Kenneth Benoit’s Home Page

NOTE: Week 6 will be a double-length session, since Week 7 clashes with the Political Economy mini-conference. As a result, there is no field seminar meeting on Mar 12. Instead, the Week 6 (Feb 26) will last from 9-13:00.

Strategic Behavior , Dr. Jon Slapin

Readings:

• Thomas Schelling. 1978. Micromotives and Macrobehavior. Chapter 1 & chapter 3.
• Timothy Besley. 2006. Principled Agents. Chapter 1 & chapter 2.
• Barry Weingast. 1997. The Political Foundations of the Rule of Law. American Political Science Review 97(2).
• R. Preston McAfee. Introduction to Economic Analysis. Chap 7.1. (pgs 7-251 to 7-270). Available from www.introecon.com.

The Michigan Model, Professor Michael Marsh

This is classically presented in A. Cambell et al The American Voter, which is available via Google online. Critical chapters are 2, 6 and 7. Or look at a redced version, for instance in R. Niemi and H. Weisberg eds, Classics in Electoral Behaviour ch 22 [based on TAV ch 6-7].

A sympathetic  but contemporary restatement is M. Lewis-Beck at al, The American Voter Revisited ch 6-7.

For Ireland

Michael Marsh, Party identification in Ireland An insecure anchor for a floating party system’, Electoral Studies, 25, (3), 2006, p489 – 508
[available from INES page at www.tcd.ie/ines]

A recent debate on party identification is Bartle and Bellucci’s edited volume Political Parties and Partisanship, Routledge 2008.  See esp:

• Chapter 3: Thomassen and Rosema
• Chapter 4 B. Grofman et al
• Chapter  6 Clark et al
• Chapter 11 Green and Schickler – a defence of TAV.

Week 8: The impact of referendums (MG)

Lawrence LeDuc, The Politics of Global Democracy: referendums in global perspective. Peterborough Ontario: Broadview Press, 2003

Matt Qvortrup, A Comparative Study of Referendums: Government by the People, 2nd ed (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).

Claes De Vreese (ed), The Dynamics of Referendum Campaigns: an international perspective (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Maija Setala, Referendums and Democratic Government: normative theory and the analysis of institutions (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999)

Svensson, Palle (2002), Five Danish Referendums on the European Community and European Union: A Critical Assessment of the Franklin Thesis European Journal of Political Research 41/5: 733–50.

Further reading:

Bowler, Shaun and Todd Donovan (1998), Demanding Choices: Opinion, Voting, and Direct Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). Overview of the USA experience.

Darcy, R. and Michael Laver (1990), Referendum Dynamics and the Irish Divorce Amendment, Public Opinion Quarterly 54/1: 1-20.

de Vreese, Claes H. (2006), Political Parties in Dire Straits? Consequences of National Referendums for Political Parties, Party Politics 12/5: 581-98.

Lupia, Arthur and Richard Johnston (2001), Are Voters to Blame? Voter Competence and Elite Maneuvers in Referendums, in Matthew Mendelsohn and Andrew Parkin (eds), Referendum Democracy: Citizens, Elites  and Deliberation in Referendum Campaigns (Basingstoke: Palgrave). (2001), 191-210.

Marthaler, Sally (2005), The French Referendum on Ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty, 29 May 2005, Representation 41/3: 230-9.

Michael Gallagher and Pier Vincenzo Uleri (eds), The Referendum Experience in Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996.

Week 9: Electoral Behaviour I: The Dependent Variable (MM)

Cees van der Eijk et al, ‘Rethinking the dependent variable in voting behavior: On the measurement and analysis of electoral utilities’, Electoral Studies 2006, 25(3): 424-47

Guy Whitten and Harvey Palmer  ‘Heightening Comparativists’ concern  for model choice’, American Journal of Political Science, vol 40(1) 1996: 231-60

See also:

Wouter van der Brug et al The Economy and the Vote. Cambridge UnIversity Press, 2008, esp pp. 31-53.

Michael Marsh ‘Stability and change in structure of electoral competition 1989-2002’ in, editor(s)Diane Payne, John Garry and Niamh Hardiman , Irish social and political attitudes, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2006, pp94 – 111, [see http://www.tcd.ie/ines]