Low voter turnout is a serious democratic problem for five reasons: (1) It means unequal turnout that is systematically biased against less well-to-do citizens. (2) Unequal turnout spells unequal political influence. (3) U.S. voter turnout is especially low, but, measured as percent of voting-age population, it is also relatively low in most other countries. (4) Turnout in midterm, regional, local, and supranational elections—less salient but by no means unimportant elections—tends to be especially poor. (5) Turnout appears to be declining everywhere. The problem of inequality can be solved by institutional mechanisms that maximize turnout. One option is the combination of voter-friendly registration rules, proportional representation, infrequent elections, weekend voting, and holding less salient elections concurrently with the most important national elections. The other option, which can maximize turnout by itself, is compulsory voting. Its advantages far outweigh the normative and practical objections to it.

The evolution of crises depends upon interpreting intentions under uncertainty. We model crises as a game of two-sided incomplete information. Players are uncertain about their own payoffs from war because of differences between observable and actual capabilities. We derive four hypotheses, testing them against crises in Europe between 1815 and 1970. We show a nonmonotonic relationship between ex ante observable capabilities and the likelihood of violence in a crisis, as well as the ex ante likelihood of a negotiated settlement. We answer five questions: (1) How do differences in observable capabilities between rivals influence the likelihood of a crisis and the escalation to violence? (2) How do intangible capabilities alter the effects of observable capabilities on the likelihood of conflict and violence? (3) What do national leaders learn from the responses of their adversaries in crises? (4) Under what conditions can deterrence succeed? (5) Under what conditions are the strong likely to give in to the weak or vice versa in a crisis?

The hallmark of the new positive theories of the judiciary is that Supreme Court justices will frequently defer to the preferences of Congress when making decisions, particularly in statutory cases in which it is purportedly easy for Congress to reverse the Court. Alternatively, judicial attitudinalists argue that the institutional structures facing the Court allow the justices to vote their sincere policy preferences. This paper compares these sincere and sophisticated models of voting behavior by Supreme Court justices. Using a variety of tests on the votes of Supreme Court justices in statutory cases decided between 1947 and 1992, I find some evidence of sophisticated behavior, but most tests suggest otherwise. Moreover, direct comparisons between the two models unambiguously favor the attitudinal model. I conclude that the justices overwhelmingly engage in rationally sincere behavior.

We propose that (1) the preadult socialization of longstanding, stable predispositions is catalyzed by exogenous political events; (2) such events socialize attitudes selectively, only in the specific domains they make salient; and so (3) longstanding predispositions tend to be socialized episodically rather than incrementally. This theory is applied to the socialization of partisanship during a presidential campaign, examining gains in information, affective expression, and attitude crystallization. Adolescents (aged 10 to 17) and their parents were interviewed in a three-wave panel study, at the beginning of a presidential campaign, at the end, and a year later. The campaign induced substantial preadult socialization gains regarding attitude objects central to the campaign (candidates and parties), particularly in the stability of preadults' partisanship. There were few gains in attitude domains peripheral to the campaign or during the postcampaign period. These findings suggest that periodic political events catalyze preadult socialization, generating predispositions that persist into later life stages.

Do political institutions affect citizen satisfaction with democracy? If so, how? Using cross-sectional survey data for eleven European democracies together with data on the type of democracy in which individuals live, we demonstrate that the nature of representative democratic institutions (measured by Arend Lijphart's consensus-majority index of democracies) mediates the relationship between a person's status as part of the political minority or majority and his or her satisfaction with the way the system works. Specifically, we find that (1) the losers of democratic competition show lower levels of satisfaction than do those in the majority and (2) losers in systems that are more consensual display higher levels of satisfaction with the way democracy works than do losers in systems with majoritarian characteristics. Conversely, winners tend to be more satisfied with democracy the more a country's political institutions approximate pure majoritarian government.

While the possible decline in the level of social capital in the United States has received considerable attention by scholars such as Putnam and Fukuyama, less attention has been paid to the local activities of citizens that help define a nation's stock of social capital. Scholars have paid even less attention to how institutional arrangements affect levels of social capital. We argue that giving parents greater choice over the public schools their children attend creates incentives for parents as “citizen/consumers” to engage in activities that build social capital. Our empirical analysis employs a quasi-experimental approach comparing parental behavior in two pairs of demographically similar school districts that vary on the degree of parental choice over the schools their children attend. Our data show that, controlling for many other factors, parents who choose when given the opportunity are higher on all the indicators of social capital analyzed. Fukuyama has argued that it is easier for governments to decrease social capital than to increase it. We argue, however, that the design of government institutions can create incentives for individuals to engage in activities that increase social capital.

We analyze the effects of alliances and preferential trading arrangements on bilateral trade flows. Both factors are likely to promote trade among members, but we argue that the interaction between them is central to explaining patterns of commerce. The combination of an alliance, which creates political incentives for participants to engage in trade, and a commercial institution, which liberalizes trade among members, is expected to provide a considerable impetus to commerce among parties to both. The results of our quantitative analyses support these arguments. Both alliances and preferential trading arrangements strongly affected trade from 1960 to 1990, and allies that included a major power conducted considerably more trade than their nonmajor-power counterparts. Moreover, the interaction between alliances and preferential trading arrangements is fundamental to explaining patterns of bilateral commerce: Parties to a common preferential trading arrangement and a common alliance engage in markedly greater trade than do members of either type of institution but not both.

The longstanding debate over whether officials should be permitted to profit personally from public office has moved to the center of public discourse in the United States. As the House Ethics Manual put it recently, it is of concern simply when an officeholder “cash[es] in on official position,” regardless of whether his or her official performance was in any way impaired as a result. Although the question of private gain from public office is richly implicative of a number of fundamental issues in political theory—in particular the ongoing controversy over where to draw the borders between private and public as well as the nature of official fiduciary responsibility—it has yet to undergo political-theoretic analysis. In what follows, I examine both the conceptual and normative issues emergent in the debate over private gain from public office.

The Weimar Republic is frequently invoked in political theory as an example when the issue is the appropriate response of liberal democracies to internal, fundamental challenges. I explore that example through the lens of a 1932 court case that tested the legality of the federal government's “coup” against Prussia. In my analysis of the court's judgment and of the arguments of three political and public law theorists, Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, and Hermann Heller, I argue for Heller's democratic vision of the rule of law. In my conclusion, I compare problems in Kelsen's position with problems in the recently articulated position of John Rawls in order to suggest what lessons Weimar may have for contemporary political theory.

This paper investigates the dynamics of the “wasted vote” phenomenon and Duverger's Law. I construct a theoretical model in order to consider how preelection polls serve to inform the electorate about the relative chances of the candidates and how that information acts over time to decrease the support of the trailing candidate. The results shed light on how public opinion polls can aggregate information in the electorate and coordinate voters on the viable candidates in the election. Specifically, I show that in a Bayesian game model of strategic voting there exist non-Duvergerian equilibria in which all three candidates receive votes (in the limit). These equilibria require extreme coordination, however, and any variation in beliefs leads voters away from them to one of the Duvergerian equilibria. Thus, non-Duvergerian equilibria are unstable, while two-party equilibria are not. In addition, I describe how preelection polls provide information to voters about the viability of candidates and can thus be used by voters to coordinate on a Duvergerian outcome.

The percentage of state legislative seats won by Democrats in nonsouthern states has increased steadily since World War II. Fiorina (1994) argues that this is because of the professionalization of state legislatures: Legislatures now meet longer and pay higher salaries; legislative positions which require more time are less attractive to Republicans, who can make more money elsewhere; higher salaries attract Democrats, who make less in the private sector. That analysis has several serious flaws. First, nonsouthern states have gradually become more Democratic at all levels as part of a long-term regional political realignment. The rise in Democrats in legislatures outside the South is due more to this realignment than to legislative professionalization. Second, trends in southern states contradict his hypothesis. Professionalization has increased, but state legislatures are becoming more Republican. Finally, Fiorina's analysis is worth careful reconsideration because it suggests that there is little connection between constituencies and partisan outcomes.

The critique of my 1994 article by Stonecash and Agathangelou reflects a series of misconceptions and misunderstandings—about measures, methods, arguments, and findings. In this rejoinder I attempt to correct these. In addition, I clarify my methods and findings. First, I show that a formal statistical test indicates that limiting the analysis to the northern states is justified. Less formally, the professionalism hypothesis cannot work the same in the South as in the North unless levels of Democratic legislative strength can rise above 100%. Second, although clearly inferior to a pooled analysis, I show that a disaggregated (state-by-state) analysis is far more supportive of the professionalization hypothesis than the flawed results Stonecash and Agathangelou report. Third, despite the repeated assertions of Stonecash and Agathangelou, I demonstrate that there is no evidence that a long-term partisan realignment to the Democrats is occurring, and that, contrary to their methodological recommendations, the variables included in my analysis would capture it if it were. Finally, Stonecash and Agathangelou interpret my research as indicating a lack of relationship between constituencies and who gets elected. That is simply not a correct reading of my article.