This study analyses macroeconomic conditions and the electoral fortune of incumbents in 21 parliamentary Western countries between 1950 and 1997 in 266 national elections. Voters’ assignment of responsibility for the state of the national economy is assumed to vary according to the context of the election. Building on previous research, the importance of the political context – clarity of responsibility and availability of alternatives – is analysed. The study also breaks new ground by introducing two new contexts of importance: volatility, seen from a systemic perspective, and the trend in turnout. The contextual hypothesis is confirmed. The universal economic effect as such is very weak indeed. However, given a favourable political and institutional environment (clear responsibility structure and availability of alternatives), an economic effect appears. Tests including the new contexts created on the basis of behavioural patterns in the electorate (system volatility and turnout trend) identify elections where the economic effects are even stronger.

Denmark had five referendums in the period from 1972 to 1998 dealing with Danish membership in the European Community, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Edinburgh Agreement and the Amsterdam Treaty. Did the Danes really address these issues and involve themselves actively in the policy–making process on a vital issue or did they merely vote for or against the current government? The latter option represents the ‘second order’ elections argument advanced by Mark Franklin and others (see Franklin's article in this issue). If correct in this instance, it may have important and negative consequences for the potential of referendums to involve citizens more directly in the way they are governed. In this article, the Franklin thesis is assessed on the basis of data on voting behaviour in five Danish referendums on Europe and the democratic implications of these findings are discussed.

Earlier research has found that phonological markedness constraints (for example, against stress clash or sibilant sequences) statistically influence speakers' choices between particular syntactic constructions and between synonymous words. In this study, we test phonological constraints not just in particular cases, but across the board. We employ a novel method that statistically models the distribution of word bigrams (consecutive two-word sequences) and how this distribution is influenced by phonological constraints. Our study of multiple corpora indicates that several phonological constraints do indeed play a statistically significant role in English sentence formation. We also show that by examining particular subsets of the corpora we can diagnose the mechanisms whereby phonologically marked sequences come to be underrepresented. We conclude by discussing modes of grammatical organization compatible with our findings.

The left-right dimension and grid-group theory differ in their empirical track records and the complexity of their conceptual structures. As regards the former, the left-right dimension is the clear winner. With respect to the latter, grid-group theory comes out ahead. The parsimony of the unidimensional left-right dimension may result in a conflation of, or failure to account for, important political distinctions which grid-group theory accounts for through its four political biases or orientations: hierarchy, egalitarianism, individualism and fatalism. The degree to which grid-group theory holds ‘excess empirical content’ compared to the left-right dimension is tested by way of nine hypotheses. The analysis draws on a 1999 survey in the five Nordic countries (N=4,832) and demonstrates excess empirical content. Except in Norway, the left-right dimension is found to be a surrogate for the conflict between egalitarianism's equality of outcome and individualism's equality of opportunity. Sweden and Denmark are prototypical cases. Conservatism conflates individualism and hierarchy, whereas radicalism conflates egalitarianism and fatalism. Confirmed excess empirical content is a necessary step. Theoretical complexity must also demonstrate enhanced causal power.

To study the social impacts of third sector organizations seeking the integration of vulnerable populations, we explored an alternative approach: life-history narratives. In this methodological article, we present and detail the steps followed in qualitative research applying this approach. We depict the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of life-history narratives, from the individual narratives to the construction of a typology, in consideration of the broader social context. We also address the challenges encountered in this type of research and then share some of the general results from our specific project to highlight the richness of the approach. Our contribution offers a deep-seated exploration of complex methodologies that involve working with third sector organizations toward concrete alternative means of impact assessment, and the consideration of effects on individual trajectories anchored and situated in more macro, societal context.

Formally organized factions in dominant parties face an electoral dilemma – namely, they need to cooperate sufficiently to ensure party control of government while competing with each other for members. This article examines the efforts of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) factions to reconcile these conflicting interests during the period 1958–1990. In particular, we are interested in how institutional constraints imposed both by the electoral system and the party affected the ability of the various factions to increase membership. Following the literature, which identifies incumbency, the party endorsement and mainstream faction status as important determinants of electoral success, we investigate the relative ability of individual factions to increase membership by refocusing analysis on the party's non-incumbent candidates. Consistent with earlier research, we confirm the importance of the party endorsement and mainstream faction status for the electoral success of these candidates. Contrary to current belief, however, we establish empirically that the electoral advantage enjoyed by the non-incumbent candidates of mainstream factions is not due to a disproportionate number of party endorsements, but rather is heavily influenced by their disproportionate assignment to run in districts with attributes that enhance their electability.

Immigration is an increasingly important political issue in Western democracies and a crucial question relates to the antecedents of public attitudes towards immigrants. It is generally acknowledged that information relayed through the mass media plays a role in the formation of anti‐immigration attitudes. This study considers whether news coverage of immigrants and immigration issues relates to macro‐level dynamics of anti‐immigration attitudes. It further explores whether this relationship depends on variation in relevant real world contexts. The models simultaneously control for the effects of established contextual explanatory variables. Drawing on German monthly time‐series data and on ARIMA time‐series modeling techniques, it is shown that both the frequency and the tone of coverage of immigrant actors in the news significantly influence dynamics in anti‐immigration attitudes. The strength of the effect of the news, however, depends on contextual variation in immigration levels and the number of asylum seekers. Implications of these findings are discussed in the light of the increasing success of extreme right parties and growing opposition to further European integration.

Elite donors are a crucial and sought-after source of funding for many nonprofit organisations, but there is a dearth of substantive empirical studies presenting primary data on such donors’ motivations, experiences and perspectives. There are challenges for social scientists in conducting interviews with elites, notably: gaining access to elite donors; developing sufficient rapport to discuss a topic that involves money and morals; and making sense of data without being dazzled by striking surface differences between elites and non-elites. These barriers have resulted in a long-standing over-reliance on secondary sources and on interviews with proxies such as foundation staff and wealth advisers. This paper reviews the small body of work that presents findings from interviews with elite donors and draws on my experience of conducting interviews with 46 wealthy UK donors, in order to critically analyse the implementation of this research design. This paper adds to the literature by extending understanding of elite donors’ reasons for agreeing to be interviewed and contributes to advancing third sector research by highlighting strategies to overcome challenges in conducting elite interviews in order to gain a less mediated understanding of the contexts, cultures and subjectivities of their focus of study.

The English past tense contains pockets of variation, where regular and irregular forms compete (e.g. learned/learnt, weaved/wove). Individuals vary considerably in the degree to which they prefer irregular forms. This article examines the degree to which individuals may converge on their regularization patterns and preferences. We report on a novel experimental methodology, using a cooperative game involving nonce verbs. Analysis of participants' postgame responses indicates that their behavior shifted in response to an automated co-player's preferences, on two dimensions. First, players regularize more after playing with peers with high regularization rates, and less after playing with peers with low regularization rates. Second, players' overall patterns of regularization are also affected by the particular distribution of (ir)regular forms produced by the peer.

We model the effects of the exposure on participants' morphological preferences, using both a rule-based model and an instance-based analogical model (Nosofsky 1988, Albright & Hayes 2003). Both models contribute separately and significantly to explaining participants' pre-exposure regularization processes. However, only the instance-based model captures the shift in preferences that arises after exposure to the peer. We argue that the results suggest an account of morphological convergence in which new word forms are stored in memory, and on-line generalizations are formed over these instances.

Referred to as change agents, innovators, practical dreamers, and pioneers of our era, the literature on social entrepreneurs exhibits high hopes for the future of social enterprise in international development. Yet, the field has come to a crossroads in its history as many remain unsure of just how social enterprise differs from NGOs on the one hand, and standard commercial enterprises on the other. This article examines the relatively new roots of social entrepreneurship in the context of global development paradigms, looking at the pros and cons of a field which remains controversial from the perspective of both the private and the public sector. Using the model of the prominent social enterprise KickStart International, we illustrate how KickStart’s social enterprise model corresponds with current trends in the world of development internationally, with its particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, we examine how recent evaluation research has shed light on KickStart and the contributions of social enterprise, as well as how evaluation research can inform social enterprise’s contributions to international development.

In an attempt to bring together the research on state capacity, this article proposes a five‐item index to operationalise and measure the concept of state capacity. The index was constructed for 26 post‐communist countries on a yearly basis from their first year of independence from communist rule to 2006. Different states unavoidably display dissimilar levels of aptitude in the different domains of state capacity, but the aggregated index of state capacity presented is high in both validity and reliability. With the help of this index, the starting conditions as well as the evolution of state capacity within the countries included in this study are explored, with three conclusions. First, post‐communist countries emerged displaying very contrasting levels of state capacity. Second, the level of state capacity has remained relatively stable within most countries between 1989–1991 and 2006, which ties in the last conclusion that the initial level of state capacity is the strongest determinant of subsequent levels of state capacity. All three conclusions carry important implications for research using state capacity either as an independent or as a dependent variable.

Electoral behaviour has traditionally been a major concern for Italian political scientists and, as a consequence, empirical research has primarily been concentrated in this field of study. During the 1950s and early 1960s a plethora of works on electoral behaviour were published, mainly of a descriptive or exploratory nature. Both at the methodological and theoretical level, a plurality of approaches were adopted because of the conviction that no single approach could be exhaustive (Spreafico & La Palombara 1963).

The non-profit sector arising in Poland and Hungary bears little resemblance to its pre-war ancestors. The new non-profits are shaped by social and economic forces brought about by the state socialists. State socialist service policies have left the non-profits with substantial need for their services, but the organisations face several major constraints in meeting that demand. Current government policies towards services and non-profits are discussed. Government and foreign funders can play a significant role in fostering the new non-profits, but a careful prioritisation of objectives is necessary. The present situation shows that many theories about non-profit organisations are not internationally cross-applicable, although several hypotheses have partial relevance.

This article reports findings from a survey of Canadian financial planners. The focus of the study is learning more about the depth and breadth of philanthropic planning that is included in their advising services to their high-net worth clients. The findings indicate that a minority of financial planners (1) regularly broach the topic of philanthropy in their counseling, (2) believe their clients are interested in philanthropy, and (3) feel sufficiently knowledgeable to assist their clients with philanthropic planning. The implications of these findings and recommendations for improvement are discussed.