The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Incumbent Behavior
نویسندگان
چکیده
What is the marginal effect of competitiveness on the power of electoral incentives? Addressing this question empirically is difficult because challenges to incumbents are endogenous to their behavior in office. To overcome this obstacle, we exploit a unique feature of Kansas courts: fourteen districts employ partisan elections to select judges, while seventeen employ noncompetitive retention elections. In the latter, therefore, challengers are ruled out. We find judges in partisan systems sentence more severely than those in retention systems. Additional tests attribute this to the incentive effects of potential competition, rather than the selection of more punitive judges in partisan districts. ∗Corresponding Author
منابع مشابه
A Sociological Study of the Impact of Social Factors on Electoral Behavior (Comparison of Youth and Adult Age Study Group in Mazandaran Province)
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the sociological impact of social factors on the electoral behavior of citizens of Mazandaran province by comparing the two age groups of youth and adults. In this regard, a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted using a researcher-made questionnaire. Statistical population of this study is men and women over 18 years old th...
متن کاملSocial factors affecting electoral behavior: Presidential election in Mazandaran province
The main objective of this research is the sociological study of the impact of social influences on electoral behavior in Iran's presidential election among citizens living in Mazandaran province. This research is descriptive-analytic and survey is carried out using a researcher-made questionnaire. Using Cochran's formula, 384 individuals were selected as sample size and then statistical sampli...
متن کاملElectoral Control with Behavioral Voters
We present a model of electoral control with behavioral voters. The model captures two main regularities of voting behavior found in empirical studies: voters are forgetful and are in uenced by extraneous events beyond the control of public o cials (e.g. rain fall). Speci cally, we assume the voters' propensities to reelect the incumbent is governed by a stochastic reinforcement process instead...
متن کاملThe Impact of Incumbency on Turnout: Evidence from Italian Municipalities
The Impact of Incumbency on Turnout: Evidence from Italian Municipalities We analyze how having an incumbent among candidates affects electoral turnout. We use a rich data set providing information on the electoral results of Italian municipal elections over the period 1993-2011. Endogeneity issues are handled through an instrumental variable approach using the mayor term-limit as an instrument...
متن کاملHow Lasting Is Voter Gratitude? An Analysis of the Short and LongTerm Electoral Returns to Beneficial Policy
Dominant theories of electoral behavior emphasize that voters myopically evaluate policy performance and that this shortsightedness may obstruct the welfare-improving effect of democratic accountability. However, we know little about how long governments receive electoral credit for beneficial policies. We exploit the massive policy response to a major natural disaster, the 2002 Elbe flooding i...
متن کامل