Joshua N. Zingher

Patterns of Immigrant Political Behaviour in Australia: An Analysis of Immigrant Voting in Ethnic Context

Immigration is becoming an increasingly important issue in virtually every Western democracy. However, immigrants’ participation in politics varies greatly from country to country. This article identifies and explains the two key determinants of this variation. We establish that ethnicity along with traditional socioeconomic factors are the two primary forces that determine immigrant political behaviour. We theorise that immigrants’ ethnic differences from the native population, along indicators such as language and residential segregation, increase information costs and create barriers to participation in politics as well as influencing partisanship. To empirically evaluate our claims, we analyse data from the Australian Election Study from 1993 to 2010. The results of the analysis in this article provide strong empirical support for our hypotheses.

From on High: The Effect of Elite Polarization on Mass Attitudes and Behaviors: 1972–2012

There is widespread agreement that American political elites have become increasingly ideologically polarized. However, there is disagreement about how the mass electorate has responded to the increase in polarization at the elite level. We argue that individuals’ expressions of ideology and partisanship respond to changes in elite-level polarization. Because party elites have become more polarized, individuals are better able to the party that best matches their own ideological positions, thereby contributing to polarization at the mass level. We test this argument using 36 years of ANES and DW-NOMINATE data. Placing voters in policy space using a measurement model, we assess whether or not elite-level factors condition how individuals’ underlying ideology translates into political behavior. We find that the relationship between a voter’s position in policy space and their political behavior is indeed conditional upon polarization at the elite level.

Polarization, Demographic Change, and White Flight from the Democratic Party

Whites have become less likely to support the Democratic Party. I show that this shift is being driven by two mechanisms. The first mechanism is the process of ideological sorting. The Democratic Party has lost support among conservative whites because the relationships between partisanship, voting behavior, and policy orientations have strengthened. The second mechanism relates to demographic changes. The growth of liberal minority populations has shifted the median position on economic issues to the left and away from the median white citizen’s position. The parties have responded to these changes by shifting their positions, and whites have become less likely to support the Democratic Party as a result. I test these explanations using 40 years of American National Election Study and DW-NOMINATE data. I find that whites have become 7.7 points more likely to vote for the Republican Party, and mean white partisanship has shifted .26 points in favor of the Republicans as a combined result of both mechanisms.

Explaining the nomination of ethnic minority candidates: how party-level factors and district-level factors interact

ABSTRACT In this paper, we explain the nomination of ethnic minority candidates for lower house elections. We argue that these nominations are explained by the incentives that different parties face in different districts. Center-left parties reap greater electoral rewards when they offer descriptive representation, and that they also experience fewer difficulties in recruiting ethnic minority candidates. Therefore we argue that center-left parties have a greater incentive and ability to make their nominations more responsive to district demographics. More specifically, our hypothesis is that district-level ethnic diversity will increase the probability that any party will nominate an ethnic minority candidate, but this increase will be greatest for center-left parties. We look at multiple elections in Australia, the UK, and the US, and find consistent evidence in favor of this hypothesis. Even when center-left and center-right parties are nominating similar overall numbers of ethnic minority candidates, center-left parties’ descriptive representation patterns are more closely connected to district demographics. We argue that this helps explain how descriptive representation effects political competition more broadly.

A global analysis of how losing an election affects voter satisfaction with democracy

In this article, we argue that a deeper understanding of citizen satisfaction with democratic elections requires a global perspective. Regional research found that a gap in satisfaction with democracy emerges after an election, between those who supported winning parties and those that did not, and also, crucially, that this gap can be reduced under proportional electoral institutions. In this article we argue instead that these theories of the winner–loser gap actually apply to only a narrow set of countries. We use a comprehensive global dataset to show that the predictions of this theory about the effects of proportional institutions are accurate for Western Europe, but not outside it. Beyond a small cluster of established democracies in Western Europe, the electoral environment is characterized by more fundamental uncertainty. This uncertainty alters the incentives created by proportional institutions. We conclude that the winner–loser gap and ‘losers’ consent’ are concepts that vary systematically around the world. We discuss the implications of this for democratic stability.

The relationship between bias and swing ratio in the Electoral College and the outcome of presidential elections

ABSTRACT In this paper, I assess how the outcomes of presidential elections are affected by the presence (or lack) of partisan bias in the Electoral College. There have been three instances (1876, 1888 and 2000) since the end of the Civil War where the party that lost the popular vote won the Electoral College. These instances raise the question of whether partisan bias consistently influences presidential election outcomes? I answer this question by first measuring partisan bias and then using these estimates to assess how partisan bias affects a partys odds of winning a presidential election. I find that the presence of partisan bias provides a sizable, but not insurmountable, obstacle for the disadvantaged party.

Empowerment, Threat, and Segregation: The Geographic Determinants of African American Turnout

In this paper, we examine how African American voter turnout is affected by the size and distribution of the surrounding white population. While an established literature examines how white behavior is affected by the presence of African Americans, relatively few studies have examined the inverse relationship. We look to explore the geographic determinants of African American voting behavior by asking this question: do African Americans mobilize against white interests when whites represent the majority (threat) or is African American turnout highest in places where African Americans represent a majority and are more likely to perceive the ability to influence the political process (empowerment)? Moreover, what role does segregation, which speaks to the distribution of groups rather than their sizes, play in shaping turnout rates? To evaluate these questions, we utilize ArcGIS mapping software in conjunction with Census and turnout data from the state of Louisiana to estimate series of hierarchical linear models testing the relationship between African Americans’ racial environment and turnout in presidential elections. Consistent with the empowerment hypothesis, we find that African American turnout is highest in parishes where African Americans represent a majority and in places where African Americans are not a majority but segregation levels are low.