The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of incumbent MPs’ activities on their electoral ... more The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of incumbent MPs’ activities on their electoral fortune. In other words, are incumbents with a strong parliamentary record rewarded by their party and their voters? We ask this question in the context of the French political system characterized by: an executive domination; a candidate-centered electoral system; and an electoral agenda maximizing the impact of the presidential elections. Since these three institutional features have contradictory expected effects on relationship between MP’s activities and electoral fortune, their overall impact can only be assessed empirically. Taking the 2007 French legislative elections as a study case, we test the effects of several measurements of the MPs’ activities on both votes share and reelection probability, and we take into account the potential bias related to the decision to be candidate. Our results show that MPs’ activities differently impact both the incumbents’ candidacy prospects, t...
Le texte évalue les conséquences du changement de la réglementation française de 2001en ce qui co... more Le texte évalue les conséquences du changement de la réglementation française de 2001en ce qui concerne le cumul des mandats, qui a limité la possibilité de tenir simultanément plusieurs mandats électifs. La comparaison avant et après la mise en œuvre de la nouvelle loi permet de conclure que (i) les candidats aux élections législatives se sont adaptés aux nouvelles règles en réduisant les mandats locaux détenus; (ii) les candidats ont également montré une tendance à changer la nature des mandats exercés. Ces résultats mettent en lumière les modalités d'application de la loi qui lui donneront toute son efficacité.
EU competences have grown over the years, reducing national governments’ room for maneuver in man... more EU competences have grown over the years, reducing national governments’ room for maneuver in many areas. Now, the EU has responsibil ities over the state of the economy and partially replaces national governments’ traditiona l authority. If European citizens are aware of this situation, they should partly transfer thei r satisfaction or dissatisfaction from the national to the European level of governance when t heir country entersthe EU. This articletests whether citizens’ support towards the EU is more dependent on the state of the economy after EU accession and whether citizens’ su pport towards national governments is impacted by EU accession. Based on Eurobarometer su rveys which were carried out between 2001 and 2012, we analyze support for national gove rnm nts and EU in the ten countries which joined European institutions during this laps e of time. We find that macroeconomic conditions did not alter EU support before accessio n and that only inflation altered EU support af...
Few studies have tried to assess the empirical impact of transport cost on electoral turnout. Unf... more Few studies have tried to assess the empirical impact of transport cost on electoral turnout. Unfortunately, these researches suffer from different limits, especially limites related to the endogeneity of the voting station localization. Our study, based on French data, overcomes the main usual empirical difficulties. In particular, the French case provides a very valuable opportunity for testing the impact of transport cost on individual decision of turnout, because voters can be registered in another municipality than their residential municipality. As such, some of them have to travel important distance in order to cast their ballot. And this distance is totally exogenous to the electoral manipulation of places of voting location potentially made by local administration. So, we show that distance, and in fine cost of voting, have a highly significant impact on electoral turnout: at average distance (122 km) a 1% increase of distance induces a 0.05% decrease at the first round of ...
The aim of this note is to present the main results of a survey carried out in 2011 which gathers... more The aim of this note is to present the main results of a survey carried out in 2011 which gathers information on French academics’ opinions and attitudes toward politics, economics, religion and ethical beliefs. The sample of respondents is large (N = 2,000) and the survey allows a comparison between academics and the overall French population by replicating questions of traditional surveys (EVS and Dynegal). We observe that French academics are considerably more left-wing, more hostile to free-market economy and more atheist than French citizens. Interestingly, a significant share of academics tends to adopt ethical guidelines that are similar to those of religious people.
The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of incumbent MPs’ activities on their electoral ... more The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of incumbent MPs’ activities on their electoral fortune. In other words, are incumbents with a strong parliamentary record rewarded by their party and their voters? We ask this question in the context of the French political system characterized by: an executive domination; a candidate-centered electoral system; and an electoral agenda maximizing the impact of the presidential elections. Since these three institutional features have contradictory expected effects on relationship between MP’s activities and electoral fortune, their overall impact can only be assessed empirically. Taking the 2007 French legislative elections as a study case, we test the effects of several measurements of the MPs’ activities on both votes share and reelection probability, and we take into account the potential bias related to the decision to be candidate. Our results show that MPs’ activities differently impact both the incumbents’ candidacy prospects, t...
Le texte évalue les conséquences du changement de la réglementation française de 2001en ce qui co... more Le texte évalue les conséquences du changement de la réglementation française de 2001en ce qui concerne le cumul des mandats, qui a limité la possibilité de tenir simultanément plusieurs mandats électifs. La comparaison avant et après la mise en œuvre de la nouvelle loi permet de conclure que (i) les candidats aux élections législatives se sont adaptés aux nouvelles règles en réduisant les mandats locaux détenus; (ii) les candidats ont également montré une tendance à changer la nature des mandats exercés. Ces résultats mettent en lumière les modalités d'application de la loi qui lui donneront toute son efficacité.
EU competences have grown over the years, reducing national governments’ room for maneuver in man... more EU competences have grown over the years, reducing national governments’ room for maneuver in many areas. Now, the EU has responsibil ities over the state of the economy and partially replaces national governments’ traditiona l authority. If European citizens are aware of this situation, they should partly transfer thei r satisfaction or dissatisfaction from the national to the European level of governance when t heir country entersthe EU. This articletests whether citizens’ support towards the EU is more dependent on the state of the economy after EU accession and whether citizens’ su pport towards national governments is impacted by EU accession. Based on Eurobarometer su rveys which were carried out between 2001 and 2012, we analyze support for national gove rnm nts and EU in the ten countries which joined European institutions during this laps e of time. We find that macroeconomic conditions did not alter EU support before accessio n and that only inflation altered EU support af...
Few studies have tried to assess the empirical impact of transport cost on electoral turnout. Unf... more Few studies have tried to assess the empirical impact of transport cost on electoral turnout. Unfortunately, these researches suffer from different limits, especially limites related to the endogeneity of the voting station localization. Our study, based on French data, overcomes the main usual empirical difficulties. In particular, the French case provides a very valuable opportunity for testing the impact of transport cost on individual decision of turnout, because voters can be registered in another municipality than their residential municipality. As such, some of them have to travel important distance in order to cast their ballot. And this distance is totally exogenous to the electoral manipulation of places of voting location potentially made by local administration. So, we show that distance, and in fine cost of voting, have a highly significant impact on electoral turnout: at average distance (122 km) a 1% increase of distance induces a 0.05% decrease at the first round of ...
The aim of this note is to present the main results of a survey carried out in 2011 which gathers... more The aim of this note is to present the main results of a survey carried out in 2011 which gathers information on French academics’ opinions and attitudes toward politics, economics, religion and ethical beliefs. The sample of respondents is large (N = 2,000) and the survey allows a comparison between academics and the overall French population by replicating questions of traditional surveys (EVS and Dynegal). We observe that French academics are considerably more left-wing, more hostile to free-market economy and more atheist than French citizens. Interestingly, a significant share of academics tends to adopt ethical guidelines that are similar to those of religious people.
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Papers by Abel Francois