Are nonverbal reactions during parliamentary debate gendered? Do male and female members of parliament (MPs) experience applause or jeering differently? In short, yes, and the gendered nature of a speech matters. Using an original corpus of over 544,000 speeches given in German state parliaments, we first estimate the gendered nature of parliamentary speeches and then examine how reactions to speeches given by male and female MPs differ. Female and male MPs receive similarly positive and negative reactions to their speeches on average, but they receive different reactions depending on the gendered nature of the speeches. Speeches using language associated with women's topics receive fewer reactions overall and even fewer when delivered by men. The gendered nature of parliamentary interjections could affect how women MPs view their position and how women voters view parliament.
{"title":"Gender and reactions to speeches in German parliamentary debates","authors":"Elliott Ash, Johann Krümmel, Jonathan B. Slapin","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12867","url":null,"abstract":"Are nonverbal reactions during parliamentary debate gendered? Do male and female members of parliament (MPs) experience applause or jeering differently? In short, yes, and the gendered nature of a speech matters. Using an original corpus of over 544,000 speeches given in German state parliaments, we first estimate the gendered nature of parliamentary speeches and then examine how reactions to speeches given by male and female MPs differ. Female and male MPs receive similarly positive and negative reactions to their speeches on average, but they receive different reactions depending on the gendered nature of the speeches. Speeches using language associated with women's topics receive fewer reactions overall and even fewer when delivered by men. The gendered nature of parliamentary interjections could affect how women MPs view their position and how women voters view parliament.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140999808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The political budget cycle theory has extensively documented how politicians manipulate policies during election years to gain an electoral advantage. This paper focuses on county sheriffs, crucial but often neglected local officials, and investigates their opportunistic political behavior during elections. Using a panel data set covering 57 California county governments over four election cycles, we find compelling evidence of traffic enforcement policy manipulation by county sheriffs during election years. Specifically, a county's per capita traffic fines revenue is 30% lower in the election than in nonelection years. The magnitude of the political cycle intensifies when an incumbent sheriff runs for reelection or an election is competitive. Our findings contribute to the political budget cycle theory and provide timely insights into the ongoing debate surrounding law enforcement reform and local governments’ increasing reliance on fines and fees revenue.
{"title":"Playing politics with traffic fines: Sheriff elections and political cycles in traffic fines revenue","authors":"Min Su, Christian Buerger","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12866","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12866","url":null,"abstract":"The political budget cycle theory has extensively documented how politicians manipulate policies during election years to gain an electoral advantage. This paper focuses on county sheriffs, crucial but often neglected local officials, and investigates their opportunistic political behavior during elections. Using a panel data set covering 57 California county governments over four election cycles, we find compelling evidence of traffic enforcement policy manipulation by county sheriffs during election years. Specifically, a county's per capita traffic fines revenue is 30% lower in the election than in nonelection years. The magnitude of the political cycle intensifies when an incumbent sheriff runs for reelection or an election is competitive. Our findings contribute to the political budget cycle theory and provide timely insights into the ongoing debate surrounding law enforcement reform and local governments’ increasing reliance on fines and fees revenue.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141000206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How do UN peacekeeping missions enforce peace agreements, and what effect do higher rates of enforcement have on agreement implementation and conflict termination? Peace agreement enforcement forms a central component of peacekeeping effectiveness, yet missions are often mandated to enforce a minority of agreement provisions, and they vary across both time and space in the ways in which they do so. I identify the three dimensions along which enforcement operates—the proportion and type of provisions that missions are mandated to enforce, alongside their mandated level of involvement in their implementation—and theorize about their positive effects on agreement implementation and conflict termination. Analyzing the Peacekeeping Enforcement Dataset, an original data set of the enforcement patterns of all UN peacekeeping missions (1989–2015), I find that each dimension of enforcement has, at various time points, a distinct impact on agreement implementation and preventing conflict recidivism.
{"title":"How UN peacekeeping missions enforce peace agreements","authors":"Cameron Mailhot","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12853","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12853","url":null,"abstract":"How do UN peacekeeping missions enforce peace agreements, and what effect do higher rates of enforcement have on agreement implementation and conflict termination? Peace agreement enforcement forms a central component of peacekeeping effectiveness, yet missions are often mandated to enforce a minority of agreement provisions, and they vary across both time and space in the ways in which they do so. I identify the three dimensions along which enforcement operates—the proportion and type of provisions that missions are mandated to enforce, alongside their mandated level of involvement in their implementation—and theorize about their positive effects on agreement implementation and conflict termination. Analyzing the Peacekeeping Enforcement Dataset, an original data set of the enforcement patterns of all UN peacekeeping missions (1989–2015), I find that each dimension of enforcement has, at various time points, a distinct impact on agreement implementation and preventing conflict recidivism.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140663802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite record numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) globally, we know little about the causal effects of intergroup contact between migrants and locals in active conflict settings. We conduct a randomized controlled trial of a vocational skills‐training program implemented by Mercy Corps that enrolled 2597 locals and migrants in near equal numbers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where IDPs face daily prejudice and discrimination. Courses lasting up to 6 months emphasized collaborative learning and soft skills development. We surveyed participants at endline and followed up 8 months later. While the program provided the most sustained duration of intergroup contact (360–720 h) experimentally evaluated to date, we find no evidence of reported behavioral or attitudinal change by locals (N = 1276) toward migrants generally, regardless of classroom demographics or course duration. Our findings suggest that prolonged contact through vocational training programs is insufficient to improve relations in conflict settings.
{"title":"Prolonged contact does not reshape locals' attitudes toward migrants in wartime settings","authors":"Yang‐Yang Zhou, Jason Lyall","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12862","url":null,"abstract":"Despite record numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) globally, we know little about the causal effects of intergroup contact between migrants and locals in active conflict settings. We conduct a randomized controlled trial of a vocational skills‐training program implemented by Mercy Corps that enrolled 2597 locals and migrants in near equal numbers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where IDPs face daily prejudice and discrimination. Courses lasting up to 6 months emphasized collaborative learning and soft skills development. We surveyed participants at endline and followed up 8 months later. While the program provided the most sustained duration of intergroup contact (360–720 h) experimentally evaluated to date, we find no evidence of reported behavioral or attitudinal change by locals (N = 1276) toward migrants generally, regardless of classroom demographics or course duration. Our findings suggest that prolonged contact through vocational training programs is insufficient to improve relations in conflict settings.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140665451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A's chances of obtaining the good, we reduce B's chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Noncompetitive Affirmative Action. The latter has to do with noncompetitive goods, for example, being granted early parole or freedom from arbitrary arrest. I argue that some of the most prominent objections against affirmative action—in particular, the reverse discrimination objection and the merit objection—speak less against Noncompetitive Affirmative Action. And that some of the most prominent arguments in favor of affirmative action, insofar as they justify Competitive Affirmative Action, also justify Noncompetitive Affirmative Action.
{"title":"Affirmative action without competition","authors":"Andreas Bengtson","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12864","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12864","url":null,"abstract":"Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A's chances of obtaining the good, we reduce B's chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Noncompetitive Affirmative Action. The latter has to do with noncompetitive goods, for example, being granted early parole or freedom from arbitrary arrest. I argue that some of the most prominent objections against affirmative action—in particular, the reverse discrimination objection and the merit objection—speak less against Noncompetitive Affirmative Action. And that some of the most prominent arguments in favor of affirmative action, insofar as they justify Competitive Affirmative Action, also justify Noncompetitive Affirmative Action.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140682561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When grievance shocks have heavy tails, large sudden increases in grievances coordinate behavior far more effectively into protests than a sequence of small grievance shocks that generate the same final distribution of grievances in society. That is, society as a whole behaves like the legendary boiling frog, even though each individual does not. An implication is a strong form of path‐dependence in collective action. To assess a society's potential for protest, it is not enough to know the current distribution of antiregime sentiments; we also need to know how they came about: suddenly or gradually. The theory also provides a rationale for the classic J‐curve theory of revolution. We provide a quantitative analysis of the relationship between grievance shocks and protests in Chile in 2014–2019. Consistent with the theory, results suggest that, even after controlling for grievance levels, large grievance shocks increased the number of protests.
{"title":"Grievance shocks and coordination in protest","authors":"Sofía Correa, Gaétan Nandong, Mehdi Shadmehr","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12859","url":null,"abstract":"When grievance shocks have heavy tails, large sudden increases in grievances coordinate behavior far more effectively into protests than a sequence of small grievance shocks that generate the same final distribution of grievances in society. That is, society as a whole behaves like the legendary boiling frog, even though each individual does not. An implication is a strong form of path‐dependence in collective action. To assess a society's potential for protest, it is not enough to know the current distribution of antiregime sentiments; we also need to know how they came about: suddenly or gradually. The theory also provides a rationale for the classic J‐curve theory of revolution. We provide a quantitative analysis of the relationship between grievance shocks and protests in Chile in 2014–2019. Consistent with the theory, results suggest that, even after controlling for grievance levels, large grievance shocks increased the number of protests.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140742456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Viewing the relationship between politicians and voters as a principal–agent interaction afflicted by moral hazard, we examine how political careers are shaped by the incentives that voters provide incumbents to work in the public interest. When moral hazard binds, the optimal way for voters to hold politicians accountable is to provide re‐election incentives that evolve dynamically over their careers in office. Under these incentives, first‐term politicians are among the most electorally vulnerable and the hardest‐working; politician effort rises with electoral vulnerability; electoral security increases following good performance and decreases following bad performance; and both effort and electoral vulnerability tend to decline with tenure. In extensions, we study limited voter commitment, voluntary retirement from politics, and adverse selection.
{"title":"Political accountability under moral hazard","authors":"Avidit Acharya, Elliot Lipnowski, João Ramos","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12860","url":null,"abstract":"Viewing the relationship between politicians and voters as a principal–agent interaction afflicted by moral hazard, we examine how political careers are shaped by the incentives that voters provide incumbents to work in the public interest. When moral hazard binds, the optimal way for voters to hold politicians accountable is to provide re‐election incentives that evolve dynamically over their careers in office. Under these incentives, first‐term politicians are among the most electorally vulnerable and the hardest‐working; politician effort rises with electoral vulnerability; electoral security increases following good performance and decreases following bad performance; and both effort and electoral vulnerability tend to decline with tenure. In extensions, we study limited voter commitment, voluntary retirement from politics, and adverse selection.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140747675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Are banks sensitive to risk and reward in following global corporate transparency rules? Using a worldwide field experiment, this study evaluates competing predictions from expected utility, behavioralist, and institutionalist accounts. We incorporated a dozen companies around the world to make over 15,000 email solicitations asking for corporate accounts from 5000 of the world's internationally connected banks. Treatments randomize the risk profiles of different companies—by their countries’ association with corruption, terrorism, and tax evasion—and vary rewards by stating differing amounts of business revenues. The outcomes are the rates at which banks offer accounts and comply with rules on customer identification. The results suggest that banks are moderately responsive to risk—though not reward—but the magnitude of the effects is small, providing mixed evidence for conventional models and suggestive support for institutionalist accounts.
{"title":"Banking bad? A global field experiment on risk, reward, and regulation","authors":"Michael G. Findley, D. Nielson, J. C. Sharman","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12861","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12861","url":null,"abstract":"Are banks sensitive to risk and reward in following global corporate transparency rules? Using a worldwide field experiment, this study evaluates competing predictions from expected utility, behavioralist, and institutionalist accounts. We incorporated a dozen companies around the world to make over 15,000 email solicitations asking for corporate accounts from 5000 of the world's internationally connected banks. Treatments randomize the risk profiles of different companies—by their countries’ association with corruption, terrorism, and tax evasion—and vary rewards by stating differing amounts of business revenues. The outcomes are the rates at which banks offer accounts and comply with rules on customer identification. The results suggest that banks are moderately responsive to risk—though not reward—but the magnitude of the effects is small, providing mixed evidence for conventional models and suggestive support for institutionalist accounts.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140365033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
According to many, the US Congress desperately needs reform because its capacity to govern has declined. Congressional capacity cannot be understood without examining how the expertise available to members is fostered or discouraged. We present a theory of expertise acquisition and apply it to the problem of overseeing the Executive. We use this theory to organize a dataset of congressional staff employment merged with new records of invitations, applications, and attendance at training sessions produced by three nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC. We find that staffers are more likely to acquire expertise when their jobs are more secure and there are more opportunities to use their expertise in careers outside of Congress—most notably, when their party takes control of the presidency. Our analysis suggests that oversight expertise is generally not sufficiently valuable outside of Congress to entice many staffers to acquire it without subsidies.
{"title":"Expertise acquisition in Congress","authors":"Christian Fong, Kenneth Lowande, Adam Rauh","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12848","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12848","url":null,"abstract":"According to many, the US Congress desperately needs reform because its capacity to govern has declined. Congressional capacity cannot be understood without examining how the expertise available to members is fostered or discouraged. We present a theory of expertise acquisition and apply it to the problem of overseeing the Executive. We use this theory to organize a dataset of congressional staff employment merged with new records of invitations, applications, and attendance at training sessions produced by three nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC. We find that staffers are more likely to acquire expertise when their jobs are more secure and there are more opportunities to use their expertise in careers outside of Congress—most notably, when their party takes control of the presidency. Our analysis suggests that oversight expertise is generally not sufficiently valuable outside of Congress to entice many staffers to acquire it without subsidies.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140380329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What drives the career advancement of female politicians in opaque selection environments where party activists hold sway? I argue that women's higher presence in local politics not only improves party elite responsiveness to greater talent supply (top‐down mechanism) but also expands women's capacity to organize grassroots activist networks to influence party‐nomination decisions (bottom‐up mechanism). Using the natural experiment of gender quotas in Delhi, which cause as‐if‐random variation in the number of local reserved seats within state constituencies, I estimate a novel effect of gender quotas. In state constituencies with women's higher presence in local politics, local female politicians are more likely to be promoted, and senior female politicians are more likely to get renominated. Qualitative evidence shows how women leverage grassroots networks and forge informal connections across party hierarchies. The findings emphasize the pivotal role of women's strategic political networks and grassroots organizing in shaping their political careers.
{"title":"Local political representation as a pathway to power: A natural experiment in India","authors":"Tanushree Goyal","doi":"10.1111/ajps.12840","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12840","url":null,"abstract":"What drives the career advancement of female politicians in opaque selection environments where party activists hold sway? I argue that women's higher presence in local politics not only improves party elite responsiveness to greater talent supply (top‐down mechanism) but also expands women's capacity to organize grassroots activist networks to influence party‐nomination decisions (bottom‐up mechanism). Using the natural experiment of gender quotas in Delhi, which cause as‐if‐random variation in the number of local reserved seats within state constituencies, I estimate a novel effect of gender quotas. In state constituencies with women's higher presence in local politics, local female politicians are more likely to be promoted, and senior female politicians are more likely to get renominated. Qualitative evidence shows how women leverage grassroots networks and forge informal connections across party hierarchies. The findings emphasize the pivotal role of women's strategic political networks and grassroots organizing in shaping their political careers.","PeriodicalId":48447,"journal":{"name":"American Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140230037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}