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We analyze initial public offering (IPO) activity under political uncertainty surrounding gubernatorial elections in the United States. There are fewer IPOs originating from a state when it is scheduled to have an election. To establish identification, we develop a neighboring-states method that uses bordering states without elections as a control group. The dampening effect of elections on IPO activity is stronger for firms with more concentrated businesses in their home states, firms that are more dependent on government contracts (particularly state contracts), and harder-to-value firms. This dampening effect is related to lower IPO offer prices (hence, higher costs of capital) during election years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do sanctions affect incumbent electoral performance during elections? Although existing literature suggests that sanctions may shorten or prolong incumbent tenure, we are less informed about their role in incumbent electoral fortunes. This research argues that sanctions hurt incumbents' vote shares because citizens are more likely to hold their elected officials accountable for sanction-induced economic hardships and political instabilities. It also argues that the electoral punishment is pronounced in less democratic countries because sanctions, together with elections, significantly limit dictator's co-optation strategy and open a greater window of opportunity for once repressed opposition groups in a repressive regime. Using 381 multiparty elections in seventy-nine countries between 1972 and 2012, this research finds that sanctions deteriorate the incumbent electoral performance, and they do so for autocratic leaders more than the democratic leaders. This study has important implications about the potential accountability in autocracies, the timing of sanctions imposition, the role of oppositions' mobilization, and broadly speaking, the role of sanctions in democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse whether illegal (corruption) and legal rent extraction (high politicians' wages) affect electoral outcomes at municipal level. We use an initial sample of 145 Spanish municipalities over 50,000 for two electoral periods: 2004–2007 (before the crisis) and 2008–2011 (during the crisis). Our findings show that neither illegal nor legal rent extraction impact on re-election in non-crisis times. However, we observe that citizens penalize legal rent extraction in the ballots during the crisis. Regarding the economic performance of the local governments, we find that its effect on re-election is important in non-crisis period. Nevertheless, in time of crisis, given that the economic situation is bad in general in the country, voters pay less attention to economic factors and focus on politicians' behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government alternation is a fundamental aspect of representative democracies because it is the most efficient mechanism of accountability through which voters can steer the course of government. Previous research on alternation has focused either on its conceptualization and measurement or on its role as a determinant of political and economic outcomes. This article attempts to investigate the factors affecting government alternation. We test research hypotheses on the direct effect of the economy on alternation and the conditional role played by political-institutional settings using an original dataset covering 50 countries from 1990 to 2015 and including 304 elections. First, the article provides an overview of the patterns of alternation in the countries we analyse. Second, it shows that alternation is less likely in times of successful macroeconomic performance, and that the effect of macroeconomic conditions on alternation is only partially conditional on the political-institutional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of economic voting have focused on the role of the local economy, but with inconclusive results. We argue that while local economic conditions affect incumbent support on average, the importance of the local economy varies by citizens' interactions with it. More recent and frequent encounters with aspects of the local economy make those aspects more salient and, in turn, feature more prominently in evaluations of the incumbent government. We label this process "context priming." We provide evidence for these propositions by studying local housing markets. Linking granularly detailed data on housing prices from Danish public registries to both precinct-level election returns and an individual-level panel survey, we find that when individuals interact with the housing market, their support for the incumbent government is more responsive to changes in local housing prices. The study thus provides a framework for understanding when citizens respond politically to the local economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influence of economic crisis on voting preferences for the emerging Spanish parties (Podemos and Ciudadanos). We develop a multinomial model that tests their voting antecedents, and we find three results that may be relevant for the literature on the emergence of parties. First, a negative evaluation of the country's economic situation has a major impact on votes for the two parties. Second, the perception of corruption also plays a crucial role in understanding support for the two emerging parties. And third, both the evaluation of the country's economic situation and the perception of corruption interact to account for the emergence of both Podemos and Ciudadanos. We conclude that the emergence of new parties has an economic basis, but political factors – such as corruption – are not suppressed by this. Conversely, the two factors interact in order to finally give rise to the new parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research presents mixed results for electoral impact on economic performance, thereby raising the question of whether electoral systems matter economically at all. We argue that electoral systems can conceivably generate a robust economic impact at the firm level. This argument is grounded in a recent scholarship on the political economy of corporate governance. Analysts discern electoral systems as a significant determinant of a country's corporate governance regime and its two central components: investor and employment protection. Building on a wealth of research relating investor and employment protection to firms' economic behavior, we develop the hypothesis that firm performance is stronger under plurality-majoritarian rules than under proportional rules. Our panel study of firms in 21 advanced democracies from 1989 to 2007 supports our hypothesis. Overall, this research helps to fill in an important gap in understanding of why it matters to choose one electoral system over another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem: Do conservative econometric models that comply with the Golden Rule of Forecasting provide more accurate forecasts? Methods: To test the effects of forecast accuracy, we applied three evidence-based guidelines to 19 published regression models used for forecasting 154 elections in Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, U.K., and the U.S. The guidelines direct forecasters using causal models to be conservative to account for uncertainty by (I) modifying effect estimates to reflect uncertainty either by damping coefficients towards no effect or equalizing coefficients, (II) combining forecasts from diverse models, and (III) incorporating more knowledge by including more variables with known important effects. Findings: Modifying the econometric models to make them more conservative reduced forecast errors compared to forecasts from the original models: (I) Damping coefficients by 10% reduced error by 2% on average, although further damping generally harmed accuracy; modifying coefficients by equalizing coefficients consistently reduced errors with average error reductions between 2% and 8% depending on the level of equalizing. Averaging the original regression model forecast with an equal-weights model forecast reduced error by 7%. (II) Combining forecasts from two Australian models and from eight U.S. models reduced error by 14% and 36%, respectively. (III) Using more knowledge by including all six unique variables from the Australian models and all 24 unique variables from the U.S. models in equal-weight “knowledge models” reduced error by 10% and 43%, respectively. Originality: This paper provides the first test of applying guidelines for conservative forecasting to established election forecasting models. Usefulness: Election forecasters can substantially improve the accuracy of forecasts from econometric models by following simple guidelines for conservative forecasting. Decision-makers can make better decisions when they are provided with models that are more realistic and forecasts that are more accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: This article exploits a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of political uncertainty on bargaining outcomes in cross‐border acquisitions. We argue that political uncertainty alters the relative bargaining power between acquiring versus target firms. The host country's political uncertainty makes the returns on cross‐border acquisitions more unpredictable. Accordingly, foreign acquirers demand compensation for such uncertainty in negotiations, otherwise they will not consider their acquisitions profitable. Thus, when political uncertainty is high in the host country, ceteris paribus, foreign acquirers have greater bargaining power, which leads to more favorable outcomes for acquirers. Using national elections to measure political uncertainty, we find evidence strongly supporting our prediction. Target firms capture a smaller portion of the acquisition gains than do acquiring firms, when political uncertainty is high. Managerial Summary: The uncertainty about the host government policies is a major concern for firms considering cross‐border acquisitions. However, we know little about how such uncertainty influences cross‐border deal negotiations and outcomes. This research investigates the effect of political uncertainty on the bargaining outcomes in cross‐border acquisitions. We argue that high political uncertainty in the host country strengthens the foreign acquirer's bargaining position relative to the acquired firm. The outcome of investment is harder to predict under political uncertainty, and therefore the foreign acquirer will require compensation for political uncertainty such as paying a lower takeover premium and using a contingent payment option. Without such compensation, the foreign acquirer may not find it attractive to make a deal. Our empirical results support our argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper has been to test for the presence of an electoral cycle upon Federal Reserve behavior in a reaction function equation estimated by instrumental variables. Both the growth of the monetary base (DMB) and the growth of M1 (DM) are tested as dependent variables for the 1954.I-1980.IV period and for three separate subperiods. When ten different specifications of an electoral cycle variable (EV) are included in these equations, there is not a single electoral cycle coefficient that is negative and significant for both dependent variables. Therefore, a second specification of the electoral cycle effect upon Federal Reserve behavior is tested via ten electoral cycle/debt interaction variables (EVDEBT). This specification tests the hypothesis that the Federal Reserve's willingness to accommodate the change in the outstanding public debt changes with the electoral cycle. The results provide evidence that the Federal Reserve not only accommodates Treasury borrowing regardless of the electoral season, but also provides extra accommodation prior to presidential and congressional elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of U.S. presidential elections on the stock market. Three common beliefs on Wall Street include the notion that the stock market prefers Republicans to Democrats, that uncertainty prior to elections causes markets to decline, and that markets do not like an incumbent lose. The authors investigate the accuracy of these observations by studying the 17-week period surrounding 20 presidential elections since 1900. Their work unearths varying measures of support for each.

The article provides information on the economic impact of elections on economic conditions in the country, voting behavior and national and household economic growth. Topics include market expectations, credit for stock market performance and election of Donald Trump as the president of the U.S. on the economic conditions.

This paper investigates the impact of the intensity of political competition on the leviathan behavior of local politicians. While we find only weak effects of strong parties on total expenditures and, thus, only weak traces of standard leviathan behavior, we find strong evidence that the spending pattern during a legislative period depends on the distribution of power in local councils. In municipalities with weak political competition, the public spending reaches a peak in election years. If parties face politically strong opponents, they do not initiate a political budget cycle. Our results indicate that local politicians act as self-preserving leviathans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to test the efficient market theory, and to see if individual stock industry returns can correctly predict the outcome of a Presidential Election. Specifically, will returns in industries that stand to benefit from the platform of a particular candidate show excess gains in the event-period either prior to or after Election Day? Is it possible to earn returns that are above normal, by having accurate polling data leading into an election? The link of election outcomes and stock market returns has been heavily studied and there is research that shows how certain market aspects can be seen to predict an election outcome. Likewise, we have seen how following a surprise election victory, certain industries have seen supra-normal returns for days and even weeks. According to the semi-strong form efficient markets theory proposed by Eugene Fama, one should not be able to achieve above average returns through the use of public information such as polls. All publically available information should already be factored into the stock price, as such meaning it is not possible to outperform the market, when adjusting for risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent election cycles have seen growing attention to the role of “outside” money in urban school board elections. Using an original data set of more than 16,000 contributions covering election cycles from 2008 to 2013 in four school districts (Los Angeles, CA; New Orleans, LA; Denver, CO; Bridgeport, CT), we show how large national donors play a significant role. Our study links two dynamic fields that are rarely studied together: (1) the behavior of wealthy donors in a changing national campaign finance system and (2) the evolving politics of urban education. By examining donor networks, we illuminate the mechanisms behind the nationalization of education politics and national donor involvement in local campaigns. We show that shared affiliations through education organizations are significantly associated with school board campaign contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outside groups now represent a major voice in US Senate campaigns, but it remains unclear to what degree outside groups are independent actors or are simply performing the same role once filled almost entirely by the parties. This article investigates whether independent groups distribute media expenditures in ways that mirror the objectives of parties, or if divergent interests cause independent groups to allocate these funds differently. Using a large original dataset of media spending in Senate campaigns from 2010 through 2014, this study specifies how a seat-maximizing strategy will go beyond simply directing money to the most competitive contests; that within similarly competitive races outside groups spend more on media when the candidates spend less. The observed pattern of outside group resource allocation reveals that outside group activity in the aggregate is consistent with the seat-maximizing strategy expected from parties, but one subgroup of outsiders, issue-based independent groups, are less sensitive to these considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic elections imply that the electorate holds incumbents accountable for past performance, and that voters select the party that is closest to their own political preferences. Previous research shows that both elements require political sophistication. A number of countries throughout the world have a system of compulsory voting, and this legal obligation boosts levels of voter turnout. Under such rules, citizens with low levels of sophistication in particular are thought to turn out to vote in higher numbers. Is it the case that the quality of the vote is reduced when these less sophisticated voters are compelled to vote? This article investigates this claim by examining the effect of compulsory voting on accountability and proximity voting. The results show that compulsory voting reduces stratification based on knowledge and level of education, and proximity voting, but it does not have an effect on economic accountability. The article concludes with some suggestions on how systems of compulsory voting might mitigate the strength of political sophistication in determining the quality of the vote decision process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Institutions are thought to matter for vote choice, and work on economic voting is exemplary in this regard. The strength of the economic vote varies considerably cross-nationally and this seems to emanate from differences in the clarity of responsibility. Still, this conceptual frame, dominant in the field, appears to have some cracks. First, almost all work presents analyses of the economic vote in smaller, split samples of low- and high-clarity contexts separately. Second, the literature appears rather dispersed when the conceptual and empirical indicators are examined. The article attempts to overcome these limitations by analysing a large pool of democratic elections with a series of objective indicators. It investigates these indicators separately, and as components within two cumulative indices (institutional rules and power patterns). The results indicate that, even though there are indications of differences in the strength of the economic vote in high- and low-clarity contexts respectively, institutional rules or power patterns fail to significantly deflect the overall electoral impact of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

La recuperación en 2017 de Argentina, un país todavía en terapia intensiva, dependerá en buena medida de la evolución del contexto político. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We investigate the employment consequences of private equity buyouts. We find evidence of higher job creation, on average, at the establishments operated by targets of politically connected private equity firms than at those operated by targets of nonconnected private equity firms. Consistent with an exchange of favors story, establishments operated by targets of politically connected private equity firms increase employment more during election years and in states with high levels of corruption. In additional analyses, we provide evidence of specific benefits experienced by target firms from their political connections. Our results are robust to tests designed to mitigate selection concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Karine Van der Straeten of the Toulouse School of Economics and Institute for Advanced Study reviews 'The Economics of Voting: Studies of Self-Interest, Bargaining, Duty and Rights,' by Dan Usher. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: 'Examines four key terms in the economics of voting--self-interest, bargaining, duty, and rights--and presents the case that they are indispensable requirements for the maintenance of government by majority-rule voting. Discusses voting patterns; voting about the redistribution of income; determining how high the revenue-maximizing tax rate might be; bargaining and voting; bargaining unexplained; what a duty to vote is, exactly; an alternative explanation of the chance of casting a pivotal vote; the problem of equity; voting rights, property rights, and civil rights; assessing the citizen-candidate model; and the significance of the probabilistic voting theorem.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports the results of a multiyear program to predict direct executive elections in a variety of countries from globally pooled data. We developed prediction models by means of an election data set covering 86 countries and more than 500 elections, and a separate data set with extensive polling data from 146 election rounds. We also participated in two live forecasting experiments. Our models correctly predicted 80 to 90% of elections in out-of-sample tests. The results suggest that global elections can be successfully modeled and that they are likely to become more predictable as more information becomes available in future elections. The results provide strong evidence for the impact of political institutions and incumbent advantage. They also provide evidence to support contentions about the importance of international linkage and aid. Direct evidence for economic indicators as predictors of election outcomes is relatively weak. The results suggest that, with some adjustments, global polling is a robust predictor of election outcomes, even in developing states. Implications of these findings after the latest U.S. presidential election are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Get ready for more populist governments. There is now sufficiently widespread backing for global populism that at least one further victory in a major economy is very likely in the next year or so, our analysis of populist policies and support in 20 large economies shows., While there are no populist electoral front-runners, many large economies have elections coming up in which populists have a decent chance of capturing sizeable votes. If you roll the dice enough times, the populist number is likely to come up somewhere - there is now around a 50% chance of a populist government in one key Eurozone country; bookmakers' odds suggest an even higher probability., Donald Trump's victory showed how market reaction to populism is hard to predict. Our survey provides a framework for assessing the diverse and complex channels., We see limited possibilities of Trump-like, populist-propelled fiscal expansions elsewhere in the world, which are typically market positive. Even where populist-leaning politicians have a chance of power, they have shown little appetite for fiscal expansion., Globally, populist policies are focussed more on immigration, trade, and governance, which are typically market negative. As such, populist electoral victories would imply modest downward revisions to baseline growth forecasts and risk greater instability., Populist electoral victories in Europe would result in unsettling brinksmanship and provide an existential threat to the EU, though compromise is the most likely outcome and subsequent risks are two-sided. For example, (i) reductions in free movement in labour could make Brexit softer; (ii) populism could challenge unhelpful pro-cyclicality in the Stability and Growth Pact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the "tragic brilliance" thesis advanced in the recent literature on electoral authoritarian regimes, such regimes retain their ability to to achieve electoral success even in the conditions when the national economy deteriorates. This study uses the data on voter volatility in 93 electoral authoritarian regimes and new democracies in order to validate the "tragic brilliance" thesis empirically. The analysis supports the "tragic brilliance" thesis. While in new democracies, a strong correlation between government economic performance and voter volatility can be observed, voter volatility in electoral authoritarian regimes is not facilitated by poor economic performance. Voter volatility declines if such regimes are able to achieve cooptation of sub-national elites without depriving them of substantial autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the impact of elections on the inflationary process in Bangladesh i.e., to observe whether elections have any influence on monetary variables like money supply, exchanges rate and thus inflation. We used quarterly data as the incumbent in Bangladesh must give a maximum of 3 months' time to the caretaker government to accomplish the election. Our full ARDL estimation suggested that an appreciation of the exchange rate just before the election reduced inflation significantly and an effective way of incumbent's to gain popularity. We found that current inflation was positively associated (though not significantly) with the previous quarter's money supply measured by M1. The incumbent took policies to reduce the inflation during election period as voters place more importance in the recent history. We find evidence of political monetary cycles in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Bank's independence should be given priority so that it can withstand political pressure to stimulate the economy before elections or finance election-related increases in government spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a unique set of electoral rules present in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, we explore the question of whether direct election of the mayor affects the size of local governments. Using difference-in-differences estimation and propensity score matching, we find evidence that direct elections of the mayor are associated with less expenditure on public administration and public personnel and higher expenditure in the visible categories of spending, i.e., transportation infrastructure and economic subsidies to firms and individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine the implications of policy intervention around elections on income inequality and fiscal redistribution. We first develop a simplified theoretical framework that allows us to examine election-cycle fiscal redistribution programs in the presence of a revolutionary threat from some groups of agents, i.e., when democracy is not 'the only game in town'. According to our theoretical analysis, when democracy is not 'the only game in town', incumbents implement redistributive policies not only as a means of improving their reelection prospects, but also in order to signal that 'democracy works', thereby preventing a reversion to an autocratic status quo ante at a time of the current regime's extreme vulnerability. Subsequently, focusing on 65 developed and developing countries over the 1975-2010 period, we report robust empirical evidence of pre-electoral budgetary manipulation in new democracies. Consistent with our theory, this finding is driven by political instability that induces incumbents to redistribute income-through tax and spending policies-in a relatively broader coalition of voters with the aim of consolidating the vulnerable newly established democratic regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a vast number of articles, the political budget cycle literature contains many conflicting theories and empirical results. I conduct the first ever meta-analysis of this literature in order to establish whether a link between elections and government budgets exists. Using data on 1198 estimates across 88 studies published between 2000 and 2015, I find evidence of a statistically significant-yet substantively small-increase in government expenditures and public debt around elections, and reductions in revenues and fiscal balance. Using meta-regression analysis combined with Bayesian model averaging, I find support for some of the context-conditional theories in the literature. Although the findings of political budget cycles are robust to publication bias as well as some of the methodological- and study-specific choices authors are forced to make, they also shed light on how certain decisions may affect a study's findings. This has implications for current and future research on political budget cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploiting regression discontinuity designs in Brazilian, Indian, and Canadian first-past-the-post elections, we document that second-place candidates are substantially more likely than close third-place candidates to run in, and win, subsequent elections. Since both candidates lost the election and had similar electoral performance, this is the effect of being labeled the runner-up. Selection into candidacy is unlikely to explain the effect on winning subsequent elections, and we find no effect of finishing in third place versus fourth place. We develop a simple model of strategic coordination by voters that rationalizes the results and provides further predictions that are supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research aims: This paper investigates whether stock market returns of government-owned banks and private banks in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand differ during the elections period from year 2000-2013. Design / Methodology / Approach: Using event study methodology, cumulative average abnormal return (CAAR) of 30 banks in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were calculated. For robustness test, regression analysis using CAAR as its dependent variable was conducted. Research findings: Results show that during elections, there is a significantly positive CAAR for both types of banks. However, CAAR for private banks is lower and less significant when compared to government-owned banks. This indicates that government-owned banks respond more to election results than private banks do. Theoretical contribution / Originality: While past studies usually used regression analysis to measure the effect of government ownership on banks in a longer horizon, their effect in the shorthorizon has not been well-researched. This research fills in this gap by using the event study methodology to capture its effect in the short-horizon. Practitioner/ Policy implications: The result of this study will benefit investors as it may help them better understand and evaluate the political impact on the banking industry during an election. Research limitation/Implications: Firstly, survivorship bias analysis cannot be conducted due to the lack of information on inactive stocks. Secondly, this study could not run a separate analysis for each country as there was a total sample of only 30 firms which is the minimum requirement for a reliable statistical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the issue of party unity in Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo). By analysing the LegCo roll-call votes, one can see that the voting patterns of its members are characterised by strong party unity. In particular, a cross-party comparison reveals that for the pro-establishment parties, the Liberal Party had a higher level of unity than the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB); for the pro-democracy parties, the Civic Party had a higher level of cohesion than the Democratic Party. Furthermore, this article shows that strong party unity is likely to be the joint product of party discipline and policy homogeneity among partisan members. Based on the empirical results, the article questions the traditional wisdom that party politics in Hong Kong is necessarily underdeveloped for its simple juxtaposition of party politics with the performance of political parties in elections. Instead, it is suggested that for a better understanding of party politics in Hong Kong, due attention should be paid to the legislative process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the seek changes in politics of Myanmar for the general election in 2015. Topics include the failure of voters to determine the reforms contributed to the outcome of GE2015, the electoral process announced by the electoral commission Union Election Commission (UEC) for the election in November and the influencial players from political parties.

One of the earliest and best-established finding about electoral support for populist radical right-wing parties is that they attract more men than women. Yet this finding might no longer apply to France. In the 2012, presidential election, contrary to her father, Marine Le Pen, the new leader of the Front National (FN), realized almost the same score among female and male voters. After controlling for other sociodemographic and attitudinal variables that explain electoral support for the FN, there is no difference between male and female voters' support for the party. This article examines the closing of this gender gap in radical right-wing voting, drawing on post-electoral surveys conducted in 2002, 2012 and 2014. After a brief outline of the literature dealing with the emergence of the 'Radical Right Gender Gap (RRGG)', it ascertains the disappearance of a RRGG gender in 2012, tests possible explanations for this phenomenon and debates whether this is a temporary or a lasting one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French National Front (FN), currently one of the most successful radical right-wing parties at the electoral booth in Western Europe, has more than doubled its vote share from around 10 per cent in the late 2000s, or the final years of Jean-Marie Le Pen's presidency, to around 15-25 per cent in the 2010s after Marine Le Pen has taken over the leadership of the party. Aiming to understand the reasons for this increase in the party's vote and possible differences in the FN voter between Le Pen father and Le Pen daughter, we compare the individual characteristics of the FN voters, as well as the structural conditions in an individual's surrounding that might influence why somebody votes FN in 2007 and 2012. Except for the fact that the FN electorate became younger in 2012, the core characteristics of the FN voter (for example, low education, dissatisfaction with democracy in France and a working class background) have remained constant. However, what has changed in 2012 is that the FN was more successful in attracting a higher proportion of voters that belong to the socio-demographic strata traditionally, overrepresented within its electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Front National (FN) has made an impressive come back into France's electoral politics since 2012. Adopting a supply-side approach, this article places the electoral rejuvenation of the FN in the context of the global crisis and looks at how the party has adapted programmatically to socio-economic demands emerging from this context. On the basis of manifesto data analysis, we find that despite having recently broadened its economic programme, the FN maintains a niche status in the party system. Our findings show, however, that the party has significantly shifted its economic platform, moving from a predominantly right-wing to a left-wing location since the mid-1980s. This move is characterized by an increase in egalitarian and nationalist economic policies, espousing also a populist framework. The reconfiguration of the FN suggests that the party may have moved to a pivotal position in recent years by converging around the economic preferences of the median voter. We discuss the role of internal and external factors in explaining the economic policy shift by the FN, and consider possible implications of our findings for understanding current populist radical right electoral dynamics in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains the victory of the Front National (FN) in the May 2014 European elections in France. Taking issue with standard academic accounts that conceive of the latter as 'second-order' elections, it argues that the FN won by harnessing voters' growing anxiety about European integration as an electoral issue. First, the article contends that, on the backdrop of worsening unemployment and social crisis, Europe assumed unprecedented salience in both national and European elections. In turn, it argues that by staking out a Europhobe position in contrast to the mainstream parties and the radical left, the FN claimed effective 'ownership' over the European issue, winning the bulk of the Eurosceptic vote to top the electoral field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread sense that the Front National (FN) came of age in 2014 as a challenger for power in France. The municipal and European elections appeared to herald a transformation in the party's development and prospects, demonstrating its capacity to compete as a major player at subnational and supranational levels following strong performances at the national level in the presidential and legislative elections of 2012. This article takes a critical view of that assessment. It argues that the FN in 2014 made significant progress but that the apparent surge of support for the party in these elections belies fundamental weaknesses in the depth and range of its electoral capacities and in its prospects for transforming itself into a party of government. These weaknesses were again evident in the departmental elections of 2015, confirming that the FN has not succeeded in ending bipolarisation and imposing a genuinely tripartite structure on French politics. Far from being the 'first party of France' and 'at the gates of power', the FN is still consigned primarily to a role of spoiler, with its progression stalled by institutional obstacles, electoral limitations and a political containment which it remains powerless to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented on the increase of electoral support for the political party Front National in France.

In this article, we contend that the 'democratic advantage' literature (i) exaggerates the potential political backlash from credit downgrades in democracies; and (ii) overlooks the importance of sovereign credit to nondemocratic leaders. We argue that nondemocratic regimes receive a higher marginal political benefit from credit compared to democratic regimes. Consequently, changes in credit prices or credit access affect nondemocratic leaders' tenure more than democratic leaders' tenure. To test this argument, we provide the first statistical examination of the electoral punishment mechanism of the 'democratic advantage.' Our duration analysis shows that credit downgrades increase nondemocratic leaders' vulnerability more than that of their democratic peers. Our research reinforces the growing concerns about the conventional views about regime type, domestic constraints, and leaders' preferences toward sovereign credit and other political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do remittances stabilize autocracies? Remittances-money sent by foreign workers to individuals in their home country-differ from other sources of external non-tax revenue, such as foreign aid, because they accrue directly to individuals and thus raise the incomes of households. We argue that remittances increase the likelihood of democratic transition by undermining electoral support for autocratic incumbents in party-based regimes. Remittances therefore make voters less dependent on state transfers. As a result, autocracies that rely heavily on the broad-based distribution of spoils for their survival, namely party-based regimes, should prove especially vulnerable to increases in remittances. Evidence consistent with this argument suggests that remittances promote democratization in some dictatorships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous recent country studies demonstrate that beneficiaries of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs vote for incumbents at higher rates. It is reasonable to expect that, as a consequence, those incumbents will perform better nationally in the next election. This article warns against such an extrapolation. It analyzes an original cross-national data set with information for eighty-four Latin American presidential elections that took place between 1990 and 2010. My results reveal that CCT programs have not improved incumbents' aggregate electoral performances in the region, contradicting common speculative claims of the literature. They also confirm the classic economic voting hypothesis that incumbents are held accountable in the polls for their economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom holds that voters in developing countries fail to punish pervasive pre-electoral fiscal manipulation. However, we argue that governments are unlikely to engage in pre-electoral fiscal manipulation when facing a high risk of speculative currency attacks. In particular, under fixed exchange rates, governments are less likely to engage in fiscal electioneering when either their real exchange rate is highly appreciated or their foreign exchange reserves are low. In contrast, under a flexible exchange rate, neither a country's real exchange rate nor its reserves affects governments' decision to engage in fiscal manipulation. Our argument receives support through a quantitative analysis of government budget balances in 97 developing countries from 1975 to 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between electoral participation and income redistribution by way of social transfers, using data from the European Social Survey, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, and the Luxembourg Income Study. It extends previous research by measuring the income skew of turnout rather than using average turnout as a proxy for its income bias. We find that, controlling for a number of other variables, the income skew of turnout is negatively related to transfer redistribution and that electoral participation by those in poverty is positively associated with redistribution in their favor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast literature has established that governments may abuse policy instruments in order to enhance their popularity and thus their probability of reelection, resulting in political budget cycles. Yet do popular governments have the same incentives to boost their popularity through pre-electoral expansions as unpopular governments? The existing empirical evidence, which to this date is entirely country-specific, produces mixed messages. Some studies find a simple linear relationship between popularity and the magnitude of political budget cycles and some find a non-linear relationship, peaking at the point where the race for office is tight. This article presents a simple theoretical model, which suggests that party polarization may be the key mediator reconciling these alternative findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present detailed empirical evidence from Greece that around elections, misgovernance results in significant increases in wildfires and tax evasion and has important economic implications: these effects have led to the destruction of property or loss of government revenue estimated at 8 % of GDP. There are two plausible reasons why misgovernance might intensify around elections: (i) attention and effort of elected officials is directed to campaigning instead of governing; and (ii) the misgovernance may benefit special interests and serve as a pork barrel transfer that is hard to monitor or control. Empirically, we find that redistributive politics are likely a dominant cause of electoral misgovernance. In the case of wildfires we also find evidence that political competition tends to increase electoral misgovernance; furthermore, electoral misgovernance helps incumbents get reelected. While misgovernance may manifest differently among countries, our analysis suggests that electoral cycles everywhere may be much more multifaceted and harmful than previous literature suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]