As Asian countries emerge as global economic powers, many undergo fundamental political transformations. In Korean Democracy in Transition: A Rational Blueprint for Developing Societies, HeeMin Kim evaluates the past thirty years of political change in South Korea, including the decision of the authoritarian government to open up the political process in 1987 and the presidential impeachment of 2004. Kim uses rational choice theory-which holds that individuals choose to act in ways that they think will give them the most benefit for the least cost-to explain events central to South Korea's demo
The impact of candidates' negative traits (CNTs) on voting behavior has received significant attention in election studies in recent decades. However, scholarly efforts have focused primarily on elections in advanced Western democracies, largely overlooking the relationship between candidates' personal traits and the electorate's voting behaviors in the context of new democracies. In this study, we fill this gap by investigating the impact of CNTs on the electorate's vote choices in South Korean presidential elections. Our study of CNTs in South Korea shows that CNTs have statistically significant effects on the electorate's vote choices. Our findings are particularly relevant because many new democracies are implementing fair and free elections, and the elites under previous authoritarian regimes are running in these elections.
Tactical voting primarily takes place under single-member district plurality electoral institutions and takes the form of third-party supporters voting for one of the major parties. Although much has been written about tactical voting, few studies have attempted to show its impact on seat distribution within the parliament or on the makeup of the subsequent government, in countries with single-member plurality systems. In this article, we assess the magnitude and impact of tactical voting in0 the Canadian general elections between 1988 and 2000. We build a model of tactical voting by identifying factors that are known to affect the level of tactical voting that we can measure using available data. Based on this model, we generate predicted levels of tactical voting for all parties within each district, and then use these predicted values to adjust the actual election data to produce a new set of data containing a would-be election outcome in the absence of tactical voting. By comparing actual election data, adjusted election data, and the seat share of political parties in the parliament after these elections, we discuss the political impact of tactical voting in Canada. The results of our study affirm that, in some cases, tactical voting does lead to election outcomes different from those in its absence and that arguments based on voter rationality are to some degree valid in the real world. At the same time, our results demonstrate that the impact of tactical voting on election outcomes, and thus on the actual distribution of seats within the parliament, has been minimal in Canada. It had no impact on the partisan composition of the government in any of the four elections studied.
Abstract. In this article, we update and expand the measure of voter ideology we originally proposed in this journal in 1998. Our new measure combines party manifesto data most recently updated byBudge et al. (2001) with election return data. Assuming the comparability and relevance of left‐right ideology, we estimate the median voter position in 25 Western democracies throughout most of the postwar period. With this measure, we are able to make cross‐national comparisons of voter ideology among these countries, as well as cross‐time comparisons within individual countries.
In this article, we update and expand the measure of voter ideology we originally proposed in this journal in 1998. Our new measure combines party manifesto data most recently updated by Budge et al. (2001) with election return data. Assuming the comparability and relevance of left-right ideology, we estimate the median voter position in 25 Western democracies throughout most of the postwar period. With this measure, we are able to make cross-national comparisons of voter ideology among these countries, as well as cross-time comparisons within individual countries. (European Journal of Political Research / FUB)
Abstract. In this article, we put forward a continuous measure of government partisanship, which allows meaningful comparisons across countries and across time, for 17 Western democracies for the period of 1945 through 1998. Our measure is predicated upon a manifesto‐based measure of party ideology recently developed by Kim and Fording (1998), along with yearly cabinet post data. After discussing the validity of our measure, we replicate one of the most cited works in comparative political economy over the last ten years – Alvarez, Garrett and Lange's (1991) analysis of economic performance – by utilizing our own measure of government partisanship. We conclude that comparativists need to exercise greater caution in interpreting and evaluating the past findings of a large number of multivariate studies in comparative politics.
In this article, we put forward a continuous measure of government partisanship, which allows meaningful comparisons across countries and across time, for 17 Western democracies for the period of 1945 through 1998. Our measure is predicated upon a manifesto-based measure of party ideology recently developed by Kim and Fording (1998), along with yearly cabinet post data. After discussing the validity of our measure, we replicate one of the most cited works in comparative political economy over the last ten years - Alvarez, Garrett and Lange's (1991) analysis of economic performance - by utilizing our own measure of government partisanship. We conclude that comparativists need to exercise greater caution in interpreting and evaluating the past findings of a large number of multi-variate studies in comparative politics. (European Journal of Political Research / FUB)
