Although this blog is done, IQSS continues to support other social science blogs, and I hear that more are on the way. Fortunately, the Political Psychology and Behavior Workshop will continue next year under the direction of Claudine Gay and Sunshine Hillygus.

This analysis attempts to estimate the political participation of felons and ex-felons in one state, North Carolina, in an effort to see the extent and causes of felon participation. The findings indicate that even former felons in North Carolina have low rates of current voter registration (13.8 percent); the lack of registration in large part reflects the impact of socioeconomic disadvantage and legal disenfranchisement policies. Among comparable groups such as misdemeanants and felons prior to the start of their last sentence, registration levels are about 30 percent, suggesting that in the absence of felon disenfranchisement policies, felon political participation would have been much higher. Moreover, older felons and felons with a high school education are much more likely to be registered to vote.

When faced with the imminent threat of terrorism, people draw on their own experience and imagination to assess the security risk. We develop a behavioral economic model of belief formation under the threat of terrorism, and explore how economic forecasting, assesment of terrorist threats, and democratic concensus are shaped by the people’s ability to combine rationality and immagination to understand the previously unknown. Due to the behavioral biases that arise in this process, the main implication of our findings on democratic politics is that free deliberation may lead to public concensus that further inflates biases, presenting a problem for decisions under the shadow of terrorism.

03:17
Final results for the Chamber: Center-Left 49.80%, Center-Right 49.73%. Turnout is 83.6%. The Left wins 340 seats; the Right 277. The margin of victory is just 25,224 votes out of about 40 million cast. Here's a list of parties that will receive seats, as well as their vote shares:

CASA DELLE LIBERTA' (Right): FORZA ITALIA 23.71; ALLEANZA NAZIONALE 12.34; UDC 6.76; LEGA NORD 4.58.
UNIONE (Left): L'ULIVO 31.26; RIFONDAZIONE COMUNISTA 5.84; LA ROSA NEL PUGNO 2.6; COMUNISTI ITALIANI 2.32; ITALIA DEI VALORI 2.3; VERDI 2.05.

Gilens matches public opinion regarding proposed policy changes to whether these were actually enacted. As we might expect given the structure of American government, the status quo tends to win out and few potential changes that surveys ask about are implemented. Fundamental notions of equal representation, however, fare less well in the empirical analysis. As the abstract of Gilens' recent POQ article says,

When Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor or middle-income Americans.

While understandably concerned with the normative implications of these findings, the audience responded positively. My major question about this research concerns the "black box" mechanism which translates the preferences of the rich into the policies the government enacts. Is it because they participate more in politics? (Bartels says not). Is it because politicians themselves tend to be drawn from the higher end of the income distribution, and so personally hold the same opinions? Or because the wealthy fund parties and candidates, allowing them more influence than someone who only has the power of voting? I have no answers, but would love to see more research in this area.