British Journal of Political Science

Journal: British Journal of Political Science

Abbreviation

Br. j. polit. sci.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

ISSN

0007-1234

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Publications 1 - 10 of 19

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Spilker, Gabriele (2012)
British Journal of Political Science
The Dynamics of Refugee Return: Syrian Refugees and Their Migration Intentions
Alrababah, Ala; Masterson, Daniel; Casalis, Marine; et al. (2023)
British Journal of Political Science
We study the drivers of refugees' decision making about returning home using observational and experimental data from a survey of 3,003 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We find that the conditions in refugee-hosting countries play a minor role. In contrast, conditions in a refugee's home country are the main drivers of return intentions. Even in the face of hostility and poor living conditions in host countries, refugees are unlikely to return unless the situation at home improves significantly. These results challenge traditional models of decision making about migration, where refugees weigh living conditions in the host and home countries ("push" and "pull" factors). We offer an alternative theoretical framework: a model of threshold-based decision making whereby only once a basic threshold of safety at home is met do refugees compare other factors in the host and home country. We explore some empirical implications of this new perspective using qualitative interviews and quantitative survey data.
Open/Closed List and Party Choice: Experimental Evidence from the UK
Blumenau, Jack; Eggers, Andrew C.; Hangartner, Dominik; et al. (2017)
British Journal of Political Science
Which parties benefit from open-list (as opposed to closed-list) proportional representation elections? This article shows that a move from closed-list to open-list competition is likely to be more favorable to parties with more internal disagreement on salient issues; this is because voters who might have voted for a unified party under closed lists may be drawn to specific candidates within internally divided parties under open lists. The study provides experimental evidence of this phenomenon in a hypothetical European Parliament election in the UK, in which using an open-list ballot would shift support from UKIP (the Eurosceptic party) to Eurosceptic candidates of the Conservative Party. The findings suggest that open-list ballots could restrict support for parties that primarily mobilize on a single issue.
Inferring Individual Preferences from Group Decisions: Judicial Preference Variation and Aggregation on Collegial Courts
Hangartner, Dominik; Lauderdale, Benjamin E; Spirig, Judith (2025)
British Journal of Political Science
Extensive research on judicial politics has documented disparities in adjudication and biases in judging. Yet, lacking statistical methods to infer individual preferences from group decisions, existing studies have focused on courts publishing individual judges’ opinions, leaving a gap in understanding collegial courts that report only collective and unanimous (‘per curiam’) panel decisions. We introduce a statistical methodology to identify the most fitting decision-theoretic models for such collective decisions, infer judges’ individual preferences, and quantify the inconsistency in the courts’ decisions. This methodology is applicable in various small group decision-making contexts where group assignments are repeated and exogenous. Applying it to the Swiss appellate court for asylum appeals, where decisions are made in three-judge panels, we find that in 45 per cent of cases, the chair-as-dictator rule applies (rather than majority rule). Although judges’ preferences vary strongly with partisanship, the partially collective decision making of the panel moderates this heterogeneity.
Does WTO Dispute Settlement Enforce or Inform?
Sattler, Thomas; Spilker, Gabriele; Bernauer, Thomas (2014)
British Journal of Political Science
Public Demand for Extraterritorial Environmental and Social Public Goods Provision
Rudolph, Lukas; Kolcava, Dennis; Bernauer, Thomas (2023)
British Journal of Political Science
Vastly increased transnational business activity in recent decades has been accompanied by controversy over how to cope with its social and environmental impacts. The most prominent policy response thus far consists of international guidelines. We investigate to what extent and why citizens in a high-income country are willing to restrain companies to improve environmental and social conditions in other countries. Exploiting a real-world referendum in Switzerland, we use choice and vignette experiments with a representative sample of voters (N = 3,010) to study public demand for such regulation. Our results show that citizens prefer strict and unilateral rules (with a substantial variation of preferences by general social and environmental concern) while correctly assessing their consequences. Moreover, exposure to international norms increases demand for regulation. These findings highlight that democratic accountability can be a mechanism that motivates states to contribute to collective goods even if not in their economic interest and that awareness of relevant international norms among citizens can enhance this mechanism.
Sanctuary Cities in Europe? A Policy Survey of Urban Policies in Support of Irregular Migrants
Kaufmann, David; Räss, Nora; Strebel, Dominique; et al. (2022)
British Journal of Political Science
Irregular migrants tend to live in dense urban settings. Cities therefore formulate various policies in support of irregular migrants. Given the US phenomenon of sanctuary cities, the study of these policies has been rather US-centric so far. This letter examines urban policies in support of irregular migrants in Europe’s 95 largest cities. Only 27 % of European cities formulate these types of policies. We discovered two relevant policy categories: status and services. Only five cities formulate policies that aim to award irregular migrants with a (more) secure status and 24 cities formulate policies that facilitate access to city services. Our mixed-method analysis suggests that status policies take advantage of policy-making discretion whereas service policies hinge on the availability of local resources. Yet, there are no simple explanations for the observed policy diversity that is the product of place-based policy-making idiosyncrasies.
A Categorization Theory of Spatial Voting: How the Center Divides the Political Space
Bølstad, Jørgen; Dinas, Elias (2017)
British Journal of Political Science
This article presents a categorization theory of spatial voting, which postulates that voters perceive political stances through coarse classifications. Because voters think in terms of categories defined by the ideological center, their behavior deviates from standard models of utility maximization along ideological continua. Their preferences are characterized by discontinuities, rewarding parties on their side of the ideological space more than existing spatial models would predict. While this study concurs with prior studies suggesting that voters tend to use a proximity rule, it argues that this rule mainly serves to distinguish among parties of the same side. Overall, the results suggest that voters’ party evaluations are characterized by a nontrivial identity component, generating in-group biases not captured by the existing spatial models of voting.
A Comparison of International and Domestic Sources of Global Governance Dynamics
Bernauer, Thomas; Kalbhenn, Anna; Koubi, Vally; et al. (2010)
British Journal of Political Science
Disaggregating Mediations
Böhmelt, Tobias (2011)
British Journal of Political Science

Publications 1 - 10 of 19

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