Ora John Reuter (Columbia): The Origins of Dominant Parties: A Cross-National Investigation. Tommaso Pavone (Michigan): Do More Parties Make for Happier Voters? Democratic Satisfaction and Party Representation Across Thirty-Six Democracies. Carlo Prato and Bruno H. Strulovici (Northwestern): Direct Democracy, Political Delegation, and Responsibility Substitution. Birthright: Jonathan Bernstein on the case for lowering the voting age to zero. From Forum: Qualitative Social Research, a special issue on biography and politics. Joseph T. Ripberger, Geoboo Song, Matthew Nowlin, and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith (Oklahoma) and Michael D. Jones (Harvard): Reconsidering the Relationship between Cultural Theory, Political Ideology, and Political Knowledge. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve (LSE): Personality, Childhood Experience, and Political Ideology. Conventional wisdom holds that people tend to drift rightward as they age — but as Michael Tomasky suggests, ideological migration can involve a shift from right to left as well. The way you vote may reflect the way you eat: Political views say a lot about the food choices a person makes. Bertrand Claude Lemennicier (IRGEI) and Palanigounder Duraisamy (Madras): Who Is Really Corrupt: Voters or Politicians? A review of In Defence of Politicians (In Spite of Themselves) by Peter Riddell. From Cracked, a look at the 6 most childish things ever done in Congress. Politics is a Vocation: From Cicero to Edmund Burke, the truly admirable statesmen have been both wise philosophers and practical politicians, according to Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
