This paper assesses the impact of political and fiscal accountability mechanisms on the severity and scope of human rights violations in Mexico's states during its democratic transition. First, we ...argue that elites in states with lower levels of electoral accountability are free of constraints that would normally result in their removal from office should they engage in human rights violations. Similarly, we argue that local elites maintain power while evading accountability when supported by transfers from the central government, and are thereby freer to use force. We find statistical support for our claims that lower levels of procedural democracy and higher levels of central transfers are associated with higher levels of human rights and physical integrity rights violations. These results are robust to subsample and numerous economic and other factors. Our findings suggest that particularly during democratic transitions, subnational institutions are salient in explaining the frequency of human rights violations.
Most electoral fraud is not conducted centrally by incumbents but rather locally by a multitude of political operatives. How does an incumbent ensure that his agents deliver fraud when needed and as ...much as is needed? We address this and related puzzles in the political organization of electoral fraud by studying the perverse consequences of incentive conflicts between incumbents and their local agents. These incentive conflicts result in a herd dynamic among the agents that tends to either oversupply or undersupply fraud, rarely delivering the amount of fraud that would be optimal from the incumbent’s point of view. Our analysis of the political organization of electoral fraud explains why even popular incumbents often preside over seemingly unnecessary fraud, why fraud sometimes fails to deliver victories, and it predicts that the extent of fraud should be increasing in both the incumbent’s genuine support and reported results across precincts. A statistical analysis of anomalies in precinct-level results from the 2011–2012 Russian legislative and presidential elections provides preliminary support for our key claims.
Most electoral fraud is not conducted centrally by incumbents but rather locally by a multitude of political operatives. How does an incumbent ensure that his agents deliver fraud when needed and as ...much as is needed? We address this and related puzzles in the political organization of electoral fraud by studying the perverse consequences of incentive conflicts between incumbents and their local agents. These incentive conflicts result in a herd dynamic among the agents that tends to either oversupply or undersupply fraud, rarely delivering the amount of fraud that would be optimal from the incumbent's point of view. Our analysis of the political organization of electoral fraud explains why even popular incumbents often preside over seemingly unnecessary fraud, why fraud sometimes fails to deliver victories, and it predicts that the extent of fraud should be increasing in both the incumbent's genuine support and reported results across precincts. A statistical analysis of anomalies in precinct-level results from the 2011-2012 Russian legislative and presidential elections provides preliminary support for our key claims. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press. An electronic version of this article can be accessed via the internet at http://journals.cambridge.org
Drawing on the resource theory of political participation, we compare the determinants of Internet-based e-participation and conventional offline political participation in China by employing data ...from an original survey conducted in 2013. We find that e-government and other online platforms provide more equal participation opportunities to Chinese citizens traditionally lacking political resources. Although non-party members and non-elites are disadvantaged in conventional offline participation, they are not in e-participation, especially through using e-government systems. Internet/computer access and Internet skills push individuals away from conventional offline participation, and frequent social media users are more likely to engage in e-participation. Taken together, these results suggest that e-government and other online platforms offer the genuine potential to expand the scope of participation and empowers those traditionally disadvantaged in China.
Using Afrobarometer survey data and statistical modeling techniques designed to mitigate concerns over endogeneity, we find that higher levels of political reach are associated with increased ...individual social trust. We further observe that political reach has a stronger effect on social trust in post‐conflict societies. These findings have significant implications for state‐building strategies focused on increasing social cohesion and post‐conflict governance.
The scientific study of war has largely ignored necessary conditions for war onset. Conflict scholars have previously identified alliances as a mechanism that brings about the initial expansion of ...war but have not examined whether it is a prerequisite for large wars. We argue that wars diffuse into multiparty wars only in the presence of alliances. In other words, in the absence of any alliance ties, war would not include more than two parties. We put forth a theoretical rationale for this relationship and conduct a series of tests on both dyadic and multiparty wars between 1816 and 2007. These tests provide support for our hypothesis, suggesting that alliances are a virtual necessary condition for multiparty wars: the larger the war, the more likely alliances are a necessary condition.
Abstract
To understand the relationship between place and politics, we must measure
both
political attitudes
and
the ways in which place is represented in the minds of individuals. In this paper, we ...assess a new measure of mental representation of geography, in which survey respondents draw their own local communities on maps and describe them. We use a panel study in Canada to present evidence that these maps are both valid and reliable measures of a personally relevant geographic area, laying the measurement groundwork for the growing number of studies using this technology. We hope to set efforts to measure “place” for the study of context and politics on firmer footing. Our validity assessments show that individuals are thinking about people and places with which they have regular contact when asked to draw their communities. Our reliability assessments show that people can draw more or less the same map twice, even when the exercise is repeated months later. Finally, we provide evidence that the concept of community is a tangible consideration in the minds of ordinary citizens and is not simply a normative aspiration or motivation.
Identifying the causes of happiness presents a challenge for researchers interested in this fundamental outcome variable. After reviewing previous literature looking at the causal effect of political ...participation on life satisfaction, we discuss the merits of using panel data, where there are repeated measurements over time for each individual, and discuss two common statistical models used in the analysis of panel data, the autoregressive distributed lag model, and the fixed effects model. We use both techniques to analyze the British Household Panel Survey and find evidence that social participation strongly predicts life satisfaction but not that voting participation predicts life satisfaction. We argue that the panel data models help reduce the risk of time-invariant omitted variable bias but are still subject to the problems of time-varying omitted variables and reverse causality. The article aims to provide guidance to researchers seeking to analyze the determinants of life satisfaction using large survey data sets. L'identification des causes du bonheur représente un défi pour les chercheurs intéressés par cette variable dépendante fondamentale. Après avoir passé en revue la littérature existante à la recherche de l'effet de causalité de la participation politique sur la satisfaction apportée par la vie, nous débattons des mérites de l'utilisation de données de panels où différentes mesures sont effectuées dans le temps pour chaque individu, puis nous abordons deux modèles statistiques couramment utilisés dans l'analyse de données de panels : le modèle autorégressif à retards échelonnés et le modèle à effets fixes. En utilisant ces deux techniques pour analyser l'enquête de panel des ménages britanniques (British Household Panel Survey), nous démontrons que contrairement à la participation au vote, la participation sociale constitue un prédicteur fort de la satisfaction apportée par la vie. Nous soutenons que les modèles de données de panels aident à réduire le risque de biais par oubli de variables indépendantes du temps, mais restent soumis aux problèmes d'oubli de variables dépendantes du temps et de causalité inverse. Cet article vise à guider les chercheurs qui souhaitent analyser les déterminants de la satisfaction apportée par la vie en exploitant des ensembles de données issus d'enquêtes de grande ampleur. Die Bestimmung der Ursachen für das Glücklichsein stellt für Forscher, die an dieser grundlegenden Ziel variablen interessiert sind, eine Herausforderung dar. Nach einer Prüfung der bisherigen Literatur zum kausalen Effekt der politischen Beteiligung auf die Lebenszufriedenheit diskutieren wir, inwieweit die Nutzung von Paneldaten wertvoll ist, bei denen in einem Zeitraum wiederholt Messungen für jede Person durchgeführt werden, und diskutieren zwei gebräuchliche statistische Modelle, die zur Analyse von Paneldaten angewandt werden, nämlich das autoregressive Distributed-Lag-Modell und das Fixed-Effects-Modell. Wir nutzen beide Techniken, um das British Household Panel Survey eine repräsentative Befragung von britischen Haushalten zu analysieren und finden Beweise dafür, dass die gesellschaftliche Beteiligung eine starke Prognose für die Lebenszufriedenheit aufstellt; nicht jedoch dafür, dass eine Wahlbeteiligung Lebenszufriedenheit prognostiziert. Wir behaupten, dass die Paneldaten-Modelle dazu beitragen, das Risiko der Verzerrung aufgrund zeitinvarianter ausgelassener Variablen zu mindern, jedoch weiterhin den Problemen zeitvarianter ausgelassener Variablen und der umgekehrten Kausalität ausgesetzt sind. Der Beitrag soll Forschern, die die Determinanten der Lebenszufriedenheit unter der Verwendung von Daten aus großen Umfragen analysieren möchten, entsprechende Anleitungen anbieten. La identificación de las causas de la felicidad presenta un desafío para los investigadores interesados en esta variable de resultado fundamental. Después de revisar el material publicado previo buscando el efecto causal de la participación política en la satisfacción de la vida, analizamos los méritos de utilizar datos de panel, en los que existen mediciones repetidas a lo largo del tiempo para cada individuo, y analizamos dos modelos estadísticos comunes utilizados en el análisis de datos de panel, el modelo de rezago distribuido autorregresivo y el modelo de efectos fijos. Utilizamos ambas técnicas para analizar la Encuesta Panel de Hogares Británico y para encontrar evidencias de que la participación social predice fuertemente la satisfacción de la vida pero no que la participación en votaciones predice la satisfacción de la vida. Argumentamos que los modelos de datos de panel reducen el riesgo de sesgo de variables omitidas invariables con el tiempo pero siguen sujetos a los problemas de las variables omitidas que varían con el tiempo y la causalidad inversa. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo proporcionar orientación a los investigadores que tratan de analizar los determinantes de la satisfacción con la vida utilizando grandes conjuntos de datos de encuesta.
Identifying the causes of happiness presents a challenge for researchers interested in this fundamental outcome variable. After reviewing previous literature looking at the causal effect of political ...participation on life satisfaction, we discuss the merits of using panel data, where there are repeated measurements over time for each individual, and discuss two common statistical models used in the analysis of panel data, the autoregressive distributed lag model, and the fixed effects model. We use both techniques to analyze the British Household Panel Survey and find evidence that social participation strongly predicts life satisfaction but not that voting participation predicts life satisfaction. We argue that the panel data models help reduce the risk of time-invariant omitted variable bias but are still subject to the problems of time-varying omitted variables and reverse causality. The article aims to provide guidance to researchers seeking to analyze the determinants of life satisfaction using large survey data sets.
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