The ecological inference canonical problem in the social sciences consists of estimating the unobserved internal counts of a global RxC table from the known margins of a set of units. This paper proposes a new, computation-based strategy designed to better exploit the information contained in the unit margins. This approach can be integrated into any ecological inference method that explicitly estimates unit tables and accounts for differences in unit size. We evaluate its performance using as a baseline the fastest ecological inference linear programming method, relying on real electoral data from over 550 datasets where true contingency tables are known. In this extensive assessment, the proposed strategy reduces average global errors by more than 21% relative to the baseline, outperforming it in 95% of cases. It also improves upon nslphom-identified in the literature as the most accurate algorithm for this dataset-reducing average global errors by over 5% and outperforming it in 60% of cases. The versatility of the approach is further illustrated by also integrating it into three more computationally intensive methods, including the two main statistical ecological inference models-ei.MD.bayes and BPF-and nslphom, yielding consistent improvements over their respective baselines in a small set of examples.

This article explores the phenomenon of plebiscitary rule in authoritarian regimes: the institutionalisation and frequent use of referendums controlled by the executive. This specific trait of dictatorships has not been systematically explored in quantitative comparative politics. Our analysis focusses on the combined effect of autocratic personalism and regime institutionalised pluralism. The puzzle of plebiscitary rule is that it emerges at the intersection of these seemingly contradictory forces. We propose that plebiscitary rule counterbalances obstruction from the legislative and other constitutional actors, contributing to the feasibility of personalist rule in electoral authoritarianism. We provide quantitative evidence based on every post-1945 autocratic regime that is compatible with our expectations.

Facing a prospective majority of socialists during the early third of the 20th century, some secular conservative and liberal parties pooled their votes to raise the majority threshold for the left, while others raised it by enacting some form of proportional representation. We use vote transfers, estimated by a new method of ecological inference, to explain those far-reaching choices. We provide a new conceptualization and measurement of the segmentation of the electoral market to test a proposition within the Boix-Rokkan framework: proportional representation reform was chosen when vote transfers foretold coalition failure. To substantiate our claim, we investigate two most similar cases, Denmark during 1910–1918 and New Zealand during 1928–1931, that diverged in the explanatory variable and in the response.

La mayor parte de los datos de encuesta disponibles para la investigación de la opinión pública y la prospectiva electoral mediante muestras representativas, en España y América Latina, se han obtenido con selección final de las personas entrevistadas mediante cuotas, un método no probabilístico. La fiabilidad de las estimaciones hechas a partir de estos datos es mal conocida y tiene poco respaldo teórico: se sabe bastante sobre sus sesgos, pero casi nada sobre su varianza y “margen de error”. Esta investigación estudia con métodos empíricos la variabilidad de las muestras obtenidas en los barómetros periódicos del Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas de España (CIS), aprovechando la longitud y regularidad de algunas de sus series de estimación de parámetros estables. Los resultados muestran que el crecimiento de la varianza es moderado y está dentro de lo esperable en un diseño complejo.

AbstractDictatorships that use plebiscites – that is, referendums initiated by the executive – have a longer expected lifespan. A successful plebiscite sends a signal that makes coordination for collective action more difficult and induces the falsification of preferences. It also enhances the status of the dictator within the regime and against potential rivals through the use of agenda power. As a result, plebiscites are followed by decreased mobilization and a reduced risk of palace coups. This, in turn, adds years to the dictator's tenure. We have found evidence to support these propositions by utilizing data from various databases of autocratic regimes that span from 1946 to 2008.

Abstract The comparative study of authoritarianism has neglected plebiscites, and the comparative study of referendums tends to see in them a form of direct democracy regardless of the regime. We conceptualize dictatorial plebiscites as a genuine authoritarian tool, as part of a repressive strategy with the objective of hindering internal regime rivals and discouraging the coordination of the external opposition. We provide empirical evidence from dictatorships for the period 1946–2008 that is compatible with our expectations.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Este artículo estudia un asunto muy poco explorado: las actitudes de los españoles hacia la legalización de la prostitución. Empleando técnicas de análisis cuantitativas, y a partir de datos de encuesta representativos de la población en su conjunto, se busca la identificación de aquellas variables que establecen diferencias en la población ante la cuestión de si la prostitución ha de cambiar su tratamiento legal. El análisis confirma algunas impresiones parciales recogidas en las literaturas de psicología y trabajo social: la sociedad española apoya la legalización. Este apoyo es sin embargo menor entre las mujeres, las personas extranjeras, las personas más conservadoras y los trabajadores menos cualificados. Como cabría esperar, los consumidores de prostitución son claramente favorables a la legalización

?Que es un buen sistema electoral? ?Como se compara con otros? ?Cuales son las virtudes del nuestro, si es que las tiene? ?Y sus defectos? ?Por que vale la pena reformarlo? ?Cual es la mejor reforma? Este libro propone una reforma que conserva lo bueno y corrige lo malo del sistema electoral espanol. Para ello, se analiza y explica de forma concreta, como una pieza que conecta a los ciudadanos con el gobierno. Lo que se debe conservar es el equilibrio entre la claridad de responsabilidad del gobierno y el pluralismo parlamentario; lo que se debe evitar es el sesgo politico, mas bien conservador y centralista, del sistema. Se propone un cambio a la vez continuista y drastico. Drastico por eliminar las provincias como distritos, un legado preconstitucional y preautonomico, y el mayor adversario de un sistema equitativo de representacion, porque al eliminarse la desigualdad, el reparto de escanos entre partidos se vuelve mas proporcional. Se exploran tambien otras alternativas razonables, para que el lector pueda juzgar cuales son mejores, desde el poco recomendable sistema aleman, segun se argumenta en el libro, hasta el mucho mas recomendable sistema sueco.