Voting cycles and the structure of individual preferences

Empirical studies have shown that cyclical preferences are infrequent, but they have been less clear about why. Using thermometer ratings from nationally-representative samples of the U.S., we examine preferences for presidential candidates in order to determine what it is about them that leads to few cycles. Single-peaked preferences as usually construed (meaning that all of a set of preferences satisfy single-peakedness criteria) are, of course, rare. Yet we find a high degree of unidimensionality in the sense that for any given set of preferences, a relatively high proportion of the preference orders are consistent with single-peakedness. We also find that the highest amounts of unidimensionality often do not occur along partisan or left/right lines. Strong feelings for or against candidates, often not derived from an issue base, form the basis for the dimensionality discovered.We would like to thank Daniel Severance for programming the random model calculations and three anonymous referees, whose comments were very helpful in clarifying the presentation in this paper.     

WHY THE DEMOCRAT-REPUBLICAN PARTISANSHIP GAP VARIES FROM POLL TO POLL

Polls taken in late 1980 and 1984 varied by up to 20 pointsin the spread they reported between Democratic and Republicanidentifiers. We found three systematic and sizable differencesacross polls: polls that sample only voters, polls that emphasize"today" or the present in their question wording, and pollsthat are taken close to election day (at least in circumstanceslike those of 1984) tend to favor the party currently advantagedin the presidential race.     

Citizens’ Initiatives for Crisis Management and the Use of Social Media: An Analysis of COVID-19 Crisis in Bangladesh

Public Organization Review - This study analyses different social media-based citizens’ initiatives taken during the COVID-19 crisis in Bangladesh. By applying netnography on various Facebook...