Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the effects that a country’s electoral rules have on the electoral success of extreme right parties (ERPs) in Europe using a new dataset that includes election returns compiled at the electoral-district level for 18 European countries from 1980-2004 (N=12,050). Much of the extant research on the electoral success of extreme right parties suffers from at least two methodological problems. The first involves the selection of cases and occurs when only those national elections that were contested by ERPs are included in the cross-national analysis. The second major problem occurs in analyses that rely on aggregate-level statistics that conceal data censoring at a lower geographic level. The correct specification allows the causal factors that determine whether an extreme right party contests an election to differ from those that influence its share of the vote if it does appear on the ballot, and recognizes that ERPs’ decisions about when and where to field candidates are observable at the level of the election district. I argue that the appropriate way to model this process is as a Heckman sample selection model estimated at the electoral district level. The results of this model indicate that a country’s electoral system has a strong effect on the electoral success of ERPs: the likelihood an ERP will contest an electoral district and their expected vote share are both higher in countries with more proportional electoral systems. At the same time, this effect is conditioned on the stringency of a country’s ballot access requirements.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Many cultural markets are characterized by both extreme variation in
success and extreme unpredictability. These two apparently
contradictory macro-level characteristics can be shown to derive from
a common micro-level mechanism. A simple model of these markets is
developed and then tested with a novel web-based experiment. The
unique experimental design allows us to estimate how much the success
of an object is related to its inherent appeal and how much is related
to chance and cumulative advantage. Data generated by 7,209
participants supports the theories presented which argue that the
success of objects is largely determined by things other than the
appeal of the object. Implications for the sociology of culture as
well as social science in general are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Utilizing public opinion data drawn from the 1990-1997 World Values Surveys, this paper presents findings linking popular support for Extreme Right Parties with the affect of citizens for what we call "citizenship values" within five major countries in Western Europe. Its central purpose is to investigate if citizens position themselves on citizenship issues differently and, if they do, how these differences influence their embrace of ERPs. Given the persistence of political, socioeconomic and cultural conflicts related to Third World immigration within the immigration-receiving countries and the effects these conflicts demonstratively have had in polarizing citizens along issues pertaining to national identity, economic solidarity, social community, and cultural homogeneity, we hypothesize that those persons who support Extreme Right Parties are distinguishable from their fellow citizens by their embrace of distinctive values along the dimensions and subdimensions of citizenship.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: For more than 50 years, the United States has depended on deterrence for defense against its principal adversaries. Though deterrence has never been as fulfilling as denial - - that is, preventing an enemy’s access to the homeland - -deterrence has worked or, more precisely, not failed to work. But deterrence can be trusted no longer. Today’s adversary values his life less than our death. This adversary is not a candidate for deterrence. Moreover, while he lacks a ballistic missile delivery system, he has such a variety of other means to deliver a nuclear weapon, from commercial airliners to trucks to container ships, that the United States cannot have any confidence in its ability to mount a sustained
defense by denial.

In light of this vulnerability, we might ask, can this adversary plausibly acquire a nuclear weapon to attack the United States? The argument here is that, unless many changes are made, it is more likely than not that Al Qaeda or one of its affiliates will detonate a nuclear weapon in a US city within the next five to ten years. The loss of life will be measured not in the thousands, not in the tens of thousands, but in the hundreds of thousands. The United States is, then, at once extraordinarily powerful and tragically vulnerable.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Research into the social profile of Extreme Right Party electorates has demonstrated a strong link to membership of socio-economically unstable ‘modernisation loser’ classes such as the petty bourgeoisie / self-employed and the blue-collar class. Such instability increases group predisposition to xenophobic and economic national preference appeals by RRPs. However, little attention has been paid to the routine non-manual class, many of whom exhibit similar occupational traits to blue-collar workers – low salary, absence of career structure, low job-security, lack of workplace autonomy, etc.. Existing comparative work has highlighted the divergence in levels of RRP support amongst routine non-manual workers by country and has speculated that this may be due to sectoral differences in employment, particularly between public-sector dominant Scandinavian and private-sector dominant Continental countries. However, to date this hypothesis has not been tested using a public / private sector variable both within countries and comparatively. Using pooled cross-sectional survey data from seven European countries between 1975 and 2002, this paper hypothesises that routine non-manual workers in market-oriented private sector ‘junk jobs’ will be more likely to vote for RRPs than those in the public sector, where job security, greater emphasis on promotion and workplace representation provide greater stability. It will also look at the extent to which this relationship extends to other occupational classes, in particular the managerial / professional classes, amongst whom sociological research has already discovered evidence of significant differences in attitudes to ethnicity.

Supporting Publications:
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Supporting Document