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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Sergiu Hart |
| Abstract: | A "repeat voting" procedure is proposed, whereby voting is carried out in two identical rounds. Every voter can vote in each round, the results of the first round are made public before the second round, and the final result is determined by adding up all the votes in both rounds. It is argued that this simple modification of election procedures may well increase voter participation and result in more accurate and representative outcomes. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.16282&r=cdm |
| By: | Julia Cagé (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Caroline Le Pennec (HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal); Elisa Mougin (Sciences Po - Sciences Po, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | Do campaign finance regulations influence politicians? We study the effects of a French ban on corporate donations passed in 1995. We use a difference-indifferences approach and a novel dataset combining the campaign manifestos issued by every candidate running for a seat in the French parliament with detailed data on their campaign contributions. We show that banning corporate donations discourages candidates from advertising their local presence during the campaign, as well as economic issues. The ban also leads candidates from non-mainstream parties to use more polarized language. These findings suggest that private donors shape politicians' topics of interest, and that campaign finance reforms may affect the information made available to voters through their impact on candidates' rhetoric. |
| Keywords: | Elections, Campaign finance, Corporate donations, Campaign manifestos, Political rhetoric, Text analysis |
| Date: | 2021–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03877943&r=cdm |
| By: | MIWA Hirofumi; KASUYA Yuko; ONO Yoshikuni |
| Abstract: | Political family dynasties are a staple part of Japanese politics. According to one study, Japan has the fourth highest number of dynastic politicians among democratic countries, after Thailand, the Philippines, and Iceland. As a result, many scholars have qualitatively studied how these political families are born and managed. In contrast to the abundance of qualitative research, however, very little quantitative research has focused on how Japanese voters view political dynasties. To understand this question, we conducted two nationwide surveys. Our major findings are that while the majority of respondents dislike dynastic candidates, they also value specific attributes of dynastic candidates, such as their political networks, their potential for ministerial appointments, and their ability to bring “pork projects†to their constituencies. These results serve as benchmark information on dynastic politics in Japan. They are also distinct from the findings of existing studies that Japanese voters are neutral about whether a candidate is from a dynastic family in voting decisions. |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:22113&r=cdm |
| By: | Laurent Bouton (GU - Georgetown University [Washington], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research); Julia Cagé (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Edgard Dewitte (Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Vincent Pons (Harvard Business School - Harvard University [Cambridge], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, NBER - National Bureau of Economic Research [New York] - NBER - The National Bureau of Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We study the characteristics and behavior of small campaign donors and compare them to large donors by building a dataset including all the 340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission between 2005 and 2020. Thanks to the reporting requirements of online fundraising platforms first used by Democrats (ActBlue) and now Republicans (WinRed), we observe contribution-level information on the vast majority of small donations. We first show that the number of small donors (donors who do not give more than $200 to any committee during a two-year electoral cycle) and their total contributions have been growing rapidly. Second, small donors include more women and more ethnic minorities than large donors, but their geographical distribution does not differ much. Third, using a saturated fixed effects model, we find that race closeness, candidate ideological extremeness, whether candidates and donors live in the same district or state, and whether they have the same ethnicity increase contributions, with lower effects for small donors. Finally, we show that campaign TV ads affect the number and size of contributions to congressional candidates, particularly for small donors, indicating that pull factors are relevant to explain their behavior. |
| Keywords: | Campaign finance, Campaign contributions, Small donations, ActBlue, WinRed, TV advertising |
| Date: | 2021–12–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03878175&r=cdm |
| By: | Jaakko Meriläinen; Matti Mitrunen |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence of political legacies of exposure to a violent class conflict over 100 years. We revisit the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and first trace out the impact of local conflict exposure on electoral outcomes over a quarter-century period between the World Wars. The electoral performance of left-wing parties that backed the insurgents was persistently and negatively affected by civil war casualties on both sides of the conflict. |
| Keywords: | Civil conflict, Class, Elections, Politics, Conflict, War |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2022-163&r=cdm |
| By: | Tiffany BARNES; Charles CRABTREE; MATSUO Akitaka; ONO Yoshikuni |
| Abstract: | How do political candidates strategically use emotive language for electoral purposes? We argue that women candidates are more constrained in the strategies available to them in shielding themselves from backlash on the campaign trail. To test our theoretical expectations, we construct and use a dataset of approximately 165, 000 Tweets from 2, 662 candidates and responses to these Tweets that were posted during the last two UK General Elections. Our analysis of candidate Tweets finds that women candidates are more positive and less negative than their men counterparts, regardless of whether they are incumbent or challengers. Importantly, this pattern of women’s behavior is not simply reflective of socialization. Indeed, our results show that negative Tweets attract more attention (in terms of the number of replies and likes) for both men and women, but that negative Tweets from women candidates are met with more negative responses than those from men. In other words, women candidates face backlash when they engage in negative emoting. These findings suggest that, consistent with our argument, women candidates are strategically motivated to behave in gender-typical ways in election campaigns. |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:22114&r=cdm |
| By: | Pereira, Rafael H. M.; Vieira, Renato. S.; Bizzarro, Fernando (Harvard University); Barbosa, Rogério J.; Dahis, Ricardo; Ferreira, Daniel Travassos |
| Abstract: | Transportation costs are an under-appreciated barrier to political participation. Here we examine whether a large-scale intervention to lower these costs, the adoption of a fare-free transit policy on election day in Brazil, increases voter turnout. Taking into account the different timing of when municipalities adopted a fare-free transit policy between the first and second rounds of the country's 2022 presidential election, we use different event study designs to examine the policy impact on voter turnout rates, election outcomes, and human mobility levels. We find no effect of the policy on turnout or election outcomes, but we find a positive effect, between 7.2\% and 17.5\% increase, on mobility levels on election day. While reducing transportation monetary costs may improve people’s access to polling places, our findings suggest it is not sufficient on its own to increase voter turnout. |
| Date: | 2022–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:fzwgq&r=cdm |