Harvey D. Palmer

Cross-national analyses of economic voting

Abstract The present paper replicates and extends Powell and Whittens study of comparative economic voting (Powell, G. Bingham and Whitten, Guy D. (1993) A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting: Taking Account of the Political Context. American Journal of Political Science 37 , 391–414). We extend Powell and Whittens research in three ways. First, we have developed a theoretically more appealing method for dividing our cases according to the clarity of government responsibility. Second, we consider whether the electoral effect of economic growth varies with government composition, with large coalitions focusing on the consensual goal of improving economic growth. Third, 40 new cases have been added to the original 102 analyzed by Powell and Whitten. Using a more appropriate methodology and an expanded data set, we find strong confirmation of the results presented in Powell and Whittens study. We also find evidence that supports our theory about coalition governments and economic growth.

Heightening comparativists concern for model choice: voting behavior in Great Britain and the Netherlands

As the research methodology more closely approximates the causal process being analyzed, the inferences and predictions derived from that methodology will better represent actual behavior. Statistical models were specified on the basis of accepted theories of voting behavior and political cleavages in the Netherlands and Great Britain. We hypothesize that multinomial models provide a more accurate characterization of voting behavior in countries with more than two political parties competing for votes. Binomial logit, multinomial logit, and nested multinomial logit models of voting behavior are estimated on Dutch and British National Election Study data. Compared to binomial methods, we find that multinomial models of voting behavior produce results that are more congruent with accepted theories of Dutch and British politics.

Government competence, economic performance and endogenous election dates

Abstract Empirical research in comparative politics has largely demonstrated that favorable economic conditions improve the electoral fortunes of incumbent government parties. Thus, in parliamentary democracies in which the government can choose when to call an election there is an incentive for government parties to act strategically by calling early elections when economic conditions are favorable. Alesina, Cohen and Roubini, however, cast doubt on this proposition, finding only weak evidence of a relationship between economic factors and election timing. In this paper, we reconsider the relationship between economic conditions and endogenous election dates using new data, controlling for political factors, and applying more appropriate econometric techniques. From analyses of twelve parliamentary democracies, we find that macroeconomic performance and political context exert significant influence on election timing. All other factors being equal, better performances in terms of economic growth, inflation, and unemployment will make a government more likely to call an early election. Controlling for government ideology, we find that right-wing governments are more sensitive to inflation performance while left-wing governments are more sensitive to the level of unemployment.

The Electoral Impact of Unexpected Inflation and Economic Growth

This article supports two theoretical changes to models of comparative economic voting. The first is that the distinction between expected and unexpected components of inflation and economic growth is important. We posit that voters are primarily concerned with unexpected inflation and unexpected growth since these changes have real income effects and serve as better indicators of government competence. Empirical analyses of data from nineteen industrialized nations in 1970–94 reveal stronger electoral effects for the unexpected components of inflation and growth than for their overall levels. The second innovation is the relaxation of the assumption of homoscedasticity, which led to the finding that the relationship between economic factors and incumbent vote has become more volatile over time and is less volatile when policy-making responsibility is more obscured.

Strategic Voting in Post-Communist Democracy?

The absence of strategic voting in new democracies represents a potential threat to democratic consolidation because it could inhibit the development of a stable party system. Yet can we expect that citizens in new democracies have developed the skills associated with strategic voting in democratic elections? Based on evidence from Hungary, a post-communist democracy, this article suggests that citizens in new democracies respond to strategic voting situations in a fashion consistent with conventional theories of strategic voting. Analysis of Hungarian voting statistics over the past three national elections indicates that voters, consistent with strategic voting theories, vigorously penalized smaller parties thereby contributing to the rapid decline in the number of effective parties competing in Hungarian elections. We argue that strategic voting occurs in two stages: (1) recognition of a ‘wasted-vote’ situation and (2) strategic response to that situation.

It's Not Whether You Win or Lose, but How You Play the Game: Self-Interest, Social Justice, and Mass Attitudes toward Market Transition

To explore systematic differences in economic reasoning and what might account for them, we investigate how sociocultural conditions affect transitions to market economies in the West African country of Benin. We probe the importance of several factors: basic economic norms, utility maximization behavior, individual-level personal capital, and individual-level social capital. The evidence, based on experiments embedded in an opinion survey, indicates that Beninese citizens widely share commitments to the basic foundations of economic interaction, e.g., property rights. The nature of social capital varies across cultural and political contexts and accounts for cross-contextual variation in the costs associated with cooperative behavior and in utility maximization behavior.

Estimating peer density effects on oral health for community-based older adults

BackgroundAs part of a long-standing line of research regarding how peer density affects health, researchers have sought to understand the multifaceted ways that the density of contemporaries living and interacting in proximity to one another influence social networks and knowledge diffusion, and subsequently health and well-being. This study examined peer density effects on oral health for racial/ethnic minority older adults living in northern Manhattan and the Bronx, New York, NY.MethodsPeer age-group density was estimated by smoothing US Census data with 4 kernel bandwidths ranging from 0.25 to 1.50 mile. Logistic regression models were developed using these spatial measures and data from the ElderSmile oral and general health screening program that serves predominantly racial/ethnic minority older adults at community centers in northern Manhattan and the Bronx. The oral health outcomes modeled as dependent variables were ordinal dentition status and binary self-rated oral health. After construction of kernel density surfaces and multiple imputation of missing data, logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the effects of peer density and other sociodemographic characteristics on the oral health outcomes of dentition status and self-rated oral health.ResultsOverall, higher peer density was associated with better oral health for older adults when estimated using smaller bandwidths (0.25 and 0.50 mile). That is, statistically significant relationships (p < 0.01) between peer density and improved dentition status were found when peer density was measured assuming a more local social network. As with dentition status, a positive significant association was found between peer density and fair or better self-rated oral health when peer density was measured assuming a more local social network.ConclusionsThis study provides novel evidence that the oral health of community-based older adults is affected by peer density in an urban environment. To the extent that peer density signifies the potential for social interaction and support, the positive significant effects of peer density on improved oral health point to the importance of place in promoting social interaction as a component of healthy aging. Proximity to peers and their knowledge of local resources may facilitate utilization of community-based oral health care.

Urban Greening as a Social Movement

The premise of this chapter is that human engagement of city dwellers in acts of urban greening, or environmental stewardship, collectively constitutes a social movement for greater access to the natural environment. The power of urban greening as a social movement is particularly salient for disadvantaged communities in promoting greater resilience, health, and well-being. Grounded in the geographies of urban greening associated with Buffalo and New York City, we consider how some civic environmental stewardship programs positively impact youth. More specifically, we contend that such programs provide vulnerable populations such as adolescents with opportunities for social interaction that include intergenerational bridges and mentoring relationships that confer the psychological resilience needed to sustain such local activism. We develop a systems perspective illustrating how participants in successful civic environmental stewardship programs develop an enhanced sense of control and belonging to a community. The connections that individual residents feel to their surrounding community manifest in a heightened concern for others and increased activism promoting public access to green space.

Accounting for Temporal Trends in Party Affect: Negativity versus Neutrality

Abstract This paper investigates whether affect toward the two major parties has shifted in a negative or neutral direction over the past half‐century based on several systematic tests that structure citizens by their type of party affect: whether they feel positively about both parties (optimists), negatively about both (pessimists), neutral toward both (indifferent), or positive toward one party and negative toward the other (partisans). Using ANES data from 1952 to 2004, with feeling thermometers and likes/dislikes about the parties as measures of party affect, we conduct several tests and find that changes in mean party affect toward the parties, as well as changes in the distribution of individuals across different types of party affect, support the negativity theory. Additionally, our results indicate that the role of the parties in the political environment has changed, with citizens structuring their affect toward the parties differently.

Partisan Differences in the Distributional Effects of Economic Growth: Stock Market Performance, Unemployment, and Political Control of the Presidency

Abstract This article examines the differences in the distributional effects of economic growth. While all incumbents are incentivized to create economic growth in order to win reelection, they use a diverse variety of policies to achieve this growth. These policy choices are often congruent with the demands of the core constituent groups of the respective parties. This suggests that economic growth is not equally shared by all, but that some groups are more or less benefited from the sets of policies chosen by the incumbent parties to stimulate growth. We test this proposition by investigating the effects of economic growth on stock market performance and unemployment. Our results show that economic growth under Republican presidents has a stronger effect on stimulating stock market performance, while economic growth under Democratic presidents has a stronger effect on reducing unemployment. Overall, these results highlight the partisan differences in macroeconomic policy and illustrate one of the causal mechanisms behind the substantial and rising economic inequality in the USA.