Publication Type: Paper (prepared oral presentation)
Abstract: What would happen if voters had to vote according to another electoral system? For example, if the French presidential election were held according to the FPTP system instead of the traditional two-round system, would voters change their vote and how?

To answer to these questions and to measure the psychological effects associated to two electoral systems, here the one and the two-rounds ones, we used a multi-design approach based on individual data.

First, a survey conducted just before the first round of the 2007 French Presidential election including questions about vote intentions under the actual rule (two-round ballot) and some hypothetical questions about vote intentions under the one-round system. This investigation, which is similar to an in vivo experimentation, makes it possible to vary a parameter and only one (the electoral rule) and to examine the variations of votes, all other things being equal (national or local election, issues, number of competitors and electoral campaign). Realized in a given country, at one precise time, this kind of simulation is obviously contextualised.

Second, a series of experiments in laboratory (led in France and Canada) aiming at comparing the effects of the two rules. This kind of simulation, not very widespread in political science, is the in vitro experimentation, which aims at controlling the whole determinants of the vote, and thus to fix the context in which the survey data are collected. This "abstract" character confers an essential virtue on experimentation results: they can be generalized.

The results of these two methodologies shows that the multi-design is the sole method capable of taking jointly into account both candidates' size and position and thus measuring the "multi dimensions" of the psychological effects of electoral rules.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The incidence of telephone interviewing has been increasing in successive rounds of NLSY97. There are concerns about the accuracy of responses to sensitive questions when the interview is conducted by telephone compared to when these questions are self-administered as part of an in-person interview. This study explores the impact of interview mode on respondents’ willingness to reveal sensitive information in NLSY97 round 4 and round 5. The dependent measures for this study include sex behavior, smoking, drug use, destroying, stealing, attacking and arrest. Within each round, controlling for the differences in demographic characteristics, respondents tend to underreport negative behaviors on most SAQ items when interviews are conducted by telephone. They are also less willing to respond to these sensitive questions, resulting in more missing data. We also linked the two rounds together by looking at how individual respondents responded to the same questions in round 4 and round 5. The results show that for respondents who did not switch interview mode across rounds, the distributions of response differences do not differ much regardless of whether the interviews were conducted consistently in-person or by phone. If the respondents did switch interview modes across rounds, the distribution of response differences are significantly different for some sensitive items, depending on whether the switch is from in-person to phone or the other way round. This evidence also supports the existence of interview mode effects.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper describes the design of the first full cohort of the NIS, including the sampling design, language design, and questionnaire content. It also provides the first results based on the baseline round, which was in the field June 2003 to June 2004. Thus, this paper provides not only new substantive results based on the first large probability sample of a cohort of new legal immigrants, but also exposition of key features of the survey which will be useful to researchers when the public-use data become available after July 2005. Substantive results to be highlighted will enable drawing a portrait of new legal immigrants, including language, religion, marriage, transfers (including remittances), and transnational activities, within a framework attentive to selectivity mechanisms, U.S. immigration law, and origin-country conditions.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In comparing old and new forms of diplomacy, Sir Harold Nicolson wrote that new diplomacy was brought about by ?the belief that it was possible to apply to the conduct of external affairs, the ideas and practices which, in the conduct of internal affairs, had for generations been regarded as the essentials of liberal democracy. This paper will test Nicolson's observation by comparing negotiation in the GATT Uruguay Round to legislative procedures in the U.S. Congress. The following points of similarity between GATT and Congressional practices will be examined: committee processes; the role and operation of committee chairs; the role and importance of staff work; certain practices like negotiation by auction; and the role of political and mediatorial leadership, as well as the concept of bureaucratic entrepreneurship. The paper will conclude with an assessment of whether or not GATT/WTO negotiation represents an important change in the diplomatic method.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Observes often argue that the institutional context of international trade negotiations influence not only their outcomes but offsets domestic obstacles to liberalization. This paper argues that the presence of domestic veto players in the policy process counteracts any favorable institutional context to liberalization by narrowing the likelihood for it. To find out, I develop a model in which a GATT/WTO member set its negotiating position in the 'run up' to a GATT/WTO meeting. The model indicates that a country's negotiating position is the result of an agreement among domestic individual or collective actors and the presence of these veto players not only constrains a country's negotiating position in a GATT/WTO meeting but influence its outcome. I test the model by analyzing archival information concerning the European Union, the United States and the Cairns Group negotiating positions over trade liberalization at the Uruguay Round (1986 to 1994) and at the WTO Doha Ministerial meeting. The findings contradict many aspects of recent scholarship on issue linkages and trade liberalization. For instance, linkage between issues that encourages trade liberalization only occurs when veto players from each issue-area are band-wagon into it. The paper yields a number of additional testable hypotheses, concerning, for instance the differential influence of domestic veto players over shifts into the policy process that promote liberalization. Preliminary quantitative analyses offer support for these hypotheses.