Suchergebnisse

This article analyses the media coverage of the 2013 Bulgarian 'nuclear' referendum. We investigate the balance between Yes and No arguments on the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant, nuclear energy in general, and conducting a referendum on the nuclear issue. We also examine the quality of the reasons given and the frequency of government and ruling party sources. We find that the newspapers under examination voiced a diversity of viewpoints and sources. In light of recent assessments of the Bulgarian media, bias in media coverage of the referendum was not significant. Adapted from the source document.

The objectives of the study were to establish whether district ideology was reflected in legislator ideal points in the 1996-1999 Duma. I integrate for the first time individual-level survey data on citizen attitudes to economic reform, the major dimension of political conflict in Russia in the 1990s, with individual legislator voting records from the 1996 to 1999 Duma. Using a Bayesian method, I estimate legislator ideal points as a function of individual and district characteristics and an individually specific random shock to assess the direct effect of district ideology and party membership. According to my results, legislators were responsive to district preferences on salient legislation such as final passage votes and key votes. The findings have implications for the effects of a mixed electoral system, which was introduced in many young democracies in Eastern Europe and Latin America. The broader conclusion of the study is that the electoral incentives in the single-member district component of the election can encourage legislative responsiveness even in a 'partial' democracy such as Russia. Adapted from the source document.

Unpacking corruption has advantages over using aggregate measures of corruption when theory generates different predictions about the effects of political institutions on different kinds of corruption. We take advantage of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance surveys conducted in 1999, 2002, and 2005 to investigate the effect of veto players on state capture and bureaucratic corruption in the postcommunist countries. According to our results, a greater number of veto players is associated with less state capture. By contrast, the number of veto players does not have a significant impact on bureaucratic corruption. Adapted from the source document.

Unpacking corruption has advantages over using aggregate measures of corruption when theory generates different predictions about the effects of political institutions on different kinds of corruption. We take advantage of the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance surveys conducted in 1999, 2002, and 2005 to investigate the effect of veto players on state capture and bureaucratic corruption in the postcommunist countries. According to our results, a greater number of veto players is associated with less state capture. By contrast, the number of veto players does not have a significant impact on bureaucratic corruption.

ObjectivesThe objectives of the study were to establish whether district ideology was reflected in legislator ideal points in the 1996–1999 Duma.MethodsI integrate for the first time individual‐level survey data on citizen attitudes to economic reform, the major dimension of political conflict in Russia in the 1990s, with individual legislator voting records from the 1996 to 1999 Duma. Using a Bayesian method, I estimate legislator ideal points as a function of individual and district characteristics and an individually specific random shock to assess the direct effect of district ideology and party membership.ResultsAccording to my results, legislators were responsive to district preferences on salient legislation such as final passage votes and key votes.ConclusionsThe findings have implications for the effects of a mixed electoral system, which was introduced in many young democracies in Eastern Europe and Latin America. The broader conclusion of the study is that the electoral incentives in the single‐member district component of the election can encourage legislative responsiveness even in a "partial" democracy such as Russia.

Previous analysis of legislative voting has focused on the behavior of nominal legislative parties, regardless of whether the country under examination was an established democracy or a newly democratized country. This approach is inadequate for countries with young party systems. To establish the extent to which legislative coalitions are party based, scholars must allow for the possibility that institutional incentives predominate over party influence. For this study, I applied a Bayesian discrete latent variable method to identify the legislative coalitions in the 1996‐99 Duma. I found that legislative alignments cut across party lines: electoral incentives and support for the president contribute to divides within parties that lack coherent platforms. Here I present a novel methodological approach to the identification of intraparty divisions and the major determinants of legislative coalitions in many legislative settings. This approach allows a comparison of the importance of party influence relative to other institutional incentives. It is especially useful for analyzing legislative voting in young party systems and where constitutional frameworks and electoral systems subject legislators to competing pressures.