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This article contributes to the Historical Institutionalism literature on stability and change by unpacking how an institution has persisted for more than 70 years despite substantial contextual changes. The overall stability of the institution comes both through changes in policy instruments and their settings, and through the incorporation of differing, but aligned rationales. Ideational multidimensionality yields stability by providing leeway to recondition the institution in response to changing circumstances. This allows for different interests in the coalition to stimulate overall institutional stability by supporting incremental changes in policy instruments whilst avoiding institutional exhaustion and third order changes. This shows that policies initiated under a certain set of circumstances may be better equipped to persist when circumstances change if they are able to incorporate differing, but aligned, rationales and to respond to upcoming issues through policy instrument changes. The theoretical arguments are exemplified through a case study analysis of Norwegian agricultural policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legalization of medical marijuana in states of the United States is currently a controversial topic. Despite conflict with the federal government, 33 states have legalized medical marijuana and other states are currently considering adopting the law by the year 2019. Why do some US states adopt medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and others do not? This study examines the diffusion of MMLs by analysing policy adoption from morality and economic development policy perspectives. This study finds that the morality perspectives of states – religious groups, citizens' liberal ideology, and a ballot initiative process – have a significant effect on the adoption of medical marijuana laws. Economic indicators – fiscal capacity growth, incarceration, and the cost of the justice system – also have a significant effect on adoption. Marijuana users and the state regulatory environment are also important predictors of the diffusion. Overall, this study finds that the adoption and diffusion of MMLs is mainly determined by the opinions of citizens rather than the political ideology of elected officials or the government's fiscal health conditions. In addition, the study finds that the multidimensional policy model provides a better explanation for this than either of the single policy perspective models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We introduce a framework of electoral competition in which voters have general preferences over candidatesʼ immutable characteristics (such as gender, race or previously committed policy positions) as well as their policy positions, which are flexible. Candidates are uncertain about the distribution of voter preferences and choose policy positions to maximize their winning probability. We characterize a property of voter utility functions (“uniform candidate ranking”, UCR) that captures a form of separability between fixed characteristics and policy. When voters have UCR preferences, candidatesʼ equilibrium policies converge in any strict equilibrium. In contrast, notions like competence or complementarity lead to non-UCR preferences and policy divergence. In particular, we introduce a new class of models that contains the probabilistic voting model as a special case and in which there is a unique equilibrium that generically features policy divergence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Many factors influence the likelihood of citizens turning out to vote. In this paper we focus our attention on issue voting, that is, on the likelihood that different policies offered by politicians affect the probability of voting. If voters consider both the benefits and the costs of voting, rational voters will only vote when politicians offer differentiated policies. In a multidimensional policy space this implies that citizens only vote when they perceive enough difference on the issues they care about the most. We investigate the role of voter abstention due to indifference in a unidimensional and a multidimensional policy setting using data from the US National Election Studies for 1972-2000 and find support for our predictions: voters perceiving a small difference between the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties are less likely to vote; and voters who perceive the two parties as more different on a larger number of issues are significantly more likely to vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]