Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. —George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903) This thesis consists of three essays in the field of empirical political economy. The topics addressed in these essays are very diverse, as are the historico-institutional settings. What they share is the quantitative analysis of election results and – at least in the author’s opinion – the inquiry of relevant research questions about political attitudes and institutions. This gives the dissertation its title “No Ordinary Elections”. Chapter one looks at the effect of war service on political attitudes. I analyse the impact of WWI veterans on changes in electoral support for Germany’s antidemocratic right after 1918. In order to quantify the effect, I construct the first disaggregate estimates of German WWI veterans since official army records were destroyed. I combine this data with a new panel of voting results from 1881 to 1933. Differences-in-Differences estimates show that war participation had a strong positive effect on support for the right-wing at the expense of socialist parties. A one standard deviation increase in veteran inflow shifted voting patterns to the right by more than 2%. My findings are robust to a number of checks including an IV identification strategy based on draft exemption rules. The effect of veterans on voting is highly persistent and strongest in working class areas. Gains for the right-wing, however, are only observed after a time period of communist insurgencies. I argue that veterans’ impact is consistent with the spread of a popular anti-communist conspiracy theory, the stab-in-the-back myth. I provide suggestive evidence that veterans must have picked this idea up during wartime, injected it into the working class and facilitated the rise of right-wing parties. The second chapter documents evidence on how election fraud in authoritarian regimes can be used by lower-tier officials to cast signals about their loyalty or competence to the central government. I exploit a radical policy change in Russia in 2004 which allowed the president to replace governors of the country’s 89 regions at his own will. As a result, federal elections after 2004 were organised by two types of governors: one was handpicked by the president, the other one elected before the law change and re-appointed. Even though both types faced removal in case of bad results, the need to signal loyalty was much lower for the first type. In order to estimate the effect of handpicked governors on electoral fraud, I use a diff-in-diff framework over 7 federal elections between 2000 and 2012. For this time period, I construct a new indicator of suspicious votes for each region which correlates strongly with incidents of reported fraud. My baseline estimates show that in territories with a handpicked governor the share of suspicious votes decreased by more than 10% on average and dropped even further if the region’s economy had done well over the past legislature. These findings suggest that officials have less need to use rigging as a signal once loyalty is assured unless faced circumstances raising doubts about their competence. Finally, chapter three studies the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986 and voters’ response in West Germany. The analysis uses a diff-in-diff estimation which exploits variation in proximity to the nearest nuclear power plant (NPP) across 301 counties. Proximity is used as proxy for the shock from perceived risk of a nuclear accident. Using data over a time period of almost 40 years and 11 elections, my results indicate that living closer to an NPP increased polarisation and benefited anti- but even more pro-nuclear parties. While gains of Greens are shown to be similar across social groups and therefore in line with home-voter effects, the increase of conservatives runs counter to most expectations. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect on conservatives is far stronger in areas with an above-median share of adolescents in their impressionable years and of higher average education. I argue that this can be explained by differences in assessing the economic losses from exiting nuclear power over the risk of a nuclear accident after the disaster. Using variation in the scheduling of state elections, I can also show that the pro-nuclear response was stronger in counties which did not vote in the immediate aftermath of Chernobyl leaving more time for a rational electoral choice.

This dissertation consists of three chapters, which aim at exploring respectively: i) how parties’ advertisements and voters’ strategic communication affect the political outcome; ii) whether and under which conditions a “market for votes” is preferable to the “one person, one vote” mechanism; and iii) whether subsidies to private donations may be used as strategical device by policy makers to secure re-election. The first chapter analyses how voters’ interactions affect the parties’ advertisement strategies and shape the political outcome of the election. We develop a two level game that embeds: (i) a model of political competition, where parties compete in campaign advertising, (ii) a model of personal influence, where voters can strategically communicate with each other in order to affect the policy outcome. We show that, first, homophily rises endogenously and individuals value only the information received from like-minded voters, regardless of the distance between the voters’ biases. Second, when the richness of the network or the degree of homophily within the network, or both, are low, then parties are likely to tailor their advertising to voters ideological biased toward their opponent - rather than targeting the closer ideological group of voters. The second chapter of this dissertation is joint work with Herakles Polemarchakis. In this chapter, we construct a simple centralized model of spatial voting where voters can sell/buy political influence by trading their votes for a consumption good. We model the voting game as a representative election game in order to concavify total voters’ payoff. By mimicking a majority rule in the election game we are able to focus on the effect of the distributional and ideological conflicts in the society and how these conflicts affect, in turn, the total welfare under two voting allocation mechanisms: the market and the “one person one vote” principle. We show that a market for votes is desirable with respect the “one-person one vote” principle if the degree of conflict in both income and political preferences is extreme, otherwise the simple “one-person one vote” performs better than the market mechanism, as it maximizes the sum of utilities of voters. The third chapter of the thesis is joint work with Carlo Perroni, Kimberly Scharf and Al Slivinski. In this chapter we study how tax relief on private donations towards the private provision of collective goods can protect minorities from majority-driven outcomes where high taxes are exclusively used to finance publicly provided goods that these minorities do not value. We show that an elected policymaker can use the same instruments as a strategic commitment device aimed at creating and supporting political alliances that would not otherwise be able to coalesce, thus securing majority support for re-election.

This thesis investigates the effects of village economic wealth and economic autonomy on the authoritarian control of local government over village elections in China. With new data - qualitative evidence and quantitative data collected from the extensive fieldtrips to a county in Guangdong Province, this study finds that given that village elections operate within China’s one party authoritarian regime and the official purpose of the elections is to solve the grassroots governance crisis, local government have the incentive to control the elections in their favour, that is, to have incumbents and/or party members elected. Using the election of party members to the village committee chairman position and the re-election of incumbent chairmen as proxies for the inclusiveness and contestation dimensions of village elections, this study demonstrates that collective village wealth triggers fierce electoral competition, as collective village wealth represents the lucrative benefits candidates can obtain from holding the office. However, the success of authoritarian control hinges on village economic autonomy - the opportunities for economic development beyond the control of local government. If economic resources are controlled by local government, economic development might strengthen the capacity of local government to control the elections in their favour. Even if opponents win the elections, they are inclined to be co-opted by the local government - becoming party members, because their economic gain and maintenance of power are affected by the authoritarian local government control over economic resources. In most villages in the sample, authoritarian control prevails in village elections. The findings of this thesis suggest that until now the elections have been maintained within the boundary of the CCP’s authoritarian governance. In rural China, for elections to serve the function of promoting democracy and fostering checks and balances of power - neither manipulation by the local government nor manipulation by rich opponents - the key lies in the economic empowerment of villagers.

Rarement, la durée des mandats politiques n’est considérée autrement que comme une donnée subalterne dans l’analyse des régimes politiques alors que, dans la vie politique courante, elle constitue une donnée essentielle de la pratique politicienne.Cependant, la durée des mandats politiques est une donnée qui découle de la mise en œuvre de concepts aussi essentiels à la définition du vivre-ensemble politique que la Démocratie, la Citoyenneté, la République, la Souveraineté et la Représentation. Partant du constat que la notion est rarement questionnée en terme de droit constitutionnel, il s’agit d’analyser les dispositions institutionnelles de pays aux traditions juridiques différentes pour étudier la place que tient la notion de durée des mandats politiques et quels rôles cette notion joue dans l’équilibre institutionnel de chaque État.Dans cette analyse, il convient de prendre en compte la durée théorique du mandat mais également les possibilités d’un renouvellement ou d’une prorogation ou, au contraire, les différentes éventualités de sa réduction.Parce qu’elle constitue une donnée importante de la délégation que le Peuple Souverain concède à la Représentation, la notion de durée des mandats politiques devrait s’inscrire au cœur de la Constitution de chaque État. On constate cependant que tel n’est pas toujours le cas dans la mesure où, parfois, des mandats politiques essentiels voient leur durée être réglée par la loi. Par ailleurs, les mandats politiques locaux, dont l’importance ne fait que croître dans l’esprit du citoyen, ne sont abordés que dans le cadre législatif. À rebours de ce premier constat, on observe également que le thème de la durée des mandats politiques fait l’objet de dispositions dans les traités internationaux universels ou régionaux.Dans un deuxième temps, l’analyse des dispositions constitutionnelles de plus de 70 pays montre que la durée des mandats politiques est, dans un premier temps, établie par rapport aux caractéristiques que l’on souhaite donner au régime politique et que cette durée agit, en retour, sur l’évolution du régime politique considéré, les mandats et leur durée interagissant entre eux au sein d’un même régime.Enfin, si on peut constater que la durée la plus communément admise se situe entre quatre et cinq ans, il faut souligner que, historiquement au moins, la durée la plus généralement pratiquée a varié en fonction de l’équilibre admis entre respect de la Souveraineté du Peuple et latitude concédée à la Représentation, chaque expérience soulignant la difficulté d’établir un compromis intellectuellement satisfaisant entre droit du citoyen et liberté des gouvernants. / Rarely, the duration of the political mandates is considered otherwise than as a subordinate in the analysis of political regimes while in everyday political life, it constitutes an essential fact of political practice.However, the duration of the political mandates is a data resulting from the implementation of concepts such essential to the definition of political living together as Democracy, Citizenship, Republic, Sovereignty and Representation. Starting from the premise that the concept is rarely questioned in terms of constitutional law, the analysis of the institutional provisions of countries with different legal traditions allows us to study the place that takes the concept of duration of political mandates and what role this concept plays in the institutional balance of each state.In this analysis, we have to take into account the theoretical duration of the mandate but also the possibility of a renewal or extend or, on the contrary, the various contingencies of its reduction.Because it constitutes an important factor of the delegation that the Sovereign People grants to the Representation, the notion of duration of political mandates should be at the heart of the Constitution of each State. We note, however, that such is not always the case where, sometimes, essential political mandates see their duration be set by the simple law. In addition, local political mandates, whose importance is growing in the minds of the citizens, are addressed in the legislative framework. Countdown of this first observation, there is also the theme of the duration of the political mandates in universal or regional international treaties.In a second phase, the analysis of the Constitutions in more than 70 countries shows that the duration of the political mandates is, initially, established with the characteristics that we want to give to the plan policy and that duration is, in turn, on the evolution of the political scheme, the mandates and their time interacting each other within same plan.Finally, if it can be seen that the most commonly accepted duration lies between four and five years, it should be note that, historically at least, the most generally practiced duration has varied according to balance admitted between respect for sovereignty of the people and latitude granted to representation, each experience highlighting the difficulty of establishing an intellectually satisfactory compromise between the citizen’s right and freedom of the rulers.

This dissertation studies political dynasties in democratic countries. Dynasties are common in all professions. However, for the profession of politics, in which succession depends no longer on dynastic succession but on running successful electoral campaigns, understanding how and why political power can be bequeathed is particularly important. Factors such as name recognition (the voter demand side) and political networks (the elite supply side) are potential explanations of the continued presence of dynasties in parliaments. This dissertation studies both the voter demand side and the elite supply side of the phenomenon. I first discuss the related literature on political dynasties, political selection, political quality, and the personal vote. Voting for dynasties can be rational, and the presence of dynastic legislators perfectly legitimate. Political dynasties may thrive in electoral systems that encourage personal voting, such as is used in Belgium. In a first paper, I show that in the Belgian 2010 General Election voters preferred dynastic candidates. Institutional changes may change such (dynastic) elite equilibria. In a second paper, we exploit the constituency-level variation in the franchise extension associated with the Second and Third Reform Acts in Britain. However, we find no effect of these reforms on the position of dynasties or the aristocracy in politics. Changes to the political career of legislators may also affect their chances of establishing or continuing a dynasty. The third paper studies dynasties in the UK House of Commons. I employ random variation in tenure length introduced by winning vs. losing a first re-election by a narrow margin. Surprisingly, I find no effect of tenure length on an MP’s chances of establishing a dynasty in the nineteenth century. However, selection into cabinet is more likely if the MP had a relative in the cabinet before.

Visualisations of election data produced by the mass media, other organisations and even individuals are becoming increasingly available across a wide variety of platforms and in many different forms. As more data become available digitally and as improvements to computer hardware and software are made, these visualisations have become more ambitious in scope and more user-friendly. Research has shown that visualising data is an extremely powerful method of communicating information to specialists and non-specialists alike. This amounts to a democratisation of access to political and electoral data. To some extent political science lags behind the progress that has been made in the field of data visualisation. Much of the academic output remains committed to the paper format and much of the data presentation is in the form of simple text and tables. In the digital and information age there is a danger that political science will fall behind. This thesis reports on a number of case studies where efforts were made to visualise election data in order to clarify its structure and to present its meaning. The first case study demonstrates the value of data visualisation to the research process itself, facilitating the understanding of effects produced by different ways of estimating missing data. A second study sought to use visualisation to explain complex aspects of voting systems to the wider public. Three further case studies demonstrate the value of collaboration between political scientists and others possessing a range of skills embracing data management, software engineering, broadcasting and graphic design. These studies also demonstrate some of the problems that are encountered when trying to distil complex data into a form that can be easily viewed and interpreted by non-expert users. More importantly, these studies suggest that when the skills balance is correct then visualisation is both viable and necessary for communicating information on elections.

This thesis studies three channels through which elections and, ultimately, public policy may be interrelated: new media, electoral systems and vote motivation. The media has the fundamental role of providing political information to voters. New media such as the Internet brought about an enormous shift in the availability of political information during elections. Exploiting the timing and geographic variation in the introduction of Internet in Brazil, in the first chapter, I show that municipalities with higher Internet penetration voted more often in candidates who faced legal restrictions for advertising in traditional media. Electoral systems, in turn, have specific features that, in theory, may allow voters to select better politicians by providing more information about candidates and other voters' preferences. In the second chapter, using the discontinuous allocation of single- and dual-ballot electoral rules across mayoral elections in Brazil, I compare the quality of politicians fielded and elected in these systems. In general, dual-ballot candidates from major parties are more politically experienced. This experience may be translated into unobserved political skills that are required to deal with the more competitive electoral process, that, by itself, punishes female candidates, to the extent to which women's participation in politics has been historically low. No differences in performance are observed, except in the attraction of discretionary resources by dual-ballot mayors eligible for reelection, but only in election years. Finally, in the third chapter, I use a quasi-naturally generated group of voters with differential political information and voting motivations to show that politicians extract more rents in municipalities where they know a number of voters is not directly interested in public goods and do not have readily access to local sources of information.

The use of electoral reforms as active instruments of democratisation has been common in many transitions to democracy. However, in Mexico, electoral laws and institutions played an unusually important role in ensuring a peaceful transition to democracy. The current study addresses the effects of the Electoral Reforms in the Transition to democracy in Mexico with special reference to the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE). It is primarily intended as a contribution to the field of electoral reforms and institutions in processes of political change. The main aim of the thesis is to assess whether electoral reform contributed to or acted to confirm the process of political transition in Mexico and to establish the extent to which the IFE’s role expanded beyond what was initially expected. The study focuses on the political circumstances between the late 1970s, and 2000, when most of the relevant legislation was implemented and the bodies for the supervision of elections were created. The study employs “elite interviews” and a broad range of local sources including law, official documents, party literature and secondary source analysis. The study begins by examining the context of electoral reform in Mexico, giving a description of the Mexican authoritarian regime. Then, based on interviews as well as secondary sources, the Mexican transition is analysed in a comparative perspective and its peculiarities are highlighted. It concludes that the model of transition followed by Mexico is characterised by a slow and gradual change through five stages based on negotiations centred on electoral issues that avoided ruptures and promoted dialogue to achieve amongst the players consensus about the rules of the game. The study continues with an historical overview of the electoral reforms between 1946 and 1986 establishing the cosmetic nature of the early reforms and the democratising character of the 1977 reform which, by introducing Proportional Representation in Congress, not only opened the party system but also established the ground for political change based on electoral issues. The study goes on to examine the creation of IFE in the 1989-90 reform and its further evolution through the 1990s culminating with its total independence from the government in 1996. This is evaluated in the context of other political and socio-economic changes that had an impact on political groups and generated political forces. It examines the attitudes of the various parties towards the reform and the institution and their methods of negotiation have been analysed using “elite interviewing”, the analysis of party documents and media sources. The analysis concludes that despite the IFE being an effect of a critical political conflict generated by the controversial 1988 elections and being perceived as just another government agency, in time, it accumulated functions and gained additional powers and prestige that allowed it to become a major player in generating consensus among political parties and the government and in ensuring more transparent and fair elections, and thus increasing the competence of political parties. The final part of the study focuses on the three main areas of activity of IFE including I) the management of the electoral system, II) the development of formulas for the allocation of funds and the regulation of broadcasting time on radio and TV and III) the efforts made to improve participation rates, including political and civic education for adults and children. It uses official IFE documents and interviews with former and present members of IFE to discuss IFE’s evolution and functioning, and the members’ experiences and expectations for the future in relation to the institution. It concludes that after being created, the IFE initially focused exclusively on solving electoral fraud. Once IFE had finished resolving problems related to the organisation of elections, it started focusing on other issues such as the regulation of party finances and media access, moving on from a focus on merely “free” elections to “fair” elections. The study shows that the issue of party finances and media access only became relevant once earlier issues related to the organisation of elections had been solved. In relation to the role of the electoral authority in this area, the research shows that IFE contributed to the national debate on party funding, media access, and monitoring. The monitoring of party expenditure and media coverage by IFE proved to be an important element in reducing corruption and also contributed to the credibility of IFE. Finally the work of the IFE in the area of civic education is analysed. This study was unable to prove that IFE had been successful in creating a fully democratic political culture that could extend far beyond the electoral arena. In conclusion, it can be seen that electoral reform both contributed to and acted to confirm the process of political transition and that the role of IFE developed beyond what was initially expected.

This thesis looks at the critical issue of electoral system reform relating to elections to the European Parliament. Directly elected since 1979, elections to the European Parliament operate on the basis of highly diverging national systems in the 27 member states, despite a mandate for electoral reform which should lead to a uniform system since the 1950s. The analysis of this thesis centres around the matters of legitimacy and the perceived democratic deficit, as surprisingly, there has been little or no discussion to date on the way the electoral system of elections to the European Parliament promotes or hinders the democratic legitimacy of the European Union. The European Union is conceptualised by the means of three different models, the EU as an international organisation, a supranational technocratic regime, and as a federal order. This thesis addresses the democratic deficit point by constructing an ideal type electoral system where it is currently lacking - in relation to a federal order. This research makes an interdisciplinary contribution by combining a value free positive political science on the one side and a normative legal approach on the other. Whereas a good deal of legal analysis is either explicitly based on a federal model of the European Union or implicitly premised on such an approach, detailed analysis of the implications of federalism for EU level democracy is much less common. Next to historic developments in the field of electoral reform in the European Parliament, the recent Duff Reports as well as the debates around them are analysed. The thesis concludes that an electoral system needs to generate competition between European parties on European matters and presents core elements of a draft European Elections Act, a new uniform voting system for elections to the European Parliament.

This thesis focuses on the politics of electoral reform. It examines dynamics operating at both the public and political elite levels. The first paper looks at the place of electoral reform in British politics, in particular the place of the Alternative Vote (AV), and demonstrates a positive relationship between disproportionality and interest in electoral reform. The second paper focuses on the tension between representative democracy and direct democracy and considers why the referendum became the pathway to decide on the issue. The third paper analyses the voting behaviour in the UK’s 2011 AV referendum and demonstrates that voters cast their votes based on cues and in harmony with the positions taken by the party leaders they trusted. Agreement with campaign statements was also indicative of an individual’s vote mediating the impact of partisanship. Direct contact by campaigns did not have much significant effect on a typical individual’s vote except for those individuals contacted by the Liberal Democrats. Contact by the Liberal Democrats, contrary to the expectations had an impact in the negative direction of the position endorsed by the Party.