picture of how “ObamaCare” developed – a picture that includes important policy contributions from Republicans and Democrats alike. One important implication is that the methods described may eventually enable citizens to more fairly assess the policy performance of their representatives. Lawmakers who are not effective in advancing bills may be more effective in advancing their policy ideas. We offer many examples in the case of this one law.

The forth coming article “Great Expectations: A Field Experiment to Improve Accountability in Mali” by Jessica Gottlieb is summarized by the author here:

Since free and fair elections became the norm in a large portion of the developing world with often disappointing results, policymakers and researchers alike have been trying to understand why these formal democratic institutions fail to generate more political accountability.  Some existing answers are that poverty and inequality lead to patronage politics and facilitate corruption.  We also know that deficits in political information among largely rural and uneducated voters make it easier for politicians to shirk.  In this article, I offer a novel explanation for the failure of electoral accountability particular to new democracies: voters have low expectations of what their governments can and should do for them.

Voters in young democracies are more likely to underestimate politician performance when their prior beliefs about politicians are informed by experience with unaccountable governments, when politicians have yet to form reputations that weed out poor candidates, and when there are newly decentralized governments with authorities previously under the jurisdiction of the federal government.  Furthermore, new and developing democracies are also plagued by low levels of civic education and poor access to credible media outlets.

My argument has implications for the kinds of information that should be provided to voters to improve their ability to sanction politicians.  Specifically, voters need more accurate reference points against which to evaluate politician performance.  Key reference points include 1) general performance standards and 2) the relative performance of politicians in comparable polities.

To test the argument, I provide information about both types of reference points in one developing democracy, Mali.  Because of difficulties in identifying causation between voter knowledge and politician performance, I randomly assign some decentralized localities to receive the information – in the form of a civics course.  In 32 communes, the course provides information about general performance standards relating to the responsibility and capacity of local governments to provide a range of public goods.  In 32 communes, a slightly longer course provides additional information about the relative performance of local governments in the sample.  Thirty-one communes serve as the control group.

Survey evidence (N=5,560) evaluating the first step of the argument, that informing voter reference points increases expectations, reveals the civics course effectively raised participant expectations of local government performance.  Evidence supporting the main claim – that greater expectations lead to increased sanctioning of poor performers – comes from experiments embedded in candidate vignettes.  I find that treatment improved voter willingness to 1) sanction poor-performing candidates and 2) vote on the basis of performance rather than kinship or gift-giving.  To add external validity to survey findings, I examine impacts on one behavioral outcome and find that the civics course increases the likelihood that citizens challenge local leaders at a town hall meeting.

The main contribution of the article is demonstrating the relevance of a new type of information in voter decision-making.  That a civics course can inform voter beliefs about expected politician performance, as a possible input to increasing government accountability, is important for students and practitioners of democracy in Africa and beyond.

By Prakash Adhikari

NEPAL – November 2008: Mothers in Gothiwang village of Pyuthan district brainstorming coping mechanisms during the Maoist insurgency. (Photo by Prakash Adhikari)

In its mid-year report for 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had estimated that 51.2 million people had been “forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations.” The UN Refugee Agency further noted that if these individuals were to comprise one nation, it would be the 26^th largest in the world. Not since World War II have there been so many displaced by conflict. The forthcoming mid-year report for 2015, which would include new displacement figures from Syria and Ukraine and may be published anytime soon, is certainly going to alarm the world. There is no doubt that violence is a major factor displacing civilians from their homes. But for all the people that flee their homes during conflict, many more stay behind risking their lives. What else may explain why some individuals flee conflict while others stay behind?

In my research on conflict-induced displacement, partly supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), I studied factors associated with individuals’ decisions to leave home during the 1996-2006 Maoist insurgency in Nepal. Using primary data collected at the individual-level, I show that conflict by itself is not the sole factor affecting individuals’ decisions to leave. A survey of over 1800 individuals across Nepal, supplemented with qualitative interviews, resulted in in-depth quantitative and qualitative analyses of the problem of forced migration. Delving into the micro-level of analysis, I identified a number of factors affecting villagers’ decisions to flee. My research finds that the presence of community organizations within societies provides a mechanism for individuals to cope with conflict and stay put. These community-level organizations, which are embedded within the structure of a society, are often overshadowed by other issues during peace-time. Additionally, I found that these preexisting social institutions, which are an integral part of village life, become active during conflict and play a remarkable role in dampening the perceived threat of violence, enabling citizens to stay. The findings suggest that one of the ways that governments and non-government organizations can protect civilians during conflict is to help with the creation and growth of local-level community organizations.

I also find that people living in villages where there are economic opportunities are less likely to flee. Individuals choose to take a risk and stay so long as economic opportunities are available and/or their personal property, such as land, crops and animals, is not taken away by the warring parties.  People are more likely to flee when economic survival in their village becomes precarious. Arguably, ensuring that economic opportunities are not depleted in villages and that people are able to continue to support themselves and their families is likely far less costly for governments than the cost of dealing with forced migrants.

With over 52 million people currently displaced around the world, forced migration is clearly a serious problem. Overall, my research suggests that governments, humanitarian organizations and other non-government organizations may be able to play a role in preventing this massive displacement of people from conflict ridden areas around the world by focusing attention and resources on community building and economic development. Such efforts may help to reduce the frequency of costly civil conflicts as well. Given that the United States is deeply involved in preventing conflicts around the world, this research draws useful implication for mitigating human catastrophe such as the one in Syria and establishing peace around the world.

About the author: Prakash Adhikari is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Central Michigan University. His article, “Conflict-Induced Displacement: Understanding the Causes of Flight” appeared in the January 2013 issue of the American Journal of Political Science.

The forthcoming article “Legislative Capacity and Executive Unilateralism” by Alexander Bolton and Sharece Thrower is summarized here:

President Obama has received intense scrutiny for his use of executive power, facing frequent accusations that he is using unilateral orders to bypass opposition in Congress during divided government. Many believe presidents can ignore constitutional processes and impose their will with these actions. This belief is not unique to the Obama administration, but has been a common theme in political discourse and media narratives during President George W. Bush’s presidency as well as most other recent presidencies.

Political scientists, however, consistently find evidence that the president is constrained in unilateral policymaking; that is, post-WWII presidents tend to issue fewer unilateral actions under divided government. Thus, the central question arises of whether presidents use these powers to circumvent a hostile Congress or whether presidents are actually constrained by the legislative branch when exercising executive power.

Further, we must not only consider whether presidents are constrained by their legislative counterparts but when they are constrained or under what conditions. We argue that by examining presidencies prior to World War II, we can shed light not only on historical unilateralism but also investigate both when and why the president is constrained by Congress.

The size and scope of the federal government expanded rapidly from the end of the nineteenth century through World War II. The government became increasingly involved in regulating the economy, administering social welfare programs, and managing natural resources. As a result, the size of the federal workforce and expenditures increased dramatically. Yet, Congress largely stayed the same.  In particular, legislative staff sizes and expenditures were stagnant.  In addition, there were few sources of policy-relevant information independent of the executive branch. We argue that this mismatch between legislative resources and administrative growth made the task of constraining the executive branch extremely difficult for Congress during this period.

By examining the case of executive orders, we explore how the president’s use of unilateral power has changed over time based on changes in Congress’s capacity to constrain the executive branch. We argue that in the early twentieth century, Congress had more difficulty limiting executive power through statutory discretion and oversight. As a result, presidents were much more able to issue executive orders to sidestep an ideologically opposed legislature. However, as Congress began to develop institutional resources that increased its capacity to constrain the executive branch, presidents were now more limited in their use of unilateral actions.

Consistent with our theory, we find that presidents issue more executive orders under divided government between 1905 and 1944, a period we argue is characterized by low legislative capacity. However, as congressional capacity increased, we find that presidents issue fewer orders under divided government between 1945 and 2013. We also show that the impact of divided government on executive order use is conditioned by changes in legislative capacity (as measured by legislative expenditures and committee staff sizes) throughout this entire time period.

Overall, we argue that unilateral policymaking does not depend solely on the ideological relationships between political actors. Rather, inter-branch checks depend on the capacity of these governmental institutions. These findings have significant implications for understanding the development and operation of separation of powers politics in the United States as well as for institutional design more broadly.