Using geo-referenced terror events and ethnicity information, this article seeks to explore if and how elections contribute to violence in Iraq. Analyzing the December 2005 and March 2010 parliamentary elections and the January 2009 governorate elections, I assess whether partisan and/or ethnic...

This paper examines the role played by sitting presidents during United States midterm congressional elections between 1982 and 2006. I examine the effects of presidential campaign appearances on behalf of candidates for the House of Representatives. Conventional wisdom holds that such...

The paper proposes a mechanism explaining how elections may stabilize an autocratic regime even if they are evidently unfree and unfair. Instead of being meaningless rituals, non-democratic elections can help the autocrats in managing and communicating the public information about the regime's...

This article suggests that voters rely more strongly on “substantial” criteria, such as issues and ideology, when elections are competitive. In such contexts, voters should attach more importance to their own choice and rely less on “heuristics.” Three aspects of election competitiveness...

Do men and women take similar or different paths to public office? In this paper we examine the occupational and educational backgrounds, family situations, and prior political experiences of women state legislators and their male counterparts. We assess the utility of three different possible...

This paper uses a new database on campaign funding on French members of parliament to analyze their efficiency. The database includes the level of funding, as well as the origin of the resources the politicians have at their disposal. The funding sources are identified with true resources used...

I conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate whether voters focus on the problem of electoral selection or if they instead focus on electoral sanctioning. If voters are forward-looking but also uncertain about politicians' unobservable characteristics, then it is rational to focus on...

In French national elections, the presence of a national economic vote is clear. However, the character of the economic vote is less clear at the regional level. Assuming regional elections are second order, voters may wish to signal the national incumbent, by rewarding or punishing it for...

This paper analyzes the electoral effects of corruption allegation in parliamentary electoral campaigns in Europe 1983-2007. Firstly, the paper examines the individual parties' electoral performances and secondly the survival rate of the governments. The results show firstly that parties that...