Joan Barceló

The effect of district magnitude on turnout: Quasi-experimental evidence from nonpartisan elections under SNTV

The relationship between district magnitude and turnout remains hotly debated, and previous studies suggest positive, negative, and nonlinear effects depending on other institutional characteristics. This article contributes to the empirical literature by conducting a quasi-experimental test on the effect of district magnitude in a context of a single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system with weak partisan ties: municipal council elections in Japan. Exploiting a credible source of exogenous variation in district magnitude and using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we reveal that a 5-seat increase in an average-magnitude district reduces turnout by 4 percentage points, which accounts for a 6.9% drop in the size of the electorate. We reason that, in the context of SNTV with weak parties, higher district magnitude leads to information overload, which may lower voters’ incentives to turn out.

National Personality Traits and Regime Type A Cross-National Study of 47 Countries

Domestic theories of democratization emphasize the role of values, interests, and mobilization/opportunities as determinants of regime change. This article takes a step back and develops a model of national personality and democratization to ascertain the indirect effect of national personality traits on worldwide variation of regime type. In particular, I theorize that personality traits influence a country’s regime type by shaping citizens’ traditional and self-expression values, which, in turn, influence the establishment and consolidation of democratic institutions. Data from McCrae and Terracciano’s assessment of the five-factor model from 47 countries allow me to assess this hypothesis empirically. Results reveal that countries whose societies are high in Openness to experience tend to have more democratic institutions, even after adjusting for relevant confounders: economic inequalities, economic development, technological advancement, disease stress, climate demands, and methodological characteristics of the national sample. Although the effect of Extraversion on a country’s democratic institutions is also significantly positive, the inclusion of confounders weakens the reliability of this association. In an exploration of the mechanisms of these associations, a mediation analysis shows that the relationship between national Openness and democratic institutions is channeled through secular and especially self-expression national values. The same analysis with the effect of Extraversion on democracy indicates that the association between this trait and democracy is only channeled through national self-expression values but not national secular values. In short, this article constitutes a first step toward a more complete understanding of the cross-cultural psychological roots of political institutions.

Attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in Asia and the Pacific: a quantitative assessment of current theoretical models beyond western countries

ABSTRACT This article empirically assesses the validity of current theoretical models of attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper takes representative data from the World Values Survey and implements a multilevel model to test five of the main theories in the literature: the human capital theory, the social capital theory, the political orientation theory, the contact/group threat theory and the economic competition theory. The results from the analysis lend credence to the important effects of human capital, social capital and political-ideological variables on respondents’ attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy. However, the results provide mixed and weak evidence for the contact/group threat theory and the role of economic determinants. Importantly, economic determinants tend to be more powerful in shaping peoples attitudes toward immigration policy than shaping attitudes toward immigrants as people. Altogether, this article sheds new light on the validity of current theoretical models based on western countries for other areas of the world. Finally, the results from the paper also support the usefulness of non-economic, as opposed to purely economic, models in the understanding of individuals’ attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the Asia-Pacific region.

National identity, social institutions and political values. The case of FC Barcelona and Catalonia from an intergenerational comparison.

Using the case of FC Barcelona and Catalonia, this paper examines the relationship between national identity, social institutions and political values. Through different methods of qualitative research, we present an intergenerational comparison between age cohorts to capture continuities and discontinuities in the discursive linkage between FC Barcelona and national feelings of belonging. As the context has changed, the identity construction process should have changed in conjunction with it. The results point to how the old cohort tended to use Barça, as an escape valve, intertwined with Catalan nationalism and political freedom. In contrast, the young ones reproduce the old discourse leaving aside those political values formerly attached to the idea of Barça.

Re-examining a modern classic: does Putnam's Making Democracy Work suffer from spuriousness?

What makes democratic institutions work efficiently? Robert Putnam argued in Making Democracy Work that a mixture of political participation and immersion in associative and social networks in the community, conceptualised as ‘civic community’ or ‘social capital’, is the explanation. Ever since its publication, many questions have arisen about the validity of Putnams theory. Among the most relevant concerns stands the influence of the Italian Communist Party on Putnams empirical tests. This paper aims to fill the gap left in the literature by testing Putnams hypothesis against the political party in the regional government and the PCIs electoral support. Supporting Putnam, this paper finds that variations in the quality of democratic governments in Italys regions are a function of civic community even after adjusting for the presence of the Italian Communist Party.

Contextual Effects on Subjective National Identity and Nationalist Vote in Catalonia

The important inflow of foreign population to western countries has boosted the study of acculturation processes among scholars in the last decades. By using the case of Catalonia, a receiver region of international and national migration since the fifties, this paper seeks to intersect a classic acculturation model and a newly reemerging literature in political science on contextual determinants on individual behavior. Does the context matters for understanding individual’s subjective national identity and, therefore, its voting behavior? Multilevel models show that environment matters. Percentage of Spain-born population in the town is statistically significant to account for variance in the subjective national identity and nationalist vote, even after controlling for age, sex, origin, language and left – right orientation and other contextual factors. This conclusion invites researchers not to underestimate the direct effect of the environment on individual outcomes such as feelings of belonging and vote orientation in contexts of rival identities.

Batons and ballots: The effectiveness of state violence in fighting against Catalan separatism:

What are the consequences of police brutality in fighting against the Catalan secessionist movement? While Spanish authorities resorted to violence with the hope that forceful action would deter further support for separatism, recent studies of repression argue that state violence tends to backfire. I test these two plausible arguments in the context of non-lethal police brutality to prevent an illegal self-determination referendum. For this, I combine data of the local distribution of police violence during the referendum and the official results of the subsequent regional elections. Because police forces were not deployed randomly, I employ a difference-in-differences estimation with matching to evaluate the electoral consequences of violence. The results show no clear evidence that police brutality affected support for separatism or electoral mobilization in the areas that it was deployed. The lack of a clear effect sets an agenda for future research in the investigation of the conditions under which state violence affects dissenting movements.

The Emotional Underpinnings of Attitudes toward Transitional Justice

What explains citizens’ attitudes toward transitional justice? Studies that examined the support for transitional justice mechanisms identified three sets of factors: individual, socialization, and contextual. Building on the hot cognition theory, this article argues that the past political regime is an emotionally charged sociopolitical object encoded with its evaluative history with consequences in people’s opinion-formation process. Drawing on a specialized survey in Spain, the results first suggest that negative emotions, especially anger and fear, significantly influence the support for stronger transitional justice measures, even after adjusting for relevant confounders such as ideology, religiosity, or victimization. Second, the findings show that those who lack an emotional engagement toward the past regime, the so-called bystanders, hold attitudes toward transitional justice that are indistinguishable from those who report positive feelings (pride, patriotism, and nostalgia) toward the past regime. The effects of emotions are sizable relative to other important determinants, including ideology, religiosity, and family’s ideology.

The Clarity of the Majority's Preference Moderates the Influence of Lobbying on Representation

Delegate conceptions of representation require activities of legislators to reflect their constituents’ preferences. Recent research has examined the distortionary effects of lobbying activities on this representational linkage. Here, I argue that the effect of interest groups on legislators’ behavior depends on the clarity of the majority’s preferences in a district. When the electorate is narrowly divided, Members of Parliament (MPs) may choose to reap the benefits associated with interest groups as costs from defection are lowest. The results show that MP defection from constituents’ preferences is only positively associated with sectional interest group ties when the constituency is narrowly divided on an issue. Likewise, MP defection is only negatively associated with MP’s ties to cause groups when the constituency is narrowly divided on an issue. These results are important because they specify the conditions under which interest group lobbying is sufficient to override constituents’ preferences.

Valence and Ideological Proximity in the Rise of Nationalist Parties: Spanish General Elections, 2008 and 2011

During the last few years, in the aftermath of the bank crisis of 2007, anti-European and right or far-right parties started to gain more and more support across Europe (Bosco and Verney 2012). This reaction seems a natural response to austerity measures and the rise of unemployment in the region. Meanwhile, in some European regions that have a different cultural identity to the dominant identity, a seemingly significant rise of peripheral nationalism has occurred (Gomez Fortes and Cabeza Perez 2013; Brubaker 2011; Rico 2012).