Governments in democratic systems are expected to respond to the issue preferences of citizens. Yet we have a limited understanding of the factors that cause levels of responsiveness to vary across ...time and between countries. In this article, the authors suggest that political contestation is the primary mechanism driving policy responsiveness and that this, in turn, is mediated by political institutions and government popularity. To test this proposition, the authors analyze the responsiveness of executive policy promises (speeches) and policy actions (public expenditure) in Britain, Denmark, and the United States in the period from 1970 to 2005. These time-series analyses show that higher levels of political contestation are associated with more responsive executives.
The process of establishing a constitution for Europe came to an end when voters in France and the Netherlands rejected the proposal. Analyzing both media coverage and survey data, this article seeks ...to disentangle the reasons why a majority of voters rejected the European Constitution. The authors' findings suggest that the campaign played an important role in priming certain attitudes and that vote choices, in turn, were driven by specific issue concerns rather than general dissatisfaction with the European Union or national governments. These findings have implications not only for our understanding of direct democracy in Europe but also for the study of campaign effects.
. One of the criticisms often levelled against direct democracy is that citizens lack sufficient knowledge to vote directly on policy issues. The ‘No’ votes in the French and Dutch referendums on ...the Constitutional Treaty have highlighted the importance of examining voter competence in referendums. This article proposes a theoretical framework for evaluating competence in EU referendums. It suggests that competent voting in EU referendums is based on issue‐specific preferences and requires political information. Since most voters have little detailed knowledge of European integration, they rely on heuristics and cues when deciding how to vote. The important question is how much and which type of information voters require to make competent choices. This article examines whether and under what conditions the use of party endorsements as information cues can enhance competent voting in EU referendums. These theoretical questions are examined in an analysis of the 1994 Norwegian referendum on EU membership.
The ability of a political system to respond to the preferences of its citizens is central to democratic theory and practice; yet most empirical research on government responsiveness has concentrated ...on the United States. As a result, we know very little about the nature of government policy responsiveness in Europe and we have a poor understanding of the conditions that affect cross-national variations. This comparative study examines the relationship between public opinion and policy preferences in the United Kingdom and Denmark during the past three decades. We address two key questions: First, are the government's policy intentions driven by public opinion or vice versa? Second, do political institutions influence the level of government responsiveness? We suggest that public opinion tends to drive the government's policy intentions due to the threat of electoral sanction, and that this is more pronounced in proportional systems than in majoritarian democracies.
Direct democracy allows citizens to undercut the will of their elected representatives. Yet, while the electorate has the final say in referendums, political parties are in a privileged position to ...influence voters’ perceptions of the issue on the ballot. By developing a model on voting behaviour in referendums, this article examines how and to what extent parties can influence referendum outcomes. It argues that as pivotal information providers in referendum campaigns, political parties can influence the framing of and uncertainty associated with the ballot proposal and thus, in turn, affect voting behaviour. These propositions are evaluated empirically in a ‘controlled comparison’ of the two Danish referendums on the Maastricht Treaty, as these cases allow us to examine how changes in party strategies affect changes in referendum outcomes.
Interest in politics is important for a host of political behaviors and beliefs. Yet little is known about where political interest comes from. Most studies exploring the source of political interest ...focus on parental influences, economic status, and opportunity. Here, we investigate an alternative source: genetic transmission. Using two twin samples, one drawn from Denmark and the other from USA, we find that there is a high degree of heritability in political interest. Furthermore, we show that interest in politics and political efficacy share the same underlying, latent genetic factor. These findings add to the growing body of literature that documents political behaviors and attitudes as not simply the result of socialization, but also as part of an individual's genetically informed disposition.
Is My Crown Better than Your Euro? Binzer Hobolt, Sara; Leblond, Patrick
European Union politics,
06/2009, Volume:
10, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This article examines the influence of exchange rate fluctuations on public support for the euro. Existing studies of the two euro referendums in Denmark and Sweden have explained the outcomes ...primarily in terms of static factors, thereby ignoring the fact that support fluctuates over time. This article provides an analysis of the short-term dynamics in public support for the euro in the period leading up to the referendums. We argue that exchange rate fluctuations matter, because people attach symbolic value to their national currency and are less likely to surrender a strong currency. They are also less willing to accept the euro when it is seen as weak vis-à-vis other world currencies. Our case-study and time-series analyses of the two euro campaigns corroborate these propositions.
This paper examines the micro-foundations of the second-order elections model of European Parliament (EP) elections. We extend the existing literature in several ways. First, we propose an ...individual-level model of voting behaviour in second-order elections. Second, we present the first study using experimental methods to test the predictions of the second-order model, allowing us to test the individual-level propositions about vote choice in a controlled environment. Importantly, we also examine the conditioning effect of information on the ‘second-order’ nature of voting behaviour in EP elections. Our findings show that while voters base their EP vote choices primarily on domestic preferences, those who are given additional information about the European integration dimension are also more likely to vote on this basis.
This article investigates how voters decide in referendums on European integration. More specifically, it analyses how political information influences voting behaviour. It argues that political ...information conditions the way in which people make decisions in referendums. The impact of political information is examined not only at the individual, but also at the contextual level. It is hypothesized that variations in the context of the referendum - the intensity of the campaign - produce differences in the way in which citizens act in referendums. As the intensity of the referendum campaign increases, more information is available to citizens and voters will rely more heavily on sophisticated criteria, such as attitudes and issue positions on the European Union (EU). While the informational context influences voting patterns, individuals also vary in their awareness of politics. It is argued that people with high levels of political awareness receive more information and consequently rely more on their own attitudes and less on elite cues when deciding. These theoretical propositions are tested by analysing survey data from EU referendums in Denmark, Ireland and Norway.
PDF
